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#but now i also wear other things or nicer shirts or different jeans or stuff to complimentthat
roaringroa · 1 year
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i’m not crazy for shopping but there is a very confidence building feeling when i find something in my style that fits me 
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torotauri · 2 years
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Somebody That I Used To Know (18+) | Chou Tzuyu [TWICE]
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Warning Sexual Content (18+) Read At Your Own Risk
2198 Words
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You were pretty much enjoying single life after you and your girlfriend Chou Tzuyu broke up. Fucking different girls and going on Tinder on hook ups. However, for the past month you have been seeing and fucking this one girl. People started to think you were boyfriend and girlfriend relationship but you weren’t. You weren’t exclusive yet because of one big problem.
The problem was you’ve never lost feelings for Tzuyu, and your mum was pushing you two to get back together. Whilst you have been seeing some other girl for the past few months and started to develop feelings for this other girl, your heart still fluttered seeing Tzuyu posting photos of herself on social media.
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“Tzuyu, how are you always this pretty” you thought to yourself as you scrolled through her social media.
You haven’t seen Tzuyu ever since you both went on summer holiday. However, you have the opportunity to see her again thanks to the help of your mother. You didn’t want to do this but you are going to attend her family summer party at the local clubhouse. The only reason you were going was because your mother is friends with Tzuyu’s mother and your mother have decided to RSVP the whole family to the party on behalf of the family which left you no choice but to attend the party.
As much as you didn’t care about this party, your mum and dad were very excited about it. You didn’t even wanted to dress up because you weren’t planning on impressing anyone. You were probably going to find a hookup with a random girl at the party but that’s it. However, your mum made you dress nicer than a t shirt and jeans so you ended up going to the party with a polo shirt and white jeans.
The party itself was quite boring. You found some of your friends to sit together with and left you parents. Your parents were only there for the food and has gone home after the food, didn’t bother staying for the after party which left you and your friends alone. Tzuyu herself was busy dealing with guests and stuff as she was the host, stressing herself out. However, throughout the whole party you stole glances at Tzuyu who was looking beautiful as ever, even with the green dress she was wearing.
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Soon, it was getting late and the guests started to clear out. The party was starting to die down. You were also thinking about leaving yourself. However, before you can leave you need to tell the host, your ex, Tzuyu that you were leaving. You approached her the second time of this night with one thought in mind.
“Hey Tzuyu” you walked up to her and said.
“Oh hey. Thanks for coming, we haven’t had a good chat for so long” Tzuyu replied.
“So how have you been doing?” you reluctantly started a conversation.
“Good” Tzuyu awkwardly replied.
The atmosphere was a bit awkward. You both just sat there looking at each other, like somebody that you used to know. Trying to avoid making this awkward because you two used to date. However, it was difficult because Tzuyu was so pretty and you can’t help yourself but steal glances at her. Looking away when she tried to look at you.
“Stop stealing glances at me” Tzuyu slapped your thighs as she catches you looking at her.
“Sorry, I can’t help. Anyways......” you replied awkwardly trying to steer the conversation in another direction.
“Come on answer me truthfully. Do you still have feelings for me” Tzuyu suddenly ask.
This question really caught you off guard. You weren’t expecting Tzuyu to throw this question at you. If you were being brutally honest, you still have feelings for Tzuyu. With that you decided to be frisky and tell the truth to Tzuyu, hopefully things would go well.
“If I’m being honest, yes. I still have feelings for you” you replied hoping Tzuyu would reciprocate.
Once you said that, you regretted it fully. Tzuyu wasn’t speaking now, and you both were left in this moment of awkward silence. You were going to leave but just as you were about to get up and leave, Tzuyu broke the silence.
“Me too, I still have feelings for you. I still love you and I never stopped” Tzuyu replied.
After Tzuyu said that, you two were once again left with a moment of awkward silence. Despite you have just confessed your love for each other, the atmosphere was still awkward. Thinking that you need to break the awkward silence, you spoke up.
“So what now?” you asked.
“Well the party is dying down anyways. Let’s go to my place?” Tzuyu replied.
“Sure” you replied having an idea of where this is going to go.
Now that Tzuyu have came up with that suggestion, you knew this was an offer you can’t deny. With that you followed Tzuyu to her house and left the party behind.
Once you arrived at Tzuyu’s house, you two rushed into her room so you don’t get caught by anyone. Her room was pretty much the same as you last visited. You remembered this place, you stayed in this place over Christmas so you know the way around her house pretty much.
You didn’t really know what to do, so you just ended up sitting on her bed, the bed where you both have had multiple sex on. Tzuyu sat next to you and the atmosphere was still awkward. Suddenly you felt her hand touch your thigh.
“This is definitely normal” you thought to yourself.
Feeling a bit risky, you pulled Tzuyu into a hug and as you pulled out of the hug, you just looked into Tzuyu’s eyes for no reason. By now, you both were just staring at each other with the feeling of love in the atmosphere.
“Tzuyu, you are so beautiful” you blurted out.
“You’re not bad yourself too, so how are we going to do this?” Tzuyu replied.
Both of you leaned in for a kiss. The kiss was not rough, it was passionate, filled with love. It was not a make out, just a passionate kiss that lasted for a while. Both of you only pulled out to take a breather and just smiled at each other looking into each other’s eyes.
“I missed you Tzuyu” you said.
“Show me how you missed me” Tzuyu replied as she kissed you once again.
This time while kissing, you somehow managed to take your shirt off with the help of Tzuyu. Whilst making out with Tzuyu passionately, you started to get hard. Tzuyu was probably also getting horny as you could tell by the way things were heating up in the room.
“I need you now” Tzuyu said as she broke the kiss.
It didn’t take you both very long until you were naked, horny and ready to do the deed with each other. Tzuyu meanwhile still had her green dress on just lying on the bed waiting for you to make the move.
“I haven’t go any condoms though. I could go buy some if you want” you suddenly said coming to realisation.
“Nah it’s ok, I’ve got some left in my nightstand from the last time you and I did it” Tzuyu said as she opened her nightstand to grab an opened box of condom.
Fishing out a condom out of the box, Tzuyu then proceeds to open the packet of condom, tearing the wrapper with her teeth and then fitted the condom on your erected cock. The feeling of Tzuyu’s hand touching your cock was already a pleasure for you, despite with the condom you still feel like this is going to be a good night, not rough, just passionate and love.
With the condom on Tzuyu gave your protected cock a few licks to make it more lubricated. Then Tzuyu laid on the bed and spread her legs waiting for you to make the move. 
Taking the initiative, you slowly entered Tzuyu’s pussy. This was not the first time you entered her pussy, and it probably won’t be the last. Whilst entering her pussy, you leaned in and kissed her. At that moment, all the horniness was replaced by love and lust.
Whilst kissing Tzuyu you started thrusting your hips slowly, slowly fucking Tzuyu as you both moaned out. It wasn’t the best feeling because of the condom but it was still good. You have almost forgotten this feeling, but once you started fucking her, the feeling of her pussy all came back to you.
Tzuyu herself also moaned at the pleasure of you entering her. Her pussy walls was wrapped around your cock. She was perfect, even with the feeling of plastic inside her pussy, Tzuyu still felt pleasure. Maybe it was the feeling of lust and love, but both of you were enjoying this.
“Fuck, I’ve missed this” you moaned out.
“Ahhhhh yesssss, fuck me baby” Tzuyu moaned telling you pick up the pace.
Knowing that Tzuyu has adjusted to the cock inside her, you started to move your hips a little bit quicker. Picking up the pace a little bit and fucking her at a quicker pace giving both of you another level of pleasure. 
“Yesss, just like that” Tzuyu moaned out as you continued fucking her maintaining the pace.
The room was filled with moans as Tzuyu was getting her pussy filled by your cock. She was always like this, she was always vocal when it comes to sex, always moaning and just enjoying the pleasure she was getting.
You have missed this, her pussy, the sex, the moans. It was something that you had the pleasure of going through when dating Tzuyu, and now the feeling is coming back. All your feelings for her was there. 
You two were not just having sex, you guys were making love. This was more than sex, this is passionate love making.
As you continued to fuck Tzuyu’s pussy, you felt a tingling sensation around your crotch area. You were close, but so was Tzuyu. You could feel Tzuyu’s pussy getting tighter. This was the feeling that you know, Tzuyu will always get tighter when she is close to her orgasm.
“Tzuyu I’m going to cum” you told Tzuyu about your incoming orgasm.
“M-m-mm-me tooooo” Tzuyu moaned out.
“Let’s cum together baby” you said as you picked up the pace trying to reach your orgasm.
Upping your pace, Tzuyu reached her orgasm before you did. All she could do was give her signature orgasm moan that you haven’t heard for so long.
“FUUUCKKKK UGGGGHHHHHHH” Tzuyu moaned out as she finally reached her orgasm.
“Fuck, Tzuyu, I’m cumming too” you announced.
As Tzuyu orgasmed, her pussy got very tight wrapping around your cock pushing you off the edge. Your orgasm taking over you, shooting thick white semen into the condom that you were wearing.
Once your orgasm died down, you pulled out of Tzuyu as she just lied on the bed panting, trying to recover from her orgasm. Taking the condom off and disposing it into the bin, you joined Tzuyu lying on the bed. You rolled and leaned over to give Tzuyu a peck on the lips.
“I still love you” Tzuyu said looking into your eyes.
“I love you too Tzuyu. Should we start again?” you asked.
“Let’s just continue where our relationship left off shall we?” Tzuyu suggested.
“So boyfriend and girlfriend?” you asked for confirmation.
“Yes” Tzuyu confirmed as you both drifted off to sleep.
The next morning you woke up next to your “new” girlfriend Tzuyu naked. She was still sleeping as you rolled over and looked at her. She was beautiful as ever, you missed this sight every morning. Looking over at the clock, 7:25AM, you rolled back onto the bed and started stroking Tzuyu’s hair.
Suddenly, Tzuyu’s eyes fluttered. You just woke Tzuyu up by stroking her hair, you knew you were going to be in big trouble. She doesn’t like to be waken up.
“Sorry for waking you up” you apologised quickly.
“Oh morning, what time is it?” Tzuyu asked with her sleepy morning voice.
“7:30″ you replied.
“SHIT” Tzuyu shouted “you need to go before my mum finds you and starts bombarding you with questions about us being together again” Tzuyu added.
“How am I going to leave without getting caught?” you questioned as you quickly got dressed and headed for the door.
“Backdoor, don’t make any noise” Tzuyu panicked and said.
You followed her instructions, tiptoed towards the back door and headed towards the drive to pick your car up. Looking up to her window, you saw Tzuyu giving you the shush signal. Taking the hint that you aren’t allowed to start your car until you were further away from the house you had no choice but to push the car out of her drive. 
Whilst pushing the car, you received a text. You opened the notification and read.
“Sorry about that, you know how my mum is. I’ll tell her we’re back together over breakfast. Just didn’t want her catching you in my bed naked. Love you 😘” 
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eldritchmochi · 7 months
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could you wax poetic about how you picture the dressing style of the wizards in your modern fic?
oh beck never a sweeter question has been asked of me
starting with the camming au because this is gonna get long with coping skills stuff. while there is some overlap, especially in caleb, i/we came at clothing from different places for both these aus so!
rts!essek: his main premise was "trendsetter" ala wisdom kaye in that he has a LOT of designer pieces and knows how to wear them in eyecatching ways. in rhosohna its very much a form of armor for him, fitting in and hiding by standing out. he tones it down in rexxentrum a fair bit to not stand out TOO MUCH or in the wrong way. he's very much the sort to shop based off name--he has designers he trusts with his life--but he's also a bit more of a quality over quantity type. he likes things he can repurpose into other looks with ease a lot too and he is VERY ingrained in what he deems acceptable for his wardrobe: colors, textures, patterns, etc. this is part of why The Robe hits him so hard. it's just to the left of something he'd choose for himself, right on paper in several ways while still being so very uniquely caleb that he has to cry
funfact, esseks big asymmetrical coat he wears in the hello daddy scene is based off one my buddy owned that had NO SHOULDERS so you just... looked like uncle fester, but for some reason it went so hard
rts!caleb: very much a guys guy kinda guy. he's dressed, his clothes are generally clean and in good repair, and they fit him well enough to the average eye. he'd like to do "better" but he lacks knowledge and resources especially, but he knows enough that he'll opt for one pair of vintage jeans over two pairs of modern jeans for the same price. tends to shop by fabric type, favoring natural fibers over synthetic (plastic). enjoys wearing clothes gifted to him by friends, especially when visiting that friend, to show that he cares. diligently hangs his most of his clothes to air dry, routinely conditions all his leather items. if he is going to pay too much money for clothing he's going to ensure things last as long as feasibly possible
with coping skills tho, there are several things that intertwine within their presentation, so, sum facts first
cs!essek: "dark academia" but he would never in his life call it that. shopping is his comfort from the horrors of his chronic pain. thusly he buys entirely too much clothing. gets basically everything tailored (to make it comfier). doesn't actually think too much about like material type or how quality an item is (beyond it not being absolute garbage), but focuses more on aesthetic over all else. has several piercings but wears very basic steel jewelry in all of them 98% of the time
cs!caleb: does in fact have more than one pair of jeans, he just only brought one pair of jeans to rhosohna. he in fact only brought a pretty small percentage of his clothes to rhosohna (he has probably two fairly big tubs in storage, including nicer clothing that isn't *interview* clothing). generally buys his shirts a smidge too big. often unconsciously buys clothing that reminds him of his crush/datemate/playpartner for himself as a lil hug
and now!!! the PARALLELLS
they both take meticulous care of their physical flesh, but for different reasons. caleb is VERY hairy compared to drow, pubs included, so essek doesn't make the connection but caleb does manscape, and does a lot of regular upkeep for his beard plus a lot of intentional care with his hair (it does have a style it's just not all blunt at the bottom the way most xhorhassian's keep theirs, thank u essek). caleb finds a lot of comfort in maintaining his body because its his and its the only one he gets. essek otoh resents his duty towards his body. he does it all, but he cuts corners as much as he can; he has short hair so upkeep isn't as draining even if it is scandalous; he doesn't paint his nails except for special occasions and only puts in bare minimum to keep them filed and tidy; he does skin care purely because he could not bear the indignity of others perceiving him as anything less than perfect but he's sloppy about it. he takes his pills, he eats the bare minimum, he moves the bare minimum, he socializes the bare minimum, and he is very content being mad at his flesh for betraying him, thank you
they both heavily curate their appearances to fit in with what is expected of them. with essek its the blouses and pressed trousers to appear respectable and cultured, with all the bits and bobs and layers that go with, and with caleb its the worn in jeans and flannels country boy look. essek dresses the way he does so he doesnt have to fight (his mother mostly) and so other people don't talk down to him in ways they shouldnt. caleb dresses the way he does because a) its comfortable and easy to travel with but b) it makes him unassuming so he is so much more able to observe
and also lastly, they obviously both really really like the kink aspects of clothing. they really get off on the possessives of wearing the others clothes or seeing the other wear theirs, they both really get off on the routine and anticipation of getting undressed (or the animal passion of just tugging pants down enough to get ur dick out before going at it) as well as the tease of redressing. ch 32 and 33 with all the gala clothe stuff is going to be SO HORNY (i'm sorry verin)
also fun fact, theyre within a size of each other *around* but caleb is in the next bracket up for length so i definitely considered having essek shove caleb into his clothes to go home in
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flannelepicurean · 5 months
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Redneck Raditz: The Locals
There are so many OCs in this it's just a whole entire goddamn Situation, but you literally cannot write about somebody moving into a Southern town without there being a fuckin' town. Anyway, here are some of the most well-developed peeps:
Debra (Miss Debra) is the diner waitress. Yes, there are other waitresses at the diner. But she is THE diner waitress. Nothing fazes her, and she is very sweet, but you better bring your manners. She doesn't really get mad, but you will feel ashamed of yourself in the worst way if you disappoint Miss Debra with your behavior. She's got that classic Southern hospitality that's actually genuine, and she will not steer you wrong on a menu recommendation. She's from the same manufactory that spun out Dolly Parton, but she's not as glamorous on the outside. She and Miss Dolly would get along great, though, and Dolly would recognize a kindred soul.
"The Guys" consist of Wayne, Kevin, Ryan, and Derrick. They're the crew Raditz hangs out with when he's not working at the hardware store or haunting the diner. They smoke weed and play Playstation and do other hanging-out type shit, and they're still friends with Raditz even though his ass be cheatin' at Tekken.
Wayne is a real chunky guy who doesn't wear enough sunscreen even though he really should, and gets that "sun-bleached blonde, sunburnt edges" look in the 71% of the year that's pretty damn warm. Favors flannel shirts (lighter fabric, unbuttoned, ripped-off sleeves over a white tee or a tank in the warmer months) trucker hats with truck-related stuff on 'em. He's got the thickest accent, or at least the most animated one (there's a difference). Tends to talk at a spirited canter. He's frequently the first moral compass of the group, and tries to get Kevin to act like he's got some goddamn sense. Wayne will get vocal about when someone "ought not to've done that," if they're acting like a real asshole, even if he's not physically enforcing it.
Kevin is a Cory, of Cory and Trevor, of Trailer Park Boys, type of guy. 😂 Basically the same edition of dude, but not a physical copy. He's a little low-key on his energy, but extremely goofy, and often off-target on shit. He lives in sweatpants and jerseys and mildly obnoxious tee shirts and hoodies. Not a full-time hat wearer, but will put on an Adidas logo snapback every now and again.
Ryan is a mechanic. He's not terribly tall, and pretty wiry, but he has a presence. His hands are always a little grungy-looking, and his nails are always kinda black under the edges. His eyes are a little deep-set, and light green, and his hair and his sorta-whatever mustache situation are that kind of easily-overlooked light brown that like...wild rabbits have in their coats. He hangs out in his shop shirts and jeans and boots and that baseball cap that's kinda ???-colored because he's worn it at the shop for so many years. Ryan doesn't say much. But when he does, it's to the point. Ryan is a sage.
Derrick is "Derrick With the Truck." Not that nobody else has a truck; there are a LOT of trucks around. Derrick has a Truck, one of those pickup trucks with the fat ass and the extra tires and a big enough truckbed that all of The Guys, and Raditz, and maybe a couple other people, can get down to someplace to have a good time, and they can guaranteed lay Raditz's drunk ass in the back and still have room to drive everybody home after. Derrick is a Black guy with some height and some heft on him. He wears jeans a lot, but he goes for a little nicer shirts than the other guys. Short-sleeved button-downs in the warmer months; V-neck sweater with a white tee or a casual button-down under it in the cooler months. Derrick also doesn't say much, but he's got a sense of humor. He's a practical guy, and he likes to be helpful, but he's got good boundaries.
There are some other folks who fill out the roster in this thing, but I don't have as much about them yet. :)
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nyhne · 1 year
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Tag Game To Better Know You! Send this to people you’d like to know better!
Oops late to doing this but thanks for the tag, @puella-peanut !
What book are you currently reading? I’ve been taking a fiction break and reading The Sprawl, by Jason Diamond, which is about reconsidering the bad cultural rep of suburbs. And it’s pretty good! A good amount of research and depth without being too dense, but it’s also not a book that’s pandering to a shallow shelf grab (I will never forgive The Secret Life of Groceries for how bad it was).
What’s your favorite movie you saw in theaters this year? Oif dude I’m terrible at remembering stuff like that. Did Marry Me come out this year or last year? Because that I will gladly rewatch again and again, so sue me.
What do you usually wear? During the work day it’s old jeans and work-tattered shirts since I’m a landscaper (or in winter’s case, long Johns, wool socks, jeans, undershirt, thin hoodie, thick hoodie). Outside of work, in the summer it’s usually a tucked in t-shirt and high waisted jeans, and in the winter it’s high waisted jeans and a sweater. I live in Seattle so I don’t usually get to wear my “”nicer””” East Coast stuff because god forbid someone wears a pair of slacks casually in this goddang city. (Said with affection for Seattle, but not for its odd fashion limitations).
How tall are you? About 5’2”.
What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? Libra, and Keanu Reeves, maybe? Or maybe he’s just a Libra too. Idk, I truly barely keep track of celebrities unless I have to lol.
Do you go by your name or a nick-name? At my last job I went by a shortened name, partially just to try it out (it’s one of my short forms I go by at cafes or for fleeting intros as well), and partially because my boss barely attempted with my full name on day one. Don’t have a lot of fondness for my full name outside of the fact that it means a lot to my mom but it’s whatever. Most online spaces that are relatively separate from “real life” I still go by Roshon.
Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? Hmm not sure I had any concrete ideas on what I wanted to be when I was a kid…fleeting daydreams of geologist, chef, non-specific scientist, civil servant? Museum work when I was in high school and college. And it’s not that I didn’t become any of those things, but I think they’ve all been incorporated into who I am today and I’m not sure I’d need to be any of those things professionally to feel fulfilled. Also I love what I do now, but I highly suspect I’ll be one of those people who live a lot of different lives…restaurant work, administration, landscaping….
Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? Engaged! We’ve been together for about five and a half years. (: does that make me sound old or what lol
What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? Being patient; it’s pretty easy for me to exercise patience and take a step back on stuff. I’m bad at admitting I don’t know things, especially things related to pop culture. There are some things (like knowing actors, for example) I’m very open to admitting, but other things like familiarity with famous movies or tv shows, I’m just bad at admitting I haven’t seen them?? It’s dum. Idk why I’m so self-conscious about it.
Dogs or cats? Both, and even though I live with a dog I adore, on a shallow level I probably still favor cats more? But our dog is very dum and cute.
If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favorite picture/favorite line/favorite etc. from something you created this year? Got back into my bullet journal this past year and was pretty pleased with my October theme. Maybe not The Favorite thing I’ve done this year but I’m old and poor with technology so this is as good as it gets. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRguKuX8/
What’s something you would like to create content for? I still have PruAus fics I want to see through one day. Not necessarily holding myself to that promise. But I’d like to. Not sure if that actually answered the question.
What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? Making a mini crevice garden.
What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? My previous job- really liked it when I started, and the first half year I was there, and then slogged through the winter months and thought it’d be better in summer when they get busier but it just felt worse. Not necessarily a purely them thing, I’m sure, but still.
What’s a hidden talent of yours? My German, maybe? That might be more of a ‘nobody expects the Asian kid to know any German’ kind of thing, moreso than a hidden talent. Also, half talent, since I’m still not fluent. Did decent when I was in Berlin in October, though!
Are you religious? Spiritual, maybe, religious, no. Still vaguely consider myself Unitarian, but even then it’s still more as a community/mindset thing rather than a religious structure thing.
What’s something you wish to have at this moment? A 7,5-10 gallon tank that’s in a more vertical format rather than horizontal…really itching to redo the scaping in the tank and get a few more fish. Still recovering from the holidays, though, haha. So I guess it all comes back to money, predictably.
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laundryandtaxes · 2 years
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Hi! I was wondering if you could give pointers towards phasing out fast fashion/starting to wear actually fitting clothes when poor and without easy access to a tailor? I try to phase out the real cheap shit for nicer stuff from the surf shop and second hand shops, and overall buy less of it. Like have a few good shirts, a couple of good jackets etc. But I can't find pants that fit me and I'm an idiot who refuses to wear anything but men's clothing. Like it isn't a good look and it isn't sustainable and I'm kind of sick of looking like a 12 year old 24/7.
I am also an idiot who refuses to wear any items of women's clothing even when it would make life easier for me to do to. My advice would be to look for the kinds of items that have features built in that you'd try to achieve through tailoring. For instance, athletic taper cuts tend to work well for those of us with a lot of ass to get into our jeans. Classic menswear calls for a much roomier shirt fit than male fast fashion, and this is also to your advantage wrt having some chest room. So vintage Brooks Brothers shirts, especially in their classic (roomy) fit but maybe even in their older Milano fit (vintage Milano fit works for me and I'm fairly small chested now, for reference) might work well, but basically you want to look for clothing with a lot of room where you individually happen to need it. And it never hurts to learn to sew, so that you can do simple things like taking up a hem yourself. My advice is to try a couple different vintage shirts and cuts from different brands, and then kind of go all in if you find one that works. You wanna prioritize natural materials as much as you can for longevity, practicality, and sustainability. For anything other than performance clothing intended to be used while exercising, I think natural materials are superior to blends. I make an exception for acrylic blended into sweaters, personally. Ebay is my absolute best friend here- people are always amazed that I got "lucky" on ebay but in fact I get email alerts that I check a couple times a week and I open the site at least twice a week. I don't get lucky, I'm looking all the time.
I also don't think that ALL fast fashion purchases are inexcusable. For instance, my favorite cheap jeans are actually Old Navy. But when I buy a pair of their jeans, I'm going to be able to wear them for at least 4 years because they're 99% cotton, and that's giving them an appropriate number of wears before washing as one should with denim. The same is NOT true of their women's denim, but the men's denim is quite good and I have jeans of theirs that I wore for 8 years. Uniqlo knitwear (or at least their 100% Merino wool turtleneck line) is very, very good quality for the price, and I hear their 100% cotton tailoring stuff is quite good too. Your goal is to get off fast fashion, but that goal can be advanced by buying items you expect to last for years no matter their origin.
IF you happen to be roughly a 15.5 inch neck with a 33 inch sleeve (measured from just past wrist bone to I think the middle of the back?), I actually have two vintage Milano fit Brooks Brothers shirts I'm currently trying to rehome- one ice blue OCBD, one spread collar navy/white stripe dress shirt, both in their noniron cotton which I do not prefer but it is very wrinkle resistant. I could get you measurements if you'd like them, but they're ever so slightly too big for me now and I also don't prefer noniron shirting, but they're 100% cotton and I could get them to you for the price of shipping. Let me know if you'd like more specific advice.
