#but the thing is she got really upset last week that it seems like both me & bro don't want to hang out with her that much | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jayflrt · 6 months

Text

golden boy

❝ c’mon, this is exactly like the bahamas if you close your eyes. ❞

PAIRING ▸ lee heeseung x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ fluff, crack, best friends to lovers, summer romance au, rich kid au

WARNINGS ▸ profanity, underage drinking, heeseung is the biggest simp ever, and he calls you princess, mc has a stepdad, she is also a little spoiled in the beginning, tooth rotting fluff (like might be the fluffiest thing i’ve written), mutual pining ofc because this is a jayflrt fic, friends being insufferable (mainly 02z)

SUMMARY ▸ in the summer between high school and college, lee heeseung is determined to make you fall in love with the city of los angeles after your vacation plans in the bahamas fall through. somewhere between the lines, though, you end up falling for your childhood best friend.

WORD COUNT ▸ 16,375 words

PLAYLIST ▸ youth by troye sivan • tongue tied by grouplove • ribs by lorde • sanctuary by joji • cruel summer by taylor swift • stars by duncan laurence

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ i have been waiting AGES to share this one so i hope u guys like it !! ♡ also pls play stars by duncan laurence during the observatory scene if you’d like :’)

IT WAS THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER VACATION WHEN YOU RECEIVED THE GOD-AWFUL NEWS.

“Your father and I are finally gonna have our honeymoon this summer!” your mother exclaimed, grinning excitedly as if she was expecting you to reciprocate the same energy.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t god-awful, but this was the one summer where you didn’t have to shoulder the responsibilities of being a student. Having recently graduated from high school, you were basking in the glow of finally becoming an adult and an incoming college freshman. You were finally free from AP exams, college applications, and the pressure of balancing academics and a social life. So, given all that, you were rather upset that your parents were leaving you behind before you had to fall into the routine of being a student all over again.

You didn’t mind having this talk. In fact, you were glad your mother was telling you in advance instead of just jetting away to another country and leaving a note behind. However, you didn’t understand why she had to have this conversation in front of your best friend, Lee Heeseung.

It probably didn’t help that you two had been joined at the hip since you were wearing diapers, but your families had gotten far too comfortable with each other. Just last week, Heeseung’s mom was asking you if you both had finally “tied the knot,” to which you replied by explaining that you had just graduated high school.

You were happy for your mother and stepfather, really. Your mother had experienced her fair share of bad relationships after your father left, so you were glad that she finally met someone so kind and genuine. You weren’t ever one to judge the men your mother brought home, but your stepfather always got brownie points for playing Mario Kart with you whenever he came over. Not to mention, he bought you the Nintendo Switch to play it on. He seemed to be the only man who didn’t feel insecure about your mother’s success and lavish lifestyle, so you only had good things to say about him.

While you were genuinely glad with the outcome of your parents’ relationship, that unbecoming, spoiled side of you was slipping through the cracks. Even your brain was shouting at you for complaining about having to stay in Bel Air for the summer. Yet, you were just far too frustrated with the bleak vision of your own summer to care about your parent’s honeymoon. In two weeks, you should have been vacationing in the Bahamas with a piña colada in your hand, not waiting for your parents to come back from Rome.

“That sounds so fun,” you chirped with fake enthusiasm, although you supposed it was easily detected due to your gritted teeth, “and that’s not gonna interfere with our trip to the Bahamas, right?” When she didn’t respond, you asked again, “Right, Mom?”

Your mother wore an uneasy look on her face at the sight of your displeasure, so Heeseung cut in quickly, “I think you should probably forget about the Bahamas this year, Y/N.”

“Heeseung!” you whined, sending him a sharp glare. He did not just tell you to forget about the Bahamas. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“Not around your mom, dude,” he muttered.

“He’s right, Y/N.” Your mother smiled as she placed her hands on your shoulders. “I mean, it would be good for you to stay here with all of your friends for once; I don’t think you’ve ever not left the country for the summer.” When you sulked, your mother tried to encourage you by gently squeezing your shoulders. “Heeseung and your other friends are here, and you have a car now! Yeji’s family moved to Irvine now, didn’t they? You can drive down to see her.”

You nodded, a little more encouraged. You and Hwang Yeji had been close ever since you met at Choi Jisu’s birthday party in middle school. When Yeji’s parents decided to move to Irvine, finding that housing was much more expensive in Los Angeles County, you were absolutely crushed. Plus, it wasn’t like Orange County was any less expensive, so you felt even more bitter about their sudden move. It wasn’t like you could drive and see Yeji whenever you wanted, either; the one hour drive felt like three with all the Los Angeles traffic.

You hung your head, dejected. “I guess so.” You turned your head to the side, noticing the snicker that Heeseung was holding back. After shooting him a dirty look, you looked back at your mother. “When are you leaving?”

“This weekend,” she responded, eyes fixed on her phone screen now. “I have to sort out my PTO with my boss today, though.” She kissed the top of your head and started heading for the door, heels clicking against the linoleum flooring with each step. “I’ll see you later tonight, Y/N! And make sure Heeseung actually goes home tonight!”

You shot a glance at your friend, who didn’t seem to have a care in the world in reaction to your mother’s words.

Heeseung tended to be scared of everything—everything except actually scary things, like biblically accurate angels or the wrath of his mother.

You gave your best friend a condescending half-grin, which he returned sheepishly. As of late, Heeseung had become notorious for staying out late with Jay Park, Jake Sim, and Park Sunghoon. (Yang Jungwon often joined them, but he was adamant about going home before midnight. Something about not wanting to miss out on his beauty sleep.) Everyone thought this was the beginning of Heeseung’s teenage rebellion (which was rather delayed), but then you discovered that all they did was play games in an internet café and occasionally use their fake IDs to get into VIP lounges at clubs.

When you heard the door shut, you circled around the couch to sit next to Heeseung.

“This sucks,” you said flatly. “Summer means an ungodly rise in temperature—hot enough to melt the skin off my bones, and I’d rather have that happen while I’m sunbathing in the Bahamas!”

“Do you realize how spoiled you sound right now?” Heeseung snorted, looking up from his phone where he was playing Cookie Run from the umpteenth time. You swore he was addicted to the game despite the numerous times he told you he was just playing it as a joke. Your best friend continued, “You should be happy for your mom instead of complaining about your summer being ruined.”

You sank back in your seat. You hated to admit it, but Heeseung was right; you were being uptight about this whole situation. You just couldn’t help but feel disappointed about the one thing you were looking forward to all year long.

Heeseung leaned closer so that you both were shoulder-to-shoulder, and he nudged you. You looked over and were met with his dazzling grin. Frankly, you were honored that you were graced with his attention in the middle of his Cookie Run gaming session.

“You can spend the summer with me instead,” he offered.

You snorted. “That was gonna happen, anyway. You spend all your free time at my place.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Heeseung asked, brows knitting into a frown.

He looked at you so intensely that your breath caught in your throat for a moment. The proximity coupled with the shift in tone made you feel self-conscious, and you were scared that Heeseung was going to let some unspoken feeling slip.

However, his face broke into a mischievous grin. “You guys have a jacuzzi.”

You pressed your lips into a thin line and shoved him harder. This time, Heeseung was laughing as he fell against one of the cushions on his side. You grabbed one of the throw pillows and started pummeling him with it.

“You have your own jacuzzi, too, dumbass,” you retorted. “You’d know if you actually stayed at your own house for once! Also, you’ve lost your pool privileges here after you poured bubble bath in ours.”

“Come on. It wasn’t that bad.”

“You clogged our jets and we had to pay someone to get rid of the bubbles, Heeseung.”

“Jake was the one who poured the bubble bath in!”

“And who was the one who gave him the idea?”

Heeseung grimaced, and you were seconds away from reminding him how you took the fall for him when your parents asked what happened to the hot tub. Before you could, though, he spoke up.

“I was being serious, though,” he started, “do you wanna have a fun summer with me, or do you wanna stay bitter and do nothing?”

Something about Heeseung’s condescending tone was pissing you off. You stared at him before delivering one last blow with the throw pillow.

“Ow! What was that for?!” he exclaimed, rubbing his arm. You rolled your eyes at his dramatics; you didn’t even hit him that hard.

“I’ll see you later,” you told him, turning on your heel to head upstairs without seeing your friend out. “I have plans with Yizhuo now.”

You weren’t exactly sure how you became friends with Ning Yizhuo, but throughout high school, everyone knew the two of you came in a package deal. When you were in third period AP World History, everyone knew that Yizhuo would switch out of her second period section to be in your class; when you didn’t show up to calculus, it was no surprise that it was because you were ditching with Yizhuo; when Zhong Chenle asked Yizhuo out, he realized that commitment came with becoming your friend as well.

At first, you assumed that it was because your mothers were close, but that didn’t explain why you spent countless nights at her place and picked her up for school every single morning. Heeseung even once admitted that he was jealous of your friendship with her. He was drunk when he mentioned that, of course. He would never admit to that while he was sober.

When she got into a school on the west coast and you got into a school on the east coast, though, you thought your life was over. (When you figured out your meet-up plans were somewhat manageable, you felt a little better.)

On the bright side, you were stoked to attend Yale with your partner-in-crime, Heeseung.

“Wait! Let me drive you,” said partner-in-crime offered.

You turned to face him, wide-eyed. “It’s like a thirty minute drive, Heeseung. I’m going to her country club.”

Despite your protests, you knew that Heeseung would be more than willing to drive all the way over there. Hell, you could tell him you wanted to go to Las Vegas right now, and he’d somehow manage to arrange a trip for you two. You had never met anyone as spontaneous as him.

Now, though, you were trying to get away from him because you were a little bitter about his comment. On the other hand, you really didn’t want to drive alone, so you kept his proposition on the table.

“Oh, her country club? The one up north, right?” he inquired. “Can I bring Jake, too? We’ll just hang out at the mall while you do your thing.”

You mulled it over—not for long, though, because you found yourself caving easily. “Fine.”

You forgot that Heeseung bringing Jake meant that Jay and Sunghoon were coming along for the ride, too.

The three of them were squeezed in the back of Heeseung’s Tesla, with Jay incessantly complaining about how he had to take the middle seat. He even went as far as to compare heights, and Sunghoon used his one centimeter on Jay to his advantage. Jake remained silent for once.

You ran your finger along the smooth leather of your seat and snorted.

“Are you making fun of my car?” Heeseung asked with a chuckle.

“No, I’m making fun of how you dropped extra money for white seats.”

“And for the seven-seater.”

“What?!” Jay exclaimed, swiveling in his seat to look behind him. “And you still squeezed me in the middle seat?”

“Not my fault you didn’t look behind you, dude.”

Sunghoon and Jake proceeded to laugh at their friend, and you were about to do the same until you realized you had looked to see if Heeseung was laughing along with you. To your delight, he was. That, and the wind was blowing in his hair so perfectly. The golden sun shone across his face in a way that made his eyes crinkle up and his smile grow. You would always scold him for not having sunglasses on him, but, this time, you were a little distracted by how he glowed.

Heeseung then turned to you, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his thigh. “What’s up?”

“N-nothing at all.” You coughed, tearing your gaze away to look ahead at the freeway. “Are we almost there?”

You just then registered how the backseat had gotten awfully silent, and when you turned to check on The Three Idiots (you deemed this title upon them back in high school, and it stuck), they all had Cheshire grins spread across their faces. It was a little scary, honestly. Their antics were nightmarish on their own, but what their eyes suggested was something that would haunt you. You fought down the heat creeping up your cheeks in an effort to appear indifferent, and you turned back to look at the GPS.

Ten minutes. You had to deal with them for ten more minutes. That was 600 seconds. Maybe you could tune out the testosterone if you counted down your arrival time.

To your relief, though, ten minutes passed by much faster because the four boys got into a heated argument over the superior boba shop in the Bay Area. You had to interject by reminding them that none of them were even from the Bay Area. Heeseung wound up going on a tangent about how he and Choi Yeonjun went on a day trip last weekend, which you would have remembered “if you were a better friend.”

You did remember, actually. Heeseung was texting you the entire time about Yeonjun forcing him to choose between him or a PS5. You presumed that Heeseung chose the PS5 because Yeonjun posted a black screen on his Snapchat story with the caption “dhmu” followed by a wilting rose and broken heart emoji.

(They wound up gaming all night afterward, anyway.)

The Three Idiots sensed tension from the back seat, so they started a new debate: the superior boba shop in Los Angeles.

You couldn’t believe that this was the depth of their conversations.

When you finally arrived at Yizhuo’s country club, you were being nagged by Sunghoon to get out of the car. He was eager to go to the mall and try out a new sushi place that everyone had been raving about. For someone who seemed to lack any seriousness, Sunghoon was extremely diligent about his frequent Yelp reviews; he even got promoted to the Yelp Elite Squad.

“Alright, alright, I’m going!” you complained, shooting Heeseung a withering look—a please save me from your friends, which he grinned at. “Bye, then.”

“Have fun, princess,” Heeseung called as you were closing the door, and you were grateful your back was turned so that he couldn’t see the look on your face.

(“Princess?” Jay questioned. “Did you just call her princess?”

“It’s an inside joke!” Heeseung rebuked.

“And were you just checking her out?” came Jake’s muffled voice from inside the car, and a bark of laughter followed immediately after from Sunghoon and Jay.)

You shook your head when Heeseung sped off as quickly as possible. You could picture it so vividly; he would be defending himself to his dying breath, cheeks bright red as his mouth ran. Although you found it funny, you knew that Heeseung was probably just glancing out the window to make sure you weren’t too close to the car before he drove away.

“Y/N!” Yizhuo called from the entrance. You turned to see her clad in a cotton shirt and tennis skirt, standing next to Zhong Chenle. “Did you think we were swimming or something?”

Yes, you most definitely did think you were going to be sunbathing by the poolside. With a sheer cover-up over your black one-piece, you were definitely not ready to play tennis with Yizhuo and her boyfriend. You even had your red heart-shaped sunglasses on your head.

You let out a petulant whine, taking your walk of shame over to the two. “I’m already in the racquet club, so why would I come here to play more tennis?”

Yizhuo shrugged, but the one thing you loved about her was that she was flexible with plans. “I’ll just change into my swimsuit, then. I’ve been wanting to sunbathe,” she said before handing Chenle her racquet. “Looks like doubles didn’t work out. Are you and Jisung good with playing singles?”

“I don’t mind as long as I win,” Chenle answered with a grin. “See you two later.”

He was clearly delighted because you were probably the only competition he had to worry about. You were sure Park Jisung would complain when he found out that you weren’t going to be his partner. Jisung was utterly hopeless when it came to tennis—or, rather, he was scared of anything flying in his direction.

Yizhuo grabbed her Prada leather tote bag, pulling out a white two-piece with a gold clip in the front after some digging. She excused herself to change quickly, and came back within five minutes. You were grateful she came prepared. For her, though, it was inevitable considering she drove thirty minutes most days to lounge around her country club with Chenle.

“They’re renovating the banquet room right now,” Yizhuo informed as she settled into the lounge chair next to yours. “I was going to invite you for the opening next week, but you’re gonna be in the Bahamas, as usual.”

“Yeah, about that,” you drawled, “vacation plans fell through, so I’m not going anymore.”

“What?” Yizhuo sat up, startling the server who brought over cocktails on a silver plate. “But you always go to the Bahamas!”

You gingerly took one of the cocktail glasses, mouthing your gratitude before turning your attention back to Yizhuo. “My parents wanna spend their honeymoon alone, and Heeseung thinks I’m acting spoiled.”

Yizhuo smirked against the rim of her glass. “How is it that Heeseung always manages to come up in our conversations?”

“He doesn’t!” you exclaimed. “He’s just always around, you know? Like a fruit fly.”

“Just like how Chenle’s always around?”

“Chenle’s your boyfriend; Heeseung’s just a gnat.”

“I’m telling you, Y/N, you and Heeseung are the dictionary definition of couple behavior. I swear, you two are meant for each other.”

You sighed. “Heeseung and I have been best friends since, like, forever. Our relationship is just… different from my other friendships.”

Yizhuo raised a brow, a coy smile still creeping across her face. “So how come you refer to everyone else as friendships, but with him it’s a relationship?”

“Psychoanalyze much?” You sent a mocking smile right back at her. “Can I not have a friend of the opposite gender anymore?”

“You can have one that doesn’t make heart eyes at you,” Yizhuo replied with a scoff. “I’m telling you, the guy’s head over heels.”

“Whatever.” You slipped your sunglasses down to rest on the bridge of your nose. You didn’t want to think about potential romantic feelings for your best friend that could threaten the stability of your life-long friendship. “Let’s circle back to what’s actually important: my summer.”

“Poor Heeseung.” Yizhuo tutted. “Bahamas over love.”

“Love can happen any time,” you said, “but the window of opportunity only opens once, and that golden period is the summer between high school and college. Think about it, Yizhuo! Every summer after this one is gonna be loaded with classes, internships, and work.”

“So, what’s your game plan?”

You pondered on her question. There were only so many options you had, and, clearly, going to the Bahamas was not one of them. Honestly, you hardly felt like a real Californian with the little knowledge you had about what you could even do around your area; all you could think about was the beach or Disneyland. Plus, with Yeji doing a summer program in Irvine and Yizhuo spending her days at her country club, you didn’t have much room for spontaneous activities with them.

Unless you wanted to spend every single day like you would on a regular weekend, you had to find someone who knew how to make things fun.

And, unfortunately, that narrowed it back down to Lee Heeseung.

You turned back to Yizhuo with a sheepish look on your face. “I think I have an idea.”

“Be my summer escort service.”

“Excuse me?” Heeseung nearly choked on the tea your mother made for him. You watched as he set the cup down as delicately as possible while his eyes welled up with tears. He hit his fist against his chest a few times before calming down. “I don’t think you know what an escort service entails, but I think I know what you’re getting at.” He grinned slowly. “You’re taking me up on my offer.”

You did a lot of thinking on the car ride back to Bel Air.

A lot of thinking during the time when Sunghoon wasn’t complaining about the quality of the sushi place they went to. You were almost inspired to write a negative review yourself because of how passionate he was.

“Well, it’s inevitable that I’m gonna be seeing you almost every day, anyway,” you said, “so we might as well make the most of it, right?”

“I knew you’d turn around.” Heeseung reached over and ruffled your hair. “I’ll make sure you have the best summer of your life, Y/N.”

Lee Heeseung excelled at virtually anything. You were sure he would surpass your expectations with these impromptu summer plans, too.

You deemed the nickname “Golden Boy” upon him for this very reason, and it had everything to do with the fact that Heeseung was absolutely perfect at everything he did.

For a while, you even coined a theory that he had been created in a laboratory, specially designed to be absolutely flawless in every way imaginable. Of course Heeseung was born rich, smart, and handsome. Some people were just born lucky into the world, and, when you were younger, it was harder to accept that. Heeseung grew up with the world at his disposal; he got everything and anything he wanted, but that didn’t necessarily mean he took his privilege for granted.

You had to admit that Heeseung was a hard worker when it came down to it. Although he was definitely affluent as a fourth generation trust fund baby, Heeseung made sure his parents were never disappointed with his results.

Throughout high school, he consistently ranked first every single year, always coming right above you after the semester ended. Not to mention, he had even been scouted by several Division 1 schools to join their soccer team. He was even published at the mere age of sixteen for the research he did with a college professor. And, with a face and personality like his, any reasonable mother would’ve loved for their daughter to bring Heeseung home for dinner.

Another thing he never failed to accomplish was making you absolutely flustered.

“Well…” You turned your cheek. “I always have fun when I hang out with you, so don’t let it get to your head.”

“Too late. It’s getting to my head.”

You groaned.

“Hey, we might as well have fun,” Heeseung tried. “It’s not like any of us are vicariously living through each other’s summer romances.”

“Whoa. You said ‘each other.’”

“Yeah?”

You shot him a questioning look. “You’re implying that you have a summer romance that I’m not allowed to live vicariously through.”

“What? No!” Heeseung frowned as he tried to do the mental gymnastics to piece together your reasoning. “I said—actually, you know what, it doesn’t matter what I said. Who cares about being cuffed? Let’s just enjoy the last moments of our youth.”

“You know what, you’re right,” you agreed, getting fired up just by his words. Maybe it was the realization that time was fleeting, but you were determined to have the best summer ever now. “This summer, I’m Percy and you’re Grover. No one’s getting in the way of our side quests.”

“Why do I have to be the half-barnyard animal sidekick?” Heeseung deadpanned. “Can’t I be Annabeth?”

“No, put some respect on a satyr’s title.”

Your best friend picked his cup of tea back up when it had cooled. He blew gently on the surface before taking a careful sip, and then confidently drank more afterward. He set his cup down again and held a finger up, signaling that he wanted a chance to speak again. You were half-expecting it to be about the damn Percy Jackson lore.

“Your parents leave soon, right?” he asked instead. You nodded in response, somewhat surprised about his inquiry, so Heeseung continued, “Do they need a ride to the airport? We could have a sleepover after.”

“I think—”

“We would love a ride to the airport, Heeseung,” your mother gushed from the staircase as she was lugging suitcases down, “but you’re going straight back to your house after taking my daughter home.”

Heeseung swallowed thickly. “O-of course, ma’am. Straight home.”

You pouted a little. “You’re not staying?”

He smirked a little at your reaction, and you were a little flustered and disappointed that you managed to inflate his ego even further.

“Nah, I’ll just—” Heeseung cut himself off quickly when he noticed your mother was suddenly towering behind where he was seated on your couch. “I’ll—I’ll go straight to my house, like I said.”

“Come on, let the kids spend some time together before college,” your stepfather chimed in, following suit with a suitcase of his own. “Y/N hardly ever gets to stay in LA for the summer.”

“We’re going to the same college, Dad,” you pointed out.

“Of course,” He walked over to ruffle your hair, and Heeseung stared up at him as if your stepfather was some respected higher power, “but you never know what could happen in college. People grow apart whether you like it or not, and the life of a college student gets busy, so you two might as well enjoy this summer.”

When all you could do was stare at your stepfather in horror, he added, “I’m not saying you’re gonna stop being friends! It’s just easier to spend time together now than it is in college.”

“That’s why I’m your daughter’s escort this summer,” Heeseung spoke up.

“Escort?” your stepfather pressed. “That’s… a little concerning. Keep it PG, you two.”

“It’s not like that!” you whined. “Anyway, Dad, don’t you have to get to the airport soon?”

He checked his watch quickly and nodded at your mother. “Y/N’s right. We should get going soon, honey. I’m gonna go make sure I didn’t forget to pack anything.”

With that, your stepfather jogged upstairs with Heeseung’s curious eyes following him suspiciously. When you nudged him, trying to figure out why he was mugging your dad for no reason, he grinned a little. He gestured for you to lean closer so that he could speak quietly.

You leaned in close so that your ear was by his lips, and Heeseung whispered, “He’s totally packing your mom’s honeymoon present.”

“How do you know?”

“Classic move. My brother did the same thing for his wife.”

You pulled away, covering your mouth with a shocked look on your face. You had to keep yourself from audibly gasping since your mother was only a room away. Your face broke into a little smile. Seeing someone care for your mother so deeply made you so happy, especially with how she was the one who usually put in the most effort in her past relationships.

All your life, you wanted a relationship that was the complete opposite of your mother’s; now, though, you aspired to find someone who loved you that much.

Speak of the devil. She was walking over as you and Heeseung exchanged mischievous grins.

“What’re you two smiling about?” she asked.

“Nothing!” You smiled and fixed her hair. “Have fun on your honeymoon, Mom. I’ll make sure Heeseung doesn’t get into trouble.”

“Hey!” Heeseung interjected. “I’m not even that bad! Honest-to-god, Jake’s worse than me—just ask Jay or Sunghoon. Actually, don’t ask Sunghoon because I think he has it out for me right now.” He paused before adding, “Now that I think about it, don’t ask Jay, either. Just trust me on this one.”

You scoffed. “Nice going, Hee.”

Your mother smiled, and you could tell that it was a little sad. “We’ll take you to the Bahamas next time, okay, Y/N?” She did a quick sweep of the room before leaning in a little and whispering, “By the way, your stepfather was really happy that you started calling him ‘dad’ the other day. I think he almost cried!”

You hated to admit it out loud, but you felt inexplicably happy at those words.

“I’m ready!” your stepfather called as he came down the stairs. “Do you have everything you need? Are we ready to go?”

“Ready as ever,” your mother answered and turned to your best friend. “Are you ready, Heeseung?”

“Yep.” He got up from the couch, spinning his car keys around his fingers. “Come on, Y/N. Time to say bye-bye to mommy and—ow! Don’t hit me!”

The car ride to the airport wasn’t too long, but you and Heeseung fell into an uncomfortable silence while your parents were gushing about their vacation plans to each other. They weren’t even sitting next to each other. Your mother sat next to you in the back seat and your stepfather sat in the passenger’s seat to accompany Heeseung, but they were still going back and forth. You nearly considered asking your stepfather to switch seats with you so that you wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire of their incessant flirting.

When Heeseung pulled up to the drop-off zone, however, your parents pulled themselves together in record time. You received two kisses on your head from each parent after they got out of the car.

“Heeseung, let’s walk together for a bit,” your stepfather called. When you exchanged a shocked look with your best friend, your dad clicked his tongue with a laugh. “Just until the gates over there. I need some help carrying my bags.”

Heeseung, floundering for words, wound up not saying anything and scrambled to get out of the car to help him out. The conversation seemed to be light and easygoing, but you were craning your neck out of the car window to get a glimpse of what the hell was going on.

“Mom,” you whispered harshly, “tell me Dad isn’t telling Heeseung something weird right now. He’s still traumatized from the time he was interrogated about being my Homecoming date last year.”

Since neither you nor Heeseung had actual dates for the Homecoming dance last year, he made you a poster and asked you to be his date at your doorstep. At the time, you two were binge watching Parks and Recreation together, so he used that as inspiration for your poster: Please don’t REC my plans and say KNOPE to Homecoming. You vividly recalled being impressed by how neat the handwriting was only to be told later that Yeji helped Heeseung make it.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Your mother waved it off. “You should be more worried about how Mrs. Lee calls us in the middle of the night and asks where her son is. That’s gonna traumatize your friend.”

Wow. Lee Heeseung was already a pain in the ass to begin with, and only now you realized how his mother had it a thousand times harder.

“Have a safe trip, okay?” you told your mother after you helped her bring the rest of her bags to the gate. “And—don’t worry—I know when the gardener's coming by, so I’ll be home to let him in.”

She smiled fondly and kissed your forehead. “I’ll text you when I land,” she said. “Have fun, sweetheart, but not too much fun.”

“Mom!” you complained, cringing at whatever she was implying.

Heeseung and your stepfather were already at the front doors, and your best friend’s eyes lit up at the sight of you. You wondered if he needed saving from your father, and you confirmed this when you noticed him cower a little after shaking your stepfather’s hand.

“Heeseung,” your mother started, “thanks for bringing us here. I made brownies in the afternoon, so make sure Y/N gives you some before you go home.”

“Brownies?” Heeseung turned to you with a grin and thanked your mother profusely. “I hope you guys have a fun trip.”

After you all exchanged goodbyes, you and Heeseung headed back to his car. You were able to watch your mother and stepfather disappear into the crowd, a strange feeling lingering in your chest. You weren’t sure what it was, but you supposed you felt a little lonely. This was the first summer you were spending without your parents, and you weren’t sure what to expect.

