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#doesn’t help that it uh happened in the way that it did!!!!
f0point5 · 2 days
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With all the posts about Max’s first win I can’t stop thinking about how Y/N was feeling because it was still their feud era 🥺
do you have any headcanons about it?
I always had a rough idea of what happened after he won, I think it’s mentioned in the smau but I actually had some more detailed thoughts when I saw the reel on Max’s insta so…
Enjoy 🧡
Ps. Please ignore slight inaccuracies, I didn’t check the layout of the track’s parc fermé before writing this lol
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It’s your dad who drags you to yet another race under the guise of actually seeing you for more than thirty minutes at an airport. You hardly bother being upset. The kid he wishes was his is entering his first race for Red Bull Racing, you weren’t expect him to spend the whole weekend with you while that was happening.
Of course Max goes and wins it.
The moment he takes the chequered flag and the garage erupts into noise that can’t even be softened by your headphones, you want to roll your eyes, but you can’t. You’re not sure why your heart is thundering in your chest and you’re lightheaded, but you can’t think straight to figure it out. You don’t even like the guy.
Later, you’ll realise it’s because for all the dislike, awkwardness, and misunderstanding, there’s one thing you know about Max Verstappen, and it’s that he deserves this. He’s deserved it since he was racing around on his stupid little quad bike right over your foot. He deserved it after every win and every rare loss. Every time you watched him load his kart into that battered van when his dad wouldn’t let anyone help him, every time he turned away from anyone who might notice he was crying after Jos spoke to him, every time he stood on that top step looking not happy, just relieved.
You don’t even realise you’re crying until Geri Horner hands you a tissue with a soft smile before she runs off to join her husband. You follow her out to parc fermé where Max is already out of the car, mobbed by people. Barriers aren’t keeping anyone away from F1’s story of the decade.
You’re making your way through the throngs of people without any clear idea of why. You’re not even sure you’re breathing. Your brain certainly feels short of oxygen. Max has his back to you as he talks to one of his pit crew, gesticulating wildly as the guy shakes him by the shoulder.
It takes pretty much all the courage you’ve ever had to tap him on the shoulder. Something in you is surprised he turns to look at you.
“Congratulations,” you say, past a lump in your throat.
He doesn’t say anything. His smile doesn’t fall, but his eyebrows raise, like in this sea of people congratulating him he’s surprised that you did.
“Uh, thanks,” he says squeezing the back of his flushed neck. Even with a grin he can’t dull, he manages to look so damn awkward, and he can’t meet your eyes. “It was a good race, huh?” He snorts out a chuckle like he’s just one a 100 metre dash at a school sports day.
“Oh, fucking hell, Max,” you scoff as you take hold of his wrist and pull him into a hug, one he returns so quickly it makes you laugh, shaking against him.
You squeeze him tighter and he responds in kind. You laugh again, and this time you feel him laughing, too. Maybe something in his sweat transmits his adrenaline, or the heady atmosphere of success just takes over and you lose your mind, because you find yourself wondering what would happen if you just never let him go.
It’s Jos who pulls you apart, giving his son one more hug before pushing him off to where the team is waiting to celebrate with him again. He even turns to you and gives a squeeze around the shoulder and a kiss to the crown of your head, which feels a little like being kissed by the pope.
You shrink back into the crowd of people as photographers move past you to get closer for more pictures. Max doesn’t even seem to notice them, talking to Helmut Marko and his dad, looking like he’s walking on air. You imagine he must feel weightless. You know that for some reason, you do.
“He’s phenomenal,” your dad says beside you. It’s a dig at you, but you don’t even care.
“Yeah,” you agree, watching Max hugging his race engineer, “he is.”
He may be an arrogant dick, but his talent is something you see once in a lifetime if you’re lucky, and today you feel lucky. Your dad may never forgive you for not having talent like that but right then you promise to stop hating Max just because he does.
You’ll never be friends. You’ll never have more in common than a childhood that shattered you and made him invincible. You’ll probably never stop wondering what it’s like to be him.
But when you see him stand on that top step for what you know won’t be the last time, you cheer.
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Winter’s Kitten
Pairing| Bucky Barnes x reader (gender is not really specified)
Summary| Bucky comes home from the market with a very unexpected but adorable surprise.