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justmypartner · 3 years
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Safe - 8x14 Speculation Fic
Writer’s Note: The idea for this came from the 8x14 synopsis, and while it technically still is a speculation fic, I don’t imagine the episode happening exactly like this. However, I did use what I’ve seen from bts photos and videos, as well as things Tracy has said in interviews to develop some of the scenes/details. This is probably my favorite piece that I’ve written in a while, so I hope you enjoy & thank you for reading!
Hailey rustled through her closet looking for her black wedged boots, trying her best to hurry as she knew Jay was waiting for her in the kitchen. She wasn’t much of a boot with a heel kind of girl, but she and Jay had special plans and she wanted to look nicer than usual. While they had been together for months, that night was the first time they were going on a proper date. They each decided at the beginning of their relationship that with both of their histories, they wanted to keep things simple and to themselves, which meant a lot of take-out and a lot of nights alone in their apartments. However, after Hailey mentioned something in passing about their clandestine time together starting to feel restrictive, Jay made plans at a fancy restaurant where he knew they wouldn’t run into any of their fellow team members.
“I don’t mean to rush you, but our reservation is in 45 minutes and it will take us about 30 to get there,” Jay said softly, peeking his head around the door frame.
“I know, I know. I’m trying to- finally!” she shouted upon finding the boots in the corner of her closet. She brought a knee into her chest as she pulled a boot onto her foot before switching to the other leg and doing the same.
“Okay, I just need to get my phone and wallet and then I’ll be-“ her words were cut short as she caught sight of him for the first time that evening. He was wearing a dress shirt with a light jacket, and his dark jeans curled over the top of a pair of black dress boots. It was much different from his typical, rugged workwear, but she took note of how well the look suited him.
“Wow you clean up nice, Halstead,” she told him with a dimpled smile as he blushed, extending a hand down to help her rise from the floor. Once she was standing, the small space between them closed quickly as she wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing her lips to his briefly. While the heels added extra height, she still needed to raise on her tiptoes to meet his mouth.
“Not too bad yourself, Detective,” he uttered as her lips pulled away. His hands grasped her waist, holding her steady as she remained on her toes. They stayed pressed against one another for a moment looking into each other’s eyes, and just when he was about to go in for another kiss, she fell on her heels and pressed the tips of her fingers against his chest.
“Normally, I would indulge in this further, but we’re going to miss our reservation and I’m starving,” she teased, moving past him to retrieve her phone, keys, and wallet, along with her jacket slung over the back of the couch.
When they arrived at the restaurant, Hailey was charmed by how nice it was. It was far different from the usual dive bars and pubs they went to after work, and part of her even felt like it was too nice for them to be at.
“Halstead, party of 2,” he told the hostess, holding up 2 fingers with the hand that wasn’t intertwined with Hailey’s.
A stifled smile came across her face and she nodded her head towards the floor as they waited for someone to guide them to their table. It seemed surreal to be standing in the middle of a fancy restaurant with him, holding his hand and waiting to be seated for a romantic dinner. She couldn’t tell if it was because of how long she secretly pined over him or if it was because being with Jay felt like her first real love story, but there were many moments when being with him felt like some fantasy, and that moment was one of them. At one point in time, being with him was something she only dreamt about. It was a thought that crossed her mind when his gaze lingered a little longer than it should or when an accidental touch sent her heart racing. Before they took that leap, she worried being with him would mean giving up being his partner. It was that fear that made her keep her feelings bottled up for so long, but as they proved time and time again, as partners, as lovers, and as both - they were good together. She turned her head and placed a light kiss on his shoulder. It was a tangible reminder that he was hers to kiss, but it also grounded her in that moment that felt like just another dream.
The dinner itself was incredible. Hailey officially added the restaurant to her list of favorite food spots in Chicago, and they spent the entire meal giggling and sharing stories they had never shared before. By the end of it, Jay was stuffed, but Hailey insisted they order a dessert, her sweet tooth getting the best of her. Jay teased her for ordering the lava cake, the most indulgent option on the menu, but she was able to tease him right back when he asked the waiter for a second spoon when it was brought to the table.
Just as Jay was about to pay the check, his phone began to ring, Voight’s name popping up across the screen as he pulled out his wallet.
“Uh oh,” Hailey said as he picked it up to answer. Jay spoke with their boss briefly, mainly nodding his head and muttering brief affirmations every few seconds.
“I think she’s out tonight, but I can call her and swing by to pick her up wherever she is,” Jay said, shooting Hailey a wide-eyed look as he quickly came up with an excuse as to why they’d be riding in together all dressed up.
“Alright hot stuff, as much as I’d like to keep this night going, it seems we caught a case,” he told her, as he stood from his chair. He took out his wallet, counting out enough money to cover the check and tip before resting the bills under his glass on the table.
“At least we made it through dessert,” she said, sending him a childlike smile.
“Oh, that was dessert? I had something else in mind for that,” he replied smugly, Hailey’s face turning bright red at his suggestive words.
“Oh really?” She questioned, taking a step towards him to close the gap between them. “You’d better clean up that mind before we get to the scene,” she whispered with a chuckle, twirling around swiftly and making her way towards the door as he shook his head at her tease. His hand found the small of her back as they made their way out the door, and he placed a kiss against her temple, knowing it would probably be the last display of affection he could show before they had to enter partner mode.
When they arrived at the house, Kevin and Voight were outside talking to a few patrol officers. Hailey’s mood had changed drastically upon arriving at the scene. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt uneasy as she jumped out of the truck and secured her badge and gun to her hip.
As they approached, Kevin pursed his lips together and let out a two-tone whistle as he caught sight of Hailey.
“Damn girl, sorry to pull you away from whatever had you all cleaned up,” he told her, cocking his head to the side as she shook her head at him with a smirk. Her eyes caught sight of Voight’s as they darted between her and Jay and she became nervous, imagining that he was putting two and two together. She decided to change the subject quickly before any further comments could ensue.
“Oh, shut up,” she told him. “What do we got?” She asked, spinning her head around the scene and taking in the myriad of patrol cars.
“I think it’s something you have to unfortunately see for yourself. I do have to say, you might want to brace yourself for this one,” he said, turning to lead them inside. Jay and Hailey met eyes, sharing a look of concern before turning and following Kevin and Voight inside.
Walking through the front door, they collectively grimaced at the overwhelming smell of blood that tinged their noses. They hesitantly made their way deeper into the house and Hailey’s heart dropped when she caught sight of a family of four, a couple and their two kids, all tied up and shot dead on the living room floor. That uneasy feeling from before suddenly made sense. She clenched her jaw, groaning at the sight as she looked away, recognizing the same unsettled look in the face of each of her fellow officers.
“What the hell happened here?” Jay asked, looking over at Kevin for the answer.
“This is the second home invasion robbery in this neighborhood this week. Robbery-homicide has been working these guys since the first one, but so far they’ve come up with no leads. Whoever these guys are, they’re professionals. It’s a two-man crew, they come in through the back, dressed head to toe in dark attire, get what they need, kill the family, and get out. They’re in and out in less than 10 minutes and they’ve got a getaway driver who knows how to avoid traffic cameras. Robbery-homicide tells me these guys killed a family of three earlier this week, and that the dad had bruises on his body in addition to the gunshot wound that killed him. Now, what’s interesting is in this case, the mom is the one with these bruises. These families were definitely targeted, we’re just not sure how or why,” he explained causing them each to frown.
While Kevin explained the case, Hailey fell silent as the details brought her back to a string of cases she had worked during her time in robbery-homicide. She spent weeks chasing after a crew targeting families who had shopped at a high-end jewelry store, only that connection was missed for the first half of the investigation. By the time she and her team had finally caught on to why the families were being targeted, four families had already been killed, five kids below the age of ten among the victims. Hailey beat herself up for months knowing if they had caught onto the pattern sooner, they could have saved more of the families - more of the kids. This case sounded eerily similar, and she was bound to not let history repeat itself.  
“How’d we catch this if robbery-homicide was on it?” Jay asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as his gaze intentionally avoided the gruesome scene before them.
“Miller assigned it to us. She wanted a fresh pair of eyes. She’s getting a lot of heat from the press about there being no leads, especially since this is a high-end neighborhood. Plus, these guys have already killed three tender-aged kids. I want the animals on a stick,” Voight replied straightly.
“Do we know what they’re after?” Hailey asked, her brain already working to establish a connection.  
“No, and that’s what’s given our robbery-homicide guys so much trouble. The only connection is that both families have had pretty high-tech safes somewhere in the house. Last house it was in a bedroom closet, but this one was in the basement. It seems like these guys make their way in, beat the location and combo of the safe out of one of the parents, get what they need, and off the entire family before hauling ass out,” Kevin told them.
“Well, I’ve worked cases like this one before. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to figure out what it was they wanted and how they knew about it. We’re on a time crunch now, because it’s only a matter of time before these guys strike again,” she said, turning and leaving the house without waiting for any of their responses.
After leaving the scene, they all made their way back to the district to go over the files robbery-homicide had sent over. They browsed over the files for a couple of hours before Voight sent them home, needing them to rest up and refresh before they dove completely into the case the next day. The familiarity of the case was itching at Hailey, but as much as she wanted to see something that everyone else was missing, she came up short in every place she looked.
The next morning, she and Jay got coffee together. She had been quiet since they caught the case. Jay picked up on her shift in mood that occurred from the restaurant to the scene, but he left it alone to give her the space she seemed to need. He eventually built up the nerve to ask what was wrong. She told him about her old case and how much it meant to catch the guys and quickly. He agreed, admitting to her how much seeing those dead kids struck a nerve. He reassured her they would catch them one way or another. As they walked out of the coffee shop, a call came over the radio:
Units over the city-wide, we got calls of a home invasion. 1433 N State Street
“Gold Coast, that’s the same neighborhood as the other home invasions, you think that’s our guys?” Jay asked looking over at Hailey as he held the radio up.
“Could be, let’s roll on it,” she told him, rushing towards his truck as he followed, telling dispatch they were taking the call.
They rolled up to the scene, carefully clearing the house together, but they arrived too late, and the offenders were gone. They found the couple who lived there in the same position as the last two families, only they still had a pulse. Hailey tried asking them what the offenders were after, but all she got were incoherent mutterings from each victim. They both died before ambulances could arrive, but just the same as the other cases, only the husband had signs of bruising in addition to the gunshot wound, and a safe was found in the back of a linen closet. While crime techs combed the house, Hailey made her way out to the back garden, finding a hose to rinse the victim’s blood from her hands. Her hands were shaking so much, she couldn’t quite scrub enough to get them clean. Jay caught sight of her through the window and wade his way out to her, grabbing her hands in his to steady them. She looked up at him as he nodded his head, taking the hose and helping her scrub her hands clean. Once they were clear, he held her hands in his for a minute longer, quickly releasing them when someone cleared their throat behind them. When they turned around Voight was standing there, his hands deep in his pockets, eyeing the two of them as they took a step back from one another. If he didn’t know about them before, he definitely did then.
“You get anything new on these guys?” He asked, a knowing look plastered across his face.
“No, Sarge. They were gone by the time we pulled up,” Jay told him, dropping the hose to the ground.
“Well, get back to it. We’ve wasted enough time as it is, we’ve got to catch these guys,” he said bluntly, turning and making his way back into the house. The two of them stayed there frozen, shaking their heads at how careless they had been to let him walk up on them like that.
Back at the district, they scrubbed the lives of all of the victims, still coming up with no connection between any of them. Nighttime arrived once again with no leads and no suspects, so they decided to call it and head home. That night, Hailey laid awake, tossing and turning for hours. She tried every method she knew to fight off the insomnia that had kept her restless, but nothing was able to lull her into a slumber. It was the case that was keeping her up, and her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling while a million theories circulated through her mind. Something about it just didn’t make sense, and she couldn’t shake the idea that they had been missing an obvious connection. The faces of the couple she tried to save earlier that day remained at the forefront of her mind, and after a while of fighting off the urge to get out of bed and chase that gut feeling, she finally slipped out from the grasp of Jay’s limp arm, carefully retreating from the bed as to not wake him. She made her way over to her closet, pulling on a pair of jeans and slipping a sweatshirt over her head before grabbing her badge and gun from the nightstand and sliding her phone into her back pocket. She made her way to her office, retrieving a sticky note and pen to write Jay a message letting him know where she was going.
Couldn’t sleep. Gone back to the district, needed to go over the case again. ♡
She tiptoed back into the bedroom and placed the note on her pillow where she knew he’d see if he happened to wake up. She grabbed her coat and opened the front door, slowly guiding it closed on her way out, still trying her best to be as quiet as possible. She wasn’t sure what she would be looking for when she arrived at the district, but she had hoped that studying it alone and in the quietness of the empty bullpen would provide her with a new perspective. She made herself a cup of coffee before walking over to her desk and opening up every file they had on the case. She paced the floor of the empty space, flipping through files and studying photos until she was sure there was nothing to see. Finally, she hoisted herself onto the top of her desk, pulling her knees into her chest and eyeing the board for something they may have been missing. Suddenly, she heard the beeping of the keypad and the clanging of the door opening and closing downstairs. She checked her phone to see the time. It was 4 am, and she couldn’t imagine who else would be up that early. She did a double-take as Jay made his way around the corner, a look of exhaustion on his face as he sent her a lazy smile.
“What are you doing here?” She asked him, unclasping her hands from around her knees and pulling herself to the edge of the desk.
“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” he said with a smirk, pulling his jacket from his shoulders and resting it on the back of her desk chair.
“I couldn’t sleep. Something about this case was keeping me up, so I figured instead of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours I would try and make myself useful. You didn’t have to come check on me. I’m fine,” she told him, the corners of her lips curling up into a reassuring smile as he came to stand over her.
“I couldn’t go back to sleep once I realized you were gone,” he told her softly with a slight pout before turning to lean on the desk beside her. “So, what have you figured out?” He asked, his attention turning to the board before them. She sighed, crossing her arms and staring at the crime scene photos as he waited for her response.
“I don’t know. I mean these families have no connections. The kids all go to different schools, they all work at completely different places, they don’t even shop at the same stores, I can’t seem to figure out where their lives intersect, so I just don’t understand why they’re being targeted,” she ran down, looking over at Jay whose eyes surveyed the information on the board.
“Maybe it’s about more than just the robbery. I mean they’re taking time to kill every member of the family, including the kids. Unless these guys are just straight-up psychopaths, it sounds like whatever is going on could be personal,” Jay suggested, looking over at his partner whose eyes were transfixed on one particular photo on the case board. His words sparked something in her, and she caught sight of the words Resurgence Tech written in bold font on a magnet on the refrigerator from the second crime scene. She knew the name was familiar, but she couldn’t remember how.
She pulled out the files from each of the cases and found what she was looking for. An email address registered in the husband’s name from the first robbery ending in resurgencetech.co. Looking at the other files, she was able to establish a connection between all of them leading back to a company previously known as Resurgence Tech. As she and Jay investigated through the night, they were able to figure out what was being stolen and why it was worth killing over. Resurgence Tech was a company co-founded by four individuals, Ryan Ethers, victim of the first robbery, Scarlett Jameson, victim of the second, Max Lin, victim from the third, and Lianne Meadows, who lived in a house in the Gold Coast District close to the previous victims. Five years prior, Resurgence Tech created a breakthrough idea for a high-tech medical device that had the potential to significantly change the practice of medicine. However, after hours of gathering information and records, the two detectives found out that the design was actually stolen from two brothers who had developed the original idea for a project they were working on in college. Resurgence used their power and influence to discredit the claims of the brothers, blacklisting them from the entire industry, and eventually pulling the design before it could ever meet the market. Not long after, Resurgence shut down for good, liquidating its assets and washing its hands of its shady actions for good. Digging deeper into the four co-founders of Resurgence and knowing more about where to look, Hailey and Jay were able to find email exchanges between them all discussing what to do with the patent plans for the stolen design in case there ever came a time to reintroduce the tech to the market. The strategy was to split the plans between the four of them, each keeping a piece locked up on a thumb drive hidden in a safe.
As soon as the sun rose that morning, Hailey called Voight and the rest of the team to come in. She explained the connection and identified the brothers as suspects, describing how the robberies must have been to obtain the thumb drives and get vengeance for the way Resurgence screwed them over. The situation had a significant impact on the brothers’ lives, leading them to turn to a life of crime, describing how they got connected with an armed robbery crew, and began pulling jobs across the city before getting caught only a year after Resurgence blacklisted them from the tech industry. They were released early due to overcrowding and good behavior, so they got out, hacked into the emails of the individuals that ruined their lives, and found out the design was out there, still viable to be profited from. Running on anger and revenge and using the skills they developed in their time with the robbery crew, they sought to take back what was theirs. They were operating under the theory that the two brothers were committing the crimes, and a guy that used to run with them in their old robbery crew was taking on the role as the getaway driver.
“Well, let’s go scoop ‘em up,” Voight said upon hearing the rundown of the case.
“Sarge, as much as I want to bring these guys in, we don’t have any evidence on them. There’s been no DNA, no prints, no witnesses tying these guys to these cases. There’s no way they’re going to talk, and if we bring them in, they’re just going to get released even if we keep them for the full 48 hours. By then they’ll have already made plans to run,” Jay said.
“These guys have killed nine people, three of those people being little kids. If we don’t act now, they’re going to strike again and that’s going to be blood on our hands. We bring them in, and we make them talk. I don’t care if we have to threaten them, or if we get ‘em to flip on each other. Either way, we’re not just going to sit around and wait for something to happen on this one. Not when we’ve got a pile of bodies growing the longer we sit here with our thumbs up our asses. So, Hailey, Jay, I want you two going to pick these guys up,” Voight bit back, a distinct annoyance in his voice. He had been on edge throughout the entirety of the case, but his temper seemed to have only increased after walking up on Jay and Hailey at the scene a day prior.
As much as Hailey wanted to side with Voight, she knew Jay was right. Bringing them in with no evidence and no witnesses placing them at any of the scenes would only guarantee them getting to walk, something she was determined to not let happen.
“Sarge, we can’t,” she muttered, swallowing what felt like a rock in her throat as his face fell with bitter surprise.
“What?” He challenged, his head dropping down as he cut his eyes at her.
“Jay is right. We can’t just jump on these guys with no evidence or else we risk losing them for good. I know you want to get these guys quick, but there’s got to be a better play,” she replied, taking note of the uncomfortable looks expressed by the other Intelligence members who quietly observed the interaction from the other side of the room. She watched as he pulled the inside of his cheek between his teeth.
“Remind me, who’s the sergeant of this unit?” The question carried a great deal of weight, and everyone in the room fell silent as his eyes travelled between each of the five intelligence members. “You don’t have to agree with what I say, but there’s a chain of command here and I expect you to listen to me. Now, unless there’s another sergeant in this unit I’m unaware of, I’m in charge. So, I’m only going to say this one last time. Jay, Hailey, go pick these guys up. I have to go update Miller on what’s going on. Those guys better be sitting in interrogation when I get back. End of,” he roared, making his way past the officers who remained frozen in place.
While Adam, Kevin, and Kim went back to work, Hailey grabbed her jacket, heading down the hallway out to the parking lot to follow the sergeant’s orders.
“Hailey, wait,” Jay called after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the observation room where he knew the others wouldn’t be able to hear them.
“What?” She questioned, a look of concern on her face as he silently thought through his words.
“I think I have another play,” he told her.
“Jay, he seemed- “she began before he cut her off.
“No, I know, but you know I’m right. We bring these guys in now and these families will never get the justice they deserve. We know there’s only one family left on their list, Lianne Meadows. The only move we have left is to catch these guys in the act. I say we sit on her house and wait for the robbery to go down, snatch them up, and then we have the guns tying them to the other cases and we have leverage to get them to flip if we need to,” Jay told her, the look in his eyes pleading with her to agree.
She knew Jay was right, but she also knew what going against Voight’s orders would mean. By that point, it was safe to assume he knew about their relationship. She knew that alone would be cause for him to assign them to different partners or even to different units. Teaming up and going against him would only increase the chances of him pulling the trigger on that. From the start of the case, she knew she wanted to catch the guys no matter what, but she never imagined it would involve making a decision that could possibly jeopardize her partnership with Jay. Every part of her knew his way was the only option that gave them a chance of making things right, yet she knew there would be a cost to them both going against Voight’s orders.
“You’re right… but let me do it alone,” she told him, causing him to frown at her words.
“What? No, I can’t let you go after these guys by yourself,” he argued, a combination of concern and annoyance in his voice.
“Jay, if we do this together it’s only going to give him reason to split us up. I have a feeling we’re already on his hit list after everything that has happened these past few days, and if he sees that we’re siding with each other… going rogue against his orders? He could reassign us partners, or worse, ship one of us off again. You, this partnership, our relationship, it all means too much to me to risk. If I go alone, only I take the fall, and he doesn’t have reason to use our relationship against us,” Hailey told him, moving a hand to his chest as she spoke.
Pushing him away and crossing that line by herself was the only way she knew how to protect both their relationship and their partnership. With her history of crossing lines, she had hoped it would just seem like another questionable decision she made all on her own, and he wouldn’t have reason to punish both of them by splitting them up.
“Hailey, I’m not just letting you go there without backup,” he finally said, his jaw set tightly as he peered into her eyes.
“I’ll have Trudy assign some patrol guys for backup. That way you and the others don’t take fall back from Voight, but I won’t be going in alone,” she replied, moving the hand from his chest to cup his face. “I’ll be fine,” she told him.
He nodded hesitantly before sliding his fingers down her arm and wrapping his hand around hers.
“Be careful,” he insisted, squeezing her hand lightly.
“Of course,” she nodded back before opening the door and disappearing down the hall.
She sat out front of the house, the patrol officers waiting a street over for her signal. It had been about an hour and she had already dodged two calls from Voight. Her patience was running thin with every minute that passed without a sign of the crew. Then, she spotted a dark van creeping down the street and she slumped down in her seat, trying to avoid being seen. As the van approached the house, two men rolled out of the back door as the van maintained a low speed before stopping down at the end of the street. The second the men made it around the back of the house, Hailey radioed the patrol guys, climbing out of her car and drawing her weapon as she followed the offenders around the back. When the patrol guys caught up, she nodded to one of them, signaling them to open the back door and enter the home. The second they made it through the doorway, they were catching fire. Hailey took cover behind a door frame, keying her radio attached to her vest.
“10-1, 10-1, shots fired at the police, 1327 N Dearborn Street. Be advised patrol and plainclothes officers on scene,” she yelled into the radio, securing her free hand back on her gun before motioning the officers to press forward. They made their way into the house, carefully clearing each room as they passed through. When they made it to the front of the house, she caught sight of one of the guys escaping out the front door.
“5021 Henry I’m in foot pursuit of a suspect in an alleyway going west across the street from the original location,” she called out into the radio as she pumped her legs with each step, trying to control her breath as she chased after the suspect. He rounded a corner and she slowed down, holding her gun out to peer around the corner before continuing the pursuit. The next thing she knew, her gun was being kicked out of her hands and she was being thrown against the wall, hitting the side of her head against brick and feeling blood trickle down her face. She brought a knee up into her attacker’s groin, giving her a brief opening to connect an elbow with the side of his head. Falling to the ground, the man grabbed at her ankle, bringing her down with him before grabbing hold of her vest and laying a fist into her jaw. The blow sent her backward, shooting pain into the side of her face. She caught sight of her gun on the ground a few feet away and went to crawl for it, but he grabbed at her leg, drawing her backward toward him as she stretched her fingertips towards the handle. He was stronger than her, and he managed to pull her back enough to regain hold of her vest, winding up to lay another fist into her face. Before he could, she wrapped a leg around his, twirling him over so she was hovering over him. She began laying fist after fist into his masked face until she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, sending her elbow backwards towards the person. It was grabbed instantly, and she wiggled in the grasp before turning around and taking in the familiar green eyes of her partner.
“Hailey, we got him,” he said, holstering his gun and grabbing her by each arm to pull her up from the ground. Kim came from behind him, removing the mask from the offender and rolling him over to place him in cuffs. Meanwhile, Jay wrapped Hailey in his arms, bringing his chin down to her head as they swayed together in an embrace. Her breath was heavy and shaky, and she felt tears pool at the corners of her eyes. She was overwhelmed by everything that had just happened, but his arms wound tightly around her helped steady her breathing.
“It’s okay Hailey, you’re safe. I’ve got you,” he reassured her through a whisper. She took comfort in his words, and despite the pain surging through her head, she buried it deeper into his chest.
Luckily, they had reached the target and her family in time before the offenders could do any harm. Hailey went to Med to get her head checked out. A few stitches and several scans later, she was cleared, making her way back to the district to take whatever repercussions Voight had in store for her. The second she made it up the stairs, everyone’s eyes fell on her and she just flashed them a gentle smile and nod, signaling to them she was okay. Voight came to the doorway of his office, and she didn’t miss a beat heading straight towards him. However, just before she reached the door, his attention shifted over towards Jay at his desk.
“You too, Jay,” was all the sergeant said before turning and moving back into his office. Jay stood, making his way over and closing the door behind him before coming to stand beside Hailey across from the Voight’s desk. He looked over at them silently for a moment, Hailey setting her jaw tightly as she braced for whatever was to come.