As if Heeseung could read your mind, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have a fun summer.”

“It better be the best summer of my life.”

Heeseung laughed and opened the passenger’s side door for you. “Then let’s start now.”

“Huh? Right now?”

“Let’s get bingsu,” he said. Come to think of it, you were craving shaved ice; you had mentioned it to Heeseung last week. “You said you were hungry, right? And then we can go home and dig into those brownies your mom made.”

“I never said anything about being hungry.”

“But you’re hungry, right?”

The corner of your mouth twitched before breaking into a little smile.

“Alright, let’s go.”

In all honesty, you didn’t expect anything special from Heeseung. That was why you had your own plans laid out for the coming week, and first on your agenda was going shopping with Yizhuo in Beverly Hills. Since your best friend was so adamant on spending the summer with you, though, you let him tag along.

“I hate you,” he muttered through gritted teeth as you handed him yet another shopping bag—Armani, this time. Heeseung was carrying at least six of them, letting them dangle off of his arms. “I said I’d show you how to have fun, not be your butler.”

“You said you would be my summer escort service.”

“Not like this!”

“Y/N, I swear,” Yizhuo started in a low voice, only loud enough to hear (although you wished you didn’t), “he’s like your boyfriend.”

You sped up to walk ahead of Heeseung, and Yizhuo matched your pace. Your poor best friend was lagging in the back, trying to keep up with the weight of your spending spree in his hands. Even though you told him virtually everything, this was a conversation that you couldn’t let him hear.

“He’s just my escort this summer!” you defended.

“His dad’s the senior vice president at Apple. You really think Lee Heeseung would just agree to be anyone’s manservant?”

“Well, I’m not anyone; I’m Y/N, and Heeseung and I have been best friends since forever, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he wants to spend time with me.”

“I’m just saying, it’s a little strange.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You waved off her concerns and pulled out your phone. “By the way, is the group hanging out tomorrow or something?”

“I kept seeing it in the groupchat, but I wasn’t sure whose house it was at,” Yizhuo replied. She turned and called, “Heeseung! Do you know whose house we’re all going to?”

“Tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Mine.”

“Yours?” you chimed in. “I thought Jake said it would be at his place.”

“He backed out ‘cause his cousins are visiting this week,” he clarified, “so I offered mine. My parents are going out of town, anyway, so why not?”

You were surprised that Heeseung was willing to host. Most of the time his house was the absolute last resort because he hated cleaning up after everyone. For this reason, it was normally at Jake’s house because he was the only one who would tidy up himself without nagging everyone else (read: Jay Park).

You always went to Heeseung’s place on your own. There were never times where the entire group hung out there together, so it felt like everyone was encroaching on your space with Heeseung.

Even though it was his house, technically.

“You’re coming,” Heeseung added, pointing straight at you with narrowed eyes.

You frowned. “You can’t decide that for me!”

“You agreed to let me be your summer escort service, so it’s within my power,” he argued.

You made a frustrated sound. “Fine. It better be fun, though. I’m sacrificing my Pretty Little Liars marathon for you.”

Heeseung rolled his eyes. “We can just watch it together.”

“Lovebirds!” Yizhuo interjected. “I would’ve called Chenle if I knew I was gonna be a third wheel.” Both of you turned to her with wide eyes, watching the blonde’s lips curl up in a small smirk. “What?”

“That’s not what any of this is,” your best friend grumbled.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you blushing?”

Heeseung shook his head, completely turning his face away from you. You managed to catch the tips of his ears flaming bright red. It was rather easy to make Heeseung flustered, so this wasn’t something out of the ordinary, but, for some reason, you felt butterflies in the pit of your stomach.

He walked ahead, saying something along the lines of, “Let’s just keep shopping!”

You and Yizhuo exchanged a look before hooking arms and bursting into a fit of giggles.

Yizhuo called after him, “We’re going to Miu Miu next!”

Slumber parties with your friend group sounded cute and tame, in theory. Add six men into the mix, and they became slightly terrifying.

“This is why we need to make plans in our group chat without the men,” Shen Xiaoting muttered to you with her eyes fixed on Heeseung’s flat screen TV. “This is not the girls night I was envisioning.”

Your friend group of eleven (excluding Yeji, who was away for the summer) was currently playing their ninth round of Mario Kart 8. You were all taking turns, though, since the game only catered to co-oping with four people. Frankly, you were starting to get tired of the game after about five rounds. You were hellbent on beating Jay, who was talking smack about how terrible you were at gaming, but it turned out that he was no better. You ended up beating him in the first race itself, and now you were just waiting for them to wrap it up.

“Fuck,” Jake hissed once Choi Beomgyu used his blue shell on him. Jake had been consistently winning every game he played despite everyone trying to get him in last place; in the last round, Kim Minjeong made a valiant effort to use most of her Crazy 8 items on him.

You were surprised that Jake showed up in the first place. Everyone suspected that he would be stuck at home because of his cousins visiting, but he somehow managed to get his way out of it. Although he was late, he showed up at Heeseung’s door with a pillow and a handle of cheap vodka. It probably tasted rancid, but there was no room for anyone to complain.

“Get the item box, get the item box!” Chenle yelled. “But you’re kind of screwed if you don’t get a super horn or a super star.”

“So, when are we wrapping up Mario Kart?” Nakamura Kazuha asked, sighing in frustration after being hit with a shell for the umpteeth time.

“Uh, after this game,” Heeseung replied.

“And how many more rounds is that?”

“Three.”

“Jesus Christ.”

The only girl in your group who enjoyed gaming was Yizhuo, but even she was tired of the seemingly endless rounds. Since the boys were going along with the girls’ plans later on, though, you had to be patient. Appease them with Mario Kart, and then the rest of the night was yours.

Somehow, you managed to grit your teeth and sit through the next three rounds (won by Jake, Yizhuo, and Beomgyu, respectively). Afterward, Jake got up to grab the case of Mike’s Harder on the kitchen island. He proceeded to open it up and hand each person a can.

Xiaoting cracked open her can and asked, “How’d you even buy these? Didn’t your dad confiscate your fake or something?”

Around a few months ago, Jake’s dad had caught him wasted at one of their charity galas. Apparently, the Sims didn’t care too much about their son drinking, but they were furious about Jake acting disorderly in front of their guests. Naturally, Jake was grounded for a month and got all four of his fake IDs confiscated. He deeply missed the one from Connecticut where his name was printed as Nathan Fielder, even though Jake looked nothing like Nathan Fielder.

“I got Vernon to buy them for me,” Jake said, “and please don’t remind me about the fakes. It still wounds me to this day.”

You remembered you used to have a little crush on Vernon Chwe, who was a senior when you were a freshman. When he graduated, you almost cried actual tears, but you stayed strong when you went to congratulate him after the ceremony. You figured he would have been a little freaked out if you started breaking down out of nowhere.

Jay, who was inspecting the handle of SKYY Vodka, let out a scoff. “Vernon? Then you could’ve at least asked for good vodka.”

“We can just make mixed drinks,” you spoke up, scrunching up your nose at the memory of blacking out because of alcohol during your prom afterparties. “Plus, it’s not like we’re actually trying to get drunk tonight.”

“Yeah.” Heeseung stood up and rested his arm on your shoulder. “Y/N and I can make the drinks. The rest of you can help put snacks out. Someone can put a movie on, too.”

Since everyone was impressed with Heeseung taking the lead for once, the plan was set into motion. While Kazuha and Sunghoon bickered over which movie to play, the rest of your friends brought out different snacks for the movie. Arguably, you and Heeseung had the hardest job, but you didn’t need any extra hands for drinks. By the time it took you two to finish eleven mixed drinks, they probably would have settled on a movie.

You looked back to see Heeseung eyeballing a shot into a glass cup, and then he proceeded to down its contents. You cringed when you saw him drinking. The last time he got drunk resulted in you trying to calm him down after he went on a long rant about how he just ate sushi, and the alcohol in his system would cause the raw fish to start swimming. You had to convince him that no, vodka would not bring an already dead and sliced-up fish to life.

Heeseung’s face soured and he pushed the handle aside. “Y’know what, let’s just take something from my parents’ liquor cabinet. This shit is vile.”

“You got triple sec and decent vodka?” you asked. “We could make Lemon Drops.”

“You read my mind.”

“You weren’t even thinking about that, were you?”

“Not at all.”

While you and Heeseung were making the drinks, though, you noticed some giggles coming from the living room. You raised your head to see about five of your friends look away as fast as they could. It hit you before you had time to process what was going on; they were making fun of you and Heeseung together.

You had no clue why. Sure, Heeseung and you had some strange moments here and there. But you two were just making drinks, for crying out loud. Nothing about the situation warranted this reaction from them.

You side-eyed Heeseung to see if he noticed. Thankfully, he was just focused on pouring the right amount of vodka so he didn’t accidentally kill anyone. You, on the other hand, were fighting down the heat rising in your chest.

After a brief war between you and Yizhuo, consisting of you glaring at her and her smirking at you, you ended up setting down a glass and sighing.

“Heeseung,” you said, “go crazy with the vodka in the rest of their drinks.”

“Huh?” he asked, genuinely contemplating whether or not to do it.

“Pour as much as your heart desires,” you muttered and set down six of the Lemon Drops on a tray with a little too much force. Without sparing him a glance, you picked up the tray and went to the living room to hand everyone their glasses. While you handed Yizhuo hers, though, you whispered, “I despise you.”

She grinned. “What? Still denying you like him?”

“I don’t like—”

“You like someone?” Heeseung called from the island, completely frozen in place.

You turned and stared at him, mouth agape.

Chenle spoke up, “No, she likes y—”

You kicked Chenle’s shin with enough force to shut him up, and he grunted before he could continue his sentence. Satisfied, you turned back to Heeseung and shook your head quickly.

“They’re just being idiots,” you explained. “Hurry up with the drinks. We’re watching My Best Friend’s Wedding.” You did a double take and turned back to Yizhuo, harshly whispering, “Why the fuck are we watching My Best Friend’s Wedding?!”

Yizhuo removed Chenle’s hand from her knee and stood up to loop your arm with hers. “Come.”

“Where are we going?” you asked, but she was already dragging you away from the living room. “Is that movie supposed to be some sort of sick message?”

“Oh, good. So you’re aware.”

After making some excuse about needing your assistance to get something from her bag, Yizhuo walked with you to the foyer until she turned on you. You nearly tripped backward over one of the boys’ shoes, so you used the wall to regain your balance.

“Tell me what’s going on between you two,” she ordered.

You let out a sound of exasperation. “Yizhuo, for the last time, Heeseung and I are just friends. That’s all there is to it.”

“I’m just saying, the two of you are going to college together and all, but you have to sort out your feelings before you end up figuring them out after Heeseung finds someone else,” she said. “I mean, what’re you gonna do when Heeseung starts dating someone else? He looks decent enough to pull, so there’s no telling what’s gonna happen when he’s cut loose in Yale.”

You snorted. “He’s already cut loose. I highly doubt Yale’s gonna change anything.”

“You never know. I just don’t want you to realize your feelings too late—you know, when things get messy.”

You both were silent for a few seconds before Beomgyu called, “Y/N, Yizhuo, we’re gonna start the movie!”

“Coming!” you responded.

You chose not to respond to your best friend because you truly had no idea what to think, but it did leave seeds of doubt in your head. It almost distracted you from the fact that Heeseung grabbed your arm and pulled you to sit down next to him. This was bad; you were quickly becoming overly self-conscious of every little thing he did, and that would not bode well for your friendship.

Whatever, you told yourself. Push it down.

“Are there any more pillows?” you asked, scanning the room to see that everyone seemed to have one except you. You looked back at Heeseung and narrowed your eyes at his throw pillow. “Give me yours.”

“What? No way.”

“I wanna lay down,” you whined. He was really the only person you could act a little spoiled around. “Give me your pillow before I—”

Before you could finish, Heeseung threw his arm around you and pushed your head down so that you were laying on his lap. You were startled with the sudden gesture, but you didn’t complain. He was comfortable, after all, and you two usually watched movies like this in your house. So, you adjusted your position a little and continued watching the movie, making a mental note to scold Heeseung later for being all touchy in front of the friend group.

What you weren’t used to, though, was the way he started threaded his fingers through your hair.

You did the only thing you knew how to do in order to deflect; you showed Heeseung a TikTok of a baby otter. Your volume was all the way down, but you still bookmarked the video.

“Look,” you whispered, holding up your phone. His gentle fingers did not stop running through your hair, but at least you could hold onto his friendly hum of acknowledgement. It was the only thing that made any of this feel remotely platonic. “It’s a little guy.”

“Oh, it’s so cute,” Heeseung mused. “Kind of reminds me of you.”

Screw platonic.

He just grabbed platonic and drop kicked it to the next dimension.

That was it. You were going to put your phone away and ignore Heeseung for the rest of the movie. The rest of the movie would be watched in complete silence. In fact, you weren’t going to spare Heeseung any attention for the rest of the sleepover.

That didn’t end up happening, though. Ten minutes later, you cracked and started commenting about the movie to Heeseung. Unbeknownst to the others, you two ended up texting each other messages that threatened to make you burst into laughter. Even though you were sitting right next to each other, you felt like this made your conversation feel like a little secret, like even Heeseung wanted to keep what you two had to himself.

When the movie ended, you two were surprisingly still awake, although there were several moments where you were tempted to doze off on Heeseung’s shoulder. Minjeong, Beomgyu, and Jay were still up, and they were taking pictures of Chenle and Yizhuo to send to the group chat. You immediately separated from Heeseung, feeling a little terrified that you two would be the victims next. However, the others were so preoccupied with Chenle’s arms wrapped around his sleeping girlfriend and their foreheads pressed together.

“Should we wake them up?” Kazuha asked.

“Nah, let them sleep,” Heeseung answered and stood up. “I’m gonna brush my teeth. You guys can use the other bathrooms—just not the one in my parents’ room.”

Minjeong stretched as she let out a yawn. “Alright, I’m gonna wash up, then. I’m exhausted.”

After Minjeong, Beomgyu, and Kazuha left the room to get their bags and wash up, you stared at Heeseung. Your best friend looked confused until you pointed toward his glass.

“Chug it,” you said with mischief dancing in your eyes.

“You’re kidding. It’s bedtime.”

You mocked a pout. “You’re gonna waste the drink I made just for you?”

“Oh, come on—we made it for everyone!”

“But I definitely made this one.” You took the glass and held it out to him, which he ended up taking reluctantly. “I wanna see you finish it.”

After a wince, Heeseung tilted the cup back and downed the contents. Although his face scrunched up, he relaxed once he had finished swallowing it down.

“That was actually pretty good,” he said.

“See? When have I ever let you down?”

“Honestly? Many times.”

You elbowed him in the side. “Hey!”

“Kidding!” Heeseung held his arms up in surrender before wrapping them around your waist. Another gesture you weren’t quite used to, but you went along with it. There was something funny about Heeseung; nothing he did ever made you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, but sometimes you weren’t sure if it was meant to be friendly. “Let’s go brush our teeth.”

“I can just use the bathroom on the second floor.”

“Huh? Just use the one in my room,” he said. “Come on.”

You hesitated before following your best friend upstairs. First of all, you were feeling overly-conscious about going into Heeseung’s room with him. Secondly, you weren’t too enthusiastic about the fact that you had to use a man’s bathroom.

To Heeseung’s credit, he kept his room and bathroom mostly spotless. Sure, there were a few sweaters piled over the head of his chair and some books left scattered across his desk, but it was definitely cleaner than Jake’s mess of a room. You remembered Yeji stepping across his piles of dirty clothes left on the floor, as if they were hazardous to her health.

As soon as you stepped into the grand bathroom, you realized that you had forgotten your toothbrush. It wasn’t the first time this happened, so you knew to just take one of the unopened toothbrushes from the drawer. However, Heeseung told you they moved some things around, so you wound up searching for the spare toothbrushes for around five minutes.

It was almost ridiculous how Heeseung needed a bathroom bigger than a living room.

You two brushed your teeth side-by-side. Heeseung occasionally cracked jokes that made you giggle and tilt your head back so that your toothpaste wouldn’t dribble down your chin. When that happened, he reached over and wiped your lower lip with his thumb, despite your complaints about how gross that was.

But, to you, it wasn’t really all that gross.

If only Heeseung knew how his actions made your cheeks burn hot under your skin.

The next week was interesting, to say the least.

Heeseung wouldn’t let you rest for a second. You were going out with him every single day, having to see his face from sunrise to sunset. Even when it was nightfall, he would just invite himself over to your place and crash on your couch.

You pointed out that you had a perfectly tidy guest room for him to use, but he insisted that he preferred your couch. You didn’t mind him sprawled out across the cushions because you could take as many pictures of him sleeping as you pleased. You would show him your collection later when he woke up, and Heeseung would get embarrassed to the point of tickling you until you were in hysterics and gasping out that you would delete the pictures from your camera roll.

At this point, it was almost like you two were living together. Even though his parents were out of town, you felt slightly anxious about one of the adults in your parents’ circle discovering what you and Heeseung were up to. Not that it was anything scandalous.

But, you had to admit, you were having fun.

On Monday, Heeseung took you to the beach. You complained incessantly about waking up at six in the morning for cold water and sand all over your clothes, but you managed to drag yourself out of bed. Still, Heeseung had to put up with your grumbles and groans until you were energized enough to stop complaining. All it took was Heeseung feeding you a granola bar and making you coffee while you did your hair.

“C’mon,” he told you, the wind sweeping his hair to the side as the first rays of sunlight shone bright against his glowing skin, “this is exactly like the Bahamas if you close your eyes.”

“Uh-huh.”

You rolled your eyes at him, but you spent the entire day at the beach with Heeseung, anyway. You finally warmed up to going into the water with him, letting him take your hands and guide you deeper until the water was up to your waist. At one point, a particularly heavy wave pushed him closer to you until you both were chest-to-chest. You had to hold onto his bicep to keep yourself from floating away. And you swore you caught Heeseung checking you out in your bikini later on, but he turned away with pink-tinged ears immediately after.

Later, when the sun was starting to set and you retreated from the water to curl up in your towel, you sat on your large beach towel and waited for Heeseung to bring over food from the food trucks. The tide was getting higher, so you had to move yours and Heeseung’s belongings further up the sand.

Heeseung returned with two takeout boxes of tacos, taking a seat next to you with a relieved sigh. Since you two hadn’t eaten a proper lunch, you had been waiting for this meal all day. You were properly tuckered out from all the swimming and beach volleyball, so you dug in immediately.

“Good?” Heeseung asked, watching you eat with a small smile on his face. He must have been impressed that you practically inhaled your first taco in under five seconds.

“Good,” you confirmed, voice muffled.

With the back of your hand shielding your eyes, you looked off into the horizon to watch the sunlight ripple across the water’s surface.

And, yeah, maybe it was a little like the Bahamas.

Just a little.

You didn’t expect Heeseung to wake you up on Tuesday morning and drag you to an empty field. Although he told you that he had a surprise for you, you didn’t think it warranted being woken up at 5:30 a.m. without a clue of where you were going.

“Alright, close your eyes, okay? It’s a surprise,” Heeseung said, gesturing for you to cover your gaze. You found it adorable that he was fumbling so much, so you closed your eyes with a grin. “Keep them closed—hold on.”

“Heeseung, how much longer?” you whined.

“And,” he drawled, stretching out the syllable, “open!”

When you opened your eyes, towering over you was a 60-foot tall hot air balloon, its brightly-patterned nylon reflecting the bright sunlight. You boggled at its impressive size—absolutely massive. The pilot got down from the basket, walking over so that he could greet you two and provide a rundown of safety measures and procedures.

An hour later, you were in the sky, eyes sweeping over the expanse of Los Angeles. You were never that great with heights, but, somehow, you weren’t too afraid as you peered down. Heeseung stood beside you, keeping one hand on the small of your back as he pointed out different landmarks he recognized.

“I’ve never seen LA like this!” you yelled over the wind, cupping your hand around your mouth so that Heeseung could hear you.

He grinned. “Isn’t it beautiful? Makes the city actually feel peaceful for once.”

You wouldn’t dare admit it but, all the way up in the sky, thousands of feet above ground level, what made you feel like you were soaring was Heeseung’s arm slipping around your waist.

On Wednesday, Heeseung took you fishing. You absolutely hated the idea, but once you had the fishing rod in your hands, you were determined to catch the biggest fish. Heeseung ended up catching more than you, but the two fish you caught were stars in your eyes. By the end of the day, you were laughing hysterically as Heeseung’s hat got stuck in your hook and was flung into the water.

On Thursday, Heeseung took you to play mini-golf. You had gone golfing before with company executives and their kids, but this was different. You didn’t have to show off or try to be the best one there; you just had fun and laughed whenever your best friend missed the ball. You two ended the day by going to an arcade and playing almost every game inside.

By Friday morning, you were exhausted. Your limbs were aching when you woke up the next morning, but Heeseung promised to actually let you rest over the weekend. Tonight was Yizhuo’s country club’s party to celebrate the opening of their new banquet hall, so Heeseung only planned one thing for the morning so that you would have time to get ready for the party later.

Pushing your red Jacquemus sunglasses onto your head, you fixed your best friend with a puzzled stare. He was acting weird all morning, from nearly snapping at you for trying to open the trunk of his car, to staying silent when you asked where he was taking you.

For a moment, you wondered if this was the climax of a horror movie where the killer drove you to a quiet place to get rid of you. Your suspicion raised more when Heeseung parked by a marina with a hiking trail nearby.

This is where your body’s being dumped, you concluded grimly.

But, then again, this was Lee Heeseung. He cried when he was eleven because there was a spider on his backpack; he didn’t have the heart to hurt anyone, especially not you. In fact, you recalled when he nearly passed out in middle school because he thought he caused you extreme pain once. (It turned out to be your period cramps.)

“Are you gonna tell me where you’re taking me?” you asked, exasperated. “If we’re swimming, I’m gonna tell you right now that there’s no way I’m getting my hair wet before the party.”

Heeseung chuckled. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, princess. We’re just going for a spin on the lake.” He nodded his head in the direction of the yachts lined up by the shoreline. “Jog your memory?”

When your gaze landed on the gorgeous white yacht gleaming under the sun, you couldn’t help but gasp at its glorious sight. Heeseung had gotten the yacht for his birthday last year, but he never had the time to actually use it. One reason was because he didn’t trust his friends to not trash it, and the other being that he wanted his first ride on it to be special.

Your face burned. His first ride was going to be with you.

“Shut up.” You were gaping at the sight before turning to your best friend, who looked smug while he parked his car. “Shut up. You’re actually letting me go on your yacht?”

“Yeah, why not?” He tried to brush it off as something casual, but your heart was still doing cartwheels and flips. “It’s about time I went out on it.”

You two walked down to the harbor together, your hands sometimes shyly brushing and pulling away swiftly. There had been moments of thick, unspoken tension throughout the week, but you didn’t have the courage to bring it up.

Once you two reached Heeseung’s yacht, he firmly slapped his hand against the smooth, brilliant white surface. “Carver c52 Command Bridge,” he gloated. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

You snorted. “You talk about boats the same way old white men do.”

You allowed him to help you into the yacht, gripping his hand tight as you stepped onto the deck. You hadn’t questioned it before, but as soon as Heeseung let go of you, he set down the picnic basket so that he could spread out the blanket.

You helped him with the corners of the blanket. “What’s this?”

“Well, I thought we could sail out a little and then have breakfast on the deck,” he replied coolly, as if the sincerity of his words wouldn’t make your heart twist painfully in your chest. You really didn’t deserve such effort from him, and it almost made you feel guilty that you had acted so spoiled before. “I’ll go start the engine. You can just enjoy the view.”

However, you followed him to the cockpit. Heeseung raised a brow at you, but you giggled as you took a seat behind him, watching as he stood at the helm, fiddling with some controls you knew nothing about.

“You actually know how to operate this thing?” you asked.

“My dad taught me,” he explained. “I’m not licensed, though, so I don’t think this is exactly legal.”

“Not like that’s stopped you before.”

Heeseung grinned to himself. He started up the yacht’s engine by pressing a button on the dashboard. You watched his hands fly across the levers and controls before he started turning the wheel to steer out of the marina.

“You wanna head out to the deck?” he called out over his shoulder, but you just took the empty seat next to him. “Don’t you wanna sunbathe? Or you could check out the stateroom.”

“Nope,” you said, resting your chin on the palm of your hand as you watched him. “I’d rather wait for you.”

Sometimes, you’d almost catch Heeseung getting flustered. He’d always laugh and rub his nose, looking away shyly before anyone caught onto his awkwardness. The same reaction was unfolding before you right now, and you couldn’t help but smile like an idiot yourself.

You wondered if he ever felt butterflies in his stomach, too.

Once Heeseung had driven the yacht out far enough—far out enough in the water where the water was still and no one was there to disturb you two. You both headed out to the deck again. He took a seat to lay out what he packed in his picnic basket, and you removed your sundress so that you could tan a little in your bikini.

“Champagne?” he offered, holding up a bottle of Dom Pérignon that he most definitely stole from his family’s wine cellar.

You pulled out the two wine glasses in the basket and held them out for Heeseung to pour your drinks, smiling wide as he tipped the bottle. “Yes, please.”

“See, you wouldn’t be able to experience this if you were in the Bahamas right now.” He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head. “We didn’t get to hang out like this any of the past summers.”

“As if we don’t hang out almost every day.”

“But this is different!” he argued. “It’s summer. It’s not like we’re making impromptu plans to New York and flying back home a day later to study for an exam. We have all the time in the world right now.”

He was right, in a sense. You and Heeseung were always together, but you two never really got to spend long days together like this. You two got to make plans without involving anyone else in the friend group for once, and it was a lot more fun than you had expected.

“Do you think we’d be this close if we weren’t rich?” you asked after a while. Heeseung raised a brow at your question, so you clarified, “I’m serious! We wouldn’t be able to do stuff like this—flying in hot air balloons, driving yachts, going to country club parties—if we didn’t have rich parents.”

Heeseung crossed his arms behind his head and pondered, looking up at the sky with a wistful expression. He hummed before answering, “I’d like to think that we’d make it work the same way everyone else does.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“What if… you were rich and I wasn’t? Or vice-versa?”

“Yeah, I mean…” he trailed off for a moment, eyes cast down as if he was trying to find the words on his tongue. Then, he continued, “I think I’d be happy doing anything with you, even if all we could do together was sit at home and watch TV.”

Whatever response you had prepared at the back of your throat had died on your tongue. All you could do was look at him helplessly, wondering why his words were making your heart beat faster than when you were thousands of feet up in the sky days ago. You wondered why such gentle words from your best friend had roused a violent storm in your heart.

The wind picked up, sending your hair flying every which way. Heeseung reached out to brush a loose strand of hair away from your face, fingers lingering on your cheek as he pulled back. You went completely still, chest frozen mid-breath as he pulled away.

“You had something in your hair,” he mumbled, quickly scrambling to offer you a caprese skewer. If you looked closely enough, you would’ve noticed that his ears were bright red. “Eat quickly before the food gets stale.”

“I don’t think food normally goes stale that fast.”

“Shut up.”

There was one thing about formal gatherings that all trust fund babies could agree on: only get drunk behind your parents’ backs.