Warnings| Absolutely none- Just some random cute fluff
Materlist
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Today was a very cold winter day in brooklyn and you had sent bucky out to get more bread from the corner market. It started snowing when he left, which was thirty minutes ago, and it was getting really thick and windy. You were starting to get worried, what if something happened to him? You decided to give it ten minutes until you were going to call him and make sure he wasn’t in trouble. Just as you were about to go to get your phone the door to your shared apartment opened. When Bucky walked through the entry he was covered in snow from head to toe, with a grocery bag in his hand. But what you also didn’t miss to notice was the abnormal lump coming off of his abdomen. “Hey doll, sorry it took me so long, the weathers really getting bad out there.” You stood in front of him speechless did he not think you noticed the now moving lump under his coat. “Buck, what's under your coat?” One thing you always found cute about Bucky was that he couldn’t lie to you. The give away signs were that he couldn’t look you in the eyes, and he’d blush. And right now the big super soldier in front of you looked like a schoolgirl with a crush. “Well, I uh, found her outside on my way back from the market, she doesn’t have a home doll.” As he unzipped his coat a ball of white fluff appeared. “Baby, is that a cat?”,”Yeah.” As soon as Bucky spoke the cat started to move, she tried to crawl up his chest but ended up snuggling back into his arms. Now that she adjusted you could actually see the cat's features,she had big bright blue eyes and tiny little ears.You could now totally understand why he couldn’t leave her behind. She was adorable and the way she looked at you just made you want to melt. “So what do you think of her doll? Can we keep her?” You had no idea your boyfriend could look so innocent, he was giving you the biggest puppy dog eyes with a pout on his lips. How could you ever say no to him or the adorable cat. “Of course we can keep her, Buck.” You couldn’t help but chuckle at the pure excitement on his face and as if the cat knew she had just found a permanent home she jumped out of Bucky’s arms and started to inspect the cozy apartment. After Bucky took off his jacket and boots he pulled you into his arms. “Thank you doll.” Instead of answering him you pulled your head off of his chest to kiss his stubbled jaw. Bucky moved his head down to give you a proper kiss and right before your lips touched there was a loud crash in the living room. "Well I better go check what that was.", "Yeah, I think that's a good idea,Buck."
Later that night when you and Bucky were settled down in bed, he asked “What about alpine.”, “What do you mean Buck?”, “For our new addition to the family.” You loved how easily Bucky said ‘family’ . You felt honored and proud that you were able to keep that special place in his heart.Since Bucky was the one who brought the cat home you thought that he should have the honor of naming her. “I think that's perfect, baby.”
Just after Bucky went to sleep a certain fluffy white cat decided she was going to sleep right on Bucky's chest. You couldn’t help the smile that came across your face, the sight of a man, most are afraid of cuddling with a little cat, was so wholesomely adorable. You were glad that Bucky brought home your new addition to your little family.
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freedomfireflies · 3 months
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Infinite You*
Summary: The one where Harry is in an open relationship with your best friend, and maybe you have more in common than you realized.
(Based on this request! There is no third, just Harry and Reader!)
Word Count: 8.6k
Content Warning: 18+, smut, choking, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, Sir Kink
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You’ve never noticed how incredibly attractive Harry Styles is.
Granted, that’s because you’ve never really allowed yourself to notice how attractive he is, but you notice today because that’s why you’re here. To notice. To study. To decide if this is worth it.
He’s not making it easy on you. Walking around the apartment with his shirt off, and his sweatpants low, and his hair wet. Reaching into the refrigerator and showcasing all the stunningly hard muscles in his back. The scattered tattoos. The chunky rings on his fingers.
You swallow.
You hadn’t planned to entertain this idea. You thought it was weird—strange in more ways than one. But you agreed to talk to him, see if it was a good fit, and now…here you are.
“So,” he calls as he straightens up and turns to face you. “What do you wanna know?”
“Uh…what do you want to tell me?” you call back. You wish you were smoother.
But he only smirks. He knows you’re nervous. And he knows you’re staring, which seems to amuse him. “Well, first things first, nothing happens that you don’t want.”
He’s kind. Considerate. Hot. It makes your stomach flip.