“Are we just making a habit out of disobeying me and questioning my orders? Is that what we’re doing now?” He asked them. They remained silent. “Because if that’s what we’re doing and you’ve got a problem with how I run things, there’s the door. You can get out right now,” he told them sternly.
“Sarge, we needed to get those guys. Catching them in the act was the only way. I did what I had to do to make sure those families got justice,” Hailey said, her eyes remaining fixed with his.
“I told you to pick them up, bring them in, and instead you went your own way, putting that family, yourself, and a couple of patrol officers at risk. I could suspend you over this,” he argued, a distinct tension building in his voice.
“Sarge, it was my idea. If anyone deserves punishment, it’s me,” Jay admitted, causing Hailey’s head to swivel his direction, a cross look on her face as the words left his mouth.
“No, that’s not… Look, I went there on my own. I’m the only one to blame here,” Hailey argued causing him to shake his head before them.
“Okay, look. I know there’s something going on between you two, I have known for a while,” the second the words left his mouth, their eyes met briefly, and they both swallowed hard before turning back to him. “I decided to turn a blind eye because you two were able to keep it strictly professional here at work as far as I was concerned. But what happened today, what’s happening right now… this lying to me and covering for each other is not welcome in my unit. This is your warning and it’s the only one you’re going to get. As long as I’m in charge of this unit, you listen to me. You don’t go off-book, you don’t go behind my back because you disagree with what I say, and you certainly don’t let whatever is going on between you two change the way you make decisions. I know you guys are going to have each other’s backs… as partners and as whatever else, but the second that trumps having my back and the team's back, the way it did today, it undermines my authority and puts all of us at risk. If anything happens again like what happened today, you’re both done, and I’ll make sure you never work in the same unit again. Is that clear?” He asked them.
“Understood,” Jay replied.
“Yes, Sarge,” Hailey uttered, her heart rate dropping significantly with relief.
They drove home that night in silence, partly from exhaustion and partly from trying to process everything that had happened in the past 72 hours. Three days ago, they were on their first official date, celebrating their relationship for what felt like the first time, and now they were coming down from what could have easily been the end of their job and their partnership. Even though she hated the way it had to go down, she stood by having Jay’s back and trying to protect their relationship, even if it meant muddying the waters between them and Voight. From the start of the case, she was determined to catch the guys, chasing a small sense of redemption she felt she needed for that case she worked so many years prior. She wasn’t happy about everything that happened, particularly everything that went wrong, but she was able to save a family and get some form of justice for the others, and she stood by that firmly. It wasn’t the first time she had challenged Voight or crossed lines, but it was the first time she was genuinely fearful of the consequences. She was just glad her fears didn’t come to fruition. She looked over at Jay in the driver’s seat, and she remembered the way he told her she was safe after pulling her from the attacker only hours prior. Safe wasn’t something she had felt often in her life, but she certainly felt it when she was with him. She smiled to herself in the dark, satisfied to know that at least for that day, despite everything that happened, their relationship and their partnership were two things she could still consider safe.
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twh-news · 3 years
Text
[The article contains spoilers for The Good, The Bart and The Loki]
When Disney Plus launched with all of “The Simpsons” episodes, the team behind the longest running primetime TV series in history were thrilled.
“It’s a perfect fit and, you know, 100 million subscribers,” says executive producer Al Jean with a chuckle.
But there was one catch: While Disney Plus has specific tiles on its home screen for Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars, “There’s no tile that actually says ‘The Simpsons,'” he says.
So co-creator and executive producer James L. Brooks suggested “The Simpsons” should invade the rest of Disney Plus, through a series of crossover short films.
“It was just the desire that we had to reach out to the viewers [of] the other branches of Disney Plus, to see if they would be interested in us — you know, if they hadn’t seen us as much,” Jean says.
The first short, “The Force Awakens From Its Nap” — which placed Maggie Simpson inside the world of “Star Wars” — premiered on May 4 (i.e. the May the Fourth “Star Wars” holiday). As that film was wrapping up production in April, Jean zeroed in on Marvel Studios’ series “Loki” for their second film — but they had to move with superhuman speed, since that show was premiering in June.
The result is “The Good, The Bart, and the Loki,” with Tom Hiddleston voicing his signature role as the wily god of mischief after he’s banished from Asgard and lands, to his horror, in Springfield.
“They couldn’t have been nicer at Marvel,” says Jean. “They said, ‘Hey, would you like the Avengers music?’ And we said, ‘Would we?! Yes!'”
As Jean revealed in his conversation with Variety, the team behind the film, lead by director David Silverman, leaned into their knowledge of not just past films and series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the upcoming film “Thor: Love and Thunder” — and, for the final post-credits scene, they had just a week to turn it all around.
There’s a great tableau in which a whole bunch of different Simpsons characters appear as the Springfield Avengers, including Barney Gumble as Iron Man and Milhouse as Hawkeye. How did you decide all that?
That was the most fun thing. In the room, we were just putting them together, and it was really fast. It was like, Patty and Selma are the Scarlet Witch and Agnes. My favorite was Ralph as the Hulk and Herman as Captain America — because he wears the Captain America shield on his shirt because he’s a gun store owner. It was about 10 minutes to put that together. We would’ve had more — I mean, there’s 100 Avengers — but we were just trying to make sure that the production got done on time.
When you made Lisa into Thor, was that a tip of the hat that…
…that Natalie Portman is going to be Thor in “Love and Thunder”? Absolutely. And then, to me, it was really funny that, you know, now that Lisa is Thor, she even has that over Bart, so he’s really aggravated. The parallel between Bart and Lisa and Loki and Thor is pretty clear.
Did Marvel have any notes? Or did they just kind of let you do your thing?
They really were great and supportive. The only note we had was we thought we could have a cameo by Stan Lee. We’re putting as many cameos and post-credits sequences into a four minute short as possible. But they said that their policy is that since he passed, they don’t use him in movies anymore, which I understood completely. And we had him on the show three times, so we had our shot.
The final post-credit sequence evokes the “Loki” Disney Plus show completely, down to the production design. How much turnaround time did you have for that?
A week, and it was really a nail biter. Jim Brooks said, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do something with the series now that it’s on,’ because we were coming out July 7. So that was based on the first episode only. I hadn’t seen the other three, and obviously, I have no idea how it ends, either. I suspect Loki is up to no good. That’s my theory.
Wait, so you had a week to write, record, and animate that?
Yep. We recorded Dawnn Lewis as the Judge. David Silverman turned it around that fast. So that whole ending, whatever, minute, is in a week.
The short ends with Lisa unknowingly sending Bart into oblivion and Loki takes over Bart’s life.
Well, in the last short, Maggie dies. She comes back as a force ghost, but she’s dead. This one, Bart doesn’t seem to have very good ending. [Laughs] Homer seems to be eating Flanders at the end of the Loki story, too, so there’s a lot of grim stuff under the surface!
So do you think that you’ll revisit the world of Marvel or the world of Star Wars again?
We definitely want to keep doing these shorts — definitely [with] those two, but also with the other properties, like Pixar and the classic Disney movies. We’ll probably take a little more time on the next one. We haven’t settled on what we’re going to do yet, but there are just so many things that are just so, you know — I mean, as a kid, I was a huge fan of Marvel. I started collecting when I was six. These are the things that we would want to crossover or parody, anyways.
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theyaskedmeto · 3 years
Note
It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka.
For which ever ship you want
to forgive you
part of the everything means everything verse
pairing: kurt x blaine
summary: the night before, blaine stood kurt up. this is how they forgive each other.
read on ao3 or read the rest of these little fic prompt fills here
———————
He waited for ages. They don’t usually do stuff like that; go on dates and act like a ‘real’ couple should - normally they just make out under the bleachers instead of going to class, or try to escape dinner and find themselves at Scandals, the shitty gay bar on the outskirts of Lima. But it was their five-month anniversary, and, even though it wasn’t exactly a significant amount of months, Kurt does sometimes feel like they could be doing more for each other.
So, they arranged it - not anything major - just a small meet up at their park again - just wearing slightly nicer clothes this time.
And when Kurt arrived that night, nothing happened.
He waited for so long. That’s the problem when you’re in love - suddenly you feel so much more optimistic about everything. You’ve spent so long hating yourself and wishing you were living another life and then suddenly, this person comes into it and changes everything. Makes everything okay again. And then you start to think, well, if I could achieve that, can’t I handle everything else? And sometimes it just… gets out of hand.
And that’s what Kurt did - he got too optimistic. He spent too much time in that park that night, holding on to the last drop of hope until it escaped from his fingers and he was quickly filled with feelings of hurt and anger. Then eventually, he called Blaine.
“I’m so sorry, babe,” Blaine had said, “it’s just… my mom’s going on another stupid holiday again tomorrow. And she won’t let me out. She said she ‘wants me all to herself’. Not that she even cares.”
“So you couldn’t even fucking text me?” And Kurt was already shouting at him by then. He couldn’t stop himself. He was angry and it was cold, and the halterneck crop top and skinny jeans he was wearing did not keep him warm.
Blaine was hardly listening. He hung up on him.
And Kurt walked home, shivering, lonely, and wishing he had a cigarette right then.
*
Sometimes, Kurt wonders when Blaine will stop throwing stones at his window to get Kurt’s attention from inside and just use the actual front door because believe it or not, he does care about what his dad will do if his temperamental boyfriend smashes the glass. But when Blaine does it for what feels like the one-hundredth time, the sounds sort of make him laugh - it’s a reminder of his boyfriend now, how they met, how everything built up to this. And it’s also nearly six in the morning during the summer holidays, and Kurt hasn’t even been awake at this time since graduation, so his brain isn’t exactly functioning yet.
Well, he would be happier with Blaine’s appearance if he didn’t stand him up last night.
Under his breath and eyes still sealed shut, he sleepily mumbles, “What the fuck do you want?” and stumbles out of bed, duvet flopping onto the floor as he moves towards the noise. He squints his eyes because the sun has already started to rise, and peers out the window where Blaine is standing there - almost stumbling, even - with a bottle of vodka in hand and a rather exaggerated expression on his face.
Blaine sees his figure through the window, and he shouts, words a little slurred and voice cracking, “Kurt!” and his hands shoot up in the air desperately, liquid in the bottle he’s holding sloshing around precariously.
It’s almost hysterical - he’s drunk, it’s six AM on a Thursday morning, and Blaine’s there with those desperate eyes and stumbling on the sidewalk, and Kurt has to wake up more because he is going to get himself fucking hurt and it will be my problem.
But if anything happens to you—
Kurt opens the window, blinks more as his eyes adjust to the growing sunlight, “Blaine? What the fuck is going on?”
“Kurt!” Blaine shouts again, “I wanna…” he stops for a moment, searching. “I’m drunk.” he finally says, struggling to find the right words after thinking about them for a while, “Please! I’m sorry for what I did.”
He looks like a fucking mess - his hair is tousled over his forehead - his eyes are partially hidden but Kurt can still see the dark circles under them. There are stains on his white shirt, and that signature leather jacket thrown on over it. He looks a fucking mess.
How does he still look hot?
He’s stumbling more, and there is a small bit in Kurt that panics because if anything happens to him— but mostly he’s angry because it’s fucking six in the morning and he was sleeping and his boyfriend is just there, drunk on the sidewalk, and Kurt doesn’t know what to say.
He settles on, “God, what the hell are you doing out there?”
Blaine gives an incredibly over-exaggerated guilty expression, looks around himself as if to say, what do I know?
He sighs, “Please, Kurt. I need— can you… please… let me in?”
Kurt stares at him - his eyes still feel like they could shut with the lack of sleep (he was up reading until two AM) - stares at his boyfriend, can’t even comprehend him for a single moment. He doesn’t know how Blaine can do this; how can Blaine seem like a fucking loser and stand him up and Kurt still has to love him?
Because every day he wakes up and thinks of him. Cares about him. God— he doesn’t know what he’d do if something happened to him, and yet Kurt is still so aware of how fucking shit he can be.
But then he’s also aware of the pain, the hurt Blaine had to go through to be here, to be in this state, and he thinks about his own pain, too. God, he misses the time when he didn’t really give a shit about anything. And now, Blaine…
Is still standing on the sidewalk with that bottle of vodka in his hand and Kurt wants to hate him but he can’t, because there’s a pulling in his heart and it sings Blaine.
Back to the moment, and Kurt raises his eyebrows, rolls him eyes as he leans on the windowsill. He sighs, and his eyes are just focused on his boyfriend for a moment, then says, “Fine. I’ll let you in.”
*
He has to walk down the stairs quietly because even though he’d love to be an adult with complete free-reign over his life, he’s not. And his dad will kill him if he sees Blaine’s here at five fifty-two in the morning, not that he’s ever that happy with seeing Blaine over at his at all, especially after Burt knows what Blaine did to his son last night.
For a moment, he thinks about whether he should get changed but then remembers that his boyfriend is literally standing there, drunk on the pavement in the clothes he always wears and it doesn’t mean a thing, and he doesn;t deserve it anyway.
But Blaine still needs to be safe.
He opens the front door, and there Blaine is: leaning on the porch railing, so obviously drunk it’s absurd. Kurt doesn’t hesitate to grab his hand and drag him inside, muttering under his breath, “Jesus fucking christ Blaine, I actually— what the hell were you thinking?”
Blaine, now considerably closer to Kurt after he’s grabbed his arm, slurs, consonants fading into each other from the effects of the drink, “Dunno. Got bored,” he nestles further into the crevice between Kurt’s shoulder and neck and Kurt knows he’s lying. “Hmmmm,” he moans lightly out of contentment, “‘s warm here.”
“Okay, then. Come on,” Kurt says, still not being able to really believe the situation at hand, still angry at him, and hauls him up the stairs, “There’s only… twelve steps. Come on.” He says again, and Blaine has basically plastered himself against Kurt now, groaning, “‘s just… stay here.”
“No, Blaine. Come on. Twelve steps. And I’m fucking tired, so you should be thanking me for even letting you in after last night.”
“I said I was sorry!” Blaine argues back, then says, as if he’s completely forgotten the conversation, “Were you… trying to read Mrs— Miss—” Blaine lets out a humph and gives up trying to pronounce the correct word, “You were reading Dalloway again.” He slurs, and Kurt can feel his weight on him getting heavier, and god they really need to get up these stairs.
“It was only until one. Now. Come. On…” Kurt urges him again, giving his arm another tug. He really is too tired for this right now.
After a rather large amount of struggle, they make it to the top, and Kurt’s pretty amazed they haven’t even woken his dad yet. They stumble into his room, and the minute Blaine sees the bed he flops onto it, still holding the bottle of vodka. After realising he still has it, Kurt snatches it off him, says, “Why were you even up at this time, Blaine? God, even for you this is a stretch.”
“I wasn’t—” Blaine starts, words still slurred, “I woke up. At five.”
“And?”
“Was thinking about you. Couldn’t… couldn’t get back to s—sleep.”
“So you drank nearly a whole bottle of vodka.”
Blaine sighs melodramatically, “Yeah. Look, Kurt, it’s not— my mom’s not in town.” he says, as if that’s a perfect excuse. “I dunno. Then I thought of you. I’m so sorry.”
Kurt hesitates slightly, “You thought of me?”
“Yeah. ‘Bout how much I… care about you.”
“...I… care about you too,” Kurt says, as it’s hardly coherent he does - voice just above a whisper, like saying it louder would make the words so much harder to come to terms with. He knows Blaine will understand, even when he’s drunk, that those words are an acceptance of his apology.
It’s so weird, sometimes, because on the outside, around others, Blaine is just… different. And then when he’s with Kurt he’s so sweet, so soft and giving, and sometimes Kurt loses himself in it.
There are still so many hurdles to cross before Kurt can fully comprehend this - what he and Blaine have together - this sudden love that fell on Kurt’s shoulders so quickly. But it’s not a burden. Hardly anything but that, really. Every time he spends with Blaine it feels lighter, and it’s just something he doesn’t understand. How can one person make another feel that way?
They’re staring at each other for a moment, just falling into the other’s eyes again. And it’s nice. But thinking about this so deeply, this connection, Kurt finds himself becoming very aware of it. So he takes a deep breath in as if to say, anyway… and comments, “You need a new shirt. And we need to sleep. Take one of mine.”
Kurt throws a random T-shirt at Blaine, who huffs and toes off his shoes. Kurt has to help with removing his jeans and top and putting on the one Kurt has given him. Kurt doesn’t try and hide his blatant staring.
When Kurt slides into bed with Blaine he pipes up again, “Can I have the bottle back yet?”
Kurt tries not to laugh, “Blaine. You’re not having more vodka. It’s six AM.”
From somewhere inside the covers Kurt’s pretty sure Blaine mumbles, “Fuck you.” but he’s not too sure. He can’t stop the giggles that erupt from his chest.
With the curtains drawn and the sun only half seeping its way into the room, they fall asleep again, with half of Kurt wondering how he will be able to hide Blaine from his dad when they wake up again, and half of him not caring at all, just being here, wrapped in the blankets with his stupid, beautiful boyfriend, and forgives him.
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readyplayerhobi · 4 years
Text
Flower | 16
Tumblr media
; Hoseok x Reader
; Genre: Fluff, slight angst
; Warnings: Mention of car accident/death/depression
; Word Count: 5k
; Synopsis: You finally decide to take a dip into the world of online dating and find the Flower dating app. One of the top matches for you proves to be a guy who looks to be your complete opposite; tattooed, pierced, a metalhead and oh…incredibly handsome. What happens when you throw caution to the wind and reach out to him?
; A/N: Thanks for keeping with me after the hiatus! There may be another next week but for now, here’s part 16 :) I hope you all enjoy, please reblog if you do so that others can see it as well! Leave me comments and asks, I love to talk about this world with you all!’
; Flower Masterpost
-
It’s a rather novel concept, you think to yourself wryly as you watch the way Hoseok runs his palms along the length of thighs once more, trying to wipe away his anxiety. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Hoseok look like this nervous or unsure of himself in the whole six months you’ve been dating him.
You’re currently driving over to your parents, having accepted their offer of dinner. Normally you’d just go by yourself, but this Saturday your parents had explicitly invited you to bring Hoseok. He’d agreed, obviously, but he’d been a little hesitant. Even you knew that meeting the parents was a big step in a relationship.
While being nervous yourself to introduce him to them properly, you also felt that it was the right time for it. You loved your parents and they’d always been so supportive of you, no matter what you’d decided to do in life. It only made sense for you to finally introduce the man who made you smile just at the thought of him.
Despite that, you were still worried about everything because you desperately wanted them to like him. Their approval meant a lot to you and knowing that they thought he was a good match was equally as important to you as him liking them. But you’d never brought any guy home before, or anyone really. Never even really mentioned dating to them to be honest.
You’d always been shy around that kind of stuff, only dating and all of that in college where you could almost be anonymous amongst the large student body. So for you to bring home Hoseok meant that he was special, very special. And they knew it too. But you just didn’t know how you were meant to act with them or him, or what the protocols were for bringing home your partner.
Unfortunately for you, Hoseok had no idea either. You’d been both surprised and yet not to find out he’d never met a girlfriend’s parents before. It was something you supposed that you’d expected given who he was and what he’d told you of his past. He’d never dated seriously enough to warrant meeting parents so he was in the same boat of uncertainty as you.
Only...the Hoseok who had been a rock for you in the murkiness of your life and mind these last few months had suddenly needed a rock in turn. His lack of experience in this department combined with his need to make sure he makes a good impression for both you and him meant that he’d taken on the role of nervous and awkward person in your relationship.
Which considering the fact that you were currently experiencing a downward slide in your own mental health, the exhilarating happiness of the last few months finally catching up to you and sending you back down the road of depression and severe anxiety, was impressive. But it was proving a great distraction away from the way you were slumping backwards in your mood, letting you focus instead on Hoseok.
He’d spent all of last night being very quiet, his thoughts evidently far away and he’d asked you about a million questions about your parents. You’d thought it was all very sweet of him to be so worried but at the same time, you were hoping he’d get back to being his bright self because it was starting to make you worry a little too.
And he was being very serious about it all as well because even sex hadn’t been able to take his mind off it for too long. Your magnificent boyfriend had finally, finally managed to make you orgasm during sex a week or so ago and he’d been beyond proud of himself that he’d done it.
You’d thought that giving him a goal to achieve to make himself feel better would be good, and of course you got an added benefit from that...
But last night, he’d been okay for exactly half an hour before he’d cuddled up to you and began querying you once more. You hadn’t got annoyed at him though, because you knew he was just genuinely worried about how they might take him. Seeing him in your pictures on social media and hearing you talk about him is one thing, but meeting him is another thing entirely.
Hoseok’s opinion of himself was that he was a tattooed, pierced metalhead with a long history of sexual escapades and plenty of wild drunken nights. Not what most parents wanted for their daughter to date, especially when said daughter was so socially introverted and easy to hurt.
Your efforts to soothe his worries hadn’t really worked, so now you just supposed that he had to be shown that your parents would like him. There was no doubt in your mind that they would, because despite all of the things he was worried about himself for, he had one thing going for him that perhaps the most important thing of all.
He made you happy and he made you smile. 
You knew that they would give him more than enough chances to prove himself because of those two facts alone, because they knew more than anyone how hard you struggled to make friends and how romance had been almost a foreign term to you. So to meet the man that had finally managed to show you what a relationship could and should be was high on their list.
Pulling into the drive behind your dad’s car, you look out at the small house that you’d grown up in. It’s nothing big or fancy, one of the smaller houses in this neighbourhood of working class people really. The paint on the awnings was chipped and fading while the railing on the porch sagged a little from the weight of its age. 
Even your dad’s car in front of you showed more than enough signs of wear and tear. His job as an engineer at a car manufacturer was based half an hour away from here, with most of that down the highway. It had paid enough to keep the house going along with the car but most of his salary and your moms had gone to paying for your college fees.
Only now were they finally able to properly save up for themselves, hoping to buy a house that was a little nicer than the one they had now. Eyeing the lawn out front, you sighed as you saw it was starting to look overgrown with more than a few patches looking brown and the mailbox was beginning to lean to the side.
“I should come home more often,” You muse out loud to yourself, taking the keys out of the ignition and pressing the button on your seat belt holder. “Help my parents out with the chores and stuff.”
Hoseok looks around as well and you hope that he’s not disgusted or anything by your childhood home. You know that his parents are much better off than your own but he’s never shown himself to be a snobby person or anything.
“Well if you want to, I can come too? I mean...if they want me to. I can help do any manual work if they need it?” Smiling, you reach up and tap his cheek fondly with your palm and internally cheer as he gives you a smile in response.
“I’d like that, you're good with your hands. Just don’t let them take no for an answer then. My parents are wonderful people who deserved far more in life than they got, but they’re still proud. They’ll accept our help as long as we don’t make out that it’s help, you know?” He nods, looking thoughtful before letting out a deep sigh.
Giving him a once over, you get out of the car and wait for him to do the same, locking it behind you before making your way up the path of broken and cracked flagstones. Hoseok’s hand around your wrist stops you suddenly as he pulls at you slightly and you turn, frowning when you see the worry on his face.
“What if they don’t like me? Should I have worn something different?” He asks, for possibly the tenth time today and you internally sigh before facing him fully. His outfit today is just like any other; black jeans with rips and a band shirt with his usual leather jacket slung over the top. Only his hair looks slightly different and that’s because he’s been running his hands through it anxiously.
Placing your hands on his waist, you stroke them up and down reassuringly before giving him a big smile. Hoseok pauses for a moment before his arms wrap around you in turn, causing you to hug him back tightly with your cheek mashed against his warm chest.
“You’ll be okay Hoseok, honestly. I’ve told you enough times and I’m positive you’re gonna find out I’m right. I’m the most awkward one in my family so if you can win me over then you’ll do fine. Please just be yourself because you’re one of the most outgoing and charismatic people I’ve ever seen.” He eyes you carefully before he chews at his lip ring.
You’d had to convince him to keep that in, along with his tongue piercing because he’d wanted to take them out to make a better impression. But you wanted your parents to meet the Hoseok you knew and adored so much, not one that censored himself.
“Okay. Yeah, okay. Sorry.” Muttering the words, you see the frown on his own face and lean forward, catching his attention once more as you press your lips to his in a sweet kiss. One arm moves from around his body to cup his cheek, thumb stroking gently and when you pull away, you see him looking a little calmer.
Moving backwards, you reach down and grab his hand in yours, pulling him along the short path with a bright smile. “Come on mister, I’ve got a surprise for you that you’re gonna love.” 
You hear Hoseok’s confused noise behind you, wondering what on earth you’re on about when you bounce up the stairs to the porch and open the front door of your parents house. Almost immediately you hear the scurrying of paws and crouch down with open arms as a furry dog comes barreling out of the living room, barking excitedly.
“Hello baby girl!” You coo to the golden retriever who almost knocks you over in her enthusiasm, tail wagging wildly as she pushes her nose into your face and tries to climb into your non existent lap. Laughing, you stroke her head before standing up and turning to Hoseok. That’s all the cue she needs to begin investigating him, tail going just as hard as she sniffs him all over.
You can’t help but laugh loudly at his face when she shoves her nose in his crotch and you reach down to grab her collar, tugging her inside gently while Hoseok closes the door behind you both. Kicking off your shoes and placing them onto the shoe rack, you watch as Hoseok does the same before he crouches down as well, a bright smile on his face as he holds his hand out for her to smell.