They definitely knew what was going on, but they paid no attention as long as their children were staying safe and not embarrassing themselves. When you were much younger, you would always catch sight of the older kids sneaking away to get drunk in the bathroom, but you never understood the excitement they felt until you became a freshman in high schooler, being dragged away by Yeji to drink with the older kids.

Back then, you were doe-eyed and curious as Vernon would pour shots for you in moderation. Now, you were nearly gagging when Yizhuo handed you a shooter of Pink Whitney.

You two had locked yourselves in the bathroom with Xiaoting, Kazuha, and Minjeong as Yizhuo pulled out various shooters from her purse. It was fine for you to drink wine with the other adults, but you were all certain that the adults would frown upon you drinking hard liquor in front of the other guests. So, the five of you snuck away to get drunk secretly.

For the past fifteen minutes, as you all were downing shooter after shooter, the girls had been pressing you about something going on between you and Heeseung. After he posted you on his Instagram story, showing off his boat in the process, you were bombarded with texts that you were only able to ignore until you got to the party.

A loud knock at the door nearly scared you out of your wits, causing Minjeong to bark out a laugh at the sight of you flinching.

“Occupied!” you yelled, although the syllables slurred together strangely.

“It’s us!” came Jake’s voice. “We’re going drunk golfing.”

You frowned and stepped aside to let Yizhuo open the door for Jake. He scanned his surroundings nervously before shoving his fists into his pockets and stepping into the girls’ bathroom.

“Jake,” Xiaoting started. Although her face and neck were completely red, she focused her eyes on him to keep a serious tone. “We need you to tell us if Heeseung’s into Y/N or not.”

“Xiaoting!” you complained.

“You know what, I’d like to know, too,” Jake replied with shocking enthusiasm. He leaned against the crystal sink, folding his arms across his chest. “Screw drunk golf; this is way more fun. Y/N, do you have feelings for Heeseung? ‘Cause everyone wants to know if—”

“Jake, we didn’t bring you in here for girl talk,” Minjeong cut him off with a wave of her hand. “We brought you in here for answers.”

He let out a childish whine. “But I wanna be here for girl talk.”

“Wait, but answer his question.” Yizhuo turned to you with a wide grin on her face, handing you yet another shooter—probably to make you more honest. You seriously wished you could call Chenle over to put a leash on your friend. “Do you have feelings for Heeseung?”

Did you? You had never been so confused about where you and Heeseung stood until this week. You two had always been close—always did everything together—so why were you feeling conscious about everything now?

But, despite all of your confusion, the one thing that was clear to you was that you felt something for Lee Heeseung with every beat of your heart.

Everything he did, everything he said—you weren’t sure what it was that had you so intoxicated on his attention, but you knew you would’ve felt sick to your stomach if he did the things he did with you with any other girl.

You felt it whenever you saw him lounging around your house, digging into the brownies your mother made as if he lived there. You felt it whenever someone told a joke and the two of you made eye contact with each other first, hoping to see if the other person found it funny, too. You felt it whenever he touched your hand and called you princess, unaware that your heart was fluttering pathetically in your chest.

His smile, his laugh, his happiness—you wanted to be the cause of it all.

You caved with a defeated sigh. “Yeah, I think I might actually have feelings for him.”

A collective cheer erupted in the bathroom, the sound echoing for a few seconds after. Jake stood up just to high-five Yizhuo so hard that the impact left their palms stinging, and then Yizhuo proceeded to scold Jake for putting his full force into the high-five. You pinched the bridge of your nose with embarrassment flooding your chest.

Jake decided to abandon the boys’ plans to go drunk golfing and spent the next ten minutes discussing strategies to get you and Heeseung alone. He had integrated himself into your circle so well that he almost seemed like one of the girls. You slowly backed up into one of the stalls during their conversation, starting to feel horribly nauseous and lightheaded. You were pretty sure that Yizhuo handing you shooter after shooter was starting to have adverse effects on your body.

“How about we tell him that Y/N’s puking in the bathroom and he needs to—” Minjeong cut herself off as soon as she heard you retching by the toilet. “Oh, wow, she’s actually puking in the bathroom.” She turned to Jake after opening the door for him. “Go get Heeseung.”

“If you let me join girl talk next time,” Jake bargained.

“Are you seriously negotiating with me in this situation?”

“Yes.”

Minjeong groaned. “Okay, fine, Jake, we’ll invite you the next time we have girl talk. Now go fetch Heeseung.”

“On it!” he agreed quickly. “Don’t die, Y/N.”

“I’ll try not to” you croaked out weakly, your head hanging between your knees as you willed yourself to not barf out your guts.

“Are you okay?” Kazuha pouted as she rubbed your back in soothing circles. “This is all because you kept making her drink, Yizhuo.”

“I didn’t make her,” she retorted. “Y/N, do you need water or anything? I can ask someone in the kitchen for liquid IV, too.”

You shook your head. “No, just bring Heeseung here.”

They shared a secretive giggle, but you didn’t care. You felt way too sick to mind the girls teasing you. You even tried to distract yourself on your phone, but the bright screen just made you feel worse. You closed your eyes and leaned your head back against the wall, groaning miserably.

It had really gotten to the point where you didn’t care that you were sitting on the country club’s public bathroom floor. It was all fancy and sanitary, of course, but you would normally feel icky about this sort of scenario playing out.

You weren’t sure how long it had been, but eventually, you heard the door opening and the rest of the girls rushed to make sure it wasn’t someone outside the group. You heard them ushering Heeseung inside, explaining what had happened to you before they left the bathroom.

Heeseung knocked on your stall as a formality but let himself inside, anyway. The crooked grin on his face upon seeing you only made you turn your head away and sigh in exasperation.

You turned your head back to face him when you heard his shutter go off.

A scowl was plastered across your face. “Did you just take a picture of me?”

Heeseung snickered. “Yeah, I’m posting it on my story. Right after the one of you looking all pretty on my boat.”

“You’re supposed to be here to help me.”

“That’s why I brought soda,” he replied, holding up an entire bottle of Sprite. You were confident he snagged it from the kitchen, which you were pretty sure would result in Yizhuo scolding him for treating the country club like his house. “Anyway, why’d you drink so much? Just because I’m driving you home doesn’t mean you’re allowed to give yourself alcohol poisoning.”

You settled back into your previous position with your head between your knees. This way, Heeseung wouldn’t be able to see how stupid in love you were. There was absolutely no way you could tell him that you were mindlessly drinking while you were spilling your feelings for him.

“Where’d the girls go?” you asked instead.

“I told them to go drunk golfing while I took care of you.”

“Don’t you wanna go play, too?”

Heeseung shrugged. He took a seat on the floor next to you, not minding the indecency even though he was sober. You felt like your heart was going to explode if he kept doting on you like this.

“I can always go play another time,” he said. “Plus, I’d have more fun if you were there.”

You both went quiet for a moment. The weight of Heeseung’s words only made your heart feel heavier, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could go pretending that you only cared for him as a friend.

Then, your stomach started churning and twisting with the need to puke out your guts again, and the silence was filled with your retching. Heeseung rubbed your back sympathetically and held your hair back while you hunched over the toilet seat again.

This was definitely going down as one of your most unflattering moments.

“Want some soda?” Heeseung tried.

You shook your head.

“Drink some water, then—here,” he said, handing you a red solo cup that was filled to the brim. “I stole it from Hoon.”

Reluctantly, you lifted your head to accept the cup from him. When you took a sip, though, you just ended up hawking and spitting out the contents into the toilet.

Trying your best not to gag, you got out, “Not water—vodka.”

“Oh, my bad.” Heeseung frowned, inspecting the cup. “Why’d Hoon pour this much? No wonder he drove the golf cart into the lake.”

After throwing up basically everything in your stomach, you started to feel dizzy all over again, stumbling and wobbling all over the bathroom until Heeseung had to hold you upright. He had already gotten Yizhuo’s approval to drive you home for the night, but there was no way you were making it to his Tesla in your heels. Heeseung had you hang tight while he ran to his car to get your Dolce & Gabbana rubber slides, knowing there was no possible way for him to carry you out to the car without the adults getting suspicious.

You felt much more comfortable in your slides, so you walked out hand-in-hand with Heeseung while he held onto your heels. Although you felt bad about leaving Yizhuo’s grand opening party early, you figured that it would be more shameful for her parents to see you in this state.

You had greatly underestimated the power of alcohol.

After you had walked up to about three different cars that weren’t Heeseung’s (including Jay’s Mercedes Benz, which started going off once you pulled on the handle), he had finally grabbed you by the shoulders and manually directed you to his Tesla. You giggled as you got into the passenger’s seat, allowing him to buckle you in and watch over you as he called Jay to turn his car alarm off.

Heeseung shot you a glance as he drove out of the country club’s gated entrance. “You’re going straight to bed when we get home.”

“Don’t wanna.”

He surprisingly gave up fast on trying to convince you. “What do you wanna do, then?”

“I dunno.” You shrugged. “Anything. Wanna bake cookies? Or watch a show?”

“Down for a show. Don’t know if I trust you around kitchen appliances right now,” he answered. After letting out a giggle, you caught Heeseung’s smile illuminated by the moonlight. “See? Aren’t you having more fun than you would’ve had in the Bahamas?”

“I wouldn’t ask this question after I nearly got alcohol poisoning.”

“The important thing is that you didn’t.”

You snorted, but something fond unraveled in your chest. You rolled the window down and looked outside, watching the bright lights of the city twinkle and shine under the inky black sky. You remembered all the skies you watched with Heeseung this week—the hazy gray in the morning, the bright blues of the afternoon, and the faint peony glow at sunset. And, yeah, you would’ve given up the Bahamas any day for this.

“Yeah,” you answered him, though you weren’t quite sure if he could hear you over the wind, “I’m having a lot of fun, Hee.”

Two weeks flew by far too quickly.

You were dumbfounded when you realized your parents were coming back the next day. You had spent two entire weeks solely with Heeseung, and you were having so much fun that you totally lost track of time. You were so caught up in your adventures that it had completely slipped your mind that summer would eventually come to an end.

Heeseung suggested that you two spent your last night doing something special. You had no idea what that meant, but you went along with whatever he had planned.

Apparently, he had been wanting to take you to see the stars, but you didn’t realize that he meant the observatory until you were in his car, parking on the steep slope of a hillside.

“It’s so far,” you complained.

He tutted. “It’s a five minute walk, princess, and it’s worth it. Trust me.”

You hesitated before grouching again, “It’s cold.”

Without another word, Heeseung took off his sweater. You tried to peel your eyes away from his white shirt that kept hiking up as he did. He passed it to you, and you couldn’t do anything but accept it because he was already getting out of the car. You wanted to hand it back to him because you knew he would be cold (made evident by the goosebumps that pricked his arms), but he profusely refused. He seemed perfectly content at the mere sight of you joining him.

He waited as you slipped on his sweater, the biggest grin stretching across his face. You were a little blindsided by how blinding Heeseung’s smile was, especially under the glow of the moon. Your cheeks heated up a little when you smelled faint traces of his Blackberry & Bay cologne in the fabric.

“You’re microscopic in my clothes,” he teased. You started walking a little faster to catch up with your friend, but his comment made you punch his shoulder.

“Oh, shut up.” You waved off the comment, but part of you liked how the sleeves of his sweater fell past your wrists. “We used to be the same height in, like, middle school.”

Heeseung barked out a laugh. “That was so long ago! Look at our height difference now.” Before you could anticipate his actions, he stepped in front of you and compared both of your heights.

You looked up at your best friend, raising a brow at his comment. Of course you were aware. Maybe at one point you denied it, but that was when you both were in elementary school and Heeseung would tug on your hair because he sat behind you.

Being this close to him made you a little nervous. After realizing that you had feelings for him, it was becoming difficult to keep them at bay. It was very clear that Heeseung had become much more masculine over the years with his buffer chest, muscular arms, and deeper voice.

And he looked extremely attractive.

“Yeah, I know you’re tall,” you replied flatly. It was normal for Heeseung to tease you, but whenever he did so in public, you always felt your heart squeeze in your chest. Then, he’d brush it off, and the feeling would fade out like bubbles floating to the ground. “You know, giving me your sweater and messing around like this probably gives people the wrong idea, right?”

“Oh… does it?” Heeseung mumbled, voice an octave higher than usual, and he turned his face away before you could detect the dust of pink across his cheeks. “By the way, have you been to a planetarium before?”

“Nope.”

You had always heard of the large domes that showcased the night sky. People sat underneath as a narrator droned on about stories from the past and the history of the universe. However, you hadn’t ever actually been to one, although you almost would’ve if you hadn’t gotten grounded before a class trip, resulting in all of your friends going to a planetarium show without you. You remembered Yizhuo was texting you throughout the entire trip, complaining about virtually everything that was going on and telling you how much she missed you.

“You’re kidding,” Heeseung’s eyes went round. “No way! You’ve never been to a planetarium?”

“Well—”

“Oh my god,” he continued, absolutely astounded. “Have you even lived?”

“I’ve just never had the chance!” you argued. “It’s not like anyone’s ever asked me to go to one. Plus, if there’s anyone I’d go with, I’d rather just go with you.”

Silence.

You and Heeseung had been settling into a lot of awkward pauses lately. It always followed some odd comment or action between you two, like when he got extremely close to you on the yacht. You still had no idea what exactly his intentions were during that whole ordeal, but your heart had never raced so fast.

Eventually, your silence was broken by an employee ushering you and Heeseung to walk past the velvet ropes and into the observatory building. You both were still silent upon walking in, but when you saw the signs pointing to the planetarium, you nudged your best friend’s side.

“It says the next showing starts in five minutes,” you pointed out.

“Fuck.” He slapped the pockets of his jeans, feeling for something solid in them. “I have my tickets—somewhere. Give me a second.”

Thankfully, he managed to figure out that he saved his tickets to his Apple Wallet. The sign stating that the shows were sold out nearly made your heart drop, but, of course, Heeseung had planned this out well in advance.

As always.

“Where should we sit?” you asked when you walked into the room, looking up at the dome-shaped ceiling in awe.

“Anywhere.” Heeseung grinned at you. “All we have to do is lay back and stare at the sky, so wherever you wanna sit.”

You both settled with two seats in the middle. It was smack dab in the center of the dome, right where the screen curved. Heeseung made a comment about how this was the ideal spot because it felt like you were getting sucked in by the stars.

When the show started, you gazed up at the screen in complete awe. Swirling nebulas and galaxies were painted across the night sky, blinking down at you. The narrator’s soothing voice made you feel absolutely immersed, and you had to grab the arm rest whenever the animation started speeding through the universe.

Heeseung booed when they showed Earth, throwing up a thumbs-down and then quickly shoving his hand back into his pocket, as if the planet would take offense.

And you realized you were in love with him.

You didn’t know why it hit you right then and there—a person droning on about space overhead, glancing over at your best friend to see him gawking at the solar system—but you were certain you would never feel this way with anyone else again. The feeling stampeded through your body, making your blood rush and your bones feel light. You were engulfed in a fire that burned only for Heeseung.

It felt so simple, yet all the more complicated. You were in love with your childhood best friend—the person who had been with you through everything.

It wasn’t like fireworks. Not a splash of ice cold water or like you had been kicked in the chest. It was more like slowly sinking in quicksand, not even realizing how deep you were until you were completely submerged.

You had been in love with Golden Boy for a long time now.

Later, after the show was over, he took you outside to overlook the city. Apparently, it was quite the sight to behold from this high up. You were still gushing on and on about the planetarium show, but as soon as you took a glance over the railing, you forgot all about the wonders of space.

Now, looking over all the bright lights really made it feel like the City of Angels. You were completely captivated by the sight. It was different from how it looked from the hot air balloon; everything was so miniscule from that height, but you could see how far the city stretched from here. The lights blinked past the horizon, and you were certain this was your first time seeing stars down below instead up in the sky.

Heeseung folded his arms onto the railing and tucked his head in them. “You can’t get this view anywhere else.”

“It’s beautiful,” you said, hardly audible.

“Yeah,” he replied. You wondered if he was talking about the stars above or the city below, so you turned your head to catch where he was looking. There was an alarming spike in your heartbeat when you realized he was looking at you, but Heeseung didn’t look away this time. “It really is.”

You never fully appreciated how gorgeous Los Angeles—never really looked past all the traffic and smog and crowd. The bustling city was tiring to keep up with at times. You saw it more as the city of burnouts than the city of stars.

But here, where the stars weren’t in the sky but down below, you realized that the brightest star of them all was the one right next to you.

It was Heeseung.

“You don’t still wish you were in the Bahamas, do you?” he asked suddenly, which spurred you to start laughing.

You stared up at him with incredulity in your eyes. “Hee, I never once wished I was in the Bahamas when I was with you.” You nodded to yourself. “I’d say you made this a successful summer.”

Your heart flipped in your chest when you saw those gleaming eyes and bright smile of his. It almost lit up the sky brighter than the city of Los Angeles itself. The way he was looking at you made you forget everything you were saying.

“Actually,” he started shyly, “there's something else that could make this summer perfect.”

“What’s that?”

“Will you go out with me?”

The question knocked you off orbit, electrifying every nerve in your body like it was cut wire. You weren’t sure what expression you wore on your face, but the shy look on Heeseung’s face was plunging you deeper in that inescapable quicksand. Of course, your friends had suspected this all along, but hearing it yourself was entirely different. You felt like you were glowing brighter than Polaris.

“I’ve liked you since we were kids,” he started to explain after gauging that you still needed time to process his words. “It’s not like I just felt this way overnight. I was just trying to make the right choices so that I could stay by your side for as long as I could. I mean, I’ll always be your best friend, Y/N, but I also wanna be something more than that to you.”

“And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” he continued. “I knew that this could possibly ruin our friendship, but I also knew that if I didn’t tell you how I felt, then I would’ve been lying to you through college, too.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “It’s only ever been you.”

Change was hard. You’d been at war with your mind for a while now over starting something new with Heeseung. Although it was unfamiliar and new, and although you were scared of things potentially not working out, you still wanted to try for him.

“You don’t have to worry about ruining our friendship.” The words were on your tongue like a pearl. Your soul leaked out of your body, straight into the Earth, then seeped back into you with newfound bravery. You blinked back tears that dared to spill and sounded so stupidly breathless when you confessed, “I’m in love with you, too, Hee.”

His eyes were as wide as saucers, unblinking. “You are?”

His voice was soft, imploring, almost desperate, so you stepped closer and cupped his cold cheeks with your warm hands. Heeseung’s gaze seemed faraway, but he placed his hands over yours, as if he was trying to make sure you were real.

“I don’t think there’s anyone else out there who would rent an entire hot air balloon just to make sure I wouldn’t miss the Bahamas.” You laughed, a moonstruck grin on your face. “And, for the record, I’d choose you over a stupid vacation any day.”

You had been waiting to see his face break into that dazzling smile of his where his eyes crinkled at the corners. Instead, Heeseung just gazed at you longingly before he placed a hand on your cheek and bent down to kiss you.

His mouth moved with yours carefully, almost like he was too scared to go any further. You moved your hands to loop around his neck, drawing him closer so that you could slowly deepen the kiss. You were grateful that Heeseung waited to match your pace, and soon he was dropping his hands to grab at your waist and pull you closer to him, too. It sent butterflies straight to the pit of your stomach whenever he smiled between kisses, mumbling something about how pretty you were or how he had been waiting to do this forever.

Sometimes, you realized, feelings didn’t need to be expressed through words. You didn’t need the confirmation because with Heeseung’s lips pressed to yours, you felt like you were glowing brighter than the stars above.

You supposed you could say your parents were a little shocked to come back home and discover a major change in your relationship status.

You had to give them the rundown of what happened, of course. It wasn’t very hard to do, considering you had reiterated the same story to Yizhuo about a hundred times until she was satisfied. Thankfully, your other friends just needed to hear it once to fully grasp that Heeseung was now your boyfriend. For Yeji, you had to bring out a whiteboard just to draw everything out to her over FaceTime.

As you broke down what happened while your parents were in Rome, you noticed the silver necklace on your mother’s neck that glimmered whenever the light caught it. You smiled to yourself when you realized it was probably your stepfather’s honeymoon present, and you were grateful that your mother was able to experience such a wonderful love herself.

“See?” There was an excited gleam in your mother’s eyes as she bit into one of the chocolate chip cookies you and Heeseung made for them last night. She pointed the cookie in your stepfather’s direction. “I told you they’d get together!”

“I thought so, too!” he agreed. “That’s why I had that little talk with Heeseung when you two dropped us off at the airport.”

“That’s what you guys were talking about?!” you exclaimed, jumping up to your feet and then sinking back down in your seat with your hands covering your face. “I knew it was gonna be something embarrassing.”

“Oh, honey, don’t say that. Have a cookie.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Heeseung, who had been silent the whole conversation, spoke up. He reached over and took the cookie from your mother, but you smacked his hand lightly while he was bringing it to his mouth. “Hey! You almost made me drop my cookie!”

You huffed. “She was talking to me, idiot.”

You were honestly over-the-moon that dating Heeseung was this easy. You worried about having a boyfriend and having to go through the hassle of introducing him to your parents and waiting for them to warm up to him. With Heeseung, though, he was already like family in your household, so nothing felt too different.

Except that your parents could outwardly tease you both now.

Since you were in his parents’ good graces, too, everything seemed to click for you two. Both of your parents were planning to go out for dinner sometime this week to celebrate your new relationship, which you felt was a little over-the-top. You suspected that Mrs. Lee was hoping you would be her future daughter-in-law.

They were even planning on renting a Airbnb together for yours and Heeseung’s move-in at Yale. It was almost terrifying how everyone in your life seemed to be fully on-board for this relationship.

Not that you were complaining, though.

“Are you guys going somewhere now?” your mother asked, eyeing Heeseung’s white button-up that you were wearing over your swimsuit. “Make sure you wear sunscreen. It’s supposed to be the hottest day of the year.”

You checked your bag to make sure your sunscreen was, in fact, there. Heeseung took his baseball cap off to put it on your head, which made you crack a smile.

“Yeah, we’re going to the beach,” you said. “Yizhuo and Chenle wanted to spend the day at Santa Monica, and then we were gonna head over to Jungwon’s house.”

“Well, have fun.” Your mother moved to the kitchen to grab Tupperware to package the cookies. Your stepfather followed her in to help her out. “I’m sorry we couldn’t go to the Bahamas this year, but the beach has to be the next best thing, right?”

You shared a grin with Heeseung, and his eyes crinkled beautifully at the corners. “Yeah, it’s exactly like the Bahamas if I close my eyes.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ thank you for reading all the way to the end if you made it this far !! :’) i have always wanted to write pure fluff without any room for misunderstandings or angst LOL and heeseung is just the perfect embodiment of bff2l ♡ i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing this !!

TAG LIST ▸ @mmsriza @changmin-wrlds @13isacoolnumber @from-xero @acciomylove @nyujjan @goldenhypen @bbanggami @lvsunq @cb97curls @ily-cuz-i @jakeyuni @soobisms @rikibae @soobin-chois @sjyuniverse @outrologist @kyukittie @nabinthegardnn @viagumi @kpoplover718 @duolingofanaccount @jjongsha @teawithbucky @baekhyunstruly @mykalon @heelariously @hobistigma @ja4hyvn @candidupped @shmooooo @pr0dbeomgyu @heeyunkist @sunshine-skz @hiqhkey @baekhyuns-lipchain @fakeuwus @wvnkoi

#enhypen imagines #heeseung imagines #heeseung fluff #enhypen fluff #heeseung x reader #enhypen oneshots #heeseung oneshots #lee heeseung #enhypen

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queers-gambit · 4 months

Text

What Goes Around, Comes Around

prompt: ( requested ) Billy's known for his temper and being obsessed with his pretty little girlfriend - which gets her severely injured by his past transgressions.

pairing: Billy Hargrove x female!cheerleader!reader reader and Billy are both 18+, seniors in high school

word count: 6.7k+

fandom masterlist: Stranger Things

note: you're a liar if you didn't immediately start singing Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around... Comes Around".

warnings: remember there are different responses to trauma! some people shut down, stop talking; others jabber and chatter nervously. reader is the latter. we got angst, we got literal hurt and comfort, established relationship. term "going postal" is used, cursing, technically underage drinking, not edited, author mildly gave up at the end. triggering content: depictions of physical violence, depictions of injury and blood, depiction of abuse, violent plots, Billy's girl gets physically assaulted (but it's minimally detailed).

DO NOT read if this content can potentially trigger you. you are NOT missing anything, you will miss NOTHING by skipping this, but i do try to keep the details as neutral as possible. again, prioritize yourself, mental health, and emotional state - this ain't worth the read if it's gonna upset you, i promise. author loves you all

"That's fucking her, I swear to God."

"You sure?"

"100%. That's Billy's little bitch he's obsessed with."

The three guys smirked at one another, eyeing you across the living room as you giggled and drank with a few friends in adorable, fashion forward outfits. Someone started a game of beer pong, you on the sidelines to cheer, giving them a full-show of your form.

"She's hot," Jake mused. "I can see why he keeps her so close."

"Nah, not tonight," Lawrence frowned, "heard they got in some huge fight at school. Like, she walked home and he sped off in his car."

"Hm, heard he's ridiculously protective of her... She must've really pissed him off," the third boy, Steven, nodded. "So, he's not here tonight?"

"Doubt it," Jake nodded.

"Go find out," Steven advised. "There, the basketball bros - one of them would know. Or a cheerleader," he eyed the crowd. "Chrissy's over there, Brittany's beside her - they'd be the best bet in my mind."

"We seriously considering this?" Lawrence asked with a small, nervous chuckle. "I mean, it's kinda crazy, isn't it? We're gonna send Billy Hargrove a message by roughing up his girl? There's not some better way?"

"I'd love to hear it," Steven scoffed. "Billy's too comfortable at the top of the school, broke my fucking nose and deviated Jake's septum. Didn't he fuck your sister the first week he was here, Lawrence?"

"I mean - "

"Broke her fucking heart, didn't he?" Jake tacked on.

"Well, yeah," Lawrence sighed, shrugging.

"You tell me, dude, was that shit fair?"

"No," Lawrence looked down.

"So, yeah, I know, it's bad to hit a lady - but what about my boot? Huh?" Steven smirked, nodding. "Go find out what you can. Last thing we need is Billy walkin' in the party, right?"

Jake nodded with enthusiasm, leaving Lawrence behind. He hesistated but then did as Steven asked; asking the present basketball team members if Billy gave indication he was coming. The cheerleaders assured he wouldn't dare show up when you were there after a very public fight, and if he did, it would be to cause another scene.

So, after reporting back to Steven, a plan was formed. Lawrence didn't seem fully on board, but in an effort to save his own skin, he went along with what Jake and Steven were plotting - even if that meant roughing up a woman. Something his mama and grandmama vehemently taught him not to do...

Something churned in his stomach when he heard how the two lads were nearly foaming at the mouth to get their revenge. So, he casually went to grab another drink - pausing where a few of your friends were. "Oi," he whispered, earning their attention.

"Hey, Law," Chrissy smiled.

"Hey, Chris," he sniffled, glancing around. "Listen, uh, you seen Billy 'round?"

"No? Why?"

"Hmm, just, uh... Heard his girl was all upset, thought maybe her drinking all that much was a bad idea without him around."

"Oh," Chrissy blinked, looking up at her boyfriend, Jason, as he approached the group with two drinks in hand. "I didn't think about it like that, Law."