“Okay,” you say before swallowing thickly. “Great, I mean. That’s…that’s good.”
He walks back to the living room. He’s still amused. You’re still sweating. “If you do decide you want to, we can talk about ground rules and boundaries. Decide what you’re comfortable with. Go over when and where. Things like that.”
“Okay…okay, good.”
“Yeah. And if we don’t want to, we won’t.”
“Right.”
He takes a sip of his water. He’s hiding his smile. “Do you have any questions for me?”
You purse your lips and shake your head. “Nope.”
He’s unconvinced. Hesitating a moment before crouching down near your legs and glancing up at you as though to implore you and chastise you all with the same look. 
“Kitten,” he murmurs, and your heart just about beats out of your chest. “If we’re going to do this, I need you to be honest with me. That’s one of my rules. I need you to be vocal. Tell me exactly what you want and what you don’t.”
And you understand. You do. Consent isn’t a question. And you admire that he’s so adamant and unwavering. But that doesn’t mean you know what you want to say.
“I know,” you whisper, and his presence is different. Before, he was Harry: Rebecca’s boyfriend.
Now he’s Harry: the guy you might sleep with.
And it’s strange, and it’s new, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And you’re having quite the time trying to wrap your head around it.
But his presence is soothing. Calm. Doing more for your nerves than you initially realized. 
“It’s okay,” he whispers back, reaching a hand toward your knee. Long fingers squeezing it once. Comfort. “We’re just talking, yeah?”
You nod and force the first question out of your throat. “Do you…do you guys do this a lot?”
“No,” he answers coolly. He’s relaxed, and it helps. “Not with friends. Not really at all. Not unless it’s right. We don’t force it. If we find someone, we find someone.”
“Ah.” You nod again like you understand but you don’t. “And…you guys are both okay with this? Really?”
He smiles. Squeezes your knee again. “Yes. As long as you are.”
You smile back, and you realize your heart isn’t racing as much anymore. “Right. And…you don’t think this is weird? I mean…her pimping you out just to help me?”
He laughs, and you decide right then and there that you love the sound of his laugh. “No, I don’t,” he admits. “She’s not pimping me out. I offered.”
You lean back. “You offered?”
“She told me you weren’t having a good time with the guys you were meeting, and I said I could help.” He shrugs once. He’s so calm. “She liked the idea and told me she’d bring it to you.”
And you remember when she did. Remember how casually she’d said, “If you ever wanna use Harry…you’re more than welcome to.”
And you’d blinked at her because you couldn’t understand it at all. 
But she explained, “He and I have always been in an open relationship. And if you need a bit of…practice or just need someone to scratch that itch, I think he’d be really good. You could talk to him, see what you think?”
You were sure she was messing with you. You weren’t desperate and horny enough to go fucking her boyfriend, but she was more than all right with it. She assured you of that many times. Suggested you just talk to him and see how it made you feel. She gave you his number. You made a time to meet.
And now here you are, wondering if you really are about to go through with it.
“You…you want to help?” you ask him again, and he nods. 
“If you want me to.” Another squeeze to your knee. “Kitten, there’s no pressure here. It’s just a conversation. And if we decide no, then we won’t, and it’ll be all right.”
“But it’s…I mean, won’t it be like cheating?” Your hands begin to twist together on your lap. “What if you regret it? Or what if she regrets it?”
“We won’t. We agreed to this,” he says, and he’s still so calm. “This only works if she and I are honest. We know that. And we want to try new things, new people. Plus, she adores you. I do, too. But if you think it feels like cheating, then we don’t have to. We can end the conversation right now.”
A beat. He lets this settle.
“But if you want to try,” he continues softly, “then we’ll ease into it. We’ll go at a pace you’re comfortable. Yeah? This is all up to you.”
You feel your cheeks growing warm. He’s so good. “What if I’m not any good? And you’ve wasted your time? And I made this weird for no reason?”
He smiles, and his eyes are like meadows. Soft and serene. He straightens up just enough to brush his thumb along your chin and relax you. 
“There is no possible world where you aren’t good,” he murmurs, and somehow…you believe him. “But if you’re nervous, we’ll plan for that, too. We’ll communicate. I can help you find what makes you feel good.”