“This is Harley. She’s an old girl now but we had a lot of fun times when I was in high school. Isn’t that right eh? You were my best friend back then.” Ruffling her fur, you laugh as she drops to the floor and presents her belly, pushing her nose into Hoseok’s hand in her need to get as much attention as physically possible.
“You didn’t tell your parents owned a dog.” Hoseok’s tone is almost accusatory and you grin mischievously. 
“Didn’t tell you because I know you love dogs and I wanted her to be a surprise. She’s been a very long lived retriever, she’s actually 13 now and we got her when I was 13 but she’s still the furry ball of love she always was.” Running your fingers through the golden fur that didn’t quite feel as soft as it once had, you give a sad smile.
You know that there will be a day when your parents call to say that she wasn’t here anymore, but you also knew that she’d had such a long and wonderful life that you’d be okay with that fact. For now though, you were going to give her plenty of pets and love. And looking at Hoseok as he beams, leaning down to almost press his face to hers while all the tension he’d been holding leaves him, you know that he’ll do the same.
“If you’re not careful, you’re gonna send her into a coma of love.” Your dad says and you look up with a big grin at the sight of him, giving Harley one last stroke before standing and moving over to him. He’s dressed casually as usual, just black sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt with those grey wool socks he loves to wear covering his feet.
“Hi. And you know she loves it.” Turning, you watch as Hoseok gives Harley another pet before standing up slowly. It almost breaks your heart how nervous and shy he looks, his hands come around to clasp together at his front while his gaze steadfastly doesn’t meet your dads.
Moving over to him, you wrap your hand around his arm and look back at your dad, noting that your mom has arrived too. She’s just in some plain grey lounge pants with a graphic t-shirt with Toothless the dragon on it. You’d told them to be casual with Hoseok, hoping if they just dressed like they normally would in the house then he wouldn’t get too stressed immediately.
“Mom, dad, this is Hoseok. My...err.” You find yourself freezing as you try to introduce him, the word you’re trying to say almost getting stuck in your throat and you frown in annoyance at yourself. God, you couldn’t even do this right.
Hoseok saves you though, taking a deep breath before giving them his most charming smile, the one that wins over just about anyone who sees it. “I’m Jung Hoseok, her boyfriend. It’s nice to meet you.”
You can tell by the twitch in his arm that he wants to hold out a hand for a handshake or something but you keep a tight grip on him, thinking that’d probably just be too formal and strange. He was meeting your parents, not the President of the United States.
“Hi Hoseok, Y/N’s told us a lot about you.” Your dad says, nothing negative in his voice as he scans over Hoseok before giving him a brief smile. The relief you feel as you sense that Hoseok has passed the visual test at least that your parents are no doubt giving him right now is palpable.
“She has! Come in, come in. Both of you. Do you want to take your jacket off?” This comes from your mom now, her tone telling him that even though it was a question, he should probably obey. Sure enough, Hoseok hears that and acknowledges it, giving a gracious smile before shrugging out of his jacket and handing it to her when she reaches for it.
Gently, you push Hoseok through to the living room and direct him to a seat that won’t be occupied. You weren’t sure about other households, but yours always had assigned seating based on people’s preferences on the couch. 
Your dad took the end of the couch, your mom always took the bit that stuck out so she could almost lay down and you always sat in the armchair. But for today, you sat on the couch and watched as your dad sat in the armchair. Hoseok carefully sat next to you and as he did so, you placed your hand on his thigh and rubbed it gently.
“You okay?” You whisper quietly and he nods in response, his hand moving to grasp yourself and thread your fingers together. Harley is there mere moments later, pushing her face as close as she can get without actually climbing onto you both and you smile as Hoseok lets out a quiet laugh, his free hand moving to stroke her gently.
“Was your drive over okay? Is your car still making that noise?” Glancing away from Harley, you look at your dad with raised brows before nodding to him.
“Yeah it was fine, there was no traffic really which is why we’re a bit early. And it doesn’t seem to be doing it now? You can’t look though, Hoseok let me drive his.” Your dad liked to mess around with cars and you knew that given enough chance, he’d have been outside looking over your car already if you’d had it. It was the same car that you’d been driving since high school and it had been old even back then. Now, you were positive that you probably wouldn’t even be able to sell it anymore.
You knew damn well that Hoseok didn’t like it. His own car wasn’t new or anything but it was only five years old. Which meant it was less of a potential death trap than your own car was. He wasn’t hugely territorial about it and you’d driven it a few times already. It wasn’t much to admit that you loved driving it compared to yours.
“Ahh, you should bring it next time and let me have a look at it for you, flower. Although ideally, I hope you can afford to get a new one soon. I don’t like the idea of you driving that around, especially in winter.” Pouting at him, you play with Hoseok’s fingers before shrugging.
“I’d love to buy a new one dad, but I can’t. I am saving though, so I can at least buy one that's only a few years old soon enough. I’ve got my eye on a nice looking Hyundai that’s not too expensive, only four years old and some good mileage too.” He eyes you, lips pursing out before he’s pulling out his smartphone.
“Is there a link online?” Rolling your eyes, you take his phone and bring up the listing for the Hyundai you’d been keeping tabs on for the last month. You put away money each month into your savings account, hoping that you’d eventually one day get enough to put down a deposit on a house or something but you knew that you’d need a new car much sooner.
And you could almost afford to buy this car.
“Your dad calls you flower?” Hoseok whispers to you, smiling in amusement as you sit back, acknowledging the irony of your childhood nickname. Looking up at him, you chuckle and nod in acknowledgement, watching as your mom gets up to head into the kitchen.
“Do you want a drink Hoseok?” She gives you a questioning look as well as you ask for a Coke, watching as Hoseok panics for a moment as he wonders what would be the best to drink to ask for. Grinning, you squeeze his hand affectionately and look back at your mom.
“You can have a beer if you want? I’m driving so I don’t mind.” You can see the wide eyed look of shock from Hoseok, the shock likely that you’re encouraging him to drink and possibly perpetuate his stereotype of being a heavy drinking metalhead. But you know your parents, so you just reassure him with a smile.
“Err...yeah, I mean...yes please. A beer would be nice, if you have one.” That gets a snort from your dad as your mom disappears, returning a minute later with your can of Coke and an opened bottle of Hoseok’s favourite beer. Watching intently, you can’t help but laugh at the confused look on his face as he accepts it carefully.
“Y/N told us what your favourite drink is. We wanted to make you a bit more comfortable.” 
It’s only then that Hoseok’s eyes narrow as he looks at you, lifting your hands up to gently push at your nose until you’re giggling at him, biting your lower lip. He doesn’t say anything though, simply takes a sip of beer before turning and giving your mom a gracious smile.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to-” He goes to say something else but your dad makes a noise, looking up at you both before gesturing to Hoseok sternly.
“We make sure our guests are comfortable in this house. It might not be much to look at, but we always look after our guests. Especially when they mean so much to Y/N.” Glancing at you, his gaze turns back to Hoseok whose cheeks flush slightly, his own gaze dropping from your dads to the neck of his bottle.
Well...you had told him that they were still proud people. 
Scooting forward, you slide off the sofa to situate yourself on the plush carpeted floor of the living room, making fussing noises to Harley who has stretched herself out on the floor in front of you. As you busy yourself with playing with your dog, you don’t notice the way your parents watch Hoseok in turn as he watches you.
“Y/N says that you’re in IT right? And you got that promotion the other month?” You don’t bother to look up, knowing that Hoseok can handle himself and trusting your parents to be as nice to him as they are to everyone else they’ve ever met. 
“Err, yeah. I err, I lead another team. It’s a little hard to describe as we have multiple sites but I’m now like, the manager of two of them. The bonus is more pay and responsibility, which will hopefully be good for my career. The downside is I’m busier...and more responsibility means more stress.” Leaning back against his leg, you look up at him from the floor.
“You’re doing good though. You manage your stress way better than I do.” You can’t quite see him properly from this angle but you do see his smile, pushing your head into his hand a little as he runs his fingers along your cheek.
“That’s debatable. I just...learnt a long time ago some coping methods to deal with it. I was in therapy throughout college. My sister died in a car accident and I developed some very unhealthy coping mechanisms afterwards for a few years. Therapy helped me and it still helps me today thankfully.” Without even realising it, you have one hand gripping onto his calf in an effort to soothe any upset he may have.
You still find it amazing how easily he’ll talk about his sister’s accident but you’re beyond thankful that he’s willing to open himself up like that to your parents. By being honest about such a traumatic event for him so young, he was showing them that he was more than just what he looked like. You hadn’t told him to tell them that story, nor had you even hinted at it. But you assumed that’s what he was doing.
Sure enough, your parents warm right up to him and begin asking him questions about not only his work but his life. And you get to spend the next few hours watching in pleasure as Hoseok relaxes in their company, becoming more like the Hoseok you’ve come to know and enjoy over the last few months.
You’re pretty positive your mom has been won over solely by his personality and good looks while your dad is more fascinated with Hoseok’s skills with computers. That and his tattoos. Hoseok had given you another betrayed look when your dad had shown him the tattoo on his upper left arm and you could almost hear the ‘you never told me’ in his eyes.
All in all though, it went very well and your own anxiety about introducing them all together ebbed away slowly as the evening went on. The dinner your mom cooked was delicious and you were beyond happy that she’d given you a bunch of leftovers in tupperware for your freezer. Hoseok had been equally ecstatic when she’d given him some too, though he’d handed them over to you given that he spent most of his time at yours.
You were positive that hadn’t gone unnoticed by them.
Finally though, it was 10pm and you were getting tired, head lolling on Hoseok’s shoulder as the television played out the film you’d all been watching. Harley was laid on your feet, keeping them warm and you could have happily just fallen asleep right there, content with your boyfriends arm around you and the gentle chatter of your parents.
But Hoseok was gently shaking you awake, an amused smile on his lips before he pressed them to your temple in a gentle kiss. “This is becoming a habit, miss.”
His teasing was light and gentle, but you just gave him a smile back, wiping at your eyes before blinking rapidly to wake them up. You hadn’t worn any makeup today, not seeing the need given all three people in this house had seen you without it plenty of times. 
One of the benefits that you hadn’t considered before was that Hoseok was eager to take your pictures, meaning that he’d volunteered himself to be your photographer and editor for your makeup Instagram. Now your pictures looked even better and it was all thanks to him and his fancy camera, but you knew that despite how much he liked your makeup, he preferred the natural girl he got to see most often.
“Mom, dad, we’re gonna head off now. Thank you for dinner and all the leftovers. And the cookies mom. I appreciate it all and I’m sure Kasumi will love her special homemade cat treats,” Your mom loved Kasumi and wanted to get a cat of her own. Whenever Harley went, you knew that she’d probably get a puppy and a kitten so they could grow up together. “But it’s late and I want to go to bed.”
Stretching, you grunt as your shirt rides up and Hoseok pokes your ribs gently, mischief present in his eyes and you scowl at him before poking at his stomach. Trust him to be wide awake while you’re a bit sleepy. Though he’s ever so slightly glassy eyed from the alcohol, meaning you need to wake up a bit more to drive home.
“You’re welcome, you know we love having you home. We loved meeting you too Hoseok and you’re welcome here anytime as well. With or without Y/N,” You can just imagine Hoseok’s face behind you right now. “We’re pretty open as you can tell and if you ever need us for anything, please just ask.”
“Okay mom, let’s not freak him out anymore okay? Thank you both, I’ll bring my car over soon dad.” Tugging on your shoes, you stand and slip your arms into the jacket Hoseok is holding up for you before bending down and fussing Harley.
“Don’t bother, I’ll give you what you’re missing for that Hyundai-” He holds his hand up when you go to protest, not wanting his charity but you know you’re not going to win given his stern look. “Given how much money we’ve put into that car you have now over the years, I’ll feel better just giving you this for that car and having the peace of mind to know you’re safe. So I’ll transfer it over to you and then I want you to go buy it. Don’t let yourself get ripped off flower, make sure you test drive it first and ask for a full history. Check it all out. Take Hoseok if you have to. I wish it wasn’t like this but you know that they’re less likely to be dicks if there’s a guy there. Especially one that looks like this.” 
With that, he puts a hand on Hoseok’s shoulder and grins. Your boyfriend eyes him for a moment before giving an answering nod, shrugging on his own leather jacket once your dad lets go of him.
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get ripped off. Though she doesn’t need me to take care of her.” He looks at you then, lips quirked up in the corner before he kisses your forehead. “She’s got her homelife put together much better than me.”
“Yeah, that’s right dad. You hear that? I’m doing good. Not having to survive on ramen noodles or anything.” You grin, walking out of the door and turning round to accept the bag of leftover food your mom gives you. Hoseok heads over to the car, opening the passenger door before letting his arms rest on top of it.
“Yeah, sometimes she even makes box pasta.” Glaring at him, you point at him until he gets an innocent look and lifts up both hands, palm out before getting in the car. “That’s right mister, you just wait.”
“I like him.” Your dad says quietly, attracting your attention back to him and you grin, warmth and happiness overflowing inside you at his words. He can’t have any idea how much that means to you, to know that he approves of Hoseok.
“Me too. He’s nice and he obviously cares a lot about you. You’re happy right?” Nodding, you feel hot with embarrassment at the personal conversation with them and your mom laughs softly, reaching out and running her thumb over your cheek. “That’s all we want for you. Now go on, he’s looking impatient.”
“He just wants to see Kasumi, he loves her.” That makes both your parents laugh and you smile in turn, waving to them both as you head down the path to the car. Looking at Hoseok as he waves at your parents as well once you’re in the car, seat belt clicked into place and engine on, you let out a tiny sigh of relief.
One half of the meeting the parents completed. Now just for the other half.
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Becoming A Stark (21)- Peter Parker x Stark!femReader
Word Count: 3067
Warnings: swearing maybe
Author’s Note: Should this have gone up Sunday? Yes. Did it? No. But it’s up now so let’s just pretend I remember what days I’m supposed to upload on lol
Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List
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“So what kind of shopping are we doing?” Pepper has a feeling that this is something more specific than just you wanting to go shopping, but she’s trying to let you broach the topic. She’s hoping that Peter finally got the nerve up to ask you to the dance.
“Um I need a dress.”
“Like go to Buffalo Exchange dress?”
“Something a little nicer than that.” You avoid her gaze as you mutter the next sentence. “I got asked to Homecoming.”
“Ah.” Pepper smiles to herself. “Who’s the lucky person who gets to be your date?”
“Peter.” 
“And have you told your dad yet.” You shake your head. “You worried about his reaction.” 
“That and I’m technically grounded.”
“Well, I give you the official pardon to go to the dance. But you do need to tell him you’re going.”
“Really?” Your eyes pop up to meet hers.
“Really. So what kind of dress are you wanting? Cocktail length? Floor length? Any particular color?”
“I think cocktail length and something with pockets so I don’t have to worry about Queenie.” Pepper turns to Happy and tells him to take her to her normal dress store. 
“We’ll find you a couple nice dresses.”
“I only need one.”
“But there’s a couple SI events coming up in the next six months or so that I think Tony would like you to be at so having a few nice dresses would be a good thing.”
“Ok.” You’ve grown more open to spending money in the past few months of living with Tony, but you don’t love doing it. “How many events are coming up that I have to go to?”
“There’s three that I can think of that your dad will probably want you to be at attendance at.”
“So can we set the bar at three dresses?” Pepper looks at you in confusion. “I can wear the same dress for Homecoming and one of the events so then I just need two more.”
“Always more practical. If your dad was here, you’d walk out with half a dozen.”
“And that’s why we didn’t invite him.” You shake your head imagining buying six dresses at once. Happy pulls into a parking spot outside of the fanciest dress shop you’ve ever seen. Pepper sees the hesitation marking your face. She takes one of your hands in hers.
“It’s ok. This place is great at doing alterations which is one of the reasons I love them. Which means we can make sure that if your dress doesn’t have pockets we can add it.” You nod as you try to swallow the lump in your throat. “Now let’s have some fun.” You follow Pepper towards the front door, feeling too shabby in your jeans and Pink Floyd Carnegie Hall T-shirt. Part of you also wishes you had chosen shoes other than your red high tops, but at least your feet will be comfortable. 
“Pepper Potts! We’ve missed seeing you here.”
“Hello Jeffrey.” Pepper is enveloped in a hug by a tall, dark skinned man. “I’d like you to meet Tony’s daughter Y/N. She needs some dresses for some events coming up.”
“Aren’t you a stunner? I see Tony in your eyes and your smile. And I definitely can think of some wonderful pieces we could put you in.” He ushers the two of you towards a couple racks of dresses. “But I would love to see what you’re drawn towards before I just pick up anything that I think you would look killer in.” Pepper smiles at you. You look towards the racks of dresses in front of you to see what you can find. This is a different experience than any other time you’ve been shopping for dresses. Usually it’s whatever you can find that you like in your size at a thrift store. But this time, there’s so many different sizes of the same dress and signs saying if they don’t have your size they can order one for you. You let your hands run along the fabric in front of you, feeling the different dresses. The first one your hand falls on that you can’t take your eyes off of is a navy blue dress that is cocktail length, with a v-neck and spaghetti straps.
“That one is beautiful.”
“We also have that one in red on that rack over there.” Jeffrey points to the other rack. You’re pulled towards the blue color, but red could be a good option. 
“Can I try them both on?”
“Of course.” Jeffrey glances at the tag for the size and pulls a matching red dress off the rack a moment later. He offers to take the blue one from your hand. “Keep looking. I’ll hold on to these.” You push through some of the dresses until your hand falls upon another navy dress. This one is a high/low dress, at least in terms of the over layer which is a gauzy material. It also has spaghetti straps, but this time it has a sweetheart neckline and is accented with sequins.
“That one would be a great one for homecoming.” Pepper comments.
“One more.” You say thinking back to the comment about three dresses.
“You can try more than three styles, honey.” Pepper replies with a smile. “Even if you say we’re only buying three.”
“I don’t want to be greedy.” You say as you look through the dresses in front of you. There are two that are calling to you. The first is a lilac one. It has cap sleeves, a higher neckline that the other two you’ve pulled already, and will probably hit at about knee length with it’s lacey overlay. Plus it has a sash to it that you like the look of. The other is white, which you normally wouldn’t be drawn towards but you are. It’s fairly simple, mostly tule with some blue flower accents sewn into the overlay. You pull both off the rack.
“That one is stunning.” Pepper says looking at the white one. It doesn’t have sleeves, but you kind of like that it doesn’t. “And lavender would be a great color on you.” Jeffrey takes both from you. “Do you want to try on some longer dresses as well?” Pepper asks.
“Do I need longer ones?”
“Not necessarily, but you could have a long dress for some of the events your dad may suggest going to as a backup.”
“Uh, ok then.”
“How about you try on the ones you pulled and I’ll pull some longer ones based on what it seems like you like?” Jeffrey suggests, noticing you seem a little overwhelmed.
“That sounds like a plan.” Jeffrey leads you to a dressing room where you strip out of your clothing and put on the first of the dresses, the navy dress. It’s fairly low cut, but you don’t hate it. Plus it already has pockets so that’s an added bonus. You step out of the dressing room to show Pepper.
“How do you feel about it?” She asks.
“Well it has pockets which I like. But I feel like with how low cut it is Dad will never let me out of the house.”
“It’s not that low cut. Plus it comes up higher here to make it classy still.” Pepper points out. “Can I take a picture of it?”
“Sure. I should probably send it to Astrid and Betty since I told them I was going to go dress shopping with you instead.”
“You should have invited them to come along.”
“I don’t think they could have afforded this place.” You say honestly. You had already seen the triple digits on the price tag on this dress and now feel guilty about agreeing to even three dresses.
“Your dad-”
“Don’t say Dad could have bought them dresses too. That’s too much. Even buying one of these dresses seems like too much. I could have gotten a dress at Macy’s for like sixty bucks.”
“Your dad doesn’t mind.”
“I know he doesn’t but I do.” The words burst out of you before you can stop them. “I’m sorry Pepper.”
“It’s still new, I get it.” Pepper reaches her arms out to you and pulls you in for a hug. “It’s overwhelming isn’t it.”
“Yeah.” You mumble into her shirt. “It just doesn’t feel like I should be the one to receive all of this.”
“Well you deserve this. Your dad wants you to have anything and everything you want. But more importantly, he wants you to know you’re loved.” 
“I know I am. You two tell me a lot.”
“Well you are.”
“I shouldn’t be freaking out over a dress. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“You don’t freak out over him buying you clothing.”
“That’s because I worked for him before I dated him. Him buying stuff for me wasn’t unusual. You got thrown into having him be your dad out of the blue. It’s a different situation. And if it takes more time to handle it then that’s what we do. If we just walk out of here with one dress, or no dresses, then that’s what we do.”
“That would be a waste of today though.”
“Not if it makes you more comfortable.” Pepper’s hand runs through your hair. “We’re doing what makes you comfortable.”
“I think…. we should keep on trying on the dresses and then make decisions.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” She looks at the dress you’re wearing. “So a picture of it to send to friends and then which one next?” 
“I think maybe the red one. I know I like the dress so see what it looks like in another color.” You make your way through the dresses, cutting the sequin dress, the red one since you like the navy version better, and the lilac one since there was just something about how it sat that both you and Pepper didn’t like. The white one might be the winner so far, but there was something about the blue one that you still loved. Pepper took pictures of both so you could send them to Astrid and Betty. 
“I have a few long dresses that I think would look good on you Y/N.” Jeffrey says. “What did we think about the short ones?”
“I think right now only these two are still in the running.” You say pointing at the two that you’re waiting to hear from Betty and Astrid about.
“Perfect. I’ll take the others off your hands. So I have three dresses for you to try. There are probably a million more I could find that would look amazing on you. But I thought I’d limit it for right now.” He hangs three more dresses in your dressing room before taking the dresses you decided against.
You take the first one off the hanger. It’s a pale baby blue color with a neckline that matches the navy dress you like. However all over the tulle skirt and body, it’s covered with little flower details. You slip into it and look at yourself in the mirror. It’s a little long, seeing how you’re not that tall, but you like it. As you walk outside, Pepper smiles at you. “That’s a gorgeous dress.”
“It’s too long though. I’d spend all night tripping over it.”
“That’s an easy alteration.” Jeffrey points out. “And Pepper was saying about how you want your dresses to have pockets. I know the other two for sure adding pockets would be easy and I don’t think it would be that hard to add it on this one either.”
“But more importantly what do you think about it?” Pepper asks.
“I like the dress, but I’m not sure if I like it on me?” Your answer comes out like a question since you’re not sure if that even makes sense. “I think it’s the color. I think it’s too pale for me right now.”
“Ok, well how about you try on one of the other ones?” Pepper suggests, not trying to change your mind. You make your way back into the dressing room, lifting the skirt so you don’t fall and unzip the dress. You slide it off, making sure to not let it catch on Queenie. The next dress is a dark emerald green color and you kind of already love the color. It rests off your shoulder and it has pockets already so no alteration is needed there, you think to yourself as you clip Queenie on. The only thing you’re hesitant about is the huge slit up the left side of the dress. Is it too mature in your dad’s mind? 
“You look stunning.” Pepper says as you walk out of the dressing room. “What do you think?”
“I think Dad might have a heart attack over this.” You point to the slit. 
“He let you waltz in and out of the house in shorts. I don’t think the slit is going to be that big of a deal. Can I take a picture of it?”
“The slit?”
“The dress, honey. You look so pretty in it.”
“Oh sure.” You smile as Pepper snaps the photo on her phone. She sends it to you, thinking you’ll probably want to send it to your best friends. “I’m going to try on the last dress.”
The last dress is gorgeous too. Even just on the hanger you can tell that. But as you slip it on you think you might be torn between this one and the green one. This one also rests off your shoulders, but unlike the last one that went straight across, this one dips into a little bit of a sweetheart neckline. The bottom of the dress is entirely tulle. You clip Queenie to the back of the dress for now. That’s the only thing this dress needs- pockets. You walk out of the dressing room and can tell just from her face that Pepper likes it too.
“That one would be perfect for the SI Christmas Gala if you like it.”
“It’s really pretty, but I also really like the green one.”
“There’s nothing saying you can’t get both.” Pepper says.
“But then I need to choose between the other dresses.” You bite the inside of your lip. “Can you take a picture of this one so I can send it to Astrid and Betty? If I don’t send them all the options, I might get murdered.” Pepper takes the picture for you and after you send it, you start to turn around to go get changed. 
“If you’re torn between the other two but you’re going to get this one, we can get the alterations done while we wait for your friends to reply. We can put the other three behind the counter while you make up your mind.” Jeffrey suggests. 
“Sure.” Pepper is glad to hear that you’ve at least made up your mind on at least two of the dresses. If it is up to Pepper, she would buy you all the dresses. But she doesn’t want to overwhelm you so she’ll let you make a decision. As the alterations go on with the red dress, your phone blows up with Astrid and Betty making comments about your dresses. You glance at the screen and read over their messages. “Pepper we have a problem.”
“What’s the problem? I’m a pretty good problem solver.”
“Astrid voted for the blue dress and Betty voted for the white one.” You run a hand through your hair. “So we’re at an impasse. I don’t know which one to get.”
“You know who could give you their vote?” Pepper says.
“Who?”
“Your dad.”
“Won’t he just freak out on the why I’m buying dresses?”
“He knows there’s functions coming up. He doesn’t have to know they’re for Homecoming.” Pepper offers. “I can even send him the pictures if you want.” 
“Ok. I guess we can get his vote.” Pepper sends the text off to Tony with the two dresses it’s between. 
P: Pick one of these.
T: Buy her both.
P: That doesn’t help. She wants to make a decision between the two.