"What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"No, nothing, Lawrence just pointed out how shitty it is to drink without someone watching your back," she pouted.

He nodded, "You lose your friends, man?"

"No, just tryna look out," Lawrence shrugged. "Few girls here drinking a lot, not a lot of defenses 'round them."

Jason frowned, "That's kinda their man's job, isn't it?"

"What if their man isn't here?"

"I'm gonna be right back," Chrissy smiled, parting ways with her girlfriend in tow - and when Law looked, they were using the kitchen telephone. He prayed they were phoning the Hargrove residence.

Lawrence sighed in slight relief and nodded to Jason; the white boy just nodding back silently and letting the other athlete pass him by to head back for Jake and Steven. He grabbed an unopened beer on his way to maintain appearances.

"Hey, we got it," Jake smirked at the third boy, "she just went outside, we should move now."

"Huh?" Law mumbled.

"C'mon," Steven growled, pushing off the mantle and stalking for the backdoors to follow your retreating form.

"Wait, what're we doing?" Law asked, trying to keep up with the drunken, elongated strides of the two dickheads he called 'friends'. "Hey! Guys, c'mon - what's going on?"

"Just - shut up, pussy boy, let's go, fuckin' keep up," Steven sneered, shoving the glass door out of his way and nearly cracking it.

Outside, the in-ground pool was alight with multicolored lights. There were teenagers littered all around the pool deck; some lounging and some standing, all drinking. There was a kegstand in play, ping pong table hosting another game of Beer Pong, and the thick stench of cigarette smoke in the air.

"She's over there," Jake pointed, their sights turning to see you leaning over to huff on your cigarette while Tammy May Flipsen lit the end of it. Your smile was genuine as you thanked her, just stepping two feet away to gaze up at the stars - a perfect time to strike.

The alcohol in everyone's system made them slow, vulnerable, and downright stupid; leaving Steven and Jake the opportunity to seize either of your arms and literally rush you around the corner of the house without anyone intervening.

Once in the remote side yard, the sickening plan commenced.

Lawrence could barely approach, managing to watch with tears in his eyes as the noises of the party masked the noises of pain you emitted; two nearly full-grown men took out their anger towards your boyfriend on you. You cried, begged for reprieve, sounded so confused and broken that it shattered Lawrence's heart - briefly thinking what if someone did this to his sister...

That made him spring into action. "Hey! No! No, this ain't right! Get off her!" Lawrence barked, shoving the two away from your body on the ground. "That's enough - back off - fuck is wrong with you!?"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing!?" Steven demanded.

"Bitch has it coming!"

"What? You fuckin' her, too? Got you pussy whipped like Billy Boy?"

"Just fuck off, beating on a girl!" Lawrence snapped, but it was a huge mistake. Jake and Steven shared a single look before launching at the third boy, beating him as they had you - but much harder. He swore he earned a concussion, their heels stomping his neck, collarbones, wrists, ribs, ankles; exactly the same as they did to you.

"Tryna defend her now!?" Jake heaved, giving a swift kick to Lawrence's kidney. "Huh? You're so scared of Billy but you're gonna mess with his girl?" He laughed. "She must have a magic cunt or something!"

"You're so fucking pathetic, you have to beat up a girl!?" Law shot right back, earning a swift kick to the jaw from the lad that used to play soccer (or American fútbol). "Huh? Two on one? Such big men, aren't yah?" He sneered again, spitting blood to the side.

"Leave it," Steven halted Jake when he charged again, "they're both pretty fucked."

"Well, that dumbass should learn a lesson 'bout interfering!"

"Law's learned - he has, bro, and if he wants, he can learn again," Steven spat on Lawrence's form, Jake doing the same to you - both eventually stalking away like bored toddlers walking away from broken toys.

Slowly, Lawrence grunted as he pulled himself up to sit against the side of the house. "Fuck's sake," he whispered, wiping his eyes and wincing when he felt the sore skin - trailing a finger up, wincing again when he discovered split skin above his eyebrow. "Ohhhh, fuuuuck," Law drawled when you slowly peaked up from your fetal position on the ground. "Hey, hey, you all right? Stupid question," he hissed in pain when he moved to try and assist you.

You cried out when his grip laid on you, but powered through to let him help you sit against the house, too. "Holy shit," you whispered, blood dribbling from your mouth; teeth feeling loose, a headache already assaulting you, and cuts stinging in the bitter night.

"I'm so sorry."

"N-No, you - it would've been so much worse if you hadn't..." You trailed off, sniffling, "You didn't have t'jump in, you got hurt 'cause of me."

"You got hurt 'cause of Billy," Lawrence frowned.

"Huh?"

"That's why they're so pissed off," Lawrence explained, spitting more blood to the side; his jeans stained with mud, blood, and grass. "Billy got their asses few weeks ago, they're still pissed... I heard them," he deflected smoothly, "talkin' about teaching Billy a lesson through you. Didn't feel right, but I should've stopped them so much sooner. I-I'm sorry I didn't do more, Y/N."

"You did more than anyone else," you whimpered, drawing your knees into your chest to lock your arms around them. "I don't even know them, they go to our school?"

"We're all in AP History with Snyder."

You paused to nod absently, not even bothering to try and recall any interactions you might've had with Steven and Jake. Instead, you eyed your savior, mumbling, "You're Lawrence, right?"

"Yeah," he breathed.

"Your sister's... Cara? Sarah? No, no," you paused to think, his frown deepening as you seemed so nice and authentic. "Your sister's name is Natalie, right?"

"Yeah," he half-smiled. "You know her?"

"She's a sweetheart, has those cute glasses? Yeah, I like her; she just joined cheer, right?"

"Yeah, that's her."

You eyed him for a moment, ignoring the blood dripping off you both from the beat down; then whispered with a sniffle, "Is that why you helped? 'Cause your sister's on the cheer squad, too?"

"No," he replied instantly, sounding quiet (like you), "I'd like to believe if I saw something I know is wrong... I'd be the type of person to step in, try to stop it."

"You did tonight."

"I should've done more a lot sooner."

"You could've been really hurt, Law."

"Like you?"

"I'm just - look, two guys? Beatin' on me? Yeah," you scoffed, wiping blood from your split lip, "like I ever stood a chance. But you didn't have t'do all that, they wanted Billy, found me instead. You could've walked away, but instead, you jumped in, and you could've been really hurt. That wouldn't help anyone."

"I'm still sorry..."

You sniffled, but before you could respond, you heard footsteps thundering over the lawn; a voice shouting your name in frantic, panicked little outbursts. Looking up, you caught sight of a black leather jacket and unruly blonde curls, frowning deeper. "Oh, fuck," you whispered, withdrawing into yourself, "oh, no, no, not now. Not now, Goddamnit. Think I can make a run for it to the street before he sees me?" You asked Law quietly, nearly hissing your whisper.

"Ain't that Billy?" Law asked, finger pointed.

"He can't see me," you rushed in a panic, eyes wide and tears welling. "Lawrence, he can't!"

"Why?"

"He'll go on a fucking rampage, Lawrence! Ever heard going postal? Yeah, Bee gives that shit new meaning."

"They'd deserve whatever Billy wants t'do," Law frowned, tensing up when Billy had turned, caught sight of you two, and made an angry beeline for you in the grass. "U-Uh, Billy's approaching," he warned you as your boyfriend arrived, trying to pull back to give privacy, but wincing in pain that made him stop.

"The fuck is going - ? Oh, my fuckin' God," Billy trailed off, then whispered when he saw you huddled on the ground; your dress in tatters. Your head was bowed, knees drawn in, refusing to meet his eyes; making your leather-clad boyfriend lower himself to a knee. "Baby? Hey, look at me, sweet girl, lemme see... C'mon, baby, please, look at me."

You only sniffled.

"It was Jake and Steven," Lawrence told Billy, trying to find his feet; falling over and just giving up.

"Hell happened to you, man?"

Lawrence frowned, looking nervous, but your voice answered, "He saved me, Bee. Jumped in, took some of the beating."

Billy looked between you and Lawrence, but focused on you - seeing the injuries to your face and chest in full light. "Oh, my God," he breathed, looking you over in shock. Those pink, pillowy lips you adored licking and sucking on were parted in shock.

You half-smiled, "Think you pissed a few of the wrong guys off."

"Jesus Christ, sweet girl. What happened? Tell me, please, before I start making assumptions," he demanded, reaching for your cheek - making you recoil hard enough that your head banged on the house supporting your exhausted body. "Hey, hey," he whispered, looking physically wounded by your action, "'s just me, baby, it's just me, it's Bee, I'm not gonna hurt you. C'mon, sweetheart, lemme help you."

You sniffled, letting him reach for you again and caress your cheek so he could direct your head left and right; giving him a full view of your injuries that continued to weep. He stiffened as he took note of a new cut or bruise upon every new sweep of his eyes, his anger skyrocketing with every passing moment.

"It hurts," you whimpered. "Apparently, you beat the shit outta those guys weeks ago - guess they were waiting for an opening to strike back."

"You don't deserve this," he growled angrily. "Fuck - look at you! Goddamnit, I'm so sorry, princess, this is my fault. All my fucking fault, shit," he hissed, looking close to tears, "I put you here, I'm so sorry, baby."

"Got Lawrence his ass beat, too," you pouted.

"Sorry about this, man," Billy instantly offered the other boy, who was practically slumped over in the grass. He still managed to give a thumbs up. "But, uh, thank you for stepping in. You know, not a whole lotta people would."

"Nah, it was the right thing to do," Law frowned, waving him off.

"You said Jake and Steven did this?"

"Mhm," Law nodded. "Jake Chastain and Steven Barton."

"Yeah, I know 'em," Billy shook his head, "and I'll fuckin' kill 'em - "

"Can we get cleaned up first? Before we go murdering high school jocks?" You pouted in pain.

"Hey, man. You got a friend here or something? Someone to help us?" Billy asked Lawrence, still caressing your face with his thumb sweeping the apple of your cheek.

"My sister's 'round, yeah..."

"Want me to grab her?" Billy offered awkwardly.

"I'd actually appreciate it," Law whispered. "Gotta get home, yeah?"

"Yeah, man. Stay here, I'll grab her," Billy agreed. "What's her name?"

"Natalie, she's a cheerleader. Um... Y-You dated her beginning of the year?"

"I remember," he sighed, standing to his feet. He told you earnestly, almost sweetly, "I'll be fast."

But the thing is, you knew Billy all too well by now. "Wait, no," you gasped, trying to stand, "Bee, don't!" It was too late, he was already gone by the time you and Lawrence stumbled out from hiding; just in time to watch Billy point Natalie towards where you and her brother were. Then, he turned and surged up to an unsuspecting Jake and Steven; launching an all-out brawl against the two.

Neither of them stood a chance when Billy was THIS angry. Nobody did. In fact, if Jason, Tommy H., and two other guys hadn't pulled him back, surely, there'd be a lot more than a couple of broken bones. However, when Billy told the other basketball players in a spit-flying rage that these two cowards had attacked his girlfriend (a few turning back to get a look at you), it launched a new, mutual anger. Chrissy and a few other cheerleaders wanted to step in when the "fight" (more like attack) started again, but when they saw you, Lawrence, and Natalie, nobody said a single word. Nobody interfered. Nobody interrupted, and luckily, nobody else joined in...

Before Jake and Steven could lose their lives or sustain serious injury that would result in any arrests, Billy was pulled back by Lawrence - of all people. "Hey, hey," the beaten boy barked, "hey, man, chill - chill! These guys deserve it, yeah, I fucking know, but look, hey!" He grabbed Billy's shoulders to prevent him from turning back for the fray. "Hey! Your girl needs you, man. She needs you more than these bozos. C'mon, you can't go to jail over this shit, right? Right? How mad you gonna be if you get bagged 'cause of these jackasses?"

This seemed to force Billy back to reality and out of his homicidal rage. A few dudes who played football stepped in to hoist the unconscious jocks over their shoulders just to leave them on the curb a couple houses down the street.

Billy raced back to you.

Chrissy and Natalie were helping wipe blood from your skin and hair; clothes damaged, ripped, stained, beyond repair, and another cheerleader was holding a bag of frozen peas to your head as you leaned on her stomach. He slid his jacket from his shoulders, easing you off the girl's belly to leave it around your trembling form and then taking the girl's spot, supporting your body as you were tended to.

Eventually, Chrissy sighed, "I think that's the best we're gonna get you, honey. You want us to come over in the mornings? Help you get dressed and do your make-up?"

"No offense, but I don't think that's necessary... It's not like what happened is a secret," Natalie whispered, looking you over.

"Make-up might irritate the injuries," the other girl offered softly. "But it might cover some of those bruises, I just would avoid the cuts."

"I'm okay, girls, but thank you," you assured softly. "Bee's here t'help."

"Yeah, taking you straight to the hospital," he decided stiffly from behind you.

"What?"

"Think I'm not gonna get you checked out after this? Two men attacked you, I gotta make sure ain't shit's seriously wrong, baby. Don't fight me on this, please."

Billy's mind was warped with memories of sitting in ER's and other clinics with his mother nursing a broken wrist or damaged eye socket. His father's anger had always been a temperamental switch, something Billy felt he always had to outdo. Being in the hospital with you felt too similar, another bolt of rage zinging through his blood; hating the idea that you were the victim, and like his mother, he wasn't able to protect you.

Unlike his mother, this situation was directly his fault. He didn't even remember why he beat the shit outta Steven and Jake all those weeks ago, but whatever the reason, it cost him now. Cost you both.

The party continued inside the house, but Billy walked around the side yard, down to the front, then towards the street full of parked cars with you secure in his arms. After getting you settled safely in the passenger seat of his Camaro, Billy rightened and shut the door; seeing Lawrence and Natalie approaching their own car, the bag of peas now held to his jaw and cheek.

His sister was under his arm, helping him hobble. Billy gulped, realizing Lawrence was beat to hell, too, and if he hadn't jumped in, Lord only knew what state you'd be in now. When the two men caught one another's eye, Billy offered a nod of respect and thanks; the other lad returning it as if to say he was welcome. Billy raced for the driver's door, sliding in, and without turning any music on, drove off towards the hospital.

You were grumpy to be there, but one look at you had the medical staff moving at a quickened pace to help you; offering speedy aid. You were cleaned and cared for; questions regarding the level of assault making you nervous, but you answered honestly that two classmates had jumped you at a party. This meant the police were called; tears in your eyes and down your cheeks when you had to tell Chief Hopper (a close family friend) exactly what happened.

Billy provided their assailant’s full names and promised they wouldn't be in the best shape when (slash if) the two were found.

After hearing your story and writing the names down from Billy, Hopper sighed in empathy, "Kid... Don't admit t'anything."

"I'm not, I'm just making a casual note," Billy countered. "You know, people don't take too kindly to people hittin' a woman. Less so when she's drunk, alone, and they fuckin' stomp on her - "

"All right," Hopper tried to halt his built up anger. "Let's just take a breath here - "

"Uh, Chief?" His deputy interrupted. "Them boys? Uh, a... Jake Chastain and Steven Barton? They were just wheeled in from an ambulance."

"Interesting," Hopper noted, sparing Billy a small look. "From where?"

"A neighbor called them in, said there's a party few houses from her on Hawthorne."

Jim Hopper sighed and turned to you and Billy with his hands on his hips. His face was passively angry. "Sound familiar?" He asked, tongue sweeping over his teeth.

"Yes," you answered for you both, "that's where it happened, Chief."

His eyes softened when he looked back at you. "All right," he nodded, looking to his partner. "Go stand by their room, keep an eye - I'll be there in a second, but the victims made a positive ID. Doc's will treat 'em and we'll book 'em." When left alone, Hopper took a suspicious look around the hospital floor before sliding the curtains shut around your bed; moving to your other side, removing his hat, and kneeling. "Listen, kid," he whispered, taking your hand softly, "I got a daughter at home, too, and if anyone - and I mean, anyone - laid a hand on her the way you were tonight, I'd burn this town to the fucking ground."

Billy snorted in amusement, "Know the feeling."

Hopper nodded, "So believe me when I say, I need to know, off the record, what really happened tonight. Your father will need to know that I am doing everything to help - but I need to know the truth."

"I don't know what to tell you, Hopper," you frowned, matching his quiet tone, "I've told you what I know. I was a few drinks in, stepped outside t'smoke, and that's when they grabbed me, took me t'the side yard, and started wailing on me. I dropped, they kept goin', that's when this other boy stepped in. He got beat up pretty good, too, but he helped get them away. Billy showed up, we came here - "

"I hit them," Billy interrupted, making you squeak lightly. Hopper just laid his other hand over yours so he cocooned it; glancing around the under skirts of the curtains to make sure you remained alone.

Then he asked, "When?"

"After I made sure Y/N was okay," Billy explained, petting a hand over the back of your head; never looking away from Hopper. "I found her friend's sister, made sure someone knew where they were, and then I hit them... And I didn't stop hitting them."

"Kid - "

"Some teammates pulled me off, don't worry - it could've been so much worse. But when the others found out what they did to my girl?" He hissed quietly, "They took matters into their own hands by themselves, sir. My girl was attacked, I couldn't let that just slide, Chief, I hope you understand."

Hopper sighed, "Well, I can't condone the violence, but since it was a group effort, be a helluva lot more paperwork bringing you in versus those two who started it."

Billy nodded absently, your free hand laying over Hopper's to stack. "Did you call my dad?" You asked nervously.

"Not yet," he frowned. "I gotta check on the suspects, but I can after."

"Could you not? For me, please?" You sniffled. "He'll just worry and would get all pissy 'cause his trip has to be cut - "

"He's not home?" Hopper asked in earnest confusion with knitted brows.

Your head shook, "Chicago for the week."

"He left eight days ago," Billy snipped.

"Bee," you reprimanded sharply.

"Hey," Hopper squeezed your hand, "it's okay, you're over 18, I don't have to call him. But El and I are gonna drop by later with dinners and to check on you, her little friend, too, probably. You know, the, uh... The little red head?"

"Max?" You asked.

"Yeah, her. Nice girl."

"She's Billy's step-sister," you snickered, wincing when your broken ribs protested.

"You should rest," Hopper bid, "and thank you for being honest," he stood to his feet while nodding at Billy. "Tell you what, I won't report you starting the fight - technically... It'll be reported as a randomized group effort after they were caught assaulting Y/N."

Billy nodded, too shocked for words as Hopper patted your hand, placed his hat on, and exited the little curtained room. "Wow," your boyfriend breathed. "Since when are you friends with the Chief of Police?"

"He and my dad go way back," you eased.

"All cops like him?"

"Fuck no, you know that." After a beat, you reached for his hand to lace your fingers with him, "Hey," you bid, "I-I'm really sorry."

"Baby, just - don't even start - "

"No, for earlier, for our fight," you interrupted, "and for feeling petty enough to go to the party alone when I know you don't like that... For drinking, not being more aware like you taught me. I didn't use the buddy-system when I went t'smoke, it was a major fuck-up, I know, but I'm just sorry. I feel like I've disappointed you or something - "

"No, hey, sweet girl," he rushed, sitting on the edge of the gurney to stare at you directly, "don't you ever feel that way - you didn't do nothing wrong. Hear me? You didn't put yourself in this position, you didn't deserve what happened, you didn't - no, just," he sighed deeply, "you didn't do any of this, sweetheart. Okay? If anything... If anything, this is my fucking fault and I'm the one who is so sorry."

Your head shook, but Billy continued,

"They did this to you because of me." Tears filled those sweet baby blues. "Because I don't have a hold of my temper - I fucked them up, so, they fucked you up. This is my fault, I'm so sorry. But look, hey, I'll fix this, okay? I swear to God - I'm gonna fix this."

"The cops got 'em, we don't have t'do anything else," you mumbled. "You don't have to do anything else, Billy."

"Maybe not, but I can't let this go - look at you," a single tear dripped. "Fucking look at you, my sweet girl. In the fucking hospital 'cause of me - I can't - this ain't right. I gotta make it right."

You couldn't answer because a technician was arriving to take you for a CT, MRI, and X-Ray - all of those scans that would tell them what was going on internally. Hopper was seen outside the two boy's rooms - Billy following your bed closely as you where wheeled away. Every scan or test he could remain close for, he was; stepping back when needed, but being sucked right back to your side when able.

By the end of the night, you were released into Billy's care because all patients with head injuries had to have some kind of chaperone, and a few floors up, Steven and Jake were being handcuffed to their hospital beds by Hopper.

"Real lucky I wasn't there when you hit her," Jim Hopper seethed quietly, tightening the cuff on Jake to an uncomfortable grip. "Your parents would need money for your funerals - not bail," he offered one single more glare before leaving the next shift of deputies on duty. He sped all the way home and held Eleven in a suffocating hug.

Turns out, you sustained decent injuries from that night.

A (cleanly) broken ankle. Six different broken ribs. Split lip that required two stitches. Stitched earlobes from where piercings were ripped out. Severely bruised collarbones, bordering on broken. One blackened eye. Along with other generic bruises and cuts, more seemingly discovered as the days drug by slowly.

Billy was ready to mow down anyone in his way at any point, but his only ability to get through the school day was that he saw you everyday afterward. He dropped whatever sport and / or club that held his interest, collecting coursework you missed, then driving Max and "Jane" Hopper to your place. He would've lashed out if this was any other situation, but because you asked him to behave and bring you the materials you needed, he did. He played nice.

The two assailants, Steven and Jake, had been arrested by Jim Hopper. They apparently had a rough ride to the station, but that wasn't here or there. What they did to you was far worse that nobody batted a single lash when the two were brought in the station for booking, looking freshly beat up and bloodied. A judge also rejected their bail.

Billy brought you whatever work you missed during your recovery at home, most teachers shocked to see him so diligent in showing up and making the collections. He didn't understand whatever the teachers told him about the work, but you did - and it was fascinating to him, watching you work or study. He usually sat by your window to smoke, but on the occasion, you asked for a toke and wouldn't care about where the smoke blew. So, as weeks passed, he stopped specifically going over to your window; just leaving it open for ventilation so he could remain at your side.

Anything you needed, he got. He did. He gave you. Guilt was one helluva motivator and Billy was chalked-full; so, he did the only thing he knew he could, being acts of service.

You were laid up, it made sense. He could bring you into the shower, get naked himself and help you bathe. He could carry you downstairs, cook for you, help out around the house by keeping it clean because he knew it stressed you out. He would collect the mail, water plants, do dishes, just turned into a househusband that made your stomach and cheeks feel all warm and fuzzy. Never did you think Billy had the ability to be domestic, but here he was, in your great-grandmother's kitchen, wearing a stained apron while trying to bake cookies while you worked on a physics project.

"Hey, Bee?"

"What's wrong?" He asked instantly, setting the hot tray to the stove.

"No, hey, calm down," you smiled with a small laugh. "I was just wondering... You know, like... What's gotten into you?"

"Huh?"

"You know what I mean," you huffed, setting your pencil down. "You literally haven't let me out of your sight except when you're at school."

He shrugged, "You need help."

"You don't ask if I do."

"I don't need to ask when I can just see it."

"Billy."

He sighed and begrudgingly scraped cookies off the hot tray to rest on the cooling sheets. "Your dad asked me to stay close," he offered.

"Bullshit."

"No, really," Billy insisted. "He's in and out with work, so, he asked me to stick around, just in case."

"Okay, fine, but it's more than that. Billy, tell me the truth, baby, please. It's not a bad thing, I'm just curious what's really going on."

"I'm just... I'm just nervous, you know?"

Your head cocked, "Why's that?"

"Look what happened to you," he chuckled ruefully. "All fucked up, can't even go t'school until your ribs are healed - all 'cause of me. 'Cause I fucked up and went too far - "

"William," you snapped, making his wide, shocked eyes meet yours. "I'm not gonna listen to this anymore. Okay? I know you're sorry, you tell me everyday, andI know you're feeling guilty, but this isn't your fault, you're not the one who put hands on me - "

You flinched when he lobbed the cookie tray into the sink, causing a ruckus, his voice yelling over the noise, "FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

"William!"

"I'm trying to protect you!" He yelled, tears swelling when he whipped around to face you. "I-I don't know what else to do! Look, okay, say what you fucking want, but the truth is, those two assholes came at you 'cause of me. Okay? 'Cause I had to be myself and beat the shit outta them 3 months ago, they never forgave - they didn't forget. I put you in this situation, that now? Now, yeah!" He laughed without humor. "Yeah! I'm fucking nervous leaving you alone! Fuck knows what could happen to you, and who's to say there aren't more people out there just waiting for this kinda opportunity! Baby!" He rushed for you at the kitchen table, your mouth sewn shut in shock as he found his knees in front of you and took both your hands in his. "Baby, listen to me. You're the only thing - no, I'm serious!" He insisted when you looked ready to protest this sentiment you've heard before. "You're the only thing I fucking care about, that I want to protect, and they all know it - I don't exactly hide it. I love you so fucking much, they'd do this again - they'd fucking hurt you to get to me and that idea just..." He sighed, looking lost.

You pulled a hand free to instantly caress his cheek, turning his attention upward until his eyes met yours. "Billy," you whispered, "baby, nobody's after us. This was just a freak accident, this was a fluke, okay? You're worried anyone else is gonna come at me, at us, but I know nobody else is that fucking stupid. They wouldn't test you, and Jake and Steven took advantage of an already bad situation. Okay? We had a fight - which was pretty public. So, people knew we were at odds, and when I showed up at that party alone, started drinking, it was their perfect opportunity to strike."

"You can't say that, we don't know if anyone else is gonna test us," he sniffled. "I've made a lot of mistakes... Pissed a lot of people off. One of them might've grown a pair."

"Okay," you relented, "then I guess we're gonna have to stick together, you know... So you can keep me safe, right?"

He chuckled dryly, "I'm trying, princess."

"Well, we can work out a better way - one that doesn't run you into the fucking ground, Billy, Jesus," you searched his face. "Are you sleeping? At all?"

"'Course I am - "

"Don't lie to me."

He sighed, deflating a little, "I sleep... Only when I stay here."

"Billy, you stay only a couple nights a week when Daddy's home."

"I know."

"So, you basically only sleep when Daddy's out of town and you stay here?" You squeaked, watching him nod; pouting and feeling your own guilt brew. "Baby... Look, can we just agree that this isn't either of our faults? Right? Yeah? If I'm not allowed to think this was my fault, you aren't either."

"I was the one they wanted t'hurt," he shook his head. "They did this 'cause of me, sweetheart, how can you be so - so - fuck! So fucking understanding a-and forgiving?"

"Because I love you," you answered like it was common knowledge, even giving a small giggle.

"That doesn't... But that doesn't even - "

"What? Mean anything? Bee, it means everything," you smiled at him. "I love you, so, when you make mistakes, I forgive you - even though there's nothing you've done. I mean," you winced slightly, "sure, maybe we could reduce the kids you bully or beat up, you know, limit the enemies we might make. And this is something that can be redeemed, can't it?"

He stared at you from the floor, slowly deflating, "Can it? I've fucked up so much, doll, I don't think I deserve whatever forgiveness you wanna give me."

"You can't keep beating yourself up," you snipped. "Hey? Hear me? Look, it happened - it fucking sucked, but it happened and it's fucking over. We both need one another to help move on, okay? So, I need you back, Bee, I need my man back because we need to get through this together. You don't get to sulk in your guilt, I don't get to stew in my regret, we need to help each other out of this."