You walked into his apartment—into their apartment—sure you wouldn’t be doing it. Sure that there was no way you’d ever believe this to be a good idea.
But here you are, seriously considering it. Teetering on the edge of agreement, ready to fall into his arms.
“Are you sure you want to?” you ask him again. “Are you sure you don’t just feel bad for me?”
His brows pinch together, and he seems confused. But he’s still smiling. “Kitten, believe me. There is nothing I have ever wanted to do more. Sex is intimate and it’s tricky and it’s confusing. And you should only ever be with someone that makes you feel good. Feel safe. And if I can be that person for you, then I want to be. As long as you want me to be, too.”
And you do. You do. You aren’t sure if you even realized how badly until now.
You nod, and his touch lowers. “Okay,” you decide. “Okay, I want to.”
He does his best not to appear too excited, but you can see it there behind his grin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You straighten your shoulders. “If…I mean, it’s just once, right? We do this, it’s over, we all go back to how it was before, and we don’t talk about it.”
Another beat. “If that’s what you want.”
“Oh, it is,” you assure him with a soft scoff. “No, I’m already gonna have a hard time looking you in the eye. And Rebecca. This is…it’s just…it’s weird.”
He drops his hand to your knee and squeezes it once more. “We don’t have to do this—”
“No, I do want to,” you assure him. “I really do, I just…it is weird. Maybe a good weird, but still weird. And I’m okay with that. I just…I want to, and we can, and then we don’t have to talk about it. Okay?”
 He nods. “Okay.”
The living room grows quiet. You aren’t sure what to do now. You aren’t sure if you’ve offended him. You don’t think he ever gets offended. He never has before. As Rebecca’s Harry.
But today he is Just Harry and Just Harry is very calm as he waits for you to continue.
You swallow again. “So…now what?”
“You tell me.” He stands, and you’re eye-level with his bare, toned stomach. 
“Uh…okay.” You shift. “Do…you wanna do it tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Do…do you wanna do it at my place?”
“Sure.”
“Do…I need to pick up…condoms?”
He smiles. “I’ve got some I’ll bring.” He nods at you. “And I’m clean, too. Got tested right after she told me.”
God, this is all so real. “Good. I did, too. Not that there was really much…chance. Since it’s been, like…three years.”
He doesn’t have a reaction to this admission. Most guys do. They think it’s weird you’ve been so long without sex. They think you’re a virgin again. They don’t want anything to do with you.
Harry has no reaction. He doesn’t seem disappointed, or relieved, or embarrassed for you, or even repulsed. 
“Good,” is all he says before running a hand through his damp curls. “What time would you like me to meet you?”
“Uh…5? No…7?” You wince. “I don’t know how long it’ll take, but…if it’s just a few minutes, then—”
“A few minutes?” Now he’s amused. “Is that all you think I can last?”
Your expression drops. “I…no. No, I just…I don’t know. Most guys tap out after a bit, so I figured—”
“Kitten,” he chuckles, and the sound goes straight to your cunt. “I plan to last as long as you’ll let me.”
Your stomach drops next. “Uh…okay. Great. Then…5?”
“Five,” he repeats, and you’re thrilled. Nervous. Thrilled. “We can talk more about what we want when we get there, yeah?”
You nod. “Sure. That’s…good. That’s good.”
He smiles, and just like that…the date is set.
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4:58 comes and you’re a nervous wreck. He’s already here—you’ve just buzzed him in—and now he’s walking up your steps. And you are standing in your kitchen, pacing, tugging on your robe, and trying not to sweat. Again.
When you let him in, he’s…breathtaking. Somehow, in the few short hours since you last saw him, he got exponentially hotter. 
His hair is dry, and his curls are styled in a way that makes you want to run your hands through them. He’s wearing a shirt, but it’s oversized and soft. Easy to slip out of. His jeans are ripped but they hug his hips perfectly.
He’s…sex. He’s beautiful. He’s stunning, and you are so incredibly nervous, you don’t know what to do with yourself.
“Hi,” he smiles as he slips off his shoes and shuts your door. “Sorry I’m late.”
“No, you’re not,” you argue quickly. “You’re perfect. You’re—fuck. No, you’re…this is good.”