T: They both look good on her. She can save them for a later date if she doesn’t wear them to whichever one. But don’t we have like three events coming up? 
P: I didn’t say these were the only dresses she’s looking at.
T: Show me all of them. 
T: Please
“Your dad votes to buy both. He also wants to see the other dresses. Can I send them to him?”
“I should have known he would be no help in the situation.” You roll your eyes. “Send him the pictures if you want. He’ll see them eventually anyway.” Pepper shoots off the other pictures.
T: You’re getting those two right?
P: If she let’s me, yes.
T: She should get all of them, she looks amazing.
T: Tell me where you are and I’ll come buy all of them. 
P: Buying them isn’t the issue.
“Your dad is just saying get them all.” 
“We said three though.”
“Technically you said there. I have no problem with getting all of them if you want to. And Tony is clearly ok with the idea of getting them all too.” Pepper says as you two walk towards the front counter to make a final decision.
“But I have no need for four dresses.” You say looking to where the four dresses are hanging.
“If you’re worried about that, your dad gets a million invites a year. He just chooses not to go to a lot of them. You and I can always go for him so we can use the dresses he buys. It’s more do you want them or not.”
“Wanting them isn’t the issue. I can want a million different things. I shouldn’t spend that much money on just dresses.” You say with a shrug.
“How about we get them and when you’re done with them we can find a place that utilizes dresses for girls who aren’t as fortunate?” Your eyebrows come together as you think about what Pepper’s offering. “Plus I have some that I can probably already get rid of. We can take a look when we get home.”
“Really?”
“Really. Now let’s buy your dresses and get home. I think I hear an afternoon of movies calling our names.”
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yamithediaperdork · 3 years
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Two kinks, One love. (Soul eater)
Two Kinks one love
It was just after sun set, but in Death city two boys were about to engage in a very out of the norm date by any stretch of the imagination. They had run into each other while out and about, indulging in their respective fetishes late one night and while both had been shocked, they had also quickly fallen hard for each other.
The first Boy was the son of Lord death, the slightly prissy but kind hearted Death the kid. he'd been wearing his favorite black dress which came down to just above his knees and had been wearing pantyhose too of course, like a proper lady. Black high highs that he could run in without pause and a black purse, his make up had been spot on and he looked fabulous and knew it. It was the worst kept secret that the son of lord death was a trap, but most people just pretended not to notice because either they didn't care, thought he was MUCH nicer in girlie mode or well, who wants to piss him off? The second boy was in a small group of those who didn't know Kid prefer to be a sexy trap, though that was because he was busy with his only little fetish wear love. He was Black star, a legend in the making (if you listened to him) And he was also a goo goo gaga big baby. The night they met he'd been going on a waddle of shame and had been in 3 thick diapers that puffed out the crotch and butt of his black diaper shirt and blue short-all's (that of course, had his trademark sign on the front pocket.) He'd also been sporting blue sneakers with black laces that lit up in the back as he went for his once around the block waddle of shame and it had been by chance (or maybe fate) that the two had stumbled onto each other.
Black had been rounding the corner, after almost going into a late night shop for ice cream but then recalling he had left his wallet at home so no one could id him. (Silly when you consider how well he stood out and his instance on making sure everyone knew him..but it was a well know fact putting diapers on a big baby reduces logic by 40 percent.)  In any case, he knew his store credit was tapped out and decided to call it a night. looking back at the shop he wasn't paying attention to where he was going and bumped into a pretty lady sending them both down to the ground. "Oh Gosh! I-I'm Sorry!" Black whined, trying to scamper but but the bulk around his hips made that a bit harder then normal.  "I wasn't paying attention to where I was.." And Black trailed off as he looked down and recognized in a instant the face of the 'lady' he had bumped into, Kid! "heh..It's ok Little guy." Kid said, eyes narrowing in on the padded crotch. "Little boys like you shouldn't be out here along. where's your mommy?" Black gulped BIG time at that, He had always loved the idea of having a mommy for his diaper adventures but was gay as could be..and suddenly a obvious solution he had never thought of had just bumped into him.
Kid himself had been soaking in the semi attention and had let his gaze drift, looking at a dress on display in a store shop window and so had been just as responsible for the collision as the little guy. Looking up and seeing Black dressed like a over sized un-potty trained toddler Kid almost had little hearts in his eyes. if there was one thing he loved more then being a hot little trap walking the town.. it was being a good mommy dom. Sadly his picks for big babies in the city had been limited to Liz Thompson due to her cry baby ways. it wasn't that the older Thompson didn't make a good baby (she did, very much so) it was more that due to her doing it by request not want she could be difficult at times. But here in front of him dressed perfectly on his own free will.. Meow~ "well, I asked you a question little star~" Kid said getting up and smiling ear to eye and then dusting Black off first then himself. "I..I don't..have..a mommy..Miss Kid" Black said, blushing and poking two fingers together. "Do you want one?" Kid asked and winked. "YESH! I-I Mean..if that's ok with yo-" And Black was silenced as Kid kissed the baby on the lips.
From then on Black had been mommies little guy and despite some of the challenges involved (read: Black's mega poopie diapers) neither of them had looked back on it, and while they both wanted it to be a more 24/7 thing they both knew realistically with their duties and responsibilities that just wasn't possible. Besides, while Kid was more or less out in the open, Black was mostly unknown as a public diaper boy having kept his adventure to around his block. He wasn't ready for EVERYONE to know his favorite place to make boom boom was in the seat of his pants.
But tonight was date night, and it was Kid's turn to host. truthfully either place would of done for their in house date nights butttt Black's place had a funk to it that wasn't from the diaper pail the big baby maintained and more from his poor cleaning habits. Kid had taken the guest room of his place and turned it into any big baby boys dream nursery (and Black had been clear, he was a baby BOY..Mommy might be able to pull a dress off but not him.) and held out hope that one of these days Black would finally take him up on the offer to move in. Their friends knew they were dating of course (just not all the fun details) so it wasn't like that was holding them back. Kid was jolted out of that train of thought as his door bell rang and before he went to answer it he stopped and checked his reflection in a full body mirror. He had gone with a stepford house wife dress for tonight, reaching down past his knees and in a white with pink floral print on it and had a white apron on over it. he was wearing a pair of white socks tugged up high and a pair of pink flat heels and have a pair of pearl earrings in. a light bit of make up was on, some eye linger, lipstick and blush, and he smiled at his reflection and blew a little kiss as the doorbell rang again. "Best not keep the baby waiting darling." he scolded himself and walked to the door with a soft clip clap from his shoes on the hard wood floor. answering the door Kid was a little disappointed (though not shocked) to see that Black had come over in jean's and a t-shirt, though he'd brought his 'diaper' bag so to speak and had it slung over a shoulder. it was of course really just a tote bag but Kid made sure to refer to it as such as while he had loads of supplies, he made sure that Black would bring his own ba-ba and first diaper(s) to help him get used to carrying his baby gear around in public. (and maybe just a tiny bit to try and drive home if Black lived with kid, he wouldn't have to lug the stuff around) "There's my little guy~" Kid coo'ed and smiled, loving how bright the boys cheeks lit up when he was the one dressed like a 50's house wife. Standing to the side he gestured for Black to come in. "well come on, are you gonna stand there and squirm looking at mommy till you have a accident or come in and get di-" Kid started but Black let out a soft yelp and dashed in the house. "..works every time." Kid chuckled and waved to a neighbor who had been watching with quiet amusement then shut the door.
Black was squirming and huffy as he waited for mommy in the living room, having made sure to slid his sneakers off. "I wish you wouldn't do that." he sulked as mommy came into view. That wasn't exactly the strictest of truths.. he didn't wanna be a outed big baby but mommies teasing had a small part of him all excited "Mhmmm.. I know you hate it sooo much.." Kid teased and eyed the front of Black's tight pants that gave him away. "Come on little man, let's get you in a nice thick diapie before you piddle all over mommies floor again." Kid coo'ed and coming in close, tickled onto Black's chin and made the boy squirm and giggle even as he tried to huff. "Mommmmmmyyyy! that was ONE time!" He whined, hating/loving how small and little Kid could make him feel with a few well chosen words and just a chin tickle. "And that one time too many. Come along now." Kid coo'ed and gently took the little guy by the wrist, leading him to the nursery.  "Did you pack one of your super thick diapies like a good boy? or does mommies have to use one of the ones we have here?" Black whined and squirmed. he had SORTA kinda maybe been trying to just bring thin diapers over here..not because he wanted thin but well mommy had SO many thick ones here and he only had about 5 left and was trying to save his. Sadly for the little rascal mommy had figured him out and loved to tease. "I uh..well..see.." Black started up. "That's what i thought. you know, not to beat a dead horse but if you moved in you could have ALL the massive diapies you could want little man. I'll order anther pack and have them ship it to your place tomorrow though. just food for thought." Black star nodded and just let mommy take control, knowing that mommy knew best.
The nursery had baby blue walls with some silly chibi ninja's painted on them here and there fighting chibi monsters and the floor was covered with a plush cream white rug so if the baby lost his balance he wouldn't hurt his tush on the floor. (Of course with the thickness o0f Black's diapers it wasn't likely to happen but hey, Kid paid for all of this so he was allowed to justify it as he saw fit.) there was a wooden crib that had been made to order so could handle a bigger babies weight and left the little guy lots of room to play in by one wall, and it had been painted light black by black's request. (the little guy had wanted to help paint it but Kid had foreseen the mess THAT would of ended with and had told a little fib that the builders insisted on painting it themselves.) there was a cream white colored changing table, again made to order and had a black cushioned top those the cover was waterproof and made for easy clean up in the event of leaks. It also had a set of drawers on the side that held the different baby powders, rash creams and of course diapers that Kid's big baby had picked out one night in Kid's lap squealing and giggling. 'I'm gonna make him a spoiled rotten brat.' Kid mused briefly. 'ah well..he'll be MY spoiled rotten brat.' Adding to the spoiled brat theory was the MASSIVE toy chest that even as big as it was couldn't be fully shut from just how many toys little Black had, and there was a shelf built on a wall filled with nursery tale and story tale books. Of course one of the most important parts of the nursery had actually been the cheapest..it was a large metal diaper pail that Kid had stenciled 'BLACK STAR'  onto and helped keep his little man's nursery smelling like baby powder and love instead of poopie diapers.
"You strip down like a good boy sweetie while mommy goes and picks out something adorable for you to wear..unless you wanna just go in your diapies tonight." Kid said and smirked. "IIIII um..yeah..just diapies sounds good ta me..we're gonna eat soon anyways and then you'll hafa just strip me down after anyways mommy." "oh how true! such a clever baby I have!" Kid coo'ed and more chin tickles. "I guess i can help the silly big baby strip then." Black squirmed and nodded, and then just relaxed and followed orders as Mommy would tell him to raise his arms or the like while 'she' got him undressed, getting him down to his his little ghoulies briefs.(Little Ghoulies of course being Black's favorite toddler show) "oh my.. Somebody either been having accidents or just isn't very good at wiping!" Kid teased, clicking his touge as he looked at the large brown stains in the back of the undies. "and I JUST got these for you last week little man." "S-Sorry Mommy. I um..I just.. I had some not farts an-" Black mewed and pointed his index fingers together. "Shhh it's ok. I knew what I was getting into when I brought a big baby big kid undies. though maybe we better start looking into some pull ups for when your playing big boy." Kid coo'ed and kissed Black's cheek, making him tent out his briefs and shushing any argument, at least for the moment. hooking his thumbs in the waist band he tugged the undies down with one smooth practiced monition and then took a step back and clapped his hands and gestured towards his widdle boy. "Come on, walk out of your stinky undies and over to mommy~" "Yesh mama.." Black gurgled and Kid almost melted as he did so, with arms outstretched. 'it's official. i am the god damn luckiest mommydom trap in the world.' Kid mentally gushed and then helped the big baby up onto the changing table. sure the little guy smelled a little and had a few poo stains on his cheeks, but Kid figured with them having a whole night together he could just give the little guy a bath after din din. "Nowww what kinda diaper does my widdle guy want on, aside from thick. Baby blocks? Space ships? zoo print?" Kid asked tickling Black's tummy and black giggled and coo'ed. "Ummm All three!" he said and giggled more. "oh, somebody want to crawl tonight hmmm? Maybe after your bath sweetie. for now we'll go with baby blocks." Kid chuckled. "Awwww..dun want a bath! I smell nice and sweet!" Black pouted and then to prove his point raised his left arm up and took a whiff of his pit..and coughed.  "Then again..Mommy knows best." "mmmhmm. and don't you forget it~" Kid chuckled.
With baby black padded and a sucking on a white mouth guard paci that was attached to a black cord hanging around his neck (kid couldn't very well use a shirt clip if the little guy wasn't gonna wear a shirt after all.) he helped the baby down and then got out five toys for black to play with, though they were Black's choice as Kid would pick them out one at a time and hold them up for a head nod or shake. Black meanwhile suckled away and enjoyed the sight of mommy's butt when he bent over, sometimes mommies dress would ride up a little and ALMOST maybe give a peek at what kinda panties he was wearing. It didn't really bug Black that while Kid saw him naked and in his 'undies' most of the time, Black could count on one hand the amount of times he'd seen Kid's Bra and panties. that just wasn't the kinda relationship they had, though then did find ways to make love in their own fashion. Finally picking out a stuffed bear in a tux, a green and purple dragon stuffie, a stereo type bed-sheet ghost stuffie, a teddy in a suit of armor and finally a tiger stuffie he started to play with them, mumbling around his paci and making drool go down his chin. Kid watched mentally gushing and while he wished he could hear the cute little adventure that was being played out as Black loved to narrate, it was worth it to hear him mumbling around his paci. he could of stood there watching for hours honestly but the front door rang and he sighed, why of ALL the nights had his usual delivery place had to of lived up to it's 30 minutes or under delivery time? "Din din's here buddy, can you put your toys away and come meet mommy in the kitchen while he goes and pays?" Kid asked, patting Blacks head. Black whined a little and mumbled something, then sighed like ALL of the worlds problems were on him and nodded.
getting to the front door Kid opened it without checking and found himself looking face to face with soul. "Alright ma'am i got a order of...of..Kid?! Kid is that you?!" Soul asked, being anther one of the rare people not to know about the trap. "uh..yeah.. " kid said and blushed then smiled. "anyways, my order?" "I..oh wow. heh. I didn't know you and black were this kinky! wait, is he a little sissy too?" soul asked. "I believe it's none of your business. now can you ple-" Kid started, but then a loud "MOMMY! I SLIPPED COME KISS MY BOO BOO'S BETTER !!" was heard from the living room and Kid facepalmed while soul laughed. "you know what, I think i got a pretty good idea.. Mommy." Soul chuckled, and took the money he was offered for the food and tipped the hat of his delivery uniform. "You and your widdle one have a good supper Ma'am." he said and then took off. "..Hoo boy..this isn't gonna be fun to explain." Kid thought as he closed the door.
The end.
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dimitrescus-bitch · 3 years
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Mixtape of Our Love - Chapter 3: Sleep Now in the Fire
"Come on, everybody else's girlfriend goes to watch the practices," Will pleaded with JJ. The two of them had been standing in the parking lot for the past five minutes since school had let out. JJ knew that Will wasn't really asking much, he never really asked too much of her. He had been fine with her distancing herself since she'd been taken off of her medication. He had been fine with JJ spending her nights with her friends instead of going on dates with him. Will had been good about all that stuff because he felt like JJ had been good to him before. Now though, there were times when he wondered if she was really invested in their relationship anymore.
"Okay, I'll be up there in a couple minutes," JJ said and Will leaned in to kiss her. JJ moved her head to the side a bit so that Will's kiss landed on her cheek instead of her mouth. Will frowned when JJ turned around and got into her car.
"I'll see you up there," Will said and JJ nodded. He ran over to a teammate's truck and got in the bed, joining a few of his other teammates.
"Sorry guys," JJ said as she turned to Garcia and Reid. "I'll drop you guys off real quick."
"We could have walked home. It's not too long," Reid and JJ shook her head. "You don't have to drive us everywhere."
"Reid, it's safer if I drive you," JJ pointed out. Garcia glanced at JJ, knowing the blonde felt bad about the couple of instances last year whenever she'd gotten sick and Reid had walked to and from school. It didn't help that Reid refused to accept the new copy of the book that had been ruined when some assholes threw Reid's backpack into a storm drain. Neither Garcia nor Reid decided to argue with JJ on that, especially since it was true. People may have been nice to JJ, but that curtesy was not normally extended to Penelope and Reid.
JJ dropped off her friends and then promptly turned her car around back towards the school. At a stoplight, she connected her phone to her car's radio and pressed play on her favorite playlist. Immediately, she was filled with a familiar feeling as the opening riff of one of JJ's favorite songs started. It wasn't often that JJ could just sit in her car, listen to music, and think about nothing. Instead of getting that chance at relaxation, she was going to watch her boyfriend's football practice. JJ loved sports, she always had, but nobody really cared to watch the practices, they wanted the games. JJ would never have asked Will to go to a soccer practice, especially since she knew he barely paid attention to her games when he went.
"You don't have to wait here. I'd be happy to drop you off at your place," Haley told Emily. "Aaron told me that you're not really interested in football. This gets boring for people who are interested."
"If I get too bored, I'll call for a car I guess," Emily half-joked. Haley wasn't quite sure whether or not she was supposed to laugh at that. Emily's had good humor, but occasionally she'd joke about things that most people didn't really understand.
"Most people say they'll get an Uber or Lyft," JJ said, spooking Emily a bit. Emily and Haley both turned to where JJ was leaning against the side of her car. Emily noted that JJ wasn't wearing the same outfit that she had been during lunch. JJ's skinny jeans were traded in for a pair of basketball shorts and her floral top had been traded in for a Patriots shirt with the sleeves and part of the bottom cut off. Emily would have been lying if she said that she didn't find JJ to be very attractive in that outfit. Well, she'd have been lying if she had said she didn't find JJ generally attractive. JJ was the kind of girl that Emily knew her mother would have liked her to be on some level: preppy, popular, and athletic.
"I wasn't talking about those things. I shouldn't let strangers know where an ambassador's house is," Emily pointed out. JJ pushed off of the side of the car and walked over towards Emily and Haley. Haley joined the other cheerleaders and Emily followed JJ over to the bleachers. It took a whole 10 minutes for JJ to decide that she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else.
"Wanna go get a pizza?" JJ asked Emily randomly. "There's this place that has like experimental-type shit. It's pretty cool."
"Won't William get mad that you just left?" Emily asked and JJ shook her head. "Oh, that's very cool of him."
"I just need to tell him that I got hungry," JJ said as she sent a text to Will. JJ stood up and offered a hand to Emily, who accepted it. The two of them walked back to JJ's car and on instinct, JJ got the door for Emily.
"Oh, thank you." Emily sat down in the passenger's seat and JJ shut the door. She jogged over to the driver's side and opened the door. She slid into her own seat, buckled up, and then shut the door. JJ put her keys in the ignition and turned the engine on. For a moment, the car made a sputtering noise, but started right up. "I don't think your car is supposed to sound like that."
"It's kind of old, but nothing I can't fix," JJ said with a wink. Emily turned her head away from JJ slightly and bit the corner of her lip. JJ switched on the radio, hoping that Emily liked whatever Garcia had put it to that morning. "I don't know what kind of music you like, so I hope this is okay."
"It's definitely interesting," Emily said. She smiled as the song that Garcia had been humming during their homeroom came on. "I take it this is Garcia's station pick. Reid strikes me more as a classical kind of guy."
"He definitely is and yeah, Garcia picked this station this morning," JJ answered. "I let them have full control over the radio when I drive. It doesn't really matter what's playing most of the time though, we tend to be a talkative little group."
"It's nice to have people that you feel comfortable talking around." JJ glanced over at Emily, noting the slightly sad tone in her voice. Emily brushed it off quickly though, tapping her fingers to the beat of the song on her lap.
"Garcia definitely likes you, and I think Reid does too. Sometimes it's hard to tell. If any of us overstep, just tell us," JJ said and Emily nodded. The two of them spent the rest of the ride in silence, but unlike the silences that Emily was used to, this one wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. Emily could tell that JJ was still trying to get a feel for her still. In a lot of ways, Emily was trying to get a feel for JJ too. The general consensus on JJ was that she was a nice and welcoming person, which Emily honestly had to agree with. "We're here!"
"What is that smell?" Emily asked as she got out of JJ's car. It was definitely coming from the pizza place. JJ's face contorted a bit when it hit her, but she gave Emily a small smile and then walked into the pizza place. Once they were inside, an array of different scents hit them. It smelled like pizza, but also like some very distinct toppings. JJ grabbed Emily's wrist and gently pulled her over to a table. A waiter handed them menus and two cups so that they could get their drinks when they were ready.
"What sounds good to you?" JJ asked Emily as they both flipped through the menu. "They don't really a whole lot of the same things from the last time I was here."
"Well, what did you get?" Emily asked and JJ thought back on when Garcia had brought her there to pick up pizza for game night.
"It was sort of like a regular pizza, but there were mozzarella stick bits on top," JJ told her. "I'm thinking of getting a slice of the Cheetos pizza and then we can share a dessert one if you'd like. The slices are pretty big here."
"I guess that sounds good," Emily said as she flipped through the menu. Most of what she saw seemed too weird to actually be good. This was obviously a gimmick restaurant, something that was created to make Buzzfeed headlines and attract hipsters. Growing slightly frustrated with the lack of appealing choices, Emily huffed and just set the menu down. The same waiter from before walked over to them to take their orders. JJ gave hers first and then Emily just asked for a slice of cheese pizza and he walked off. There was a number card left at their table so that nobody took it while they were getting their drinks.
"Sometimes Reid, Garcia, and I come here just to see if they got any new sodas in," JJ said as she looked at the selection.
"Anything new?" Emily asked and JJ shook her head. JJ kept looking for something specific, exclaiming a little in excitement when she found it. Emily kept on looking at the selection until she stumbled upon something she'd tried in Prague, but never found anywhere else.
"Is that any good?" JJ asked as she watched Emily get her drink. The color was off-putting to say the very least. Emily's mother had let her go to one of the factories where it was made and if not for the extra dye, it would have been a very nice and warm brown color, like a cider. Instead, there was a greenish tint to the brown that made it look a little sickening.
"Once you get past the color, it's great," Emily told her. JJ nodded and led Emily back to their table. Minutes later, their pizza came and neither of them had to figure out a good conversation topic just yet. "There's a blueberry flavor that looks a lot nicer. It doesn't as strong of a flavor though."
"Sometimes subtle flavors are nice," JJ said thoughtlessly. Emily could see a bit of distance behind her eyes as she stared off towards the window. Thinking that maybe someone was there, Emily turned around, but didn't see anybody from school. JJ's phone started to buzz, distracting both of them for a moment.
"Sorry, I have to take this. It's Will," JJ said and Emily nodded. JJ slid away from their table and stepped outside. Emily watched as she paced around on the sidewalk. Emily felt a little guilty watching JJ, so she turned away and focused back on her pizza. It wasn't a simple cheese pizza. Yes, there was mozzarella, but there were also cheeses that Emily had definitely only eaten in France.
She remembered that night well because it'd been the last one she spent there before her mother was moved to a new embassy. It was one of the few times that Emily and Elizabeth had genuinely enjoyed spending time with each other. Emily knew that her mother loved her, but it was difficult for the two of them to relate. Yes, Emily did what she could to be a daughter that her parents could be proud of, but there were definitely things that Emily knew she did that Elizabeth wished she wouldn't. But for that night, there was no tension between the Prentiss women at all and Emily had come out of that dinner with a greater understanding of the difficulties of trying to parent with her mother's job.
"Hey, you okay?" JJ asked. Emily hadn't noticed that JJ had come back inside of the pizza place. For a moment, Emily wondered how long JJ had been there before saying something. She had to been there long enough to notice that something was weighing on Emily's mind. Taking a deep breath, Emily turned to where JJ was sitting back down in her chair.
"I'm fine. The cheese got me thinking about a dinner I had with my mom in France before we left." Emily hadn't expected herself to have answered so honestly. She had known JJ for maybe a week and a half now, but the blonde had a trustworthy vibe and Emily had a knack for figuring out the vibes of other people. She had met a lot of genuinely scummy people and JJ wasn't one of them, nor was on the path to becoming one. "Nostalgia I guess."
"Man, I almost forgot that you got to travel the world before getting stuck here," JJ said with a chuckle. "Is Europe nice?"
"Very, the parts of it I stayed at. If you get the chance to see it, you should," Emily advised her.
"And if I don't?" JJ asked. It was almost flirty, the tone of her voice and the way that she leaned in towards Emily a bit.
"My mom's got a private plane that I'm sure I could get for a week or so." JJ leaned back a bit, unsure of whether or not Emily was being serious. Emily kept in her amusement at the sort of shocked look on JJ's face and just focused on finishing her pizza and soda.
"I might just have to take you up on that."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The call from her mother on her drive home that there was a gift waiting for her in the garage had excited JJ. Her parents, at least her father, knew that JJ's car had been making suspicious noises for the past month or so. JJ also knew that her parents had been helping her grandpa pick out a new truck to possibly get. JJ had gotten to be included on the conversation a few times, and she'd helped them decide on one at a smaller lot that wouldn't be as expensive as one from the city. So, yes, JJ had sped home to see if the old truck was in the garage waiting for her.