Billy sniffled, "How? How do we move on when you've still got stitches in your lip?"

"They'll dissolve in a few days," you shrugged meekly. "We move on together, okay? Maybe you pick up basketball again, try to distract yourself. Billy, we need some normalcy again, right? You know?"

"Doll, being away from you makes me feel like my lungs are gonna pop," he shook his head. "I'm afraid something might happen if I'm not there, it's fucking scary after finding you in your own blood."

"Then I'll be at every practice," you eased. "You can drive me to and from school, then you know where I am - you'll know I'm safe."

Billy stared at you a moment, fully dropping to the floor as his energy finally drained. He ran a hand through his hair, rustling the curls, admitting in a soft voice, "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to not feel so guilty, how to move forward."

"There's no playbook," you agreed. "Guess it means we gotta figure it out ourselves, but again, we do it together. C'mere," you sighed, lowering yourself to the floor with your booted ankle held out.

"No, don't - "

"Fuck off, I'm not totally unable to do shit," you grunted, adjusting yourself and reaching for him. "Come here, please, I wanna hold you! Been cuddling me this whole time, lemme be the big spoon, please."

"Just told me to fuck off, sweetheart, kinda sending some mixed signals, aren't'cha?" He chuckled, turning so his back was to your chest; leaning so you supported him in his slump. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he muttered, holding the arm around his collarbones. "I really - if I knew this was gonna happen, I'd never of fought them."

"I know, and I forgive you," you whispered in his ear. "But we can't keep doing this back and forth, okay? I forgive you, Billy, no more apologies."

He sighed, "Yeah... All right..."

"Steven and Jake are arrested, we won't have t'see them again. Hopper will make sure of that," you smirked against the shell of his ear. "And the doctors said I should be good to return to school next week, but I'm out of cheer and everything."

He groaned, "Just something else I've fucked up for you."

"Oh, please, I love the time off," you teased. "Gives me all the time I need to watch my man on the court, huh?" He half-chuckled at your words. "You know I'm ahead in all my classes now, too? Teaching myself at home is far superior than the teacher's bitching at us for eight hours."

"You're gonna love college, baby," he chuckled, the two of you lulling into a comfortable silence. You held him tightly, nuzzled into his neck; both sitting in your emotions, trying to navigate a way out.

"We good?" You whispered.

"We're good," Billy agreed, just as soft. "No more apologies... Try to have less guilt. But you're gonna let me stay close, right?"

"I want you clinging to me so hard, I can't fucking breathe," you smirked. "And if Daddy really asked you to stick around, then you're welcome to stay here longer, even if he's here... Where I can have you close to me," you whispered, licking the skin under his ear. He stiffened.

"No - you better not," he squirmed when you licked again, adding a little teeth in a scrape.

"Billy," you pouted. "It's been weeks!"

"You're still hurt," he argued, turning on the floor to look at you. "I'm not gonna be responsible for breaking another of your ribs 'cause we were horny."

"I'm doing so much better, though!"

"Tell you what," he smirked. "Next business trip of your dad's, I'll fuck you all weekend - wherever you want, however you want."

"He has one in two weeks."

"Mhm, and you have a check up before he leaves."

You eyed him for a moment, "When did you become responsible?"

"I've always been."

"No, this is new. You're remembering dates and my doctor appointments and my dad's work schedule."

"Maybe I just like taking care of you," he whispered against your lips with a growing smirk. After pecking you lips, he quipped, "So, shut up and let me."

"Yes, sir."

requesting rules and masterlist

Stranger Things masterlist

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x f!reader #billy hargrove x female!reader #billy hargrove x female reader #billy hargrove x fem!reader #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove request #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove fanfic #billy hargrove stranger things #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things

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princessbrunette · 2 months

Note

okay so hi! i wanted to send in a lil jj and rafe prompt myself for the kook princess.

so i lowkey think that she gets tired of the beefing one day and she’s just all upset because she doesn’t know what to do or who to chose in this whole situation, so she just pulls a “if i can’t have you both i don’t want either of you” which was hard enough for her to do anyway because let’s be so real standing on business with RAFE & JJ is hell in itself. so she like really stands on business doesn’t come around either of them avoiding parties the whole nine until she ends up needing to go to midsommars or something kinda much like kie in season one her parents are making her go, so word gets around fast that she’s going because people haven’t seen her in a while and jj leaps on the opportunity to work with pope & heyward, so he can see her and obviously rafe is gonna be there regardless. she doesn’t come until late which gave rafe and jj enough time to at least come to a certain level of an agreement, she still avoids them all night staying with her parents and drifting to sarah whenever she got the opportunity. so she finally ends up going to the bathroom and they basically corner her (teamwork 🤣) and they talk to her and they both end up fucking her in the stall.

this!!!!! this is perfect. i never brought the two of them together bc i just thought it was too unlikely because they really don’t like eachother — but if they’re kinda forced together by reader giving them no other choice it seems more likely.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

jj practically jumps you in the corridor, appearing frantically infront of you in his lil waiter get up and starts dragging you to the bathroom.

“jj, no — i already told you—”

“just five minutes just — just hear me out for five minutes okay — c’mon, in you go, chop chop.” he pushes you into the bathroom before turning round and blinking at passersby who worriedly witnessed the low level kidnap. “nothin’ to see here alright just, carry on…” he excuses awkwardly before closing the door.

upon entering, to your surprise rafe is stood in the centre of the room with his hands in his pockets and lips pursed like he was forced to be there too. he perks up a little on your entry, eyeing you over. he speaks your name and you glance between the two boys nervously.

“damn, you— you look really beautiful i mean—” rafe begins as he edges towards you and you all but nearly stomp your foot, pointing to him with an angry pout.

“don’t!”

the oldest boy holds his hands up, slowing his pace as he approaches you, showing he comes in peace. “alright, alright… look we… just wanted to talk to you. ‘that okay?”

your eyes slide over to jj, who’s gazing at you with this desperate plea that makes you soften a little. you cross your arms and nod, and naturally the boys close in on you, shielding you from the rest of the room.

“trust me, okay— the last thing i wanna do is share you with rafe freaking cameron but,” the blonde runs a hand through his hair frustratedly as the cameron rolls his eyes. “you went goddamn… radio silent on us and i was worried, okay? are you seeing the level of concern you caused right now? ‘cus i’m standing next to rafe and my hands aren’t around his neck—”

“yeah like you could reach, buddy.”

“i’m like three inches shorter than you asshole i’on even wanna hear it right now ‘cus—”

“guys.” you interject sulkily, huffing a sigh out your nose.

“sorry, sorry— yes, so uh— to cut this thing short, maybe until you like, make a decision or whatever… we can alternate weeks with you?”

you gaze up at them from beneath your lashes unsurely. “like… you get me this week rafe gets me next week… and so on?”

“yeah i’m not thrilled about this guy gettin’ you at all but i’ll… i’ll take it.” rafe scuffs his shoe on the floor, uncharacteristically bashfully.

you think, and honestly as it was the best case scenario you nod, gaze flickering between the two of them.

“okay… just… want you both. missed you.” you don’t know who to look at, so you cement your stare to your shoes. there’s some shuffling of feet through the tense silence before you feel a pair of fingers gripping your jaw lightly, tilting your head up to them.

“look… why don’t you uh, why don’t you give maybank here a little kiss. alright? i’m— i’m actively showin’ you i’m cool with it.”

even jj’s brows lift in surprise, licking over his rubied lips as he watches you for permission. you let rafe’s hand drag you closer, before bringing your mouth to jj’s, locking lips. rafe’s hand switches to cup the back of your head, supposedly feeling this was the most control he could have in the situation. his eyes flutter in irritation as he watches jj slip you tongue and after a moment he pulls you back, immediately bringing your mouth to his— to kiss you sloppier and dirtier than the blonde.

jj’s eyes roll, licking over his lips once more. “jesus, dude — okay.”

you let out a pleased moan after a moment, just happy to have your favourite boys back with you, this time together — and rafe tugs you back with a smug smirk. you watch his eyes flutter up to the cubicle behind you, before his gaze moves to jj.

“get the door, yeah busboy?” he slaps jj on the back, and with his tongue in his cheek — he pushes the cubicle door open for the three of you to fit inside.

“watch it, douche.” he glares as rafe leads you in. it’s a squeeze, but it’ll do for now. the competitive nature in them both was flared up to ten, set on using this time as a way to prove themselves to you.

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

#anon #jj x reader x rafe

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vcrooster · 2 years

Text

Cherry Flavored

Smut & Some Angst.

Paring: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw & Reader (call sign: Cherry)

Word count: 4 k

Summary: All that Rooster needed to do was let out some steam.

Authors note: I don’t even know how I came up with this but I hope you like it <3. If you guys have any ideas you would like me to right about I’m all open for some requests.

***

Rooster didn’t even notice his arms were feeling sore until he was in the showers. He could hear the mix of all of the other guys voices, and all of them came to the same conclusion. Maverick had kicked everyone’s ass.

Including him. Twice.

He was so mad at himself. He should’ve taken the damn shot.

And fucking Coyote flirting with you since the call back isn’t really letting him be at his fullest.

You always politely declined him. Politely as in you said no thank you and he took it as a try harder.

And every time it took everything in Rooster not to tell him off.

All of the whistles had made him turn his head towards the door. “If it ain’t Cherry and Phoenix” Hangman said when saw you walk in the room.

The collar of your shirt still had sweat around it and your suit was half way undone.

You were one of the two female pilots that were recalled to Top Gun. Most of the time you got treated as equals, but they were moments like this where the guys were just being stupid.

You lock eyes with Rooster. He doesn’t hold it for more than a couple of seconds. “Don’t worry lady’s, we are out of here”. Hangman says, you are actually grateful that they’ve respected your privacy. “Showers are all yours”.

He seems irritated and upset. You can’t do anything about it right now, not in front of everyone.

You started to fool around with him a couple a years ago. Sneaking around, just letting some steam off was the whole purpose of it.

It wasn’t your intention to grow feelings for him. You both stayed together for the holidays, neither of you had families to go back to, so you kept each other company.

Rooster sure wasn’t expecting to find himself asking for you to give him a chance.

But how couldn’t he. Rooster was crazy over you.

The decision to keep it a secret was mutual. You didn’t want to risk a transfer to a different unit. Truth is you guys were a good team in the air, and you couldn’t trust anybody else to not get you killed up there.

“Come on Rooster, don’t try to get lucky” Harvard patted him on the back before leaving the room, without of course giving you a last glance.

“Are you messing around with Rooster?” Phoenix asked with a smirk on her face once they were alone.

“What?” No, no, no, she doesn’t know. “I’m not messing around with nobody”.

“You don’t sound so sure” she teases.

“Oh shut up”.

You feel somewhat unsteady when you get the sensation that she isn’t joking around. Shit, Phoenix is like a sister to Bradley, of course she’s going to know when something is off about him.

“Coyote and Hangman would be terribly heartbroken” honestly starts feeling like she is trying to get something out of you. “I can’t blame you though”.

Hangman would never admit to it sober, but during a late night drunk conversation with Phoenix it had slipped his mouth how he saw you almost naked in the showers.

It was an accident, genuinely.

He wasn’t a pervert he had just been stupid enough to forget his keys under his spare shirt in his locker.

Now maybe he wasn’t a good team player but he was sure a gentleman, nobody but Phoenix knew about it.

The image of you getting undressed had been the only thing helping him get off for the next week or so. He never made a move on you in a serious type of manner; however, he would occasionally flirt when he got a little too cocky.

“Whatever”. You answer.

You ignore her comments and head to take a shower. The warm water felt delicious over your skin. The training today has been hard— embarrassing you would say. You are supposed to be the best of the best, and here comes this guy that took everyone down with little to no effort.

But the 200 push-ups under the California sun were the worst part of it all. You really don’t want to complain, because Rooster had to do double of that.

You make sure to get done before Phoenix is. You hurry to your small designated room before she asks more questions and you get too annoyed at her.

It’s an hour till midnight when you go to Rooster’s room. You decided it was better to give him some time to cool off before you checked up on him.

“Hey” he doesn’t say anything he just moves aside to make room for you to come in.

You watch him walk back and take a seat at the edge of his bed. His face is painted with exhaustion, he’s still upset for what you could tell.

Your hand drops on his shoulder when you sit next to him, trying to give him some sort of comfort. “It’s alright Rooster, he smoked everyone else out there”.

“He pulled my papers”.

“What? Maverick?” You knew he had a rattle going on with him but he never mentioned why.

“He pulled my application on the naval academy” his voice was a mix of gloom and anger. “Set me back four years”.

“What you did today, you could’ve got yourself kicked out” You know how he lets anger blind him. He’s just a guy that lets his emotions get the best of him.

“Don’t worry about it—“

“I am” You slightly raise your voice, You’re not going to sit there letting him pity himself. Bradley is a great pilot he just needs to loosen up a little. “You can’t leave us flying with Hangman”.

“I’m sorry” he finally looks at you, you feel the palm of his hand gently squeeze your inner thigh.

“I don’t want you to apologize to me, I just want you to prove him wrong”.

He tucks a piece of hair behind your ear before leaning in, pressing his lips sweetly against yours.

They stay still for a second and pulls back, pressing his forehead on your own. You know that no matter how much time goes by, he’ll always be breathtaking to you.

You are the one that decides to make the next move. Wanting to make him feel good, help him relax a little. You move your lips gradually over his without any intention at first.

Slowly as you deepen the kiss you straddle his lap, his fingers immediately dig in the skin of your hips holding you steady, knowing your next move.

He knows it’s a bad idea to fuck you in the dorm rooms, shit, Yale and Coyote were sleeping in the rooms next to his, maybe he wouldn’t mind finally putting and end to Coyote insistence on you, but he knew it wasn’t the place or time.

Your fingers slide into his golden hair when his tongue meets yours. He isn’t trying to get carried away but he can help to get rid of your shirt completely when your hand gets lost inside his boxers.

His hands are roaming from your waist to your breasts. He covers them with his hands, squeezing them softly earning a moan from you.

It’s all it took for him to return to his senses.

“Wait, wait, babe wait” he sounds rushed as he’s trying to catch his breath again. “We can’t, not here”.

“Just relax” You shushed him.

“They’re going to hear us”. He’s doing his best to be the nice guy and stop you, but he’s had a shitty day and the idea of intimacy with his girl, was sounding very good at the moment.

He’s looking at you with expectant eyes, that’s all you need for you to kneel in front of him and tug the waistband of his boxers.

“You just gotta make sure you're very quiet then”.

Once your hand is around his cock he lets out a shaky breath. You work your hand along his shaft and seconds later his hand is on top of your own, guiding the speed. “A little slower”. The breathes out.

You do as he says. Your thumb brushes against his tip a couple of times, gaining a sigh from him. God, you love the sounds he makes.

“Feeling better?” You let out a giggle with a soft smile.

“Fuck yes” he groans.

You wrap your lips on him without warning, he throws back his head, hissing and moaning your name in what sounded like a whisper.

His fingers get tangled in your hair carefully undoing the tie holding your ponytail up. He has always loved you with your hair down. But what he loves the most is when he can just take it in a fistful for himself to guide your movements.

“You always take me so good baby” he grunts.

Rooster looks down on you. His eyes trail to your arched back and those boy shorts that barely covered your ass, all he can think is how good it looks from where he’s at.

That sight alone makes him lose his mind in between gasps and groans. It’s always so difficult for him to maintain eye contact when you always look so perfect. And it’s all just for him.

He moans getting all caught up in the moment, you don’t even pay attention to the tears forming in the corner of your eyes when he hits the back of your throat.

Your tongue swirls around his tip and your hand works on whatever you mouth can’t reach. He hissed pushing the hair off your forehead. “Fuck”.

His eyes meet yours right before he’s about to cum. His eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth slightly opened. He pulls himself out and next thing you feel is the warm strings covering your cleavage.

It takes a moment for him to compose his breath, meanwhile you clean yourself with the towel sitting on the chair next to his bed.

He tucks himself back in his boxers. He shifts in his twin size bed, lifting his body on his elbows.

He gets lost looking at the cherry tattoo on your shoulder, the reason you earned your call sign. He lets out a smirk remembering the time you were drunk and complaining that you wanted your call sign to be Echo, not the stupid tattoo you got when you’d just turned 18.

“Hey…” he reaches out for you making you fall on his lap.

You know he wants to return the favor when he turns you under him and starts kissing you hard. Fingers start to play on the waistband of your shorts teasing you. But you're not falling for it.

His lips trail off down your neck where he nips on the skin of your collar bones. “Oh no Bradshaw, I have to go”.

He yanks his head up looking a little lost. He completely forgot he was the one trying to stop you all along.

“Come on, just stay for a little bit”.

You smile at his childish actions. You know if you stay in his room you're ending up getting tangled in his sheets and to be honest it hasn’t been long since you guys had sex.

Truth is you ended up fucking him in some random motel after his little preformance in the Hard Deck.

“Unless you want to explain to Cyclone, why was I in your room all night Lieutenant Bradshaw” He smiles playfully kissing your jaw and lastly he leaves a soft kiss on your lips.

“I think I’m good on that one”.

“I thought so too”

You leave before it gets any later than it already is.

You hope that’s enough to get him off his thoughts for a bit– and a better mood.

And it works for what you could tell. It was all going alright but when it was his turn to do the exercise Maverick wasn’t exactly too constructive about it.

The best way to describe today’s training was no other than a shit show.

Maverick and Rooster had put on one hell of a performance in front of everyone. But what tied it all together was Hangman’s comments on Rooster's dad. To be more specific how he passed flying with Maverick.

“Hey!”. You yell at Hangman before he turns the corner.

“Cherry” He sighs “Your pretty little face is becoming more annoying every–“ you slap him across his face, you’d like to say you stopped there but before he could steady himself you push him against the wall. “Ouch”.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” your voice comes out more broken than strong. “His problems aren’t for you to broadcast in front of everyone”.

“Is it getting too personal with Rooster?”. He sounds pretty cynical and that smile painted across his face only made you angrier. “Because I have to say I thought I was more of your type”.

“You’re such a fucking asshole Jake”.

“Lighten up Cherry, Jesus”. He winks not before looking at you up and down. “I’m feeling a little jealous”.

“I swear–“

“Guys just stop” Phoenix interrupted you both before the situation escalated.

As soon as she says that you’re on your way to Bradley’s dorm. Phoenix tries to stop you to try and calm the situación down but it honestly comes out as more annoying than helpful.

You’re only knocking a couple of times on his door before he opens it.

His suit is half way undone, the arms are wrapped around his waist and he’s still clearly mad about the whole situation.

His eyes don’t soften as they usually do when he looks at you. In fact his hand is wrapped around your arm pulling you into his room.

“I’m so fucking over this shit” He tells you before you could say anything. “What does he fucking want me to do?”.

“Rooster…” he lets you reach out for his shoulder. You don’t want to say anything, he can be a real hothead when he’s mad, and honestly he’s had enough for today.

“And Hangman, fuck–“ He’s clearly very frustrated, you get, he’s feeling cornered and embarrassed, damn he almost hit the guy in front of the whole group.

“I slapped him just minute ago” you say and he chuckles slightly, the last reaction you thought you’d get from him right.

You hand finds his squeezing it gently.

He allows himself to relax a little. It’s just you, it’s always alright when he's with you.

He joins your lips with his before he thinks too much about it. He presses your back against the wood of the door, taking you by surprise. It takes you a moment to respond and sync up with his pace.

His lips feel rough over yours– desperate would be a better way to describe it. But he’s hurt, you at least could attempt to try and talk to him.

“Hey, we should –“ His head shakes denying anything you’re trying to say to him. He quickly shuts you up by pressing his mouth onto yours, harder this time. His tongue finds its way inside your mouth and you can’t help but to moan into his. “Rooster”.

He wants a distraction. And to be honest you could use one too. There was no point in resisting him.

The way you kiss him is almost in unspoken agreement between both of you. Your hands immediately shoot to his hair and down his neck.

“I need you baby”. He whispers on your skin. Shit alright.

Your hands start to untie the arms of his suit pulling it all the way down.

He straightens you up and his lips are on your neck, he nips the skin from that area until he manages to get a whimper out of your mouth. He smiles trying to catch a breath.

You push him off until the back of his knees hits his bed. He falls into the mattress lifting himself with his elbows. He looks at you impatiently for your next move.

You have to say the part you love the most of fucking with Rooster is the constant fight of who’s in charge.

And honestly Bradley can’t get enough of it either. The only thing rolling on his mind is how hot you look trying to handle him.

And shit, you looked even better stripping in front of him right now.

His gaze doesn’t leave you a single time. It follows you undoing your boots but he’s most excited when you slowly start to unzip your suit.

He reaches out to you trying to help you finish the job but he only gets pushed back into the mattress.

“Not yet” there is a small grin forming on his face by watching you step out of your suit. His eyes trail from your legs to your face. You’d stop being shy and nervous around him from the first couple of times sleeping with him. Fuck, you weren’t fully undressed and there he was hard as rock inside of his boxers.

You crawl over him and he still doesn't dare to touch you, his eyes never leave your own. You could still perceive a hint of the scent of musk and vanilla on him. Your knees stop when they reach his lap and you settle right on top of his cock.

“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that sweetheart” You chuckle having fun with him. Your palm pushes his chest down, you slowly start grinding on him, having him hiss right away “There we go”. Rooster groans.

You finally feel his tight grip on your hips making your pace faster. His hands trail up your sides lifting your shirt all the way up your rib cage until it’s off your body. The palm of his hand slides from your bellybutton to your breast squeezing and kneading them.

“Shit” he chokes out. He pulls you down, meeting him in a messy kiss. “I want to fuck you so badly already”.

He quickly puts on one of the condoms in his night stand before his mind drifts anywhere else.

“That eager Bradshaw?” that’s all it takes for him to hook his hands on the back of your thighs. He lifted you without a problem and in a second he had your back against the wall.

“You have no idea” He grinds a couple of more times on you adjusting your thighs around his waist making sure he has you how he wants you. “Hold tight babe”.

He stretched his neck up to keep his lips against yours moaning against them as he slammed into you again.

You are the one that guides him inside you, having you both gasp at the new sensation. Almost right away he is pounding hard into you leaving no time for you to adjust to him.

You have to steady yourself on his shoulders when you feel him go deeper. He bites the skin of your collarbone softly passing the tip of his tongue over it. He's always careful not to leave any sort of marks on you but this time he didn’t even care.

He gripped your thighs tightly when you clenched around him as the tip of his cock kept brushing on your sweet spot.

“Holy fuck–“ you say breathlessly.

He knows that you guys aren’t loud enough for someone else to hear. But he can’t help to like the thought of you moaning his name for everyone to hear that you're his.

Your face hides in the crook of his neck leaving open mouth kisses along it, loving the sensation of his moans vibrating against his throat.

Your eyes glide down taking a look at where your bodies are joined. The pleasure building inside you starts to feel a little overwhelming, your thighs tense up and your forehead ends up resting over his “Rooster”. It comes out more like a plead than you intended and it drives him crazy.

“I know baby”. He whispers.

He jerks you up in a sudden move, his arm on your waist holding you tighter against him. He’s thrusting faster and harder than before. Your nails dig into the skin of his shoulder blades in an attempt to hold on to him as best as you can.

It almost feels as if he is pulling out completely as he slams as deep and hard as he can into you.

You got so lost into him that you almost didn’t realize that you were about to cum. “Are you almost there?” He asks and you can bring yourself to answer so the only response you can give him is a desperate whimper.

He pounds a few more times and it finally explodes on you. He’s kissing you to drown the moans you're making. And he keeps doing it while he’s finally coming. It hits him harder than he thought it would, he feels like he's melting into you.

You take a moment to look at him. You’re sure he’s the most handsome guy you’ve seen in your life. God, you’re so in love with him.

You stay with him until he falls asleep. He usually doesn’t sleep very well but his soft snoring filled the room not too long after.

You leave his room making sure to set his alarm for the morning.

It wasn’t late so seeing Maverick waiting outside your door didn’t surprise you that much.

“Lieutenant Metcalf” You felt he was angry. Part of you was glad he wasn’t disappointed.

You’ve known him for a long time, your grandfather was his instructor when he was in Top Gun. You’d occasionally check on him throughout the years but never were exactly close to him, not like he is– or was– with Rooster.

“Are you here to lecture me?” You weren’t intending to come out as defensive as you did.

“No, but it’s not that hard to put one and two together”. He’s still irritated from training and you can’t blame him. “I should kick one of you off the team” his arms were crossed over his chest.

The thing about Maverick is that you knew no matter how bad his ass was in the line he would always have the back of the people he loved.

“Are you?” He tried to ignore the obvious fact that you look like you just got fucked despite your efforts of trying to clean your self up.

“That’s up to you”. His voice got softer. “Get some rest Cherry”.

“Yes sir”.

Contrary to Rooster, you kept tossing and turning in the bed all night. Your mind just kept on wandering off to what could happen to Bradley and you once Maverick was out of the picture.

You really didn’t want to think of the possibility of not flying with him anymore.

Best thing for now is to keep your hands off each other and hope for the best.

That was until you were headed to the beach the very next day and the hickeys on your tits were very visible with the sports bra you were planning to wear.

You would’ve gotten away with the simple white shirt you used as your cover up if Coyote and Hangman hadn't decided to be funny and pulled you and Phoenix to the water making your shirt very see through.

“Damn Cherry, you should've told me I was being too hard last night”. Jake pointed out sarcastically at the now visible dark marks on your chest. “You know how much I hate putting on a show”.

“I bet you do Hangman” Rooster said, coming up towards you, helping you out of the water and draping his hawaiian shirt on your shoulders and wrapping one of his hands on your waist lifting you to his side.

He didn’t care that all eyes were on you guys, but shit, Cyclone didn’t have to show up right at that moment.

You knew you were fucked when he whispered to Maverick.

“What’s going on with those two?” He pointed out to both of you.

“They must be very competitive sir”.

#bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster #rooster angst #rooster one shot #rooster smut #rooster top gun #top gun #top gun maverick

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 7 months

Note

aita for calling my roommate crazy?

I (28f) live with 2 other people, a former college roommate who I’m pretty close with (29f) and 2nd roommate (28nb) who we both met when we moved in together 2 years ago.

Let me start this out by saying, this isn’t a fandom aita, it’s going to sound a bit weird at first, but bear with me.

I have a medical condition (relevant later) which stopped most of my bones from maturing past puberty (growth plates closing, cartilage not hardening into bones, ect.), so my skeleton is basically stuck somewhere between 13-19, (I look about 17-19, but the last time I tried to buy hard cider, the cashier thought I was 14, so that’s how young I can look). I also have very pale skin (unrelated to my disorder, just a ginger), and (related to my disorder) lack some liver enzymes so I need eat meat or I get sick (the same reason why cats need to eat meat), I ended up in the ER when I lived with my vegan sister for a week and ate the same veggie diet as her.

Trouble is, Roommate 2 is really into conspiracy theories and other fringe stuff. Nothing alt-right or anything, just like, (for example) they fully bought into that Mermaids: the body found show, and wouldn’t be dissuaded, even when Roommate 1 googled it and showed them solid proof that it was fictional. Wholeheartedly believes the US government preformed 9/11, does alternative medicine (homeopathy, ect), wishes there were ‘all natural’ vaccines (still isn’t an anti-vaccer though, just needs to be persuaded that Bill Gates didn’t put microchips in them).