He laughs and lets his eyes trail down your covering. “Are you…did I interrupt something, or—”
“No. No, sorry. I, uh…I figured this would be easier,” you explain, now absentmindedly playing with the tie. “You know, I could just slip this off, and we could go.”
He hums, but you can tell he’s biting his tongue. “I see. And…is that how you’d like to proceed? You just want to rip the band-aid?”
“Um…” Shit, do you? “I don’t…know. I was kind of hoping you could tell me.”
He nods now and asks for your hand. You give it to him—rather shyly—before allowing him to lead you toward your sofa. He sits you both down and brings your attention to him.
“I will do whatever you want me to do,” he begins. “But…I’d like to know what you really want. What you fantasize about, what makes you feel good. When you’re with someone, or when you picture being with someone, what are they doing? What are you doing?”
You feel your face grow warm. You can’t believe you’re having this conversation with him, and yet…he feels so safe. You trust him. You don’t mind admitting some of your weirder preferences. After all, Rebecca has told you before about what he’s like in bed. He’s…good. Very good. And into some weirder things, too. 
And maybe now you understand why she was so happy for you to ask him.
“I…I guess I like…to be taken care of,” you admit quietly, instantly glancing down at your lap to avoid his reaction.
But just as quickly, he’s slipping a finger under your chin and bringing your eyes back to his. “Yeah, Kitten?”
Your stomach wrenches. You nod.
“Tell me more,” he encourages gently. 
You fumble with your robe again. “Uh…I don’t really like…to make decisions. A lot of times. I…I feel better if I’m being told what to do.”
The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Okay. I can do that. What else, baby?”
Baby. You think you might die. “Um…I think I like it rough. Or…rougher. Like…spanking, and…hair pulling, and choking…and stuff.”
He’s so entertained by your timid demeanor, and he chuckles again as he squeezes your jaw. “Is that right? D’you want me to spank you, Kitten?”
You really might die. “I…yes? I think so?”
“I need you to do more than think,” he says now, a bit firmer. “When I ask, I expect a clear answer. Is that understood?”
You nod, and you don’t even realize.
“So do you want me to spank you?”
“…yes. I do.”
“Good girl.” He brushes his thumb along your lips, and your mouth parts for him. “What else? What kind of positions do you like? Do you have any particular porn you like to watch?”
You look back down at your lap, and he smirks. “I…I don’t really watch it as much as…I read it.”
“Oh?” He dips down, looking for your attention. “You like to read it, baby? What do you like to read?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Just…just smut.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it.”
And you’re so embarrassed, yet somehow so enamored, and you tell him before you can stop yourself. “Just…sometimes it’s rough. And…taboo. And…dangerous, I guess.”
He hums again, considering this. “Like to be naughty when you’re alone, don’t you?”
And you feel like you’re on fire, burying your face in your hands with a soft groan until he immediately tugs them back down. 
“Uh-uh,” he warns, and goosebumps dance down your skin from where he’s touching you. “What did I say, hm? None of that. Come on.”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I just…I’m so nervous.”
Another soft smile as he cups your cheek and scoots closer. He’s everywhere. You can smell him, you can feel him. You can practically taste him and it leaves you with this insatiable need for more.
“I know,” he says calmly. “But it’s just me, yeah? You’ve known me forever. You know I’d never want to hurt you or scare you or embarrass you. And I’d never judge you.”
“I know,” you echo. “This is just all so…real.”
He hums and seems to consider something. Then, he nods his chin at you. “I wanna try something. Would that be all right?”
You swallow. “Okay.”
“Close your eyes.”
Your lashes flutter. “What?”
“Close your eyes. Just for a minute.”
So, you do. And the living room falls eerily quiet as you wait for whatever instruction might come next. 
But it never comes. He has no instruction. He’s quiet.
And then…
He’s kissing you.
Soft lips ghost across your own. They tease and they taunt. You can’t see him, but you can feel him—can taste him. He’s kissing you, and he’s taking your mouth against his, and he’s so…he’s so.
And not being able to see him does wonders. Because you lose all inhibitions and simply take. You accept what he’s offering and you delight in doing so.
He was right.