"Hell yeah," JJ muttered as she saw the truck sitting there. She'd be getting a paint job, maybe a nice sky blue or possibly a glossy black. The old and faded red may have been aesthetically pleasing on the farm, but JJ was not planning on keeping it there. Even if the gas mileage sucked on the truck, she could use it until her dad told her what she needed to fix her own car. JJ turned the truck on and almost immediately noticed that it'd need new headlights. When she went to take it for a little spin, she noticed that the tires also were starting to need to be replaced.
The garage had headlights somewhere. JJ remembered her dad talking about bringing in the truck to try and keep it in good shape. It was older, but it was also a genuinely nice vehicle. The new headlights were sitting in the box, unopened. JJ contemplated waiting a while and just buying some LEDs whenever she had the time, but if she needed to go out at night, she wanted a more trustworthy vehicle than her car. JJ popped the hood of the truck and felt around the front until she hit the headlight holder. She leaned down a bit to make sure she properly disconnected the wires before taking out the old bulb. She put the new ones in and reconnected all the wires that had to be reconnected. Once she finished the first side, she walked over and changed out the other side's headlights.
"Can we talk about earlier?" Will asked, spooking JJ a bit. She didn't jump, but if she had, she definitely would have hit her head on the hood of her new truck.
"We can if you help me move some tires," JJ said and Will nodded. JJ led Will towards the back of the garage. Really, it was more like a warehouse or a really big shed that her dad used to fix their cars and the farm equipment when it needed to be fixed. "What's up?"
"You blew off my practice to get pizza with that new girl," Will said and JJ sighed. "You promised me you'd come."
"I did, I was there for a bit. I got hungry Will and Emily doesn't have a lot of friends here. I was hoping that maybe I could be one more of them. I am sorry if me leaving early upset you," JJ apologized. Will grit his teeth a little bit, but he just nodded in acceptance. He knew that JJ was legitimately sorry for blowing him off, but he also knew that it'd most likely happen again. Will tried to make JJ a priority, but lately, it didn't feel like JJ wanted Will to be one of her top priorities.
"It's fine. You don't have to tell me that it won't happen again because it will, but that's fine. This is a rough time for you," Will said and JJ cleared her throat awkwardly.
"Let's just, move these tires okay?" JJ suggested and Will nodded. JJ pointed Will in the direction of the tires that she was sure were meant for the truck and the two of them moved them together. JJ probably could have gotten them all herself, but since Will was there and willing to help her, she'd take him up on that.
"I'm gonna head out if you don't need any more help," Will said and JJ nodded. She waved at him and then got the jack ready. Will sighed and walked away from her. Once Will was gone, JJ put some music on from her phone and then got to work. It was simple, she just did what her father had taught her to do before she'd even started driving. They had been driving back from an Eagles game and despite their animosity after the Patriots had won that game, Richard had requested that JJ be there for the teachable moment.
It was easier to do now than it had been then. JJ could move the tires easier and she'd gotten more experience with the jack and wrenches. She had built up strength and experience in the four years since that night. JJ had also taken more of an interest in building and fixing things. Whenever her dad would work late, she was the one who helped her mother. JJ had even taken shop class her junior year and impressed the teacher with her ability to use the correct tools.
Even after JJ had finished fixing the tires on the truck, she stayed in the garage. It was obvious whose section was whose. Most of it was her father's or grandfather's, but there was a little area that was just hers. She kept her tools there, both the ones she bought to actually use and the ones that she had bought because she thought they looked cool. Of course if she needed them, she would use them, but those ones weren't as commonly used as the others. JJ sat back in the wooden chair that she'd build with her dad and Roslyn. It had been a rough process, but JJ was proud of what they'd built together. Especially since it was one of the last memories she had of getting to do something with her sister.
"Hey kiddo," Richard greeted as he walked into the garage. "Those new tires?"
"They are," JJ said as Richard kicked one of them to check it. "Can you not kick my handiwork please?"
"Can't have my little girl driving around on loose tires," Richard said and JJ scoffed.
"If they're loose it's because you didn't teach me how to tighten correctly," JJ pointed out. Richard ruffled JJ's hair and looked at the letters carved into the back of the chair JJ was sitting in.
"You two were so proud when the chair was done." Richard smiled fondly at the memory.
"You yelled at us more that day than you had our entire lives," JJ chuckled. "And then you lost it when we signed the chair."
"An artist always leaves their signature." Richard's smile fell a little as he repeated what Roslyn had told him. "She told me it was her idea at first so I wouldn't get mad at you."
"And I said it was a team effort. I think you were angrier about us using that burning tool to do it," JJ speculated. Richard nodded as he leaned against the truck.
"I'd hug you to close out this nice moment, but you're sweaty and you smell like rubber," Richard said and JJ rolled her eyes at him. "Quick beer before we head in for dinner?"
"That'd be nice," JJ said and Richard walked over to grab a couple bottles from the mini-fridge in the corner. Richard handed one to JJ and they stood there and drank together, both of them thinking silently about that day to themselves.
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reading-riordan · 3 years
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PJO: “The Lightning Thief,” Chapter Five
“I Play Pinochle With a Horse”
or, “The Confusing Info-Dump Chapter”
Percy spends the next few days in and out of consciousness, which is weird, because at this point I’m pretty sure that his wounds are all psychological. Occasionally he’s fed “something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding” by the girl from the end of the last chapter.
When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?" I managed to croak, "What?" She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"
Unfortunately for The Girl, a guy covered in eyeballs comes in to tell her that it’s still too early for this much foreshadowing.
Eventually Percy wakes up sitting on the porch of that farmhouse, feeling weak. Grover is there, wearing a “CAMP DEMIGOD HALF-BLOOD” T-shirt but otherwise looking normal. Then he hands Percy a broken Minotaur horn and confirms that yeah, his mom ostensibly exploded last night and he’s still got hairy goat legs under his jeans.
Percy is just “FML,” which, y’know, fair.
I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with...Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first.
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"I'll put a pin in that idea.” —Rick Riordan
Grover, who is honestly weepier about this than Percy, advises him to drink something which looks like apple juice but tastes like “my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting.” It makes him feel a lot better, though Grover implies that the stuff would kill him and possibly Percy if either of them drank too much. 
Grover then leads Percy to the back of the house, and we get our first real glimpse of Camp Half-Blood:
Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.
At the end of the porch, Percy sees The Girl and a man who “looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.” (I must admit, I do like that description.) They are apparently Annabeth and Mr. D.
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Percy is surprised to also see Mr. Brunner, who it turns out is actually named “Chiron.”
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“Scale? Never heard of it.” —Some ancient Greek artist
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."
He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."
[...]
She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that. Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep." Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.
You know, Hogwarts has a much nicer welcoming ceremony. There’s a feast and everything. 
(Also, it should be “blonde,” with an “e.” Just saying.)
Mr. Brunner says that he’s glad that Percy didn’t get horribly killed, as that would have made his tenure at Yancy Academy “a waste of time.” (See, he clearly had no interest in the other students.) Apparently Grover was planted at the school to look out for future protagonists, and when Chiron heard about Percy he murdered the previous Latin teacher and took a job at the school in order to watch him. 
Percy finally cuts to the chase and asks what the heck is going on, and Chiron reveals that the Greek gods are real.
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Oh, and Mr. D is one. Specifically Dionysus, god of wine, though he doesn’t like going by that because “names are powerful things” and I still don’t understand why we’re doing this bit. As far as I know, the ancient Greeks weren’t scared of using Dionysus’ name, and it apparently doesn’t hurt him or anything, so...? The point is, Zeus is mad at him, so now he has to spend the next century running a summer camp and getting no rum for his rum and Coke. 
So, let’s talk about Dionysus for a minute. 
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“No, I’ve never actually seen a leopard. Why?” —Some ancient Greek artist
He’s actually a pretty complex character. If you don’t want to watch this very interesting 17-minute video, we can summarize by saying that he originally seems to have been a scary god of madness, but over time he developed into a younger, friendlier god with some scary stories still attached to him. The thing is, Mr. D doesn’t fit either of those portrayals very well. I think Riordan was going for the creepy original version (there’s a whole paragraph describing some of his scary stories), but he comes off more grumpy than terrifying. I guess the lack of booze is making him irritable. 
He fits the role of grouchy camp counselor pretty well, though I’m not sure why he hates Percy so much in particular. Unless Riordan just needed a Snape for his Harry Potter bingo card.
"If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"
No, Chiron, he was created to encourage little boys with learning disabilities. Get your facts straight. 
First off: kudos on Percy’s first name, I like that detail. Secondly, I have to question: why don’t people believe in the Greek gods anymore? Mr. D says that Percy will be incinerated if he refuses to, but by that logic, why isn’t Zeus hurling lightning at people until they burn up some BBQ for him? How’d y’all let Christianity take over your cosmic empire?
"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."
Hmm. 
He kicked your ass, didn’t He?
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Nah. He sent His kid to do it. 
The adults are still being vague, expecting Sally to have explained things a bit more. Eventually Mr. D leaves with Grover, saying that they need to discuss “[his] less-than-perfect performance on this assignment." Percy asks Chiron a few more questions, and learns that the “Greek” gods have apparently moved Mount Olympus to America.
“What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. [...] America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."
*rubs temple* Do I want to try and unpack this? ‘Cause there’s so much to go over. 
Like: what counts as "Western civilization," at a time when globalization is spreading it to non-Western countries? Or conversely, when the West takes on non-Western traits? Are the gods only tied to Greek influences, or influences from the new countries that they come to? If they’re the embodiments of Western civilization, what does it mean that said civilization has been primarily defined by Christianity for so long, and follow up, does that mean Christianity dying in Western countries, ironically, hurts them? 
Don’t get me wrong, having characters as the personifications of cultural traits is an interesting concept. I just don’t think that Riordan plans to go into that as much as he should.
And heck, I can imagine them moving without making it all philosophical. Look at Greece’s economy. The Olympians wouldn’t be the only ones emigrating.
So Percy is kind of freaked out about being included in this “physical embodiment of Western civilization” thing, and finally asks “Who...who am I?" Chiron admits that he doesn’t know, but that in the meantime, he'll help him get settled into camp and also reveal that he’s a centaur.
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I mean, the next chapter confirms that Percy knows the myths about Chiron, so he shouldn’t really be surprised.
Anyway! The characters are okay-ish, but the plot is overly complicated even though it’s barely begun. Come back next time when Percy finds out more of it and also blows up some toilets. 
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hetacakes · 4 years
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hitchhiking.
miya twins x fem! reader
snow white au, aka me making fanfics about my own fanfic
in which reader leaves her home in the big apple, the busy city, the whatever you'd like to call it, and takes a trip to a forest, the literal opposite of home. in fact, the two places are so different that in order to get there, a plane ride is preferable over a road trip. after a week, it's time to go home, with souvenirs, of course. leaving with a heavier bag is to be expected, but the empty backpack meant for said souvenirs was a bit too heavy, suspiciously heavy
aka reader just wants to relax and ends up bringing two hitchhiker foxes home
the others aren't included in this one, sorry :( one certain bluebird will make a guest appearance but other than that the storyline is in no way connected to snow white (though i made a few ~allusions~ for the Drama) anyway, i hope you love these annoying foxes as much as i do <3
also this is borderline abo but in my defense i wanted to make them seem more animal-like since they're technically wild animals
warning for cussing because life is hard and osamu hates atsumu
word count: 9,505
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   You grew up in the suburbs, always just a half hour away from the big, bustling city, where everything is fast paced with streams of people working and struggling to make their dreams come true. So it was no surprise that when you were old enough to move out, you immediately made a home in a rundown, shitty apartment, taking the typical "small apartment, big dreams" approach to life. And it was true, you did have a dream, a big dream. While you could have been anything else: a doctor, a lawyer, a profession that would make your parents happy and keep you reliably comfortable your whole life, you could never picture forcing yourself to work through something that made you unhappy, and so you decided to take the writer path.
   It was as if you were meant to be part of the busy metropolis, meant to be the same as everyone else in the crowd: broke, fresh out of uni, and barely paying the rent for a small, crappy apartment. You soon learned that dreaming to reach your dream job, a job where working hours weren't physically and mentally draining but were rather hours of doing what you loved, would only become more than just a dream at the price of your blood, sweat, and tears, just like it did for everyone else.
   But after working your ass off and putting two books on store shelves, you were able to end your contract with the sketchy landlord in the shady part of town and move into a nicer, actually livable apartment in a better building with a better landlord in a better neighborhood.
   Now when you stepped out of your complex, you were greeted with the refreshing sight of people passing by, the sky a clear blue, with a soft breeze you could feel underneath your windbreaker as it ruffled your hair and rustled your sleeves, the bright red, blue, and yellow fabric almost as bright as the sun overhead. Birds chirped in nearby trees, and if you walked around and looked for a while, you could find a few cats hanging around the sidewalk or hiding behind dumpsters.
   It was all you could have ever asked for and more.
   But sometimes, city life can be a distraction, and sometimes, you really, really need a change of pace and scenery.
   Which brought you to the present, sitting with your legs underneath you on your soft couch, squishing the plush grey throw pillows and balancing your laptop on your thighs. The money you got from your newest releases was in no means enough to call you rich, but it was comfortable enough that costs weren't one of your concerns as you typed a quick Google search. An airline website was open on your screen, and you were browsing through the available tickets, looking for one that would take you to a nice getaway, a small break from the nonstop chaos of your city, which had finally begun to wear you out from the endless stress and sleepless nights.
   "Seven day long camp resort in one of the country's most beautiful and idyllic forests," said the advertisement that popped up on the side of your browser. Clicking on it, it took you to a pretty convincing website about Inari Lodge, a tourist attraction in the middle of a forest you had never heard of before. Lists upon lists of hiking trails, forest tours, and crafted souvenir shops caught your eye, and before you knew it you were booking a week's stay in one of their cabins. Sealing the deal and buying your ticket, you sat back and sighed, ready for a vacation.
   Two weeks later, it was a few hours before your flight, so obviously you had already packed. Not. You called a friend over to help and keep you company while you packed, and ten minutes later, a familiar brunet walked through the door, ruffling his chocolate brown locks.
   "It's nice to see you, Tooru," you greeted, padding closer to him as he opened his arms for a hug. "Your hugs are the best, as always," you smiled up at him, before taking a step back.
   "You would have seen me either way; I was just on my way to bother you," he said. "You're taking a trip without me? How will I survive without you?"
   "Don't be dramatic, Ruru," you chided, pulling your suitcase onto your bed. "I know for a fact that the week I'm gone is the same week the team you're coaching has tournaments."
   "Ugh, don't remind me. They're good kids, but they suck ass," Tooru groaned, flopping next to your suitcase. "Do you have everything you need?"
   "You tell me. Check things off," you answered while looking through your closet.
   "Oooh, do I get to see your clothes?" Tooru asked suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows.
   You rolled your eyes at him. "My shirts and pants, yeah. Everything under that has been packed into this," you said, holding up a medium sized makeup pouch. 
   "Bummer. Oh well, there's always next time."
   "Ruru, stop being dirty."
   He grumbled something underneath his breath, low enough that you missed it. "Well, how long is the stay?"
   "A week."
   "So you need seven sets of clothes?"
   "Yeah, assuming I don't pee my pants," you smiled over your shoulder, watching as Oikawa held back a laugh with his hand, a wide smile spread across his face.
   "Haha, you got the whole squad laughing. How cold is it there?"
   "It's pretty cold, apparently. I'm not surprised, it's farther north than where we live, and it gets pretty chilly here sometimes," you answered, pulling a few sweaters out of your closet, pairing it with random pairs of jeans you grabbed, and passed them to Tooru, who folded and put them in your suitcase.
   "Aww, aren't I such husband material? Wait here wifey, I'm gonna get your stuff from the bath," Oikawa winked, throwing up a peace sign at you before he turned and disappeared behind the white door.
   "Can you get my toothbrush stuff too? Thank you~," you called after him in a sweet singsong voice. 
   You glanced at your bookbag, still on your couch, just where you left it. You looked at the scarf in your hands, a large white scarf too bulky to wear, and decided to throw it in there, along with your laptop and charger. You put an extra pair of comfortable boots in a reusable bag, neatly settling it between your clothes. Tooru handed you another bag, and a peek inside showed you your bath and bathroom essentials. You flashed a grateful smile at him, before turning and grabbing the last few items to throw in your bookbag-turned-carry-on, which included your notebook full of your messy brainstorming, a pack of pens, and your phone charger. Zipping your suitcase closed, you pulled up the handle and hung your bag around it.
   "Okay, I'm ready. I've got everything, except you," you winked mischievously at Tooru.
   "You're flirting! It's not fair," he complained, hand grabbing at his heart, the other draped dramatically over his forehead.
   "Guilty as charged," you winked, throwing up a finger heart. "Drive me to the airport?"
   "Of course, babe."
   You had already checked in your suitcase, got your ticket safely in your hand, and all that was left for you to do was wait an hour or so until boarding. You turned to Tooru, giving him one last hug. "I'm gonna miss you and the others, Ruru," you whispered softly, even though you were only leaving for a week.
   Tooru hugged you back, holding you tightly against his chest. He let you go, before taking a step back and pulling his hoodie over his head, his shirt riding up a bit, showing some skin for a split second. "Here, wear this," he said, handing it over to you.
   You brightened, smiling like a thousand suns before slipping it on. It was huge on you, and you were almost drowning in the soft, teal blue fabric. He gave you a fond look, his eyes shining in such pure, unadulterated love that it took your breath away for a moment.
   "Thank you, Tooru."
   "Keep it warm for me, okay?"
   "I know, I know, I promise you'll see it when I come back."
   He gave you one last hug, short and sweet, before walking away, turning to look back at you one last time. You stood there until the doors slid closed behind his back, a soft smile on your face, before you turned away and walked to your terminal, hoping to kill time either shopping, eating, or sleeping.
  You could finally lean back and relax once you were secured in your seat, miles in the air. Boarding and finding your aisle wasn't much of a hassle, thank the gods, and the glass of the plane window was refreshingly cool against the tip of your nose as you peered down at the clouds passing by. You held your bookbag against your chest, looking inside at the empty space in between the few items you did pack into it. Your laptop was safely zipped up in its designated pouch, along with its charger and your notebook, and the pack of pens that had somehow opened inside the pocket, which you had found out earlier as you tried to fish one out but instead pulled the empty cardboard packaging. Your phone charger was the only thing laying on the scarf you threw in there, a makeshift nest for nothing. Well, nothing yet.
   You were excited to spend a week in a completely different environment, surrounded by lush forestry and the coos and calls of whatever animals lived there, a place where you're never truly alone, but in a good way. It was a stark contrast from the car fumes in the city air, with the only plant life in a park square and the only sounds are the constant chatter and hum of people and cars finding their destinations. There never once was an hour of silence, and while you had been able to enjoy it as your background noise while writing, it wasn't long until you finally got tired of it. You could've sworn that the city had gotten louder on purpose just to exhaust and stress you out every night, so you were more than ready to finally be able to clear your head and maybe even flesh out an idea or two.
   The sound of the intercoms crackling to life made you jolt, holding a hand to the cold imprint on your cheek left from sleeping against the window. The pilot announced that the plane was descending, and you gathered your bag and Tooru's hoodie, bundling them both in your arms.
   Truth be told, you were glad to step off the plane. You felt the chill of the outside while walking off the plane through the passenger boarding bridge and stood for a second to put the hoodie back on, humming slightly at Tooru's smell still on the cloth, a nice, sweet but not too sweet scent that made you smile to yourself.
   You got lost in thought, so your body was on autopilot when you went to pick up your luggage and almost picked up the wrong suitcase, until the actual owner picked it up first, eyeing you weirdly. With guilty, heated cheeks, you grabbed your suitcase, checked it once, then twice, then three times, and finally hopped into an Uber as fast as you could, hoping that you wouldn't be starting your first day on vacation dying of embarrassment.
   You hurriedly thanked the driver for dropping you off, then made your way into a wooden building, the wood a warm oak with a little golden bell that chimed as you walked in. A woman behind the desk smiled at you, and you sighed, happy to have nothing to worry about, now that you were finally there.
   "Hello, welcome to Inari Lodge! Is there something I can help you with?"
   "Yes, please," you said, pulling your luggage close to you. "I reserved a cabin, and I need the keys, right?"
   "Of course," she smiled at you, and for a quick second, you thought that she resembled a cat, with black hair and upturned eyes.
   "Um, I'm sorry if I'm being intrusive, but are you a mom?"
   "Haha, don't worry, you're fine! Yes I am, my name is Kozume Sakura, and I have a son," she answered kindly, and you couldn't help but feel relieved to finally have a good thing to improve your currently-going-badly day.
   "Ah, it's just that you seemed familiar to someone I've seen around campus."
   "Ah, that would most likely be my son," she said, a sweet smile spreading across her face. "Anyway, here are your keys, and I've written the directions to your cabin right here. Don't hesitate to come and ask me for anything, okay?"
   "Yeah, okay," you nodded gratefully, making sure to wave goodbye as you walked out the doors, looking at the map in your hands.
   "I can not believe how hard it was to find you," you said to the cabin as you flopped on the bed, tired of having such a conflicting day. You sat up quickly, slapping your cheeks, "No, I won't let a few fuck ups ruin everything for me."
   Grabbing your phone, you slipped it into your hoodie pocket as you walked out the door, set on exploring the area.
   You decided not to take an official trail, preferring to save them for later, which brought you to an ordinary worn dirt path as you walked aimlessly, taking rights and lefts as you pleased.
   A rustling in the bushes lining the trail caught your attention. Just as you walked closer to separate the branches and peek through, a fox fell out of the leaves, as if something had pushed it out. The fox seemed to scowl at whatever had shoved it, before it turned its attention to you.
   Before you could think better, you crouched on the ground as you cooed, resting your cheek in your palm. "Hello, cutie fox, how are you?"
   The fox stared at you, which was good, because if it started speaking you would've booked it right then and there, but also bad, because you didn't know if it was irritated by your presence. It seemed to look warily at you, not ready to attack, but not fully trusting either.
   "Come here, I want to pet you," you crooned, holding out the end of your sentence as you leaned forward against your better judgement, shifting your legs from against your chest to underneath you. Before it could make a decision, however, another fox jumped out of the bushes and straight into your arms, settling happily in your lap. Caught by surprise, you stared, while the first fox yipped at it, jumping forward and pushing it out of your lap. You watched as they tumbled to the ground, rolling as they fought and wrestled.
   "Um, okay… I think I'll just go now, bye!" You quipped before turning around and walking steadily back to where you came from, not wanting to get caught up in a wild animal fight.
   "Look at what ya did 'Tsumu, why do ya always mess everything up?"
   "Me? Me?! You were the one that jumped me!"
   "'Cause I didn't recall inviting you to our conversation, dumbass!"
   "Yer a fuckin' fox, you can't talk! You're just jealous!"
   "So are you! We're twins, shithead!"
   And they kept arguing, voices carrying throughout the forest, even as they walked along the path the pretty, perfect, kind, and amazing love of their li— , ahem, the completely normal girl from earlier took, leading to the all too familiar lodge situated at the edge of their forest.
   "That was close," you whispered to yourself as you leaned against the door, as if the foxes would be strong enough to bust it open. They hadn't even followed you, as you didn't hear them, and when you glanced behind you, nobody was there.
   "Anyway, I guess I should plan out what I'm gonna do here, I don't want this trip to be a waste," you said, opening your suitcase and putting your clothes in the drawers, setting your bathroom essentials on top of it. You grabbed your bookbag from where you had thrown it on the bed and set it on a glass table. You pulled out your notebook and flipped to a blank page, cringing as you passed by page after page of chicken scratch.
   "The only reason I can read my own handwriting is because I'm there when it's written," you muttered to yourself as you rummaged for a pen, finding one out of the set of five. You wrote down the days of the week you'd be staying there, with your first official day starting tomorrow, on Tuesday. Your flight back was scheduled for a week later, on Monday. You hummed happily, glad that your timetable worked out so neatly as you wrote down the days of the week, leaving enough space for a bullet list underneath.
   On your last day at the lodge, you made sure to make a note to leave at noon at the latest, since your flight was at six in the afternoon, and you wanted to be extra, extra, extra sure that you would not miss it. Ideally, you would be all packed up Sunday night, but knowing you and your procrastinating self, you wrote it down for the day before, even though you knew you would probably be packing the day of, just as you did before.
   You made sure to set Saturday as souvenir hunting day, hoping to bring back something for Tooru, a thank you for the help and hoodie.
   The foxes you met earlier crossed your mind, but the grumbling of your stomach reminded you to get some dinner and wrap up your day. Holding the map out in front of you, you memorized the directions to a cafe not too far from your cabin, and went on your way.
   "Hello, can I get the sandwich of the day with a cinnamon hot chocolate and a slice of pumpkin bread?"
   "Of course! Here's your total."
   The worker you were pleasantly talking to gave you a small smile before glancing to the side, as if something caught his eye. He pulled a face at whatever he was looking at, and you followed his annoyed gaze to the two foxes you met earlier, playing next to one of the bean bag chairs next to the door, near the window wall of the cafe.
   You laughed awkwardly, "Haha, um, is there something wrong?"
   He seemed to snap out of giving them the stink eye, profusely apologizing to you as he provided an explanation, "No, no, it's fine, it's just that those two foxes are some of the forest animals that walk around the lodge, except they're the only ones that are more annoying than cute. Some cats and birds and such come by and usually will just sit next to the register, you know, like nice and normal animals, but these foxes seem hellbent on walking around and biting at people's ankles and fighting and making huge messes that they can't clean up because they're damn foxes."