Anyway, Roommate 1 and I have a recurring joke that I’m a vampire because of the meat thing and the pale thing and the not aging thing. Roommate 2 overheard us and laughed, but weirdly. She kinda joked along with us, but she seemed...odd. About a week later, they start asking me stuff about being a vampire. But they seemed friendly and not nervous then and I was hoping they were just joking and I also sincerely thought they were just asking me about how vampires work on one of my shows (I’m a big fan of Carmilla and the Originals), so I tried to explain, but I cited each show when I’m explaining a thing. This continued for several weeks, but getting worse and more weird every time, eventually culminating about 2 and a half months later into them asking me more stuff about life as a vampire and I really realised that they were serious. Bear in mind, Roommate 1 and I were trying to be very clear that we don’t believe in vampires this whole time because we both know how Roommate 2 is about this. As a result, this was the first time I really registered that they seriously seemed to genuinely believe I was a vampire. I firmly told them that I am not a vampire and that vampires aren’t real, they’re fun to joke about, but they aren’t real. They implored me ‘to be straight with them about being a vampire,’ and that ‘I could trust them,’ and I’m ashamed to say, I kinda freaked out at this point, cuz I was afraid that they would be scared of me and maybe try to hurt me, since they seemed kinda unstable because of this.

This is where I think I was an asshole, I am usually very sensitive to mental health issues. I have some c-PTSD myself and there are a lot of mental health issues in my family (unfortunately, I think some history with my own mentally ill father may have made me react this way, since he has very similar issues to Roommate 2 (vaccines, alternate medicines, specifically involving me in his delusions) and I had a very bad experience in my early teens where he thought I was a demon and ‘sent to destroy him’). Anyway, I got very upset and I yelled at them, I told them they were completely crazy and needed to get mental help and said I thought Roommate 1 and I needed to move out because they might try to stake my heart or something. I feel really bad for calling them crazy, especially because Roommate 2 has some very mental health issues and words like crazy make light of and stigmatise that and I’m very big into not blaming people for their mental health problems, but this was very triggering and in this moment I was very distresssed.

So, aita, all things considered here? I’m still gonna feel like the asshole no matter what, since mental health problems aren’t to be taken lightly or blamed on the person, but I’m curious what the internet thinks.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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cozage · 1 year

Note

Hi. How are you? Can I put in a request for Law x Corazon’s daughter? Corazon asks Law to take care of his wife and daughter (she is his age) if anything were to happen to him. After Corazon dies, Law finds them and stays with them before becoming a pirate and promises to visit. As the years go by, he falls for her and vice versa. Then after Dressrosa (which she helps them with), he asks her to join the crew.

A/N: Im great! anyway…Uhhhh yeah this got way long. I’m not mad about it. I hope it was worth the wait for you :) (you can also read it on AO3 if you dont like the tumblr format for long posts)

Characters: female reader x Law

Cw: sadness, abandonment, parent death

Total word count: 5.2k

A Lifetime Promise

You pout at the boy standing in front of you. “Who are you?”

Your mom squeezed your hand to silence you. “You must be Trafalgar Law,” She said, smiling at the boy. She seemed tense, like she’s scared of something.

“You have a funny hat,” you remark, looking at the spots. They matched his skin, which was patch-worked like the cows you had at home.

“You have a funny face,” he spits back, scowling at you.

You stick your tongue out at him, and your mother picks you up and holds you on her hip.

“Well, Law. Let’s get you settled into your new home.”

“What?!” you shriek, looking at your mother. “I don’t want him to live with us! He’s mean! And scary looking!”

“Quiet, Y/N!” Your mother hissed at you, squeezing you tighter to her. You could tell she was upset, but you weren’t entirely sure what you had done to make her so sad. So you kept quiet and let your mother lead the strange boy back to your house.

He stayed with you for a few years, and in that time you learned to coexist. You helped him study, and you were there when he got the last drop of lead poisoning out of his system. Both of you cried for the things you had lost and the things you had gained, and you learned to actually enjoy being around him and his friends.

You spent the summers roaming the forests with Law, Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo, and you spent the winter huddled together in front of a lowly lit fireplace, your mother serving you all hot chocolate. It was heaven in the North Blue Sea, and you never wanted it to end. You all would be together forever, you were certain.

“One week from now, we’re setting out.” He had acquired a small boat, big enough for four people. “We’re going to take on the Grand Line and I’m going to be King of the Pirates.”

“It’ll be a tight fit, but we can all fit I think,” you said, examining the boat. One more person wouldn’t be that much weight.

Law shot you a look, and the other members exchanged looks nervously. They had been anticipating an argument, but they weren’t expecting it to be in front of them.

“You’re not coming, Y/N-ya.”

You looked at him, trying to understand. Your goals have always been aligned. Go to the Grand Line and take down the Donquixote family. To take revenge for your father and for Law.

“A pirate's life is a man’s life. You wouldn’t fit in. We all talked about it, and you’re better off staying here. Where you’re safe.”

“I don’t want to be safe, Law,” you cried, your eyes filling with tears. “I want to be with you! We had plans!”

“Plans change.”

“You’re really going to leave me behind?” Your broken voice and bleary eyes were almost enough to change his mind.

“I never promised to take you with me,” he snapped. He tried to ignore the pain in his chest when you ran away crying, but the dull ache didn’t go away.

The coldness between the two of you was worse than any winter storm you had ever encountered. He said goodbye when he thought you were asleep, and you laid there silently without responding. It was easier for you both that way.

He didn’t return for another year, and when you saw the pirate flag the four of you had created now painted on a submarine, your heart soared.

“Law!” You screamed, jumping onto the deck as if it were second nature.

You leaped into his arms for a hug and he caught you, spinning you around with the momentum you both had gathered.

“I missed you,” he whispered, clutching you close to him.

Your heart skipped a beat. “Let me come with you this time!”

His hands gripped tighter against your back, grabbing fists of fabric from your cloth dress.

“Just kidding!” You say quickly, not wanting to pick up a year old fight. You scrunch your nose at him and your other three friends. “I bet you guys smell. So. Bad.”

Everyone laughs at that, and you pull away from Law nervously, hugging your other friends who you’ve missed just as much.

Their visit was short, but you made the most out of the two days they stayed in port. You showed them new restaurants, and revisited some of your old adventures, and explored the marketplace with Law to make dinner for your mom one night.

And when they left, you stood at the cliffside and waved until they were out of sight, praying their telescope wasn’t good enough to see the tears in your eyes.

It was three and a half years until Trafalgar Law came back to you, but it felt like a lifetime. You had learned to live with the pain of his absence, and tried your best to move on. But every time the light glimmered on the ocean, you could feel your heart calling out to him.

Law came quietly that time. He was surprised when he looked for you at your usual spots and you weren’t anywhere to be found. He wandered the streets with his crew - now 7 strong - searching for you.

“She’s down in the Trademark Hotel. She works the front desk now, dear,” an elderly woman at a stall said.

He tried not to quicken his pace, but everyone could feel his speed increase, and worked to match it. His new crew was desperate to see the girl he returned home to, and his old crew members missed your face.

He rushed in to see you standing at the desk, talking to a man who was dressed in a fancy suit. You laughed, and Law could feel his heart clench with joy at the sound of your voice. He couldn’t help but see a piece of Corazon in your smile now.

Your eyes slid over to the door to greet the new customers, and you screamed out upon realization of his identity, startling the man beside you.

“Law!” You jumped over the desk and he opened his arms for an embrace as you ran to him. He held you in his arms for just a moment before you pulled away, and he reluctantly let you go.

“Oh my god, this is perfect timing!” you squealed, running back to grab the man’s hand. “Jami, this is Law. You remember me talking about him, right?”

“Yeah…” the man eyed Law and his crew. “The pirate crew?”

You laughed. “And my best friend!”

“He’s more like your brother, isn’t he?” He smirked. “Since you were raised together.”

“We’re not siblings,” both you and Law said at the same time, and you laughed at your synchronicity, but Law’s eyes stayed fixed on the man.

Law frowned, looking between you and this stranger. He had his arm wrapped around your waist, and he was standing extremely close to you. It was clear you all were close, but Law had never seen him before. He was glaring at Law, as if he expected some sort of challenge from the pirate.

You took a deep breath, and then broke the news. “Law, this is my boyfriend, Jamison.”

Law’s eyes widened at the news. You were too preoccupied waving to Shachi and the others, but it was enough for Jamison to see his visible reaction.

“The three of us should have dinner tonight,” Jamison said, looking at Law with a smirk. “If you can leave your crew for that long.”

“No way! Everyone needs to come.” You pressed your hand against Jamison’s chest playfully, and Law felt something twist inside of him. “You have new people in your life too, Law. Introduce us!”

Law finally breaks his gaze from Jamison and looks at you, his jealousy melting away when he sees your smile. Things felt more normal when he looked at you and heard your voice.

“I’ll set up a reservation at the hotel restaurant for ten. Oh, and mom. So eleven. Does five o’clock sound okay?”

“Perfect.” He smiled back at you, and for a moment you were alone together in a crowded room.

Jamison cleared his throat, bringing you both back to the group. He looked at Law and his crew. “The dress code is a bit more…” he paused to scan the pirates. “...Formal. I hope you have nicer clothes available than those.”

Law frowns, and he sees you mimic his own facial expression in response to Jamison’s words. “I think the Trademark can make exceptions for distinguished guests.” you said sweetly.

“Darling,” the man hissed, squeezing your side causing you to flinch. “The Trademark has a reputation to uphold, don’t you think?”

Law resisted the urge to punch the man right then and there. If he stepped in now, you would only be angry about his interference. He knew he had to grit his teeth and let you handle it. He fully expected you to give some snarky remark back to Jamison and stand up for yourself and his crew. But the spunk he remembered you having seemed to have dissipated over the years, and your rebelling heart was more soft spoken than he remembered.

You offered a compromise instead of a fight. “Then we’ll go to Cordelia’s.”

“I don’t think Cordelia’s is the proper place for this occasion,” Jamison retaliated.

“Then don’t come.” Your voice was short and to the point, and Law could see the fire of defiance begin to relight in your eyes.

“Cordelia’s sounds lovely,” Law interjected quickly before the fight escalated too much. “Still five?”

You gave him a tight smile and a quick nod, and then broke from Jamiston’s hold to run and wrap your arms around Law’s neck again.

“It really is so good to see you again, Law.”

He held you tight for a moment, trying to remember the feeling of your body against his before he let go. “You too. See you at five,” he said, walking out the door.

When Law arrived at Cordelia’s, he noticed the table was only set for ten, but nobody in his crew commented on it. Law kept the seat next to him open, in hopes that you would take it rather than your snotty boyfriend. But as it turned out, he didn’t need to worry about it. Only you and your mother showed.

“Sorry I’m late!” you say, taking the seat beside Law without a second thought.

“You’re always late,” Law teased.

You waved him off, rolling your eyes at him. You leaned over so you could see his three new crew members. “I’m Y/N,” you said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t officially introduce myself earlier! I was just so overwhelmed with seeing Law and Shachi and Penguin and Bepo!”

“She didn’t even acknowledge us earlier,” Penguin said under his breath, causing Law to shoot him a glare.

The rest of Law’s crew introduced themselves, and you spent a lot of time asking about them and their lives. Law could feel your nervous energy, like you were interviewing celebrities or famous royalty. You wanted to know everything about their lives and how they became a pirate, and by the time dessert rolled around, there was no time left to talk about yourself.

“Can I walk you back to your place?” Law asked as you got up from the table after the meal.

“Such a gentleman!” you gasped, feigning surprise. “Heart Pirate crew, it was lovely to meet you. Please come back anytime! You’re always welcome here.”

Law held out his arm and you grinned as you took it, overly dramatic in your actions. You walked down the cobblestoned streets in the moonlight, quiet for a while until Law broke the silence.

“No Jamison for dinner?” he questioned innocently.

You scowled. “I don’t want to talk about him,” you replied. “Jami always says Cordelia’s is our spot. He doesn’t like to share with other people.”

“He doesn’t seem like-”

“Law,” you warn, irritation creeping into your voice. “I really don’t want to talk about him right now.”

“Okay, fine.” He eyed you, but your face was completely unreadable. He wasn’t sure when he had lost the ability to read your emotions, but it saddened him now.

“Can we go to the harbor before you take me home?”

“Of course, Milady,” he said, ushering you towards the sea wall at the bottom of the hill.

You all sat on the wall, staring at the moon and its reflection against the ocean.

“Tell me a story, Law.” It was something you used to say when you were kids. On the nights one of you had such terrible nightmares that you woke up crying, and the other would crawl into bed with the other. You always begged him to make up some kind of story to get your mind off of things. He was a good storyteller.

He chuckled. “We’re a bit old for that, don’t you think?” He looked over at you, but your eyes were on the sea, deep in thought.

“Tell me a real story, then.”

He obliged, of course. He’d do anything for you. Keep her happy and keep her safe. That’s what Corazon had asked of Law when he was a child. A lifelong promise for the man who gave him a life worth living.

He told you the story of giant bees who hated humans, but loved Bepo’s fur. The crew had to make trades of honey for Bepos fur, and how it saved them from starvation and left Bepo half bald.

“That can’t be true!” you giggled, pushing him away from you. “Tell me a true story!”

“It’s true! I swear!” He said, smirking at you.

“Promise?” you looked up at him with wide eyes, desperately wanting to believe him.

He was about to respond, but your gaze distracted him. You all stared at each other for a few moments, hovering close to each other. Not touching, just out of reach.

“Take me to sail with you, Trafalgar Law,” you begged. “I won’t ask for anything ever again. Just take me with you.”

He desperately wanted to take you away from this island, from the man who claimed to love you and the mediocre job you worked. But he made a promise.

“I can’t,” he whispers, and you can hear the pain he's causing himself in rejecting you.

You pull away, breaking your eye contact with him to stare out into the sea. You want to cry, but no tears would come. You were expecting this response from him. You were expecting rejection from him. It still stung, but not as much as you were anticipating.

“Okay,” you say with a nod, pushing down your sadness. “I won’t ask you again.”

You rise to your feet, and turn your back to the ocean and your best friend, and walk into your house on the dock. Law didn’t even have time to beg you to stay before you had vanished into the night.

Law found your house the next morning with the help of a friend of yours. Of course, Jamison answered the door with that signature cocky sneer on his face.

“She’s not feeling well,” he said, glancing at the back room. “How about you try again tomorrow?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Law says, trying to push past the man. “I need to see her before we go.”

“I’ll send her your way if she’s feeling up to it, okay?” He starts to shut the door, but Law jams his foot into the opening to prevent it from closing completely.

“I need to see her.”

“No, you don’t,” Jamison said, kicking Law’s foot out of the doorway. “I don’t need my future wife being influenced by a bunch of pirates. Your presence is bad for her. You make her rude and disobedient.” He pauses to look out to the harbor, and his smirk returns. “You might want to hurry, it looks like some Navy ships got a tip about a notorious pirate crew on this island. Wouldn’t want you to get caught.”

Law looks to the harbor and finds 10 marine ships on the horizon, and he takes off towards his crew, cursing the coward you’re with.

“I’ll be back,” Law whispers into the air as he runs for his ship. “I promise.”

Law finally made it back to you two years later, praying that you wouldn’t be giving him another major life update when he found you again. He was terrified that he’d come back to you and you’d be engaged to that pompous ass - or even worse, married. He wanted you to be happy, but he knew you weren’t happy with that man.

The crew could sense his tenseness in the days leading up to the arrival on their home island. But nobody talked about it, until Shachi finally went into his office as they docked.

“Are you going to ask her this time?” He demanded. “You know she’ll say yes.”

“I don’t want her on the ship,” Law said. He didn’t even bother to look up from his book.

“Bullshit,” Shachi replied. “You have Ikkaku here now too. You can’t even use that stupid “No Girls Allowed” rule.”

Law didn’t respond. It had been what he told you years ago, and he had to admit he was a little nervous to see how you’d respond to seeing a woman on his crew.

“Captain,” Shachi said, walking over to his desk. “Ask her.”

Law finally looked up from his book. “I’ll consider it.”

When they docked, Law was the first off the ship. The others didn’t bother to follow him, they knew they’d see you soon enough.

He made a beeline for the Trademark, and was surprised to find that there had been a name change in the past year and a half.

It was now the Heart Hotel.

He walked into the lobby, but your smiling face wasn’t the one to greet him, and his heart sunk. A young woman sat at the front desk, but it wasn’t you.

“Hello, how can I help you today sir?” Her voice was high pitched and overenthusiastic, but Law couldn’t tell if she was genuine or not.

“I’m looking for Y/N.” Law said, looking around. “Does she still work here?”

The girl at the front desk laughed at his question, but Law didn’t understand why.

“Let me go get her. Please wait right here. What business do you have with her today?”

Law frowned, unsure how to answer the question. “Personal, I guess?”

The girl nodded and receded into a back room. A moment later he heard your voice cry out, and he relaxed a little bit.

“WHAT?!” He could hear quickened footsteps, and the door to the back rooms opened, revealing your frame.

He smiled when he saw you, but it was quickly erased when he saw your downward knitted brows and angry look on your face.

“Trafalgar Law!” you screeched, storming out to where he was standing. You pulled your hand back and swung it around, your palm hitting his cheek full force. Before Law had time to react, you grabbed his shirt and pulled him close to you, so your face was only centimeters away. You were shorter than him, but with this amount of rage, he couldn’t help but feel intimidated by you.

“Don’t you ever leave me without saying goodbye again!” You said, and he could see tears in your eyes. Your glare breaks, and you crumple into his chest and let out a sob.

“Why did you do that?” you cried. He wrapped his arms around you, and held you tight against him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, holding you tight. He didn’t make excuses or try to explain. It didn’t matter now. “I’m here now. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

You nod into his chest and pull away from him, viciously wiping the tears away with your hands.

“God look at me, I’m such a mess.” Your voice is still thick from crying. “Amanda, I’m going on break. If anyone needs me-”

“They won’t,” Amanda finishes, and you laugh at her response. Then she corrects herself with, “I know, I’ll call you on the transponder snail.”

“Looks like you’ve moved up a bit in the hotel,” Law states as you take his arm and lead him out the door.

Your laugh rings out, and Law feels his heart flutter in his chest. “I’m the owner now, thank you very much!”

“The owner?” he gasped, looking at you. Your chest is puffed out proudly and you’re carrying yourself with more confidence than the last time he saw you.

“Yep! You like the name?”

“I was wondering about that,” he mumbled, looking up at the top of the hotel, where name was proudly displayed.

You giggled again and bumped into him as you walked. “I missed you, Law.”

“I missed you too,” he said, bumping back into you. “You seem to be doing good for yourself.”

“Oh, I love running the hotel!” He can feel your excitement. “It’s something I didn’t even know I was good at, but it’s so fun! And the restaurant is interesting to work in too! It keeps me busy, but me and mom run it together and we work with local farmers and suppliers for everything in the restaurant and for the hotel.”

He listens to you ramble on about the intricacies of the business, and he feels his heart sink. He was going to ask you to come with him, to join him in his adventure. But he can’t pull you away from this life. He can’t pull you away from this happiness. He’s not so selfish that he would do that to you or your mother. He made a promise, and he would be breaking it by asking you to leave now.

When you finish talking about your new business, you both find yourselves at the door of your house on the dock.

“Would you like to come in?” You ask, pulling out your key. “I can make dinner for-your crew! How many are there now? I can make a reservation at the restaurant if you want!”

“There’s thirteen of us in total, but we still don’t have any fancy outfits, I’m afraid.”

You roll your eyes and open the door, trying to usher Law into the house. “The Heart Hotel isn’t as snobby under my new management. Table for 15, got it. Come on in.”

But Law kept standing outside. “Are you sure it’s okay with Jamison that I come in?”

You scowl, and you realize that he’s waiting for some kind of update on more than your professional life. He glances down at your hands, but there’s no sign of commitment around your fingers.

“That kind of crashed and burned.” Your tone indicates that you won’t be going into any further detail, but Law isn’t quite done with his questions.

“It looks like you came out on top, at least.” He walks into the house, looking around. It’s decorated similarly to the house you all grew up in, evident that only you and your mother were living in the space. “The hotel, the house…”

“Law.” Your voice told him he was getting into dangerous territory. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, flopping on the couch. He didn’t want to drop the conversation, but he could tell that he wouldn’t be getting any more information out of you at the moment.

You put out a snack tray, and called Amanda on the snail transponder. “Hey dear, could you put in a reservation for 15 please? 6 pm should be good, but we might be a little late.”

Amanda and you chatted briefly, and then you came back to the living room to sit across from Law.

“So, how’s the sea life treating you?”

He talked about his adventures, telling you about his three new members on the crew. He saw you tense at the mention of a female joining the crew, but you didn’t say anything. You just snacked on the cheese and crackers and listened to his stories quietly.

You desperately wanted to ask him to take you with him again, but you refrained. After the last time, where you begged him to go and then he left without saying goodbye, you promised not to ask anymore. And you would hold true to your promise, no matter how much it hurt to let him leave again.

Law left you to round up his crew, and you all met up again outside of the Heart Hotel. You could tell his crew adored their captain, and it was good to see your old friends and meet your new ones.

Dinner was delightful, and you could tell the chefs had put their entire soul into creating the meal for you all.

“It looks like you’ve got the best of the best working for you,” the crew complimented.

“Oh, they are! I love the creative liberty they take in each meal.” The more you talked, the more apparent it was that you loved the life you had built.

Shachi and Law exchanged a look, a sense of understanding passing through them.

“How long are you here for?” You finally asked after dessert was served.

“We’re actually pulling out tomorrow morning,” Law said, ignoring the look of shock from his crew. They had anticipated being in port for at least a few days.

“What?” Your spoon dropped out of your hand from the surprise. “So soon? I can put you up in-”

“That’s not necessary,” Law said, cutting you off. “I just wanted to stop by and say hello as we passed through.”

“I see,” you said carefully, trying to beat around the bush of the question you wanted to ask. “Are you heading to the Grand Line?”

“Not yet,” Law admitted. “We should be ready soon.”

“You’ll visit before you go for good, right?”

“Promise.”

He came back to find you a year and a half later. He had his mind set for the Grand Line, and he was finally going to ask you to come with him. You had to be by his side if he was going to succeed in being the King of the Pirates.

When he walked into the Heart Hotel, he saw Amanda, who didn’t seem surprised to see him at all.

“Trafalgar Law,” Amanda said with a sad smile on her face. “She said you’d come back.”

Her words raised the hair on his neck. They were ominous and foreboding, and she spoke as if she knew something he didn’t. She walked to the back and came out with a envelope, which she handed off to him.

“This was what she left you.”

“Where is she?” he demanded. His name was on the front of the envelope, the handwriting in your style. He felt sick to his stomach.

“I’m not sure,” Amanda said. “Off on some great adventure. There’s more in the note. You should read it.”

He walked down to the sea wall and sat, opening the letter to find out what happened to you. The date was marked 10 months after he had last visited.

Law,

Mom died this morning. She got sick a few weeks ago, and it all happened pretty fast. The doctors said she didn’t suffer much, and she passed peacefully in her sleep. So I guess there’s some comfort in that. I wish I could’ve told you another way. Maybe I’ll find you and we can talk about it face to face before you’re reading this.

I can’t stay here. Everywhere I look reminds me of you or her. This place I loved just feels dead now. Maybe I’ve outgrown it. Maybe I need something more.

The last time you were here, I was hoping you would ask me to join you. But I see now that you don’t want me to be a part of your crew for whatever reason. Don’t worry, I’m not angry about it. I understand that you want to live your own life, and I don’t hold that against you.

But I can’t wait around for you to brighten up my life every few years. I have to make my own adventure. So I’m heading off to be my own captain, going straight for the Grand Line. I’m going to do what we promised we’d do all those years ago. I’m going to go find my uncle and take revenge on my father. Some way or another.

I hope I’ll see you on the Grand Line. We’ll meet as Pirate Captains, but don’t take too long, or I’ll beat you to the One Piece.

See you soon.

Law shoved your note into his pocket and took off towards his crew. He wasn’t even sure if you had made it to the Grand Line, or how you would survive it long enough to get to Dressrosa.

“We need to go,” he yelled at the crew. “The Grand Line! Now!”

Shachi looked behind the captain, waiting to see you tagging along. But you didn’t appear. “Captain, where-”

“She left!” He yelled. “She went to the Grand Line already!”

“What?!” The crew yelled in unison.

He heard rumors of a one-woman ship in Alabasta, but there wasn’t much information besides that. And then, on Kite Rose Island, he heard that you had disappeared. People speculated if you had been killed by an enemy ship, or sold into slavery, or sunk into the ocean. Law got sick to his stomach whenever he thought about it.

But he still had a promise to fulfill. To take down Doflamingo. For you and for Corazon.

And he did. With the help of the Strawhat Pirates and some luck, he finally succeeded. And as he sat with Sengoku, he couldn’t help but bring up your name.

“Did you know he had a daughter?”

Sengoku raised his brow and smiled. “I kept tabs on her,” he said. “She came to Dressrosa about two years ago, and has been operating under the Donquixote family. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“She made it?” Law breathed out, unable to believe you had been here the whole time.

Sengoku laughed. “How do you think your friends were able to navigate the colosseum so easily to escape? Or that the Tontattas made it to Dressrosa so quickly? How do you think Princess Viola avoided detection of her betrayal for so long? She may not have been an inner family of Doflamingo, but she was high on his rank and extremely trusted. Any time you thought luck was on your side, I assure you it was her.”

Law struggled to stand, looking around for you over the cliffside.

“If I remember correctly, she was heading for the castle the last I saw her.”

He ran as fast as his feet would carry him. Even in his weakened state, he willed his body to stay upright to find you. His eyes desperately searched every face he saw, looking for your eyes, your smile. He had tried to abandon the hope that you were alive over the past three years since he found your letter, but it had never truly died.

Finally, he found you laughing with the purple-haired princess of Dressrosa. He called your name, and he saw you turn to him, scanning the faces until you met his eyes.

“Law!” You screamed. You abandoned Viola and took off towards him at full speed, tears streaming down your face.

He tried to brace himself for the impact he knew was coming, but it wasn’t enough, and the two of you tumbled onto the floor. He pulled you into his chest and refused to let you go, and you laid against him, sobbing.

“You did it,” you cried, getting tears and snot all over his coat.

“We did it,” he corrected. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”

You cried harder into his chest at his praise, and he stroked your hair gently. He didn’t care that the two of you were causing a giant scene in front of everyone. He blinked back tears of his own, relieved to know you were finally back in his arms and you were safe.

“Sail with me. Join my crew.” It wasn’t a question, but you nodded in response.

“I’ll follow you anywhere captain,” you sobbed. “I promise.”

He pulled you closer to him, never wanting to let you go. “And I’ll never leave you alone. I promise.”

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #trafalgar law #trafalgar d water law #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar law x y/n #law x reader #law x y/n #cozage #✧˚law✧˚

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lokisprettygirl · 6 months

Text

Close Ties (Daemon Targaryen x Female Reader) (Modern AU) (Non canon) (18+)

Read Chapter 4 // Series Masterlist

Chapter 5

Summary : Daemon finds himself being pulled towards you like a moth to a flame, you're not any different, how long would you two resist the forbidden fruit?