You grow hungrier—needier. You let your hands find his shoulders and hoist yourself up onto your knees. In turn, he takes hold of your hips to keep you steady and helps bring you onto his lap. It’s like you’re one. Like you’ve rehearsed this, done it a million times. A fluid, lustful, heavy dance that ends with pants and whispers of each other’s names.
And you forget how strange this might be. You forget your hesitations and your concerns. You allow yourself to have him and to enjoy it.
And it’s perfect.
When you finally open your eyes, you feel much braver. Ready to do what he came here to do.
His cheeks are flushed. His lips are pink and slightly swollen. His pupils are dilated and he’s wearing the softest grin—like a warm sweater. 
“Please?” you whisper, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
“Where?” he asks.
“Bedroom.” It might sound like a demand, but you’ve never felt so submissive. “Please, Harry—”
He picks you up. Carries you down the hall and toward your bed. He’s been here before, seen it a hundred times when he and Rebecca would come over for movie nights or dinners. 
But it’s different now and you both know it. He treats your space with reverence. Treats you with reverence. Awe. You are…everything to him in this moment. He makes you the center of his world, the focus of his attention.
And you have to remind yourself not to fall in love with him.
He drops you onto the mattress with care but just a bit of roughness. Exactly the way you like.
He follows after you. Slots his body between your thighs and brings his lips back to yours. You kiss until you feel dizzy. It’s quick and eager and tantalizing. He moves to your neck while your fingers move for his shirt.  He nips at your throat and you fumble with the hem. And he only stops kissing you so you can slip the shirt over his head and toss it toward the floor.
You’ve seen his body before—saw it just today. But now it’s here, in your hands, in your bed, in your room. And it’s glorious. Tan, strong, firm. Covered in tattoos that make you want to drool and rippling with muscles you didn’t even know someone could have.
You want to gaze but he’s already back on your neck, sucking bruises below your ear. And then…his hand is on your thigh.
You’re tempted to freeze—to be reminded of how odd the situation—but you don’t allow yourself to succumb to the overthinking.  You enjoy the feeling of his fingers moving up toward your robe. You enjoy the way they play with the tie as if teasing you. And you enjoy the warmth of his palm as he whispers, “May I?”
You nod until you get a headache. Practically flinging the robe open for him. 
He’s gentle as he pulls it undone. Considerate as he pushes it back and reveals your naked body to him. 
And there you are. Bare before your best friend’s boyfriend and it’s…
It’s…
Not nearly as strange as it should be.
His expression softens like your nakedness hurts him. In the best way. He groans and he stares and he parts his lips as if dying to take you in his mouth.
And who are you to deny him?
You nod again, allowing him to do whatever he might like, and he’s grateful. So very grateful for you as he guides the robe away from your body, disposes of it, and dives in.
He kisses from your shoulder to your chest. From your chest to your tits. To the valley between and down your stomach. He is practiced, he is patient, he is beautiful. And he feels like heaven.
“Harry,” you nearly whimper, eyes falling shut as you settle back onto the bed.
He squeezes your hips so you know he heard you. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Just lay still for me, Kitten, okay?”
He’s telling you what to do. You listen. 
He pulls your legs apart and scoots back. He wants to taste you. You can see that he wants nothing more. But he stops to look up at you. Wanting permission. Wanting to hear you say that he’s allowed and that you want it, too.
“Yes,” you manage to choke out. “Yes, go. It’s fine.”
He rubs his thumbs along your skin to soothe you. “Can you do something for me, baby?”
Anything, anything, anything.
“Want you to grab my hair,” he tells you. “Want you to pull it, yank it, whatever. Want you to show me what feels good. Yeah?”
“Okay,” you agree breathily. “Promise.”
He grins and it’s all teeth. He returns his kisses to you. He starts at your bent knee. He goes down your inner thigh. He travels across your hip.
And finally…finally.
He’s gentle with your clit at first. A few kisses, just to prepare you. Getting a feel for your body, letting you get a feel for his mouth. For his face between your legs.
You bring a shaky hand to his hair and card your fingers through, fulfilling your vow. His hair feels good against your palm. Like butter. You gather him in your fist and tug.
His lashes flutter in response. He hums again—louder. You can feel it against your pussy and it makes your toes curl.