   You laughed again, though this time it was genuine. "You seem to have very strong feelings about their mischief," you joked, watching as he relaxed.
   "Yeah, but at the end of the day, they're still just foxes, and we make sure all the animals of the forest are safe and sound."
   And if the foxes decided to cause more trouble than usual, that was their business, their decision, and not in any way related to the slight dislike of the barista, which was in turn totally not because you got along well with him.
   After paying, you made your way to a table in the corner of the windows where the glass met the wall, looking absentmindedly at the visitors and workers walking past, occasionally with a rabbit or bird or other critter.
   "I have your hot chocolate and sandwich, and your bread will be in just a moment. Unfortunately, I also brought these two," the barista you were talking to said as he set your food and drink on the table, before glancing at the floor. Just as you were about to lean over and see, two foxes jumped up on the seat across from you, settling themselves on the table, curled up like cats.
   You waved him off with a grin, "Oh it's fine, I have a feeling they'll behave."
   You took a sip out of your hot chocolate, savoring the warmth it gave you after being in the outside chill. You picked up your sandwich and took a bite, before speaking, "Are you done fighting?"
   Both foxes stared at you, and if they were people, you were sure their mouths would be hanging open, dumbfounded and mildly offended as you nonchalantly took another bite, not waiting for them to respond or react.
   You reached a hand out while they were frozen and pet the head of the fox nearest to you. It lowered its head slightly, shyly accepting your affection.
   "Aww, you're so cute. What's your name?"
   Of course, it couldn't speak, but it batted your hand with its left paw. "So cute," you crooned, "Come here?"
   Just like before, when the fox was about to walk towards you, the other one jumped at you, and you hurried to wrap your arms around it. You stared at it in your arms, tummy up like a baby.
   You rubbed its stomach. "What about you? What's your name?"
   He happily raised his right paw, and you held it gently before putting him back on the table, which was good, because the left paw fox was a second away from pouncing on it again. The fox you set down scrambled onto the tabletop, and watched with what you would call betrayed eyes as you carried the other fox into your lap, petting its head lightly.
   "It's not your turn," you quipped, focusing your attention on the fox in your lap. "You're so cute, so cute, please be my baby~."
   The fox you dumped on the table yipped indignantly at you, and you decided to mess with him. "Oh, you're still here? Well, I guess you're okay…" you trailed off, struggling to keep a poker face as he looked at you with puppy eyes, while the other fox barked out high pitched laughs, which made him get up and get ready to jump.
   You pet him between his ears. "I'm just joking. Jeez, you're always at each other's necks," you complained, sitting back and continuing to eat your sandwich.
   As if to prove you wrong, the fox in your lap jumped on the table and curled up with the other fox, both of them leaning against each other like close brothers. Coincidentally, the waiter walked by with your pumpkin bread, watching in amazement.
   "How did you do that?" he asked, and you just shrugged in response, your attention mostly on your sandwich.
   When you finished it, you took another sip of your drink before you tore off two pieces of your bread. You offered it to them as a reward, for finally behaving themselves. They yipped happily in response, content with spending the rest of your time together eating in comfortable silence.
   You pulled yourself out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. Embarrassingly, jet lag made you sleep in on Tuesday, your first official day at the lodge, and by the time you woke up, you had nothing to do but eat and jot down some story ideas, none of which stuck to you.
   So you made sure to wake up nice and early the next day, dead set on going on at least one trail. You showered and changed into a new pair of jeans and a knit grey sweater. You stood for a moment, debating if you should wear a jacket or Tooru's hoodie over it, but decided against it and deemed the sweater good enough.
   Thankfully, it was one of the warmer, sunnier days. You looked down at your map, making your way towards the open lodge outlet, taking note of the small clusters of people milling about, a familiar sight, albeit on a smaller, calmer scale. You looked up at the wooden signs pointing towards various shops, restaurants, and forest attractions. You finally found the one you were looking for, pointing to your right with the word "birdwatch" carved across. When you followed its directions, you came to a small gift shop at the start of a wide, dirt path, imprints of boots and footsteps all over the light brown ground. Walking inside, a small wind chime announced your arrival, twinkling like bird chirps, and the person behind the counter looked up.
   "Oh, it's you!" she exclaimed, recognizing your face.
   "Hello again! I thought you worked at the reception desk?"
   "I'm covering for someone's shift right now, they had finals to take. Are you here for a birdwatch?"
   "Spot on," you answered, bringing a hand up to rub the back of your head with a meek smile. Kozume winked at you, before taking out two binoculars from under the desk.
   "Well then, let's go!"
   "You know, some of these birds remind me of the ones that live near my apartment building," you mentioned, picturing the large cherry blossom tree that stretched its branches past your window. "The birds here are so much more interesting though," you lamented. "The city just has crows and small birds, but here there's robins and warblers and so many more species, with great diversity. It's like the bird version of the people back home."
   "I can imagine not many birds want to live near so many humans, but these have all of the forest to themselves. Look, the bird over there, with the blue mohawk, is called an Asian Paradise Flycatcher, and…" she trailed off, continuing your tour of one of the forest trails, before whipping an arm in front of you, exclaiming, "Watch your step!"
   You froze with your foot still in the air, watching as the fox you narrowly missed stepping on darted in front of you.
   "I'm sorry, he's not really supposed to be here, he has his own trail," Kozume frantically apologized while glaring at the fox, before sighing in relief when you responded with a small laugh.
   "It's fine, I've met him before," you reassured while looking around, searching for a certain somebody. "And I learned that he never walks alone…"
   To prove your point, the other fox you were well acquainted with joined his brother, running around in front of you.
   "Well, the next part of our trail is basically a circle back, so hopefully they run off to where they belong, I don't want you to get in trouble for messing with the animals because of them," Kozume said as you made a left, walking back to the start of the trail.
   When you opened the door to the gift shop, two furry animals zipped past your feet, and you already knew who they were before you even saw them.
   "Kozume, is it normal for these guys to always hang around here?" you asked, picking up both foxes in your arms, resting them comfortably in your arms.
   Kozume turned around to look at you, her hands still in midair, putting away your binoculars. "Actually, no, they do come by once or twice but they never hang around, and we just assumed they don't like people very much since they really only hang out with each other. They've never let anyone pet them…" she stopped mid-sentence as she watched you pet their heads and stomachs with no resistance from the two.
   You glanced up. "Huh? Oh, I don't really have a lot of experience with animals, but they're just so cute," you said, before snapping your head up, eyes wide in realization. "Hey, do you have some ribbon or something?"
   "Yes! We use them to identify specific birds we keep tabs on, especially ones we just recently nursed back to health," she explained, pulling out a box of ribbons, offering it to you. You set the foxes on the counter, watching Kozume hesitantly reach a hand out to them from the corner of your eye. They protested, but allowed her to pet them when you eyed them. Looking into the box, you fished out two ribbons, one a golden yellow, and the other a nice warm grey.
   "May I?" you asked, directing the question to Kozume. The foxes, however, decided you were talking to them and excitedly sat in front of you, pulling each ribbon towards them with their paw.
   "I think they said yes," Kozume chuckled, and you took that as your permission to put ribbons on their, er, the forest's foxes. You cooed at them, asking which one would go first. The fox with the yellow ribbon in his mouth nudged your hand with his face, making you smile.
   "Which are you, left or right?"
   The fox raised its right paw and rubbed his face as your answer, and you kept that in mind while you tied the ribbon around his neck, finishing it off with a nice bow. You did the same to the other fox, who voluntarily shook your hand with his left paw, just in case you forgot. By the time you were done, both foxes were playing on the counter, ribboned bows securely on their necks.
   "What if you started working here? The way you can interact with the animals so easily is honestly amazing," Kozume asked, springing the question on you out of the blue.
   You jumped, before you began rubbing the back of your head sheepishly, "Ah, I would love to, honestly, but I work as an author, and it's best if I stay relatively close to my publishing company."
   Kozume smiled understandingly, "Yeah, I figured. Well, just know that me and the foxes will be missing you hundreds of miles away." Then she brightened, pulling out her phone, "Put your number in, so we can stay in touch, and so I can keep an eye on my son," she winked cheekily as you accepted her offer.
   While the two of you were occupied, focused on your conversation, the two foxes stopped playing, standing abruptly and whipping their faces towards you.
   Loud crying made you turn away from Kozume and look for the source of the high-pitched whining, popping the question "who's making those crying puppy sounds?" into the air.
   Your eyes landed on the foxes, both of which were crying and walking towards you, tugging at your sleeve and rubbing their heads against your arms. Your heart melted, and you turned to Kozume, pity written across your face.
   "When I said they would miss you, I didn't think it would be this much…"
   "No, you can't come in here! I'll be kicked out if I let you guys in!"
   The foxes, still with the ribbons tied perfectly and safely around their necks, were looping around your legs, blocking your entrance to the cabin you've rented. They both looked up at you and cried, their whines catching the attention of some workers and visitors nearby.
   "Okay, fine! If I get in trouble, it's your fault," you relented, turning the knob and carefully opening the door, watching as they slipped in, leaving you to shut the smooth oak door quietly behind you as you flipped on the light switch.
   The second you let electric light flood the cabin, you realized the foxes were nowhere to be seen. Only mildly worried, since you knew they were at least somewhere inside, you shrugged it off and walked to the dresser, pulling out Tooru's hoodie and some sweatpants, before making your way to the bathroom.
   Out of nowhere, a fox came zooming at your feet, eager to come inside with you. This time, you were firm as you said, "I'm going to shower, so you can back off and play around while I'm in the bathroom, alone, with no perverts!"
   The grey fox started laughing at the peeping fox, which you realized was the yellow ribboned one. As expected, he launched at his brother, and you took the distraction as an opportunity to step inside the bathroom and shut the door behind you, locking it just to make sure.
   Freshly showered, with your comfortable, warm clothes on, you shuffled out of the bathroom, already expecting the foxes right there, having to step over them to make your way to the bed. They jumped up with you, but once the grey fox came close enough to sniff your hoodie, it barked indignantly, biting at the hoodie.
   "Hey! This isn't mine, it's Tooru's, so I can't let you destroy it!" you chided, pulling your sleeve away. Apparently you had said the wrong thing, because both foxes started pulling your sleeves together, before you yanked your arms out of their grips.
   "Tooru doesn't even smell bad, he smells nice," you said, pulling the hoodie up to smell the familiar scent, the aromas of chocolates and sweets in fresh air, reminding you of the skies back at the city: the smells of bakeries and cafes wafting through the air and birds chirping above you every time you walked down a street. Still, when the foxes continued growling, you reluctantly tugged the sweater off and stayed in just a white t-shirt, an old, stretched out shirt with the print on the front long since faded and gone.
   When you plopped back on the bed, the foxes crowded towards you, close enough that if you didn't know better, you'd think that they were trying to get you to forget about Tooru and focus on them. Subconsciously taking a breath, you caught the smell of a forest clearing or meadow, a smell of fresh grass and fresh air and petrichor, which you would expect from foxes that were supposed to stay and play in the forest, but you also noticed slight variations in the scent, obviously coming from either fox.
   Yellow ribbon had a scent like honey, with a strong undertone of a woodsy musk, which made you picture drinking tea sweetened with the golden syrup right outside your cabin. 
   Grey ribbon had a strong campfire scent, the smell of crackling wood and fire and melting chocolate. A scene under a clear night sky surrounding a fire with the aroma of cinnamon in the air came to mind, and you let yourself get lost in thought, your senses being occupied with new scents, sights, and imagery.
   If the foxes were human, their faces would surely have the widest, shit-eating grins, smug and satisfied at having you distracted from the minor annoyance from earlier and focused on them, just as they wanted.
   You snapped out of it. "You little—, you just want me to give you attention and affection and baby you," you accused, pushing them away from your face. They didn't protest or bark at you, and you figured it was because they knew they were guilty as charged. "Jeez, you're acting like Tooru is a threat or something…"
   You heard two big sighs, and blinked in surprise at the foxes as they settled onto the plush white covers. Maybe it was because they were so human-like and made you honestly contemplate whether they could understand you or not, or maybe it was because the only animal you've heard sigh is your mom's dog back at your family home, but whatever it was, it made you think, for a split second, that the foxes were humans turned animals, kind of like the frog prince. But that was stupid, so you shook your head, got up and turned off the lights, opening the curtains but keeping the blinds closed, and settled back into bed as slats of moonlight came from the spaces between the blinds.
   The foxes climbed into your arms, and you held them close to you as you fell asleep, telling yourself it was only because you had crossed the line earlier, even though deep down you knew that wasn't the real reason.
   You pulled the two fluffy sources of heat closer to you, unwilling to open your eyes and start the day. It's only when the heaters started licking your face that you panicked and freaked out.
   High pitched yips made the events of yesterday evening rush back to you, and you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes tiredly, surprised that you had a good night's sleep with two, technically, wild animals.
   You scooped the drowsy foxes into your arms before making your way to the big wooden door and pushing it open, setting the foxes on the ground.
   "You weren't even supposed to be in there, you know," you said as the foxes tried to get back in, pawing at the door. You shivered, the chill in the air numbing your exposed skin and wrapping around your bare arms, and you hurriedly shooed them away before retreating back inside the warmth of the cabin.
   Safely bundled in a sweater from your university under a hoodie, one of your own this time, you joined a group going for the fox trail, wondering if you'd see yours.
   Pointedly ignoring how you immediately thought of them as "your" foxes, you listened to the tour guide, an employee you hadn't met yet, talk about how the foxes don't always show on the trail.
   "That's a shame, let's just hope for the best," other visitors and families whispered around you, with some of them saying they didn't see that many foxes yesterday, only a few odd ones out here and there. Knowing where they actually were the day before, you stifled a laugh, even as your ears turned red with guilt and embarrassment, before following at the back of the group as they started the trail.
   Luckily, you saw a few grey and brown foxes, who seemed like actual normal foxes and not borderline sentient, but around the middle of the trail it was basically deserted.
   "Let me try to call them," the guide offered, bringing his hands up to cup his mouth and whistle loudly.
   Silence answered, with no signs of anything coming to visit. 
   The tour guide encouraged the group to call out and whistle, and various whistles and voices rose from the group.
   Not wanting to draw attention to yourself, you crouched low, at eye-level with the bushes, and softly called out for two specific foxes, your hello muffled by the rest of the crowd.
   You gave up, feeling stupid and unconvinced that your almost-whisper would carry over the noise of the crowd, and sat on the ground, legs folded under you, deciding to wait until the group either got tired or another fox actually showed up for them. Just then, the bushes in front of you started to rustle, and your lovely grey ribboned fox jumped out, immediately crawling into your lap to nuzzle your face.
   The people closest to you turned at the noise and noticed you cuddling with him on the ground, and word started spreading throughout the group that someone had successfully lured out a fox.
   "Look! There's one running this way!" the ones at the front of the group called, and you looked just in time to see your other fox running towards you, straight past the tour guide and the rest of the group. You smiled fondly at them, before lowering your face to let both of them rub their cheeks against yours.
   "Ma'am, could you please not touch the animals?" the tour guide told you timidly, obviously not wanting to reprimand you for being able to actually call out foxes on the designated fox trail, but you understood it was mostly so others didn't start getting any ideas, thinking they had permission.
   You nodded sheepishly, lightly putting them on the floor before standing up, wiping the dust off your knees. However, the whole group watched as the foxes looped around your feet, even going so far as to jump up and paw at your thighs.
   "Do you work here? You're so good with animals!" a mom in the crowd asked, and you looked at the actual worker, unsure of what to say. He stared back at you with just as much confusion, before shrugging, leaving you to make up a convincing story on the spot.
   "Actually, these foxes used to live near me, but I live in a city, so I brought them here so they'd be safer than on the streets," you fibbed, though you gave yourself a pat on the back for how reliable the story was. If anyone really did have to ask, yes, you did live in a city, and yes, you would one hundred percent bring foxes and other animals to a forest or wildlife lodge. Did that really happen? No, but could it? The answer was yes, and you sighed in relief when the mom turned, accepting your answer. You giggled when the tour guide released a breath he didn't even know he was holding, and he continued the trail, sending a discreet wink your way.
   You didn't notice the way your foxes growled at that, and if someone had asked you why you had two foxes right at your heels, walking next to you protectively like a pair of guard dogs, you'd blink in confusion, oblivious to the reality of their words.
   Before you knew it, it was Saturday, souvenir shopping day. You slung on your bookbag, ready to put some weight in it.
   At the lodge's shopping centre, you saw gift shops, clothing shops, and random trinket shops alike. In the gift shop, you found crystal figurines of animals in and around the lodge, and a cute little bird the color of a clear sky caught your eye. For some reason, it reminded you of Tooru, and you couldn't stop yourself from buying it and watching as the cashier wrapped it in paper before setting it in a white velvet box, cushioned and safe. Huh, crystal bird, blue, bluebird. You may have found another nickname for Ruru. You absentmindedly slipped it into your bag, happy to have found what you were looking for so fast and a new nickname.
   But stores weren't anything if not eye-catching, and the shelf of plush animals distracted you. The fox plushies, specifically, were so similar to actual foxes that they'd be perfect replacement cuddle buddies for when you went back home to your big city.
   But then you felt incredibly embarrassed and childish for that, so you shook your head as you walked out of the shop, ignoring the way that thought stuck in your head like a moth to a lamp.
   Still, you found yourself walking through store after store after store. Once you finally snapped out of it, you had just stepped out of the birdwatching souvenir store, all too aware of the set of postcards themed after the various birds you could spot on the trail. You told yourself that the blue mohawk bird on the front was a great reminder of both the trail and Kozume, and made a mental note to get her to write something before you left, lessening your guilt over having bought something almost useless.
   By the time you came back to the cabin, your wallet felt significantly lighter while your bookbag was very obviously heavier. You had stuffed the velvet box, postcard deck, two maroon sweaters with "Inari Lodge" printed across the front with the forest's logo, and a large and heavy book about spirits and legendary deities that guard and dwell in the forest. According to the summary on the back, the book was basically a collection of the myths and legends surrounding the forest, including one about people that could transform from animal to person and back again. The cover of the book immediately made you think "grimoire", and you were set on buying it, if not for the stories, then for the aesthetic.
   You wondered briefly if it was real as you unclasped the leather string binding the book shut and flipped through yellowed pages with torn edges, looking at all the pictures that looked believable hand drawn and writing in a language you could only understand when you squinted your eyes.
   You had wrapped everything in the two sweaters, and then in the white scarf, making sure they were safe and at no risk of being crushed or damaged, especially the crystalline figure.
   "Are ya sure she isn't coming back?"
   "Yes, 'Tsumu, last I checked she was dropping off her keys to Kozume."
   "But she'll be back soon?"
   "Yeah no shit, genius, that's why you either get in here with me or stay behind."
   "Hey, I'm just makin' sure you're prepared for this y'know, in case you start crying for momma or somethin'."
   "Shut yer face and die."
   "What do we do now?"
   "I don't wanna pay for a ticket, 'Samu."
   "Me neither, but we can't hitch a ride in her carry-on anymore, it's going through TSA."
   They both leaned against the wall, realizing that they were both stupid and their plan was stupid squared.
   Atsumu looked up, the ribbon around his neck moving with him, and he watched you walk into the bathroom, leaving your luggage outside the door. He nudged Osamu, pointing at the bathroom door.
   "Nice," he praised.
   And if people saw two foxes crawling into a bookbag? It's the airport at three in the alternate airport timeline, who cares.
   "My bag is so heavy," you complained, flopping into your assigned seat. It was another window seat, and the view of the land underneath becoming smaller and smaller until it was covered by a sea of clouds made you feel a little better. Still, how did your bag get that heavy? When it was empty, it was literally lightweight, and when you were still shopping, it wasn't that hard to carry it as you went from store to store. You groaned, rolling your shoulder from the pain of carrying the boulder of a bag.
   "That's what I get for buying so much," you berated yourself, opening the flap and looking inside. Surprisingly, two fluffy foxes were curled up in there, resting comfortably on your white scarf. For a moment, you thought your foxes had hitched a ride and were coming home with you, but you'd obviously notice that, right? And besides, you did see the stuffed animals in the gift shop.
   "I can't believe I actually bought the stuffed foxes just because I'll miss the real ones," you huffed, blushing slightly, as if the foxes were there and could hear you. But the foxes were not there, you had left them at the lodge, so you settled for stroking the faux fur of the stuffed foxes, the silky smooth strands so lifelike that if you didn't know better, you'd think it was real.
   "Finally," you gasped, face planting into the soft fluffy white of your blanket. You tugged off Tooru's sweater and folded it neatly, walking out and placing it on your counter, ready to return. You rummaged through your bag, that you had dropped to the floor as soon as you opened the door to your room, and tugged out the scarf from underneath your very suspiciously heavy fox plushies. 
   You unwrapped the bundle, pulling all your souvenirs out before bunching up the scarf and throwing it into your laundry basket. You set the book and postcard deck on your bookshelf, next to other various books and collectibles you've found over the years, and grabbed the velvet box, feeling its smooth texture against the palm of your hand. You set it on top of the teal hoodie, before changing out of your jeans and shirt into shorts and an oversized tee, boyfriend style.
   Ugh, a boyfriend. You've been single for way too long.
   "Please let me wake up to a miracle," you prayed, closing your eyes and pulling a serene face, before immediately flopping over and falling asleep.
   Of course, you do not expect to wake up cuddled up to a warm chest while listening to someone messing around in your bathroom, the shutting of cupboards and a phone call drifting from the white door.
   You laid there, relishing the comfort that came from being flush against someone's side, tucked under their arm.
   That's when it hit you that strangers were in your house.
   You bolted up, using your hand to choke back the scream bubbling from your throat, not wanting to let either person know you were awake.
   You looked down, realizing that you had just left the side of a very handsome and very shirtless man, his eyes slowly opening when he felt the absence of your warmth, showing you his beautiful light brown eyes, getting lost in the gold specs like stars.
   You ripped your gaze away from him and moved to swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Unfortunately for you, the mystery man reached up and tugged you back down to him, holding a finger up to his very pink and very kissable and very attract— , wait, no. He held his finger against his lips, shushing you.
   "Wait, he's coming out. Stay beside me."
   Just as you opened your mouth to retaliate, he had already thrown your white covers over the both of you and looped an arm around you, his hand resting at your waist.
   The door to the bathroom opened, and yet another stranger walked out, though it was only him, making the total number of intruders two. He had the same eyes and lips, which were the definition of picture perfect, and he was also lacking in the shirt department. His brows furrowed, and you could already feel the argument starting.
   "What the hell do ya think yer doin'?!"
   "She prefers me."
   "No she doesn't!"
   "It's true, right doll?"
   Both pairs of identical eyes stared at you, and you started panicking under the pressure.
   "I don't even know you! This is literally stranger danger!" you yelled, jumping out of the warmth of both the blanket and the guy in your bed, dodging as his hand reached out to pull you back in.
   You pressed your back against the wall, staying as far away from them as possible. You then realized what you were wearing, and tugged your shirt down even further, mentally slapping yourself for wearing shorts that left almost nothing to imagination with a shirt that reached your thighs, which would put you at a disadvantage if you had to fight or flight.
   The stranger finally got out of your bed and walked next to the other, but it was only once they were next to each other that you realized they were twins, identical twins. Both had dyed hair, but one was blond while the other had grey hair. Their bangs were parted to opposite sides, so they kind of mirrored each other, which made you shiver.
   "Don't ya remember us?"
   "Yeah, you liked me better."
   As they started bickering, as almost all siblings do, you noticed the two sweaters you bought sitting on the edge of the bed. Snatching them and balling them up in either fist, you threw them at them.
   "At least wear these!"
   "Those sweaters would eat me alive, but they fit you so well," you sighed, sitting on your legs on your bed, the two still standing in front of you.
   As they pulled the cloth over their head, you noticed the ribbons tied around their neck as they popped free from the neckline. You felt your heart sink to your stomach when you realized they were grey and yellow ribbons.
   "'s not like we've never slept with you before," yellow ribbon said.
   "You even asked me to be your baby," grey ribbon added, catching his twin's elbow in his hand.
   "I haven't even been in the city for the past week! I was at the lodge forest thing."
   "So were we."
   "Yeah, we came from there."
   "Then how did you end up here?!"
   "We came with ya," yellow ribbon said matter-of-factly while the other shrugged in agreement.
   Your breath got caught in your throat as you flipped the flap of your bookbag over, looking at the empty space in dismay.
   "Where are my foxes?"
   "That's us!" they chorused, identical smirks of pride on their faces, as if being yours was something to show off or brag about. 
   "They were plushies! People cannot be plushies!"
   "No, they were real foxes, and we're real foxes, 'cause they were us."
   "Where the hell would I get real foxes?!"
   They saw the moment you pieced two and two together, your face turning from one of anxious anger to acceptance as you realized what they were trying to say.
   The ribbons. Their colors. The plushies that felt a little too real. That one night in your cabin. The day you fed them in that one cafe.
   They were your foxes.
   "Yup," grey ribbon nodded his head, and you shut your mouth, not wanting to accidentally say what you were thinking again.
   "Why did you come here? You belong in the forest!"
   "No, we're your foxes," they said in unison.
   "No you aren't," you groaned, covering your face with both your hands.
   The two of them had attached themselves to your side, and when you said that, they seemed to get even more annoyed, and so they snuggled even closer to you, an arm slung around your shoulders and around your waist.
   "What are your names?" you finally relented, relaxing in their grip.