Warning: 18+, smut, dad's best friend trope, canon (we don't know her..don't like don't read), familial uncle niece sort of relationship but he's not really her uncle, there will be more smut later, significant age gap but reader is in her mid twenties, mention of infidelity, divorce, smoking and alcohol drinking, physical violence implied

It's been a week since Daemon has been living with your parents, he was in the process of finding a place of his own but that wasn't in the top of his priorities at the moment, your dad insisted that he should get financially stable before he thinks about investing in housing.

The divorce settlement had really ruined him. Besides, your dad had this big house but not many people who could live in it, it was nice for him to have his friend around again. It felt like the old times when Daemon wasn't married and crashed into your parents' home whenever he wanted.

Since that conversation that day things had been a bit tense between you and Daemon, but in more of a sexual way or maybe you were just making things up because you were so besotted with him and his charm.

When he came back that night he broke things off with Cassandra for good, she threw a fit again and for a moment you felt awful that you had driven him to hurt her feelings but if he didn't have feelings for her it was for the best, she only would have gotten more attached to him with time and that would have hurt much worse, you still felt like a bad friend though.

She was devastated, even more than the last time and when you tried to console her she got upset with you as well and told you that you would never really understand how she was feeling at the moment which wasn't true at all. Next day she told you that she was going on a vacation to Italy with her other group of friends ..you knew those people, you were all in college together but you didn't stay in touch with everyone. You just hoped everything would go back to normal once she's over her dickfatuation.

Dylan had also stopped calling from the past few days which you couldn't have been more grateful for. When another Saturday rolled around you really wanted to just go down at the beach and sit in peace in order to clear your thoughts but you bumped into Daemon in the living room and he so politely asked if you'd mind if he joined you. Of Course you weren't going to deny him.

He drove you to Chelsea beach and you both made small talks with each other on the way but it didn't feel awkward, the more time you spent with him the more comfortable you got with him, though that was never an issue for you when he was in the picture, he always made you feel at home whenever he was around. You had an introverted personality so being around someone like him was calming for you.

As soon as you felt the wind in your hair, you felt so relaxed, and you were glad that he had joined you. It was a starry night with a full moon so even in the dark you were able to see each other's faces clearly.

"Is that arse still bothering you?" He asked you as he pulled a cigarette out to light it up but you grabbed it from between his fingers and buried it under the sand so he didn't even attempt to take out another one. The spark you felt when his skin touched yours for that brief second was electric.

"Thankfully no..he sent a two page long text though about how regretful he is and how miserable he feels"

"Of Course he does, they often learn that their own kind doesn't really have much to offer except sex"

"Do you miss her?" You asked him and he was silent for a few seconds before he chuckled, he always seemed lost whenever he was alone. You couldn't imagine how heartbroken he must have been to let go of the woman he so wanted the hold onto forever,

"I miss the woman I had married" he answered you honestly so you hummed before speaking, you wanted to say all kinds of things about her, even as a child you never really liked her because she just seemed like one of those people that were nice to everyone around them but it was just superficial and never genuine. And you were jealous obviously..

"The woman you thought you married" you said to him,

"Yeahh"

"If you could go back and rewrite it all..would you?" You asked him softly in order to make him open up to you, he had gone to see his family this week but you could tell things were strained there because he wasn't good at keeping in touch for all these years and you weren't sure if him and his best friend were able to have a heart to heart just yet.

"Are you asking me if I'd marry her again?"

"Mmmhm"

"I don't know darling..when we got married I envisioned this future where we grew old together..a year into our marriage I was shown why i won't get to have that future but I kept denying the truth, turned blind eye to that side of her i despised so deeply because i believed in her and her love, she loved me ..still does I think..so do i..but she just doesn't respect me..never did " he chuckled at the end of his sentence but it was more from sadness rather than amusement.

"And you deserve that, you deserve loyalty in return uncle..I'm sorry she didn't appreciate what she had in you"

He turned his head to look at you as you said that,

"Took me a decade to figure out that You could live without love in a relationship but not the faith .. once the trust is broken it never really stays the same..never go back to the the person that cheated on you darling..you'd always live in doubt, looking over your shoulder, wondering where your partner is at the moment or with whom"

Your eyes teared up as he said that, the sheer pain in his voice pierced your heart so in order to comfort him you scooted closer to him and wrapped your arms around his neck then you placed your chin down on his shoulders. Maybe he was a bit taken aback because it took him a few seconds to reciprocate the hug. He kissed your temple before he wrapped his arms around your waist. Why did this feel so natural and so perfect? For a moment you felt as if this was all you needed in life or would ever need in life, just being in his arms felt enough, in that moment you craved nothing else but then you remembered who he was to you so you pulled away and distanced yourself away from him ..

"You know some women would kill for that sort of commitment from a man of your calibre..you'd find someone to grow old with i promise" he smiled at the compliment and booped your nose playfully before he laid down on the sand underneath him,

"I already feel so old pixie" he groaned slightly and it made you smile. If only he knew how desirable he was. Men like him were rare, maybe that's why you wanted to keep him for yourself.

"But you're not..trust me you're not"

"You won't feel that way when you're almost forty three sweetheart "

"Maybe I won't ..I won't argue with you on that..you have more experience in life of course "

"Ohh you're such a good girl..are you not?"

You gulped as he said that, both because of his words and the way the praise rolled off his lips, everything about him turned you on.

"Well I try to be"

"You have got a good head on your shoulders..don't bother over that arse..do you want me to go set him straight?" you chuckled and then you laid down on your spot as well, maintaining an appropriate amount of distance between you two.

"And what will you do with him uncle? I'm not 14 anymore and neither is he..you can't just go all meanie on him like you did with Trevor" your tone was exaggerated and it made him smile, he found himself smiling often whenever he was around you. It was something he had forgotten in the past few years.

"Ahhhh that bully in your school..i remember him" he said to you and you couldn't help but giggle at a certain memory.

"You know he pissed his pants later because he was so afraid of you?" he let out a laugh as he was reminded of the day, you had a bully in your school and of course you didn't tell anyone until your sweet uncle Daemon found you crying one day and made you spill it all to him.

He perched himself on his elbow and turned towards you so you turned your head to look at his face and his unbuttoned untrimmed chest. You wanted to scoot closer and press your face against his broad chest and perhaps run your tongue over his skin. You felt grateful that he wasn't a mind reader or you'd be in hell a lot of trouble right now.

"That day you said he did more than just cheat on you..what did he do?" He asked you and that ultimately snapped you out of the state of arousal, his voice was firm and that was an indication that he was very serious in wanting to learn the truth

"It happened just once, soo ..I just.. don't want you to feel bad or just–"

"He put his hands on you?" He interjected, he had a sinking feeling that you were hurt in that way.

You gulped and immediately looked nervous as he said that because he wasn't wrong.

"We were arguing, I found that he was seeing this other girl for the past few months and I was so upset..i was yelling and screaming and he kept asking me to shut up but I didn't.. ofcourse..so he just grabbed me and slapped me once.. really hard"

Your eyes teared up as you recalled the memory and you didn't want him to see that so you closed your eyes but then you felt his fingers caressing your scalp in a comforting manner and all you wanted to do was to snuggle against him and cry some more.

"Keep going pixie…talk to me "

"That is all uncle..I just..i had never been hurt that way so that experience kind of stuck with me"

"Did you tell anyone? It's not healthy to keep such things to yourself" he asked you, his voice was still firm but now it held a tinge of tenderness

"I told Cassandra..she was so furious and she went to his house to go off on him..he hadn't bothered me for days after that but since Bali he has been calling me again"

Daemon nodded as you said that, there was a guy named Dylan that had been calling Cassandra as well plenty of times in Bali .. however everytime he called she always excused herself so he never really got to hear their conversation. Was it the same guy or someone else? With his experiences he didn't really trust the type of woman that Cassandra seemed to be.

He wasn't even thinking clearly, he just wanted to comfort you so he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on your forehead but he didn't pull away immediately, he couldn't, you looked so beautiful under the moonlight that he wanted to cross those boundaries and dive deeper into this fantasy. You didn't make it easy for him as you bit on your lips subconsciously while your eyes lingered over his lips. It took everything in him to pull himself away from you, as much as he wanted to. It was a line he couldn't have crossed because he wouldn't be able to go back if he did so.

Things would change forever after that, you'd no longer be his sweet little niece that he had promised to protect, that pure relationship he shared with you would get tarnished just because he wasn't able to control his desires or so he feared, a part of him wanted to explore the depth of this situation between you two but the cons always weighed over the pros, he would risk losing everything again.

"We should get back home pixie..it's late..your parents would worry" he stood up suddenly and put his hand out for you to get up as well..

"Argghhh I'm not a child uncle"

"But you whine like one"

"Heyyyy"

As he drove you back home, you felt restless, was he going to kiss you? Did he want to? That felt like a moment..a romantic one. You knew he'd never be the first one to take that sort of leap but you also knew now that he was attracted to you in a way a man is supposed to be attracted to a woman. You also understood that he must be as conflicted about this as you were, however none of you were going to say anything but for how long you thought. How long would you two be able to keep this charade going?

"I think i should go back to my place tomorrow" you said to him so he turned his head to look at you, you couldn't read the look on his face.

"Mmmm where do you live?"

"Just right outside of Chelsea ..in Kensington "

"You live there alone?"

"Yup…one bedroom apartment..humble abode.."

"Have you thought about joining the family business?" He asked you, making you sigh deeply in response.

"Yeah..dad has been asking me to do that since I graduated..I just..I'm not sure..it's not that i love my job or anything but I do like my independence"

"Darling..you'd still be independent..in fact you'd have even more security and freedom there"

"I know but then I'd be that girl.. daddy's girl ..that never had to work hard, everything was served to her on a diamond platter..blah blah" he chuckled as you said that but then he was serious again.

"What's wrong in being the daddy's girl? Your father worked all his life so you could live yours luxuriously" your brows furrowed as he said that,

"I feel like you're trying to coax me"

He chuckled again as you said that to him.

"No ..I'm just trying to make it clear that your privileges are not going to define you as a person but what you do with said privileges most definitely will. I'm just asking you to consider it once ..learn everything from him while he's here..life is short..you never know..you'd be the one to keep his legacy going if you choose to do so of course" you hummed in response as he said that..his words made sense. "Besides he really does need trustworthy people around him, his personal finances are a staggering mess"

"Mmmm I'd think about it. I must say you're a very persuasive bloke Mister Daemon" you mumbled softly so he smiled,

"Why thank you" you smiled as you looked at him, he was so pretty and he didn't even know that. You wondered often if Stella ever treated him like the man that he was.

"I'm glad you're back..he really needed you. And he had missed you..he never really said it out loud but on occasions after he was heavily drunk I'd often catch him staring at the picture of you two that he always keeps in his drawer"

His eyes moistened as you said that, he knew how unbearable the pain felt and how heartbroken he was at the time, but he had to leave, he couldn't have stayed here after what had gone down between them .

"It's good to be back home darling Pixie"

You had several questions regarding his sudden detachment from your family, they were best friends for years, been there for each other during ups and downs, your father was his best man at his wedding. He was there for your parents when they miscarried, what happened that was so bad that it couldn't have been fixed with time?

For days after he had left you felt as if things would get okay, that maybe he'd come back once he realizes what he was missing here but he didn't. Days turned into weeks into months and when a year went by you knew their friendship had ended for real.

But you never figured out what had actually happened, the last time you saw him was when you returned from school and he was storming out of your parents house with tears streaming down his face, he seemed angry and hurt, he seemed livid, and when you saw your father he seemed to have the same look on him.

Ever since then you had wondered who was at fault here, what had happened that was so irreversible that it drove them apart in such a way?

He never even said goodbye to you, he just left as if he couldn't wait to get away from this place.

As you both reached home, your dad was at the bar in the living room so he invited Daemon to have a drink with him, your dad wanted you to join them as well but you weren't in the mood to drink which felt refreshing for a change because you were always in the mood to drink as it helped you to forget things. However you still felt intoxicated, all your senses felt soused on his sweet cologne and the time you had just spent with him wasn't something you wanted to forget.

Later that night you felt a small knock on your door, so timid that it would have gotten unanswered if you weren't so wide awake, when you opened the door you found him on the other side, completely tipsy, suddenly a feeling of deja vu rose the anticipation in your heart. What was he going to do today?

"What can I do for you uncle? Are you okay?" You asked him and he walked a few steps closer, you could smell the scent of the most expensive whiskey and the branded cigarettes on his clothes, that combined with his own scent almost made him seem so godly to you that you just wanted to go down on your knees and worship him, you'd have done that without hesitation if he had asked you even once.

He held your cheeks between his hands and kissed your forehead, his lips lingered over your skin for a while, his mind screamed at him to just turn around and leave but his heart was in charge while he was hammered, that and his cock ofcourse.

You looked up at him and you felt his thumb grazing over your lips again before he leaned down and kissed the corner of your mouth, he was so close but not enough. He was still holding back, even in his messed up state he was trying to keep those boundaries intact.

"Uncle"

You whispered his name softly as you didn't want him to do anything he'd regret later even though you knew the little kiss at the corner of your mouth was already beyond the bounds of what was considered normal between a supposed uncle and niece. You were going to spend the night thinking about the way his lips felt against your skin. His fingers curled around your neck and he pressed your head up so you were looking him in the eye,

"Never ever pull a cigarette out of my hands ever again..alright?" He told you sternly and every inch of your skin felt on fire, suddenly your head was filled with images of him setting you straight for your insolent behaviour..

Could he just put you in your place like this more often?

"Mmmm yess..I'm so sorry mister daemon..i know i shouldn't have done that..that was out of line"

You mumbled softly and the corner of his mouth curved into a smile,

"That's my good girl..my sweet and polite pixie"

Just make the move and bloody kiss her.

That's what his heart told him to do and he knew you'd let him do that, and he also knew you'd not stop him from going further but even in his fucked up state he knew he couldn't do that you. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.

However his resolve was going to break and shatter completely sooner than later, he just didn't know that yet.

😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏😏

Taglist

@serving-targaryen-realness @annoyingsweetsstranger @anukulee @mcufan72 @insertsomethingsillyhereple-blog @silentf @ajthefujoshi @stupidthoughtsinwriting @ammo23 @shuichiakainx @daddylokisqueen @ipostwhtifeel

#daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen x female reader #daemon targaryen x reader angst #daemon targaryen x reader fluff #daemon targaryen x reader smut #modern day au #non canon au #modern daemon targaryen #age gap relationship

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trashpandato · 6 months

Text

Heist

It’s been three weeks since The Incident.

Kara eyes Lena suspiciously across the table. She’s not sure she can trust her, not anymore. Too much has happened. Lena, for her part, appears completely unaffected. She’s her usual self around Kara, complete with soft smiles, reassuring, if maybe more frequent little touches, while talking to Kara about her day, asking about her movie preference for the evening or other mundane topics. The facade is almost perfect.

Almost. There are small indications that maybe Lena senses that Kara knows, like her sideways glances at Kara when she thinks she isn’t paying attention, or moments when Lena’s demeanor seems almost too relaxed to be real.

But other than that, Lena’s good at this, at pretending that everything is fine between them. Kara has to admit that it’s well done, imagines that it’s a result of her upbringing with the Luthors, of having to pretend a lot to keep herself safe. It makes Kara ache for Lena, but then, then she remembers.

“Are you okay?”

Lena’s voice pulls Kara out of her head. She glances up to find a pair of concerned green eyes flitting across her face.

“Sure,” Kara hums, her mind still focussed on cataloging all of Lena’s little tells.

“It’s just,” Lena starts, stops, and then starts again, “I feel like you’ve been a bit preoccupied with something lately. Not fully present.”

And that, well, Kara didn’t exactly expect Lena to ask such a direct question. It doesn’t leave her much of a choice but to address the elephant in the room, call Lena on the charade she’s been engaged in for the last three weeks.

“Preoccupied is one way of putting it,” Kara replies, her tone chilly.

She watches as Lena shifts next to her on the couch, a deep frown on her face.

“You can talk to me about anything, Kara. Whatever’s bothering you, I’m here.”

“Whatever is bothering…are you serious right now?”

Lena must sense Kara’s growing agitation. She holds out both hands, palms up in a gesture of surrender.

“Just tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

Kara takes a deep breath. She can hear Lena’s heartbeat picking up speed, can see a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. She seems genuinely confused and concerned.

“Do you really not know?”

Lena shakes her head. “No. What’s going on? Did something happen at the Tower? Is it…is it Lex? Did he somehow figure out how to come back?”

The way Lena’s voice wobbles at this last question pierces Kara’s resolve. Whatever is happening between them, The Incident, none of that matters all that much when she sees the budding panic in Lena’s eyes. She reaches out to grab Lena’s hands, wanting nothing more than to reassure her.

“No, no. It’s not that. You’re safe, okay? I don’t, I mean, I wouldn’t have made it back from the Phantom Zone without you. I don’t think he can come back, ever.”

Lena seems to relax a little at that, but her features are still full of worry.

“Okay, then, what’s wrong? Because something is clearly very wrong. Did I, have I upset you somehow? Because if I did, then—”

Kara interrupts her then. “You stole the last potsticker!”

There are a few seconds of silence and Kara isn’t sure if the lack of reaction is Lena’s attempt to pretend she doesn’t remember.

But then:

“What?”

“You stole the last potsticker. When we got an extra order from Mr. Chu’s. I know you did, because you were the only other person here with me.”

Lena leans back slowly, her hands falling into her lap as her head tilts to the side.

“Mr. Chu’s. That was…that was last month.”

Kara nods.

“So you’ve been, what, mad at me for weeks?”

“I mean, not mad mad, exactly,” Kara mumbles. Now that they’re talking about it out in the open, it feels like an odd thing to hold a grudge over. “But, you did steal it. Don’t deny it.”

“Oh I’m not denying it at all. If you say I did, then I’m sure it’s true. I just, you always share your food with me. I didn’t think potstickers were exempt from that somehow. But I promise it won’t happen again. Lesson learned. All potstickers are yours from now on.”

Lena’s tone is firm, clear, and Kara can see that she means every last word. But that’s not actually what she wants.

“No, I mean, we can, we can still share.”

At that, the confusion on Lena’s face is back in full force, and Kara shakes her head a bit to clarify.

“We can share. I just, I like having the last one for myself. It’s, I know it’s weird, but it’s sort of a thing with me. It’s, um, Alex used to steal my food all the time when we were kids. She, she didn’t particularly like me when I first got to Earth. Stealing my food was one of the ways she knew she could get under my skin. And I guess sometimes I still sort of feel like that weird alien kid who no one understands.”

Kara trails off then. She wants to explain more, to tell Lena that she knows it’s stupid, and she knows she overreacted maybe. But when Lena gathers her hands in her own and runs her thumbs across Kara’s knuckles, all of Kara’s words get stuck in her chest.

“You don’t have to explain. I get it.”

“You do?”

Lena’s smile is a little crooked then, but she nods. “I was the weird kid in a large mansion, remember? I know I have a few odd habits that are all about, well, trying to no longer be that kid. I get it.”

And of course she does. Kara feels even stupider now. She looks down at their linked hands.

“I’m sorry I got mad.”

But Lena shakes her head. “No. It’s okay to get mad. Just maybe, maybe tell me right away next time? Stewing and brooding is sort of my thing, not yours.”

Kara huffs out a laugh, but when she looks up at Lena, she sees only love and understanding.

“Okay. I promise.”

#supercorp #kara x lena #supercorptober2023 #supercorptober

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lovelybrooke · 1 year

Text

Platonic Yandere Phantom Thieves x reader

A/n: So, I'm taking a break from The Last of Us to write some P5 headcanons. After this, I'm going to start on Regret pt.2 and then some headcanons for The Last of Us, so expect that this weekend. Please Like, Comment, and Relog if you enjoy. (Also warning, I am very much American and don't know how the Japanese schooling system works, so please take that into account before reading)

The Phantom Thieves are as thick as, well, thieves. They are pretty protective of each other, mostly due to all they been through together. They were all once loners and outcasts, you know? That's a big reason why you become friends with them.

You transferred to Shujin in your second year. You were new to the area, and you weren't in a rush to make friends. You planned on just keeping to yourself until you graduated. Unlike a lot of your peers, you were not that worried about the "delinquent" school who was on parole. You've seen him around hanging with some other students. He didn't look that bad. His friend group was pretty diverse though, a true delinquent and a model, both of which were in your year.

A part of you was jealous, this guy who was branded as a criminal was able to make more friends than you. You shouldn't be upset at him for something that he can't control, but when you're eating lunch alone and catch them out of the corner of your eye, or when your when you're at the shopping district and you hear them loudly talking in the store you're in, even over your music, you can't help but get agitated. It's like they're following you, flaunting their friendship in your face.

You were doing your thing for about a few months before the supposed delinquent introduced himself to you. Akira Kurusu was his name, and he asked if you wanted to have lunch with him and his friends. You were kind of surprised, since he's literally never talked to you before this, nor has any of his friends. You were reluctant to except his invitation, thinking it was some sort of a prank, but you took the risk, since you were very desperate for friends.

Lunch was nice, and you learned a lot about his friend group. Akira was very much, not a delinquent, and shared some food with you. The real delinquent, Ryuji Sakamoto, was also really nice. He was pretty talkative and argued a lot with one of Akira's other friend Ann Takamaki. She was girly and sweet, which made it impossible to dislike her. Finally, there was Makoto Niijima, a third year, and the student council president. She was definitely the most intimidating, but of course, she was very nice, even offering to help you study if you ever needed.

You really enjoyed your time together with them. It was surprising that such a seemingly tightknit group was willing to let you hang out with them. At first, you thought this was a onetime thing, them just taking pity on a new student, but then the next day they acted confused when you went to your regular spot for lunch, Ann having to drag you over to their table. Then a week past and you had each of their phone numbers, each of them texting you nonstop. After a month went by, you met their other friend, Yusuke Kitagawa, who was definitely strange, but still very friendly and likeable.

You even got to meet Akira's strange cat Morgana, who definitely seemed more human than cat. You've seen him around school, appearing in some of the areas you would hang around by yourself. You assumed it was a coincidence, that they Akira took him in because he was a stray, but you couldn't help but feel as though he was watching you.

It was a strange friendship, but you were thankful, nonetheless. However, they were times when they would disappear for a while, with very little words for why. When you'd ask, they would play it off as being busy. You knew it was a lie, all of them were busy? At all the same time? Not very likely.

A part of you thought the problem was you. They all conveniently stopped hanging out with you around the time they became friends with another third year, Haru Okumura, a semi-celebrity and a young prodigy Futaba Sakura. They were obviously bored of you; you didn't offer them anything. You weren't extremely smart or attractive, nor were you particularly talented at anything. You were nothing compared to them, of course they wouldn't want to be around you anymore.

You stopped hanging out with them, and slowly stopped responding to their messages, even when your phone blew up with messages asking about where you were. You didn't show up to school as often, your grades dropping. You didn't care about your grades anymore, to busy wallowing in yourself pity to even notice your friends attempts on reaching out to you.

The Phantom Thieves were worried. Everything was going fine until you randomly stopped talking with them. You didn't respond to their messages, nor did you show up to school, so how were they supposed to help you? Ryuji immediately accused you of having a palace, and it took both Akira and Makoto both to calm him down enough so that they could come up with a plan to help you. Haru suggested that they just corner you at your home, which they of course new the location of. They all agreed that that would be the best solution.

When they arrived at you home, they let themselves in, knowing that your family wouldn't be home around this time. Ryuji immediately finds your room and starts demanding that you talk to them, even when you tell him to go away. After many minutes of pleading from the Phantom Thieves, you finally told them how you were feeling.

They all were conflicted. They didn't know whether or not to just straight up tell you what's been going on, since there's a large chance you wouldn't believe them. However, the took the chance and told you everything, claiming they were The Phantom Thieves. At first you though it was a joke, that they came up with an outlandish excuse for ignoring you, but you remembered the calling cards littered around the school during the incident with Mr. Kamoshida. You remember feeling eyes on you when you picked up one of them and read it out to yourself. Suddenly, everything made a little bit more sense.

It was strange, learning that your friends were a secrete group of vagilities, but you were happy to have them back. Though, you couldn't help but feel as though they were more possessive. Suddenly, one of them was walking you to and from school. You were always with one of them when they weren't busy, and they were checking up on you obsessively when they couldn't be with you. It became a little suffocating, but you assumed that's just what friends do, right?

A/n: Hope you enjoyed. Feel free to request persona 5 stuff from now on.

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strangersteddierthings · 10 months

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What's Eight Plus Seven?

Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five

"Did you ask about my sandwich?" is the first thing Robin asks him when he falls through her window. Only after the question has been asked does Robin turn on the lamp beside her bed.

"Ow," he replies, because he's landed on her shoes. One is digging into the center of his back and the other his buttcheek.

"I'll take that as a no," she swings her legs off the side of the bed, sitting up to look down at him. "You know, with the amount of noise you just made, you might as well have used the front door."

"We both know your parent's know I'm here, anyway. The use of your window is to avoid conversation with your mom. She always asks if I'm planning to propose before you go to college, or after you graduate."

Robin gags. "Don't remind me. Now get off the floor and tell me when I'm to expect lunch delivered by Eddie to Family Video?"

Steve does haul himself off the floor, then, because the shoes are painful. He joins Robin on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, and leans against her. "Sorry. I forgot to ask about your sandwich."

"I forgive you. Now, to the secondary issue of the night. Show me your knuckles."

"What!?" Steve usually prides himself at being able to keep up with Robin and her random thoughts, but this is so out of left field.

Robin just grabs the hand closest to her for inspection. It doesn't take her long to drop it and reach across him to grab his other hand. "Hmm. No signs of physical damage. Did you smother him to death with a pillow instead?"

Ah. "Har har. No. There was no violence of any kind. There was some yelling, at first, and I got the last word in-" "the most important part of any argument." "-because I screamed fuck you and then ran to my room but then... then he looked so sad about it. I even tried to a pick a fight, twice!-" "Yes, yes, your self-destructive tendencies." "-but Eddie really seemed upset by it all, which, he should. If he hadn't been a dick then I wouldn't be holding a grudge. But..."

"But you were also a dick back the rest of high school, so maybe the hurts can like... even out and go away?"

"Well, we didn't word it like that but that was the, like, ending we came to, yeah. Dustin was right. He's a dick, but like, in the same way I am, I guess."

Robin leans away from him so she can sway her body back, bumping her shoulder against his. "So, to summarize...?"

Steve shrugs. "We talked it out, I told him about Christopher and like, glossed over my parents leaving me alone all the time but I think he picked up on it. Especially after I told him your theory about why I was so attached to a cousin I saw for three to four weeks once a year."

"Hey, don't do that. Don't downplay how you're feeling or smack talk your own emotions. Those are my jobs and I'll not have you leaving me unemployed. Now come on. Let's lay down, and you can be the little spoon, and tell me all about it."

"You just don't want to see my ugly cry face."

"I don't want to see your ugly cry face," Robin parrots back as she clicks off the lamp before they lay down and do exactly as promised. Steve retells the whole night in as much detail as he can remember and Robin does spoon him, patting at his head and giving his stomach a little squeeze every time his voice goes watery.

Eddie left Steve's house with his entire worldview shifted. He hasn't felt this rocked about events since learning monsters were real. And the thing that has rocked him the most isn't learning that Steve had essentially been abandoned by his parents when he was fourteen, or even learning about the tangled web inside Steve that consists of his love for fantasy, curiosity for DnD, and grief for the loss of his cousin.