His hands keep you from bucking up, but he seems pleased when you try. He likes that you feel good. He likes that he gets to use his power to keep you still. 
“Har…Harry,” you whimper, and he groans again. He likes the sound of his name in your mouth. “Shit—”
He slaps your hip. A warning. “Good girls don’t use bad language. Do they?”
No. You shake your head. Your heart is racing. “Please…”
He’s happy again. Moving his mouth down your cunt until he can taste the beginnings of your arousal beginning to gather. “You’re so good for me, Kitten. You know that? Being so well behaved.”
You love his praise. You always have. Winning his approval means the world, and now, in this moment, it means that much more. You want to make him happy. To please him. To do what he wants. 
You yank on his curls and he seems to melt between your thighs. He moves back to your clit and sucks. Flicks you with his tongue and basks in the sound of your whiny cries. 
“There you go,” he says, and it’s more to himself. “I’ve got you.”
You’re shaking. Overcome by this feeling and by the impending release. It’s really going to happen. Harry is going to make you cum, and you never thought you’d see the day.
He knows you’re close. Knows you can’t fight it and he doesn’t want you to. He steadies his technique. Goes harder, faster. Gives you everything you’re asking for. You are puddy in his hands. Clay for him to mold. You are whatever he wants you to be in this moment and you’re more than all right with that.
He brings a finger to your hole and gently slips it inside. The fullness of such a large digit makes your brain turn to mush and you whimper again as you yank on his hair. He’s pleased.
“That’s what you needed, hm?” He sinks to the knuckle and starts to pump. “Just needed my fingers, yeah?”
“Yes…yes.” He’s so good. So very good.
“I know,” he hums, and it’s almost condescending. He feels bad that you’re so easy. “Take whatever I’ll give you, won’t you?”
You will. He knows it. You know it. If all he did was look at you, you’d feel grateful to be under the warmth of his gaze.
“Tell me, Kitten,” he continues, dragging his tongue up the length of your cunt. From his finger to your clit. “Do the boys in your books do it like this?”
You don’t want to think about your books at a time like this. Not when you have him. Real and here. In your bed. Your clit in his mouth.
“Do they?” he pushes and adds a second finger. How does he expect you to speak? “Hm? Is this what you dream about? When you fuck yourself in this bed? You dream about someone tasting you? Burying their face in your sweet pussy?”
You whimper. You writhe. You cling to his curls and try not to disappear.
“Speak,” he murmurs, and slaps your inner thigh.
You whine again and pant, “Yes.”
“Yes, Sir,” he corrects you, and lifts his head. He’s glistening in you. He’s beautiful. “M’not your friend here, Kitten. I’m the one making you cum. You will remember that.”
And you will. Because he is better than your books. He is considerate, and he is good, and he is making you cum before you can stop yourself. 
Your back arches from the bed. Your chest caves in on itself. Your legs squeeze the sides of his head and he fucking loves it.
He releases your hips so he can grab onto your thighs and press them hard to his cheeks. He wants to suffocate in you. You want to let him.
“Harry—” you gasp. He slaps your leg. “Sir…I…”
You can’t say anything else. He knows. It’s okay. He rides you through. Takes every drop on his tongue. Swallows you down. Feeds on you. Indulges in you. 
Today you are his.
And still, he’s not through. He begins again. He knows you’re sensitive and he knows it won’t be long before you give him another.
He adds a third finger and begins to thrust inside your quivering cunt. He says, “How many times do they make their girls cum?”
You glance down. “What?”
“Your books. Your fantasies. Your dirty smut that gets you off. How many times do they make the girl cum?”
You think. You can’t think. “I…I don’t know—”
“You do,” he argues and nips at your pussy. “Because I bet you wish it was more. I bet you make yourself cum for every time they do. I bet you fuck yourself while you read and pretend that it’s you.”
He’s right. You hate that he’s right. You hate that it’s so obvious.
“How many?” he repeats. “Once? Twice? Do they give up after that? Are they as good as you want them to be?”
You can’t hear him through the pounding in your ear. The second one is close. You’re shaking, trembling, dying. It’s already unraveling. You’re too far gone.
He pumps you through your second and carries right on to your third. “Shame you never called me. Shame you never read your little books and thought to ask me for help. Should’ve known