   "Miya Osamu," the one with the grey ribbon said, pulling you closer from the waist.
   "Miya Atsumu, the better twin," the one with the yellow ribbon retorted, tugging you back with the arm around your shoulder.
   "Stop pushing me around! We barely know each other!"
   "Can you stop with that already?" Osamu said, though he had no actual anger or malice behind his words.
   "Or do we have to remind you who you belong to?" Atsumu said suggestively, and you braced yourself for whatever mischief he had planned.
   In one moment, you were sitting normally in the middle of your bed. In the next, you were back against your headboard, your head on your pillows. And you became a pillow, as Osamu tucked his face in your neck and Atsumu rested his head on your chest.
   "We're taking a nap together again whether you like it or not," Osamu said decisively, and you could tell that was that, no arguing.
   "At least let me pull those off, it's embarrassing," you complained, your hand drifting up to Atsumu's ribbons.
   "No," he said, catching your hand warningly. Something in his voice made you obey immediately. "That's mine."
   "Well this is mine too!" you replied heatedly, bringing a hand up and cradling Osamu's head against you. But instead of doing anything or acting out like any normal person would, Osamu started purring, a satisfied grin on his face while you had a look of dismay, your cheeks reddening. 
   Atsumu glared at him, moving your hand so your arm was wrapped around him, pulling him closer as well. You got the hint and raised your other hand to run your fingers through his hair, leaving you to deal with two purring fox-shifting idiots.
   "Fine, you're both mine, I guess," you gave up, fighting back a blush and pretending that statement didn't warm your heart as much as it did.
   "And your ours," they chorused happily, and you didn't even try to hide the pink spreading across your cheeks when they rubbed their faces against yours.
   "Okay," you said quietly, accepting the fact that them being yours and you being theirs made you feel something happy and content in your chest, something that was dangerously close to love. If you were like them, you were one hundred percent sure you'd start purring, too.
   I mean, you did say you wanted a boyfriend, and the universe was kind enough to give you more than what you bargained for.
   The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with yellow and red while the blues and purples of night crept closer. The clouds were fluffy and lined with silver, their normal white reflecting pink hues.
   The last rays of sunlight filtered through a sheer peach curtain, coating everything in gold lighting.
   Three people were sleeping soundly on a bed, the white blanket thrown over their tangled legs, breaths even and in sync. Dyed grey hair peeked out from under a chin, and blond hair tickled a collarbone. Natural hair was sprawled out on the white stuffed pillows.
   Osamu opened an eye, before raising his head and pressing a soft kiss to the sleeping beauty's lips.
   And if he raised a finger to his lips? Well, I can't say what happened next, because my lips are sealed.
oh my GOD did this take forever between writing this and school and the fanart of this (which i’ll post later) i took way longer than i normally would
that being said, i hope you still like it <3
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nachohypno · 4 years
Text
Nate and Dave Ch. 11
It’s been a while.
…Not a very long while, though. It was just a week ago or so when I lost my virginity to a werewolf. Who just happens to be my soulmate. And thus, has to obey everything I say.
Neat.
Getting up from my bed was always a hard task for me. And that sounded way sadder than I intended. Point is, school starts in like half an hour and I’m still not even up. I was, of course, doing this on purpose.
I’m not that eager to go to school, but it’s my responsibility and I respect that. I was just having a little experiment though.
The sound of an indistinguishable car parking in front of my house, some heavy footsteps later, a knock on my door. I had opened my window, so I could hear everything that went down as he opened the front door and ran up the stairs.
A few moments later, Dave the jock entered my room and closed the door behind him. “Why ya still in bed?”
Everything fell into place. “Bed gravity is killing me right now, barely want to move” I excused myself, but I did wonder if Dave knew that I was waiting for him to notice I didn’t answer his daily [Mornin, my love<3], and feigned being late to school to make him come over.
I mean, I didn’t intend on making him come over, I just wanted to see how he would react to it. Dave was usually pretty pending on what I’m doing, and wants to take part to make sure we spend lots of time together.
It’s cute and scary at the same time, things that happen when a werewolf just so happens to see you as their soulmate.
“Ditchin’ school? Is it just me or you suddenly become way more attractive?” He dropped his bag on the floor and pushed me against the wall to make room for himself, then climbed on the bed and lied down beside me.
“Wait, we’re not ditching school. I mean, it does sound good, but we still have to—” He interrupted me. Dave liked to do this when I’m about to bring something up that will probably ruin the moment, it was a good life-saver. He invaded my mouth with his tongue, while trying to remain as gentle as always.
I could tell that wasn’t an easy task for him, but he tried his best and it really showed.
Sadly, I had to pull him off. “Wait, we gotta head to class, I don’t want to be late and you’re doing great progress lately.”
“Huh, y’think so?” Dave mumbled, trying to get closer again but I gently pushed him back. I was tempted to just stay in bed and cuddle with him all morning, but if I wanted to help him become a better guy at the end, I should give the example too.
“I legit think Ms. Porter will cry with joy if you actually finish that book for her essay.” I replied, kissing his cheek before passing over him and leaving the bed.
I think I helped him a lot at school, not only with his shitty behavior but also with his studies. Dave wanted to be a good guy for me, because I didn’t trust him before with all his shitty hot-headed attitude.
…He still had it. But he tried to be nicer.
“Hmm… I’m up for it, that bitch’s made my last year a nightmare. Tryna make me do extra essays n’ stuff” I would let that slide, because everyone hated Ms. Porter. She did give everyone a lot of essays. I’m okay with it, I enjoy reading, but even those books aren’t that interesting.
Dave got up from my bed, and passed a hand over his hair. I noticed it was a bit brighter than usual. It wasn’t combed, but he seemed to have it stylized with gel to be a bit spikier, in contrast to his usually short, wavy and parted to the left style.
“Well… I didn’t even shower yet but—”
But the werewolf was already determined. “No shit, bro. We’re not going late, that’s what ya just said. C’mon, looking great already, as always” Dave grabbed my bag near my desk, placed it on my back before grabbing his own bag and my hand, pulling me out of my room.
“Hey, I can’t go to school in pajamas- Oh you know what, never mind, I’ve done this before.” I quickly changed my answer mid-speech. I sighed, ‘I’m supposed to be the one in control here and I’m being dragged out of my house. Let’s change that back’ I told myself.
“Dave, I order you to stop,” I said firmly, as we reached the living room. The jock obeyed without hesitation, freezing in place. I couldn’t see his face right now, but I assumed his eyes were a bit zoned out, like they always get when I order him something. “And let go of my hand, if you may.” He obeyed that too, his arms falling to his sides as the werewolf waited for more orders.
Alright, let’s see.
I grabbed a yoghurt cereal bar from the fridge, that would make a good breakfast. I used my reflection at the microwave’s glass door to fix my hair as best as I could, before I decided to walk upstairs and finish the deal brushing my teeth and washing my face.
I checked my clock, we still had quite some time. At least 17 minutes until the first class *actually* started.
I changed my tee into something less pajama-y and my pants for some jeans. Now I was looking appropriate for school, the last thing I needed was being sent to the counselor’s office for having a sudden “Lazy day”.
Believe me, it happened before and it could happen again.
Walking back downstairs while biting a big chunk of the cereal bar, Dave was still frozen in place. I could take a good look at him now, and I liked the view.
The big football player had, as I expected, zoned out eyes and a bit of a dumb smile. He wasn’t wearing the bowser collar I got him, which made sense because we were about to enter school.
A lumberjack buttoned shirt that seemed to cling pretty well to his muscular body, a tank top underneath, and some black joggers. I took a moment to unbutton the top button of his shirt, so his pecs would be a bit more visible. It gave him a cuter look, while also being like “Yo, I’m really muscled”. I chuckled at the little impersonation I just imagined.
“So, uh… you can wake up, I think?” I was still a bit unsure of how this all ‘I control your mind and body’ thing worked, but I was getting the hang of it pretty well!
The zoned out jock blinked a few times before starting to move again. “Oh, hey bro. When did you change clothes? You look stunning as always, huh.” He mumbled, before leaning in to give me a kiss and walking out of the house with a big smile.
He really didn’t care if I controlled him or anything, he would just roll with it. I was sure he actually enjoyed it, he always looks excited when I suggest he do something. Ordering him to do something may just trigger his puppy boy side to make sure I’m happy, maybe? It’s just a theory without any fundamentals.
It’s not like there’s a book about werewolves anyway. Not that I know of, I guess.
Beep! Beeeeeeep!
Dave was now using the car’s horn to make me hurry. I grabbed my bag again and walked out, joining him at his car and receiving yet another amazing kiss.
“I’m sorta sad when we have different classes,” He started, as he drove away from my house and towards the school. He was trying to hurry, but while maintaining the basic driving security measures. Guess the big guy wants to be a responsible driver, huh. “That means less time admiring your handsome face, my love”.
“Aaaand, more time to focus on your studies. You know that I get really proud when you study like a good puppy boy, don’t you?” I was about to caress the back of his ear, but that would have been dangerous. He shouldn’t zone out while driving.
“Yessuh, I’m a good puppy boy!” He beamed up, but remained focus on the road. A few minutes later, we were arriving at the almost-empty parking lot. Dave pulled over and turned off the engine, before pulling me in for one last kiss. This one was particularly longer than the former ones, I loved it.
“A lil’ present, don’t know how I’m gonna survive these shitty classes without you…” He leaned in towards my shoulder, laying on it. I did what I intended to before and caressed his good spot behind his ear. The big guy started panting, tongue lolling out.
“C’mon,” I said, checking my phone with my free hand and stopping the sweet moment. “We’ve got a few minutes left. Gotta go in, puppy boy.” His eyes seemed sad, but he nodded.
Dave grabbed his bag and left the car, and I followed suit.
We hurried to the main building, and I noticed that Dave seemed hesitant about something. His hand was almost touching mine as we walked, but he made sure it was several centimeters apart so nobody would suspect anything.
I always wondered if it was hard for him to keep himself apart from me. I definitely didn’t mind, but we still had things to work out if we wanted this to really end up well.
…Dave hates when I imply that we’re two guys in a relationship, when he’s the one that brought it up and asked me to be his boyfriend. He’s still pretty homophobic, yeah, but he works around it pretty well.
Still considering himself straight isn’t bad, I guess. I’m more worried about the other targets he used to torment. While he’s not a bully anymore, he also wouldn’t lift a finger to stop something from happening right in front of him, except if I’m the one in danger.
It’s not like I want him to be a superhero, and I do find his ‘mean jock’ attitude kind of attractive, (When it doesn’t terrify me, of course.)
“Just before we enter, let me remind ya that you’re the best guy in the universe, my soulmate…” He wanted to lean in for a kiss, but quickly got back on my feet and blushed.
“Good luck today, big guy” I tiptoed and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Love you too, by the way.”
Before he could react though and pull me in for a make out session at the school’s gates, I entered the building and headed to my locker. The disappointed but infatuated jock followed behind me, and went to his own locker.
Everyone seemed to be already going to their classes, so I guess I was still safe.
My first class was advanced math, and while it wasn’t that difficult, it wasn’t ideal either.
All the seats were taken already, except the one next to one of my two best friends. Sadly, Dick wasn’t in this class, and Sam didn’t seem happy to see me.
“Coming late to school? That’s a new thing.” He greeted me, as I sat down and took my stuff out of the bag.
“I like to think that I’m not late if the professor hasn’t arrived yet” Speaking of which, I noticed the guy was actually arriving late today. It was like 10 minutes past the class’ start. “Uh… did I miss a text or something? This one’s never late, huh.”
 “No no, don’t summon him just yet. We can fast-forward to a later meeting so we can all go home earlier. That sounds good, yeah” Poor guy, he’s speaking with himself now.
Sam had been elected last year as our council’s president, with a lot of effort and dealing with each of the “cliques” around school.
...And it seemed to be worse than he planned it out to be. You see, one of his promises to get the jocks’ votes was to increase the budget for the sports teams, which included the cheerleaders in the bandwagon.
That sounds cool, but in reality they already had more than enough budget dedicated to them, so we had to start raising funds for future events, or the sports team would eat it all.
Parents with their “bring and sell food for the school” events helped quite a lot, I’ve never been happier to see a random mother bring a plate full of nachos and hot dogs to sell at school.
“So, I’m supposed to ask the whole council about this, but I’d like to lay out my options first…” Sam took The Mighty Notebook from his bag and placed it on the middle of the table, pushing my things aside. ‘How rude!’ I thought, but didn’t give it too much importance.
“A sexy car wash is-” “Out of the question” I interrupted him “This isn’t a teen tv show. We can’t sexualize our football players.”
“Well, you can, you just don’t want to. Anyway… Cake sale?” My friend took a pen and crossed out the ‘sexy car wash’ option.
“People’ll get tired of it if we keep doing those. Parents already sell food at sports games and they’re not exactly rare to see, we have one almost every two weeks.” I hated being the party pooper, but if it helped him pick the right choices… “It can be done, but we can rehash that idea too many times. That’s what I mean.”
“Oooookay” He didn’t cross that one out, but instead added a big “(?)” next to it. “Last one I thought about, for now, was a winter’s ball kind of thing. Selling tickets for prom is apparently a great way to raise funds, but I’m not waiting until the end of the school year for that.”
“We’d need the principal’s permission for that but… you should discuss that one with the cheerleaders, they’ll love the idea. The more ‘prom nights’ there are, the merrier for them, huh?” This time, he made a tick next to the option, like it was validated for the meeting later.
“I wish we could do something like the drama club and just put up a lame production and sell overpriced tickets… Parents would pay anything to see their sons, right?”
“Uh, I guess so. They would probably be pretty mad if we fucked up the show, so let’s leave that one out.” Sam seemed a bit tired. I could maybe ask Dave for a little help with this whole thing, he would know what to do.
Hmm… or maybe, Dave’s ex-girlfriend?
“You should talk with Leslie.” I gave Sam a little tap on the shoulder and pointed at the girl a few rows at the back. She hadn’t noticed us, but she was really nice and tried her best to get to know me. We even sat together, like once! “Pretty sure she’d have some cool ideas that don’t sound taken from a bad movie.”
“You think so?” He took a moment to breath, relaxing on his chair. I honestly wanted to help, but I’ve never wanted to be his secretary because I’m not good with coming up with this kind of stuff. Pretty sure anybody could do a better job than me in that area. “I’ll try to catch her in the corridor. Just… don’t stare and be cool, right? I don’t wanna come off as a perv, geez. We also have this party tonight, so could I maybe approach her there? I dunno...”
The professor made his way in, with an angry look on his face. We straightened on our seats to avoid getting his attention, I don’t want to be called out by some asshole in a mood. To finish with our council chatter, I whispered to Sam a “I’m sure you’ll do fine, she’s not the devil, right?”
He chuckled a bit before answering “Don’t let Dick hear you, I kinda think he has a crush on one of those chicks.” I rolled my eyes, such a cheap gossip.
-------
If I told you that nothing else interesting happened during the day, I wouldn’t be lying. 
I barely got to see Dave, just had lunch with him at the yard’s lunch tables before being separated again. He ditched football practice, and I did the same with today’s council reunion because I had a headache.
I got into an argument with a professor, too. The first class in the day, but it wasn’t anything worth looking into. He thought he was right, and he was too mad to check he wasn’t right at all. Almost got sent to the principal’s office, but I dropped the subject just in time.
I did share a classroom with Dave for the second class but… we got separated by Sam’s need to plan out his next meeting. You see why I ditched the reunion today? I wanted to rest!
Lucky me, my savior was just a few tables away, and knew exactly what I needed.
He waited for me to put my stuff back at my locker after our last class ended, and took me to his car.
I first thought he was just driving me to my house, since we didn’t speak about him staying at all, but there were no questions asked apparently. The big guy decided to give me a good time, as he pulled over in front of my house, walked around the car and lifted me on his arms.
I felt like a little brat, but it also felt amazing. Having someone who cares about you on such a deep level, like Dave does… I love it. I love him. And he loves me.
The jock opened the door with one of his hands, kicked it shut and took me to my room.
There, he softly left me on my bed before putting a strip show in front of me. Or I wasn’t really sure what that was. He just threw his shirt and jeans over to my desk chair and started searching through his school bag.
The silence was a bit boring, but I felt like talking was unnecessary right now. I just wanted to know what he was planning for the evening. He pulled out the bowser collar, huh.
“Never leave the house without it, bruh” Dave said.  “What’ya waiting for? Get on your underwear, we’re doing some great cuddling t’night!”
“Uh, okay. I like where this is going...” I mumbled, before starting my own strip show. Sadly, Dave barely paid attention to me, he was trying to put on the collar by himself, but he was having some trouble.
Before dropping my pants, I walked over to him and clasped the buckle for him, tightening it enough so it wouldn’t fall off but also trying to make it comfortable for him to wear. “Hmm… Perfect, my love…” He whispered in a sexy voice, before planting a warm kiss on my lips. 
I thought we were starting already, but the big guy started to run towards my bed and lied down with his arms reaching out for me. “C’mooooon, can’t wait for youuuuuu!”
I rolled my eyes and dropped my pants. Still in my underwear, just like the werewolf jock, I walked over to my bed and got grabbed by my boyfriend there.
Laying down on bed as Dave pulled me closer to his warm, almost-smooth body.
The bowser dog collar around his neck wasn’t sharp enough to hurt me, so I didn’t worry about that and just let myself be grabbed by this hunk of a jock.
“Enjoyed your day, my love?” He asked, looking at me with adoring eyes. It wasn’t creepy, I liked it. He barely acts like this at school, so his change of ‘big meanie alpha bro’ to ‘lovesick puppy boy’ was amazing to see.
“Ugh… I almost fell asleep at Mr. Cal’s class. So glad it’s Friday again…” I mumbled my answer. I tried to avoid mentioning the argument with my professor, but I’m pretty sure my class mentioned it already. Dave was pretty straightforward though, so he would probably mention it if he wanted to.
I know that I could easily not be tired if I would go to bed earlier at night, but those monsters are not going to hunt themselves in Monster Hunter, right?
“Wouldn’t mind spending all weekend just hugging you here…” Dave whispered, before placing a gentle kiss on my head. His hand was moving towards my private area, but I wasn’t going to stop him. I liked how it felt. “Just taking care of my lovely soulmate…” Another kiss, this time moving closer to my mouth.
When it comes to sexy stuff… I suck. Like, not in the literal hot way, I’m lame at it. I don’t like bottoming much, because I’m a bit of a wimp and I’m afraid of being hurt, but having Dave as a top is such a wonderful thing (After you go past that little pain at the beginning, the rest of the thing goes in like nothing) probably because he focuses too much on me having the most pleasure out of it.
So, I usually let Dave take control of the situation and just guide me wherever he wants to go. It’s not like we fuck every day though; I’ve only had my first time like a week ago. My werewolf jock would be up for it if I ordered him to, not going to lie.
But like, if we did that, it would kind of lose the magic of the moment? Like, I know Dave loves sex but even if it feels good the two times we’ve done it so far, it’s not like it’s a game-changer or anything.
So… cuddling and foreplay was the best thing ever!
“That’s sweet but don’t you have a party tonight? Sam has been talking all week about a—” I got silenced, the kiss was now happening at my mouth, cool. That’s what I get for trying to ruin such a good moment, I’m glad Dave stopped me.
His hand slipped in my underwear as he took hold of my cock and slowly stroked it. Meanwhile, we made out without a care in the world.
My breath got heavier. I felt so good at the moment, and Dave seemed to want me to stay like that for a good while. He would slow down the pace of his strokes or pick it up at just the right times.
…I had an idea.
I passed my hand through his hair as we broke the kiss, and he just looked at me in bliss. “Who’s a good puppy boy? You are, don’t you?” I whispered the question, to get him in his puppy mood.
It worked like a charm. Dave’s strokes slowed down a bit, as he started caressing himself with my hand, like a dog would do. “Yeah, bruh… Imma good puppy boy”
I ruffled his hair a bit more. “And every good puppy boy needs a good owner to take care of them, right?”
Okay, it may seem like I’m trying to do something weird or kinky here, but I actually wanted to try and make him a bit less… self-centered? I already had full control of him, due to our soulmate bond, but maybe if he saw me as a superior… He wouldn’t be so careless about others? Like he’s not at the top of the pyramid anymore?
But it didn’t work as intended, or at least not as I expected. Dave shook his head, without losing his chilled and happy expression. “Good puppy boys take care of their owners, bruh. Wanna protect and serve mine to make ‘im happy.”
It definitely wasn’t what I wanted to say, but it worked pretty well. “Who’s the owner though, puppy boy?”
“Really need me to say it?” The werewolf jock seemed a bit embarrassed to give his answer, as his cheeks turned red and he stared at me very intently. I nodded, of course. I came this far already, what I’m going to say? ‘Oh, no, I was just messing with you hahahaha well good night!’ “You’re my owner, bruh. Didn’t ya know that already? I love doing as you say…”
He leaned in for a good kiss. “…And I love you, my lovely soulmate.” He finished. Now I was the one who blushed. After that, the jock lied down beside me and pulled me to cuddle together. “Now come here, I need to make my owner feel good”
It did feel good to hear that I’m his owner. Oh geez, do I have a domination kink? Uh… I think that kind of explains why I love seeing him wearing that bowser collar, beside that it makes fun of the fact that he’s a werewolf.
He’s my good puppy boy, after all. “So, how are you going to make your owner feel good, puppy boy?” I roamed his big chest with my hands as I waited for an answer. I don’t feel like I say this enough, but I’m lucky to have this guy as my soulmate.
Dave raised an eyebrow, and spoke with a confident tone, but still curious. “What does my owner want me to do? This puppy boy will take care of it, whatever it is, huhuh”
Ooookay, if my cock was hard before, then it was aching right now with how horny I was. “Truth is, been a while since we’ve had some… action?” Oh god, I felt so dumb saying something like that. I think Dave would have laughed at me, but he actually seemed turned on by what I was implying.
“Fuck, been wanting to hear you say those words in like a week.” He kneeled on top of the bed, after pulling his underwear off. His cock was hard, as usual. I wonder if he jerks off at his house or if he’s just eager like a big horny werewolf. Speaking of his cock, Dave placed himself in such a way that his cock would be right in front of me. “C’mon bruh, show me how those lips work-”
“I was actually expecting you to suck mine off… Never did this before” If I felt dumb before, imagine how I was now. Dave seemed to try and find a solution, though.
“So, uh… never 69’d before?” I shook my head, and he let out a little sigh, but never stopped smiling. He was just a soft marshmallow when we were alone, I liked that about him. “Let me show ya”
I remained lying down, as Dave did all the work. He crawled over to my cock, got on top of my body and moved until his cock was on my face and mine was near his. The jock licked the top, giving me a little jolt of pleasure, like a little preview of what was about to come.
“Just… relax, and open wide. Not everyone can take my snake during their first time, heh” It made me wonder how many times he did this before. Or how many times did he had sex before. 
I leaned forward and smelled his dong. It wasn’t bad, so I proceeded to take the piece of meat in my mouth. It didn’t taste bad at all, it was actually pleasant. I wiggled my tongue around the tip, and I could hear the big guy starting to pant already before he dove in for my cock.
‘Hell yeaaaaah’ I thought, before focusing on my own part of the job. It was a bit hard to do due to the position, but it was doable, at least. I wasn’t able to deep throat (Not that I’ve ever done that before, saw it in porn and uh… it would be nice to try out?) due to the position, too.
“You’re doing great, my love…” Dave pulled off for a second to say, before going back to the action. I felt compelled to order him something, just like the first time he gave me a blowjob. It was always so hot, looking at him doing as I said…
“Uh… hey Dave, could you take it all in and work around that?” I ordered him, way calmer than this morning. It still seemed to work, because he took my whole shaft in one go and I could feel the motion of his mouth going up and down, taking it all every time. It felt really good, but I had to return the favor.
I tried to pick up my pace too, to make him feel as good as I was. I know that I can’t possibly compete with a werewolf under the soulmate bond, he would definitely… uhhh. “I’m coming!” I warned him, but he didn’t move an inch.
The big guy took my whole load, and licked the rest of my shaft with his tongue to avoid letting a drop of my cum go to waste.
And now, it was my turn…
Dave had this order still on him. “You will cum only after I cum.” Not saying that he’s precocious but… he does seem to cum right after I’ve been pleased. Maybe he finds that hot already?
My train of thoughts was derailed by the sudden explosion of cum in my mouth. It activated my gag reflex, so I pulled off and just swallowed the one that was already in my mouth. Part of my mind found it hot, while the other found it a bit gross.
Dave was still at 69 position. I looked over at his face and he seemed to be back in obedient puppy mode. Tongue lolling out, and eyes glazed over. It was a hot sight.
“C’mon big guy, did a great job down there. Let’s just cuddle for a while, alright?” I told him, wanting to cover myself so badly. I felt a bit naked without a sheet over myself. Luckily, none of our loads fell in my bed, or I would have to change the sheets.
“Yeah, bruh…” He mumbled, before doing as I told him. He repositioned himself next to me, and lied down. His muscled body was an amazing sight, and I pulled him in for a hug.
“Who’s a good puppy boy?” I whispered, loving the feel of his warm skin against mine.
“I am, bruh. I’m a good puppy boy for my owner… huhuh…” A dopey smile appeared on his face, and I proceeded to plant a kiss on him. I wanted to write down today’s progressions or something, I still had that ‘study Dave’s behavior’ on my mind. But it seemed kind of clouded now that I was focused on taking a little break with him beside me.
It was always good to spend a good time with my lovely werewolf jock.
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