No, what has rocked Eddie, what worldview has shifted, is his perception of himself and how he has been viewing the world. Him and his fucking Munson Doctrine.

It had served him well, back when he'd first learned the word 'doctrine' in sixth grade and made his own then and there. It let him draw clean and clear lines between what hurts and what doesn't, what keeps him safe and what didn't. Befriend the lost sheep, avoid the jocks. Flight was the superior fight or flight response.

And he had made changes over the years; as a rule, don't tell the cops shit about anything, ever. Make yourself the target to help the little guy (if you're the weirdest kid in school, the others might get overlooked). Slash the tires of everyone who dunks your head in a toilet.

Those kinds of changes.

Around junior year, Eddie started selling because they needed a second income. He'd put in application around town, first, but hadn't received a single call back. Hell, four the places he applied straight up told him they wouldn't hire him so he could quit checking in on his application. He knew Reefer Rick wouldn't turn him away. Not when Eddie could get to the high-schoolers Rick knew would pay too much for too little a hell of a lot easier than Rick could.

It came with the added bonus of bullying ending for him, when the same people who used to shove him around or knock things out of his hands ended up wanting to buy some drug or another, and instead of finding Reefer Rick waiting at the picnic table in the trees out of view, they found Eddie.

This added a new point to the doctrine: charge jocks double. He'd held to that until Chrissy, who had seemed so much more like one of his sheep than a jock.

And, well, everything after Chrissy should have ended the Munson Doctrine completely. Because he'd used it to put people in nice, little boxes that made sense in his mind and that was fucking blown to pieces.

Nancy Wheeler, badass gun-owner who he watched make a sawed-off shotgun? She'd in a box labeled 'Priss, Prim, and Proper' and wasn't that a fucking lie.

Robin Buckley, who he knew withstood Russian torture and willing walked into Hell to save the world? He hadn't ever even given her a second thought. She wasn't a jock, a nerd, or a customer, so she just didn't really exist. Which is so shitty of him to realize.

And Steve. Steve fucking Harrington, who ripped a goddamn giant bat demon apart with his bare hands after biting it and then spit the blood out like every horror movie fans wet dream? Like Eddie's wet dream. Well, he'd been a real dick most of high school. That was a fair box to place him in, at the time.

But because of that goddamned Munson Doctrine, he'd been a dick to Steve first. He'd ruined any chance at even being Steve's friend.

Or he had, before tonight.

It's a really fucking humbling thing, to have your own biases thrown in your face. Don't get him wrong, at first it absolutely made him livid. It hurt, and made him defensive, when Steve didn't just accept his apology. He'd instead shot back, something about him not being wrong about who Steve turned out to be and then Steve... Steve had said 'lashing out at me first, at my reading ability, and mocking me for not being quick at math' and Eddie had felt his stomach drop.

He hadn't remembered that day, not nearly as clearly as Steve did, but Steve's words had brought the moment back to him. He couldn't recall exactly what he'd said but he remembered the feeling of satisfaction at humiliating Steve some random jock that day. Satisfaction at flipping the script and getting to be the one who wasn't hurt. He'd laughed at Steve with the other people who had gathered to watch Steve struggle to do simple addition. He'd retold the story to everyone in Hellfire after school and they'd all cheered about it, told Eddie he was right to do what he'd done.

What he remembers even more, though, is coming home to Wayne and bragging about it. Thinking of the responses he got from his friends. But Wayne didn't congratulate him. Wayne had nodded softly along with the story and then said, 'you can't be the one to hit first, Edward. You throw one to many punches and soon enough yer knuckles don't feel the pain anymore.'

Eddie had puffed up, defended himself, yelled at his uncle for defending a jock and Wayne had interrupted him there.

"He mighta been the jock, but you were the bully."

That had hurt almost as much as every punch his father had ever thrown at him. And did Eddie even learn from it?

No. He doesn't think so.

Eddie had a shit life until his Uncle stepped in, stepped up, and showed him that love was unconditional.

And he's just spent the whole evening learning about Steve, and how the love of his parents had always been conditional. (And never in a way Steve could achieve. Not that Steve had said their love was conditional, but you don't abandon a kid you love at fourteen.)

Steve's every decision until the Upside Down had happened was based on what his parents would think or want. Trying to earn his dad's respect or some shit.

Steve's dad might not have hit him, but Eddie knows an unloving father.

Jesus, all this thinking makes Eddie want a cigarette. He drags himself off his bed and to the window, which he yanks open and leans half out to smoke because this is a new trailer and Wayne asked him to smoke outside when they moved into it.

He left Steve's house feeling like they could be friends, which is great. Way more than Eddie expected. It was just also... a lot to process. A lot to take in.

Jesus. He'd never expected Steve to really be willing to play 20 questions to get to know him, either; that he was willing to set his grudge aside and try, even with his anger at Eddie wrapped up in grief for Christopher. Eddie wouldn't have been able to do it.

Not with his Doctrine in the way.

He doesn't need to change everything about himself, but he definitely needs a deep dive into who he is verses who he wants to be, or has thought himself to be. Steve admitted to bettering himself and Eddie wants to be a person worthy of being around Steve.

And being honest with himself in the quiet of his room, Eddie wants be a person worthy of being with Steve.

He's allowed to be a little delusional about it all, he thinks.

#steddie #my fic #what's eight plus seven?#a little pov flip so we can get some insight on Eddie

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chuuyasheaven · 1 year

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“ʟᴇᴛ ɪᴛ ᴅʀᴀɪɴ ᴀᴡᴀʏ.”

(♬)sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ; Chuuyaʼs girlfriend is going through a depressive episode, so he decided to take a shower with her, but it escalated to soft, passionate shower sex. :)

(♬)ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs; Shower Sex (duh), angst/comfort to smut, soft!Chuuya, after cuddles, depressed!Reader (afab, she/her), soft kisses and soft talking w/ the ginger!

(♬)ɴᴏᴛᴇs; I guess the reader is kinda based of me bcs my parents and friends haven't been the best lately, or school is too stressful and is making me so depressed but oh well, enjoy! :) (also not proof read. Meaning i may add sum touches laterr)

“Baby, you haven't had a shower for 6 days. Go take one.” you heard Chuuya say, this may sound a litte harsh, but its the best for you. (in his opinion)

“But..i don't feel like it. Can i shower tomorrow, please?” you tried to convince him, but he wasn't having any of it. With a sigh you got out of bed.

Chuuya noticed that you were rather upset for these past days, also a little concerned. He also noticed that you stopped showering these past days.

Not sure how to react, he asked Dazai for help.

“Oh? Well, it could be depression causing all this..you should let her take a shower first. After that, talk to her or cuddle with her, whatever brings her comfort. Also try not being harsh about it, that could make things worse, Chuuya.” Dazai claimed.

Chuuya looked at you softly before adding;

“If you want, i could shower with you. I just want you to take care of yourself, sweetheart. Do you want me to accompany you?” he asked gently, you looked at him, and nodded lightly.

He picked you up bridal style to carry you to the bathroom, you slightly smiled at this.

Arriving, he sets you down, turns on the shower head and starts undressing himself. You couldn't find it in your strength to undress yourself so you asked Chuuya to help you.

“Chuuya, can you help me undress? I'm too weak to do that alone..” “Of course, baby. Just need you to hold still, 'kay?” he helped like it was nothing.

“There we go, hm? Seems like the waters already warm.”, you looked at the shower and stepped in. Chuuya followed.

Chuuya grabbed shampoo to wash you hair, you just stood there and took it. You knew you needed it anyway.

As he began to wash your body, Chuuya started talking to you in a soft tone.

“So tell me, why haven't you been taking care of yourself, hm?”, he wanted you to answer.

With some time, you answered.

“I...i just didn't feel like it. I was too tired to even get out of bed..I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, Chuuya.”, tears started forming in your eyes, Chuuyaʼs tone soften to talk to you again, to assure you.

“Sweetheart, you aren't bothering me. I was just worried about you. Trust me, you'll never bother me, now,” Chuuya stood back up to wipe away your tears.

“I love you so much, angel.”

He hugged you, stroking your wet hair. You pulled away quick to kiss him on the lips.

As you both kept kissing, it deepened. The kiss was filled with so much passion and love. As you both kept kissing, it deepened. The kiss was filled with so much passion and love.

Suddenly, the water felt slightly colder due to your skin getting hotter by just this kiss.

As you parted for air, Chuuya looked at you. His eyes filled with love and lust, you both wanted-

no.

you both needed eachother.

He then kissed you again, meanwhile Chuuya just cornered you onto the shower wall.

After another pause, he smirked at you.

“I love you so fuckin’ much- hold onto me really tight, alright?”, you did as he said.

The moment of bliss that followed as he lined up with his cock, at your cunt.

“You want it as much as i do, princess?” He asked, you just nodded as Chuuya responded,

“Words, sweetheart. Tell me..”, you hesitated at first, then pulled your last strength together.

“Fuck me, Chuuya, p-please..- i need you.”, he started thrusting into your wet cunt. Moans and ‘I love you’s’ followed from the shower.

Chuuya found his way to comfort you at all, did he?

Ew. (ima be fr; this took me like a week to finish)

#chuuya nakahara smut #chuuya smut #chuuya x reader #bungou stray dogs chuuya #chuuya headcanons #chuuya my beloved

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vclvetfleur · 10 months

Text

Obedient Chapter 10

roman roy x fem!reader

Summary: A week has gone by since you and Roman had argued and you both refuse to let it go. He even had resorted to ignoring you and making your job difficult. You get an offer from Kendall and take it.

TW: dr*g and alcohol abuse

Note: I had such a difficult time trying to figure out how to close this era off to the next. But thank you tik tok for giving me an idea.

Chapter 10: Nut milk

You and Roman hadn’t spoken to one another in over a week. You turned down Shiv’s dinner request, knowing it would be too soon to be around Roman for that long after just spending your morning and afternoon with him. You just thought it was for the best to give him that space. But in return of that, you were spending more time with Jess. You felt guilty though. You constantly lied to her about what happened with Roman. You just passed it off as you both saying very nasty things to each other because Roman was upset about the CEO position being taken away from him. Jess felt sorry for you. It had really taken a toll on you that even Kendall mentioned it. He offered to bring you on his morning runs, but you weren’t up for it. But he did finally come up with an offer you were willing to take.

Since Kendall began seeing Naomi Pierce, they’ve been both falling into bad habits. Their dynamic basically consisted of binges and partying together. He thought it’d be great to invite you out since he had tried to promise you that his idea of fun wasn’t as boring as you assumed it would be. You fought with the idea for a bit before accepting his offer.

You had gotten ready in your normal clothes for the first time in a while. This was the only time you had didn’t feel the need to dress up professionally. You had asked Jess to tag along, but she felt a bit burned out to go out to a party that realistically was going to last awhile. Kendall’s car was going to be there soon. He had brought a few more people out with them, which were all of Naomi’s friends that she felt comfortable sharing her relapse with. She wasn’t willing to let the news break out like the last time. Which she blamed ATN for. You made final edits to your appearance before finally rushing out of the apartment. You had gotten into the limo the Kendall sent out. No one was in there though. I guess you were the only one who lived farther from them. I mean, you did live in Brooklyn, and they probably were in Manhattan. But eventually the car filled up. You had just chatted with the girls that came in, pouring drinks for each other and laughing. They weren’t typically your type of people, but a night out could be fun with them. As long as they didn’t act too out of line. But everyone stopped as the host of the night, Kendall and Naomi got into the car. He seemed a lot more jumpy than he has ever been. He spoke a lot quicker too and seemed to stumble on his own words a lot. You had spent enough time in the club scene to see what was happening. He had just done a couple of lines with Naomi before getting in the car. You just decided to not say much. It wasn’t really your business. He had relapsed long ago, you knew that. Maybe he was handling his addiction better? You tried to rationalize it. Kendall kept encouraging everyone to do shots, even you. “Come on! One more before we go in.” Kendall encouraged. One of Naomi’s friends had poured everyone one before raising hers in the air. “One! Two! Three!” One of them counted before they all downed your shot. You were psyching yourself out before taking the shot down. You dry heaved from the taste of it. “Isn’t fancy tequila supposed to go down easier?” You coughed, grabbing a soda to drink to get rid of the flavor that was still on your tongue. The car stopped, but you fixed your lipstick before getting out with everyone. Kendall made sure to watch over you tonight. He wasn’t sure what you were really prepared for and how much you were willing to even be around. He also did have some care for you after having to see you constantly. He didn’t want to leave you behind. He spoke to the bouncer before leading you all in, keeping Naomi on his arm. You were let into a dark room before the doors open to reveal lights flashing everywhere. There were people covering the entire floor, either dancing or making out with a stranger they had just met. You hadn’t gone out in a while actually. Not since you left college a couple months ago. You had no one to go with. And you were too stressed out. But you use to go out 2 or 3 times a night. “You alright?” Kendall shouted over the music into your ear. You nodded, raising a thumbs up. “Our table is gonna be over there. So just order from there. It’s all on me.” He told you. You appreciated the sentiment. Once you adjusted to the environment, you loosened up. You went into the crowd, dancing with yourself or whoever was willing to join you. Every so often Naomi’s friends would join with you or wonder around and discover more stuff in the club. You had gotten a few drinks, downing some shots to keep your energy up. You knew you’d crash eventually, but you weren’t slowing down anytime soon. After a while of going around, you decided to find Kendall. Luckily for you, he had been looking for you as well. You walked to him, his arm wrapping around your shoulder as he brought you over to Naomi. “Hiiii my gorgeous girl.” Naomi giggled, pinching your cheeks. You were too drunk to even understand your surroundings. “Where have you been tonight? Me and Sophia had just scored some coke, if you’re up for it.” She tried to test out if you’d join or not. Kendall wasn’t sure where you stood with drugs, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

But you were in a place to want to keep excitement in your body. “How long til it gets here?” You asked her. She smiled, looking at Kendall then at you. “20 more minutes.” She told you. You nodded, agreeing to the offer. You had taken a few hits of poppers from strangers today. You weren’t oppose to it. Plus, Kendall could probably afford coke that wasn’t laced with anything. Thankfully Naomi’s friend, Alisson, knew what was going to go down for the night and brought test strips with her.

“Come on, dance with me till it gets here.” You giggled, dragging Naomi away from Kendall. She laughed, putting her hand on your shoulder as you pushed through the crowd to find enough room for the two of you. You listened to the music, moving your body to the beat of it, not caring who was looking or judging you. You finally broke out of your shell that Roman had created. Being around the Roy’s made you feel so self-conscious of how you acted or dressed, but in a setting like this, it didn’t matter when they were just as much of a mess as you were. After dancing to 3 songs, Naomi broke it short, saying her dealer was here. You both rushed out, you stumbling a little. You sat back with Kendall and Naomi and her two friends had gone out to meet with him.

“You look like you’re having fun. I-uh- I feel like I hadn’t seen you smile-y’know since Nan’s.” Kendall expressed to you. You shrugged, slumped on the couch that was in Kendall’s paid section of the club. “Well, you can thank your dumbass little brother for that.” You giggled, grabbing the alcohol that was on the table, pouring cranberry and vodka into a cup before sipping on it to make sure it tasted good enough. You laid back, looking up at Kendall. “Give it up to Roman for ruining things.” Kendall put his glass up to make a toast on Roman’s behalf. You laughed loudly, probably cause of the alcohol, clinking his glass with yours. “What even- “He started before Naomi came in, tapping you both on the shoulder. She directed her head to the direction of somewhere more private. They couldn’t risk pictures leaking out. The club was huge, there were multiple rooms that had some kind of privacy to them. You followed them as they lead you and 2 other girls to a room that was small, but quiet enough. Naomi cut up lines for everyone, preparing some of it and testing to make sure it was good enough to even sniff. It was. But she couldn’t be too stupid. Naomi leaned forward and took a line before the rest of them took a turn, leaving you last. You held the rolled up dollar bill to your nose, leaning forward and inhaling it. You pinched the bridge of your nose, sniffling to make sure you had gotten it through your nose. It felt a bit like a burning sensation. You just had to wait 2 or 5 minutes before it was going to actually start to kick into gear.

“Have you ever done this kind of stuff y/n?” Naomi asked with a little smirk on her lips. “I mean I did a lot of regrettable things in college.” You laughed, palming your nose. You let your hand drop down. Naomi couldn’t stop laughing. You think it finally had hit her. Her high started. Before you knew it yours did too. You all had about 40 minutes before you come down. But Kendall and Naomi weren’t going to wait for it. They had drawn more lines, offering you some. You took the offer. Your body felt a jolt in itself as you had felt as though you were on cloud nine. Your body had a lightness to it. The rest of the night went on, you all just come back and then going out to dance and cause some kind of issue for yourselves. You and Kendall sat together alone, him finally having a come down. It was 3 am, Naomi was almost ready to leave, but was holding out for her friend who was busy with some guy.

“So what happened between you and Rome? You both seemed to be in some kind of fucking little honeymoon phase.” Kendall wondered; his sunglasses put on in an indoor setting to hide what utter shit he looked like after treating his body like that. “I mean- you both- come on.” Kendall teased. “You both basically eye fucked all day.” He wouldn’t let it go.

You would’ve never said this. But you weren’t in the headspace to even talk about anything serious. You had an awareness to you, but your mouth moved faster than your mind. “Roman and I kissed.” You confessed. Kendall shot up, clapping his hands together once. “I fucking knew it. So what? What’s wrong?” He was trying to invade your personal boundaries, but it was just nice to be able to even say anything to anyone. “I uh- well the next morning- I told him we couldn’t do that anymore.” You shrugged. Kendall laughed in disbelief. You were happy that someone finally knew. “Don’t tell Jess.” You begged him. He crossed his chest, making sure you knew he was keeping the secret with him.

“Well, did you want to kiss him?” Kendall was deeply curious. He didn’t see why Roman out of all people. Yeah, it was his brother, but he knew Roman’s personality mostly ruined every relationship he was in. “Yea. But that’s not the point. I just- it’s wrong, right? Me kissing my boss?” You asked him realistically. It was ethically and morally wrong, but it was something you wanted. There was no pressure. But it was social pressure of how you’d be treated. But regardless, you did want him in that way.

“Fuck no!” Kendall went on and tried to break down his thoughts people being upset about that were at the end of the day pussies. “Do you still want him?” Kendall egged you on. You nodded, admitting it to yourself finally. “You should go to his house.” Kendall continued to egg you on. You weren’t sure it was a good idea, but you took a shot of liquid courage and got up. “Wait- are you actually?” He laughed, wanting up with you. You nodded before grabbing your things. “Thank you for the best advice I could ask for Ken.” You hugged him before leaving him alone in the room. He was in complete disbelief that you would actually take his advice in any consideration; nonetheless you did. Roman’s house was just 10 blocks away, so it was about a 15 minute walk. You stumbled down the streets of New York, drunkenly laughing to yourself. You decided to even call Roman to at least give him a heads up. But he never responded. Regardless of you laughed and practically shouted at your phone to let you in when you finally get there. Before you knew it, you were at Roman’s building. You gave your name to the front desk, they’ve seen you before multiple times, letting you in easily. You had gone up to his floor, stepping out of the elevator and knocked on his door. You had probably been standing there for a good 5 minutes before you saw the lights come on in the hallways. Roman had been asleep, hearing buzzing and slamming on his door. He looked around, rubbing his face before finally sitting up in his empty bed. He looked at his phone, seeing a miss call from you, along with a voicemail. He got up, putting on some lounge pants and shirt before going downstairs. He played the voicemail, hearing a lot of laughing and giggling through his phone’s speaker. He could barely understand what you were saying before hearing you stop giggling as much before. “Okay! Byeeeeee! See you soon!” You then broke out into laughter. He turned on the lights in the apartment each time he entered the room before stopping at the door. He leaned up to the peep hole to see you waiting there patiently for him. He opened the door, being met with you coming inside immediately. You wreaked of booze. “Did you just rob a liquor store? It’s 4 am, they’re not even open now. What the fuck are-?” he asked before you shut the door behind the two of you. You laid on his wall, looking up at him suggestively, grabbing the end of his shirt, pulling him lightly close to you.

“You knoooow, I really wanted to fuck you the other night.” You confessed to him, stumbling on your words as you did, not only because of the alcohol, but you did do another line on your way here. You had stolen their little baggie before leaving Kendall. And the shot wasn’t entirely helping your nerves.

“Fucking haha, very funny joke. Get the fuck out y/n.” he rolled his eyes, turning his head away from you. But you ignored him, keeping your hands to fidget with his shirt.

“Noooo, I’m serious. Come on, you wanted to fuck me too.” You poked his stomach. He flinched, grabbing your hand to prevent you from touching his stomach like that again. He looked down at you as you gave him the goofiest smile unconsciously.

“It isn’t professional.” He mimicked your voice. He assumed you had been out and gotten a bit tipsy. You did smell, but it could’ve also been all the alcohol that accidentally spilled onto you the whole evening.

“Fuck professional. I want you right now.” You laughed, pulling him in before kissing him. You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him closer to you. Roman could help himself. His hands landed down to your hips, pulling you close to him as your lips moved together, craving one another. It seemed like nothing was gonna tear you both from one each other. He was still mad, but he craved your touch more than ever. He couldn’t ignore how good you had made him feel that night. He just wanted one more night to feel that way again. He knew this was just as big as a mistake as you did. But he knew this could end badly if he continued on. He pulled away from you. You looked up at him desperately, trying to get him to kiss you again, but he shook his head no. “Come on, let’s get you sobered up.” He sighed. He let his hand out, offering it to you. You took it as he helped you walk to the kitchen. He made sure you didn’t trip as you hopped up on the chair that he had at his island. He grabbed you a cup of water, handing it off to you. “There uh- another room on this floor. I’m going to bed since you woke me up with your late night booty call.” He tried to make you laugh, but right now you’d laugh at anything he said. He tried to make sure you got into his guest bedroom bed safe enough before leaving you alone. He laid you on your side, leaving a trash can from the bathroom on the side for you just in case. He went upstairs to his bedroom, laying back down in his bed. He wanted to hold you, but knew once you woke up, you’d freak out on him. There was no way you were gonna remember any of this. Fortunately for Roman, you had passed out once you laid down. You were in a deep sleep. And you had been for most of the morning. You had woken up at 11:40 with Roman in his common area, just close enough to make sure you were okay. He even had run down to the store to get you some milk that you’d actually drink in your coffee in the morning. He grabbed whatever he saw that wasn’t cow’s milk. He even grabbed a croissant that was in a wrapper. He assumed croissants didn’t need any animal products to be made.

You got up with a massive headache and your whole body feeling extremely sore from the night before. You groaned, holding your body as close to yourself as possible. Roman heard the groveling, getting up to go to your room. “Good morning, how was your shift at the bar?” He tried to ease you into what had happened the night prior. “Uh-I have-uh fucking aspirin if you want.” He offered, seeing your glass from last night was still full. You looked up at him before covering your face in complete embarrassment of what you did last night. You remembered everything. You didn’t regret what you did, just how you did it. “Are we even now that you rejected me?” You asked, pulling your hands away from your face, looking at Roman with a pout on your lips. Your eyes were too tired to fully open either. The glass walls didn’t help either.

“Yeah-yeah, you’re forgiven. Uh- here, lets get you up, huh?” He passed the conversation back to you. You nodded, slowly getting up, sitting on the edge of the bed. He helped you up, your legs feeling as if they had been beaten with a bat. They wobbled before finally getting a grasp of it. “I’m fine. Uh- do you have a toothbrush I can use?” You asked him. Your breath smelt terrible. It was a mix of morning breathe and liquor residue. He nodded before rushing back to where he left the bag of shit he got for you. He also made sure to get you a toothbrush. He brought it back as you had made your way to the bathroom already. Your makeup was a complete mess. You washed your face, hearing Roman come in. He set the brand new toothbrush down before sitting on the large counter. “So wanna talk about last night?” He wondered.

You looked up at him, your lips in a tight line. “Can we just have a nice moment again before it goes to shit again?” You begged. He nodded and left you alone. You brushed your teeth and left the bedroom to see Roman pouring himself coffee that he just made you. You went over and grabbed yourself a mug before pouring yourself a cup. “Wanna check the fridge?” He hinted to you. You gave him a questioning look before going to the fridge to see almond milk in the fridge. You weren’t the biggest fan, but the sentiment was kind. You turned to him with endearment. “Thank you, Rome.” You gave him a smile before pouring it into your coffee. “Yeah- shut up.” He pretended to be annoyed. You sat down at the counter, sipping on your coffee. “Uh- I got you a croissant too.” He slid it over to you. Your smile grew, but you suppressed it, trying not to entirely hurt his feelings before breaking the bad news to him.

“Uh- Rome, croissants have egg in them. And butter. And milk. But thank you.” You finally giggled. He quickly grabbed it, calling it bullshit before reading the back to see the allergy warning ‘Contains : Milk and Eggs’. He made an annoyed sound, putting it down.

“Is fucking everything made with that? Fuck- how do you live?” He took his annoyance on you. You put your hand over his and tried to give him a reassuring smile. He pulled away though.

“Rome, I meant what I said last night. I really do want you. I talked about it with someone, and they made me realize that I-uh- that I should stop myself for what a possible outcome could be.” You smiled, finally letting it off your chest. You waited for his reaction. He just stood there and tried to process it. “I’ve liked you for a while, I just didn’t realize until that day and I got scared.” You continued. You hated how silent he was. It made you anxious. You tried to cover the silence with your voice, but Roman finally came to a conclusion.

“Uh- well. I do think you were right. I think it could really hurt both your and my reputation. Fucking-y’know with all that shit about oh abuse of power or whatever the fuck.” He finally gave his answer. He looked over at you, trying to see how you’d respond. You were definitely disappointed and hurt. This is probably how Roman felt the other day. You felt such a large range of emotions. Embarrassed for even putting yourself out there and for kissing him last night. A lot of resentment for Kendall for talking you into it. But a lot of just- sadness I guess- because you wanted to yell at Roman but had no right to. It wasn’t on him.

“Alright- well… I’m uh- I’m sorry for uh- y’know. All that.” You tried to get over the rejection quickly. Roman let out a brief sigh watching as you shifted in your seat. You tried to make it seem as though it didn’t entirely effect you. But it did.

“I-I don’t wanna stop though. If you- only if- you really wanted to take advantage of your boss or whatever the fuck.” He eluded to keeping things private between the two of you. Little sessions and romantic gestures but kept privately. “We don’t need to have sex per say” He tried to dodge that awkward talk of his inability to even have sex hardly ever. “And how would that exactly work?” You asked him, you weren’t entirely sure of what he was even trying to say. “Well-“ He tried to think, walking over to you, laying his hands onto your thighs. He looked at your lips before finally speaking once again. “Maybe just-like this.” He said, laying a hand over your cheek before laying his lips onto yours again. You melted into the kiss, being so much softer yet passionate. You leaned in, moving him in between your legs. Shortly the kiss was cut, you biting down on your bottom lip and looking at Roman as you both shared a mutual understanding of whatever this was going to be. “Well- I guess I’m fine with taking advantage of my poor boss.” You joked before laying one last kiss onto his lips. But Roman couldn’t be in a serious. “Ugh- I can taste that fucking nut water.” You couldn’t help but laugh before drinking your coffee in front of him.

“You’re fucking gross.” You mumbled.

Chapter 11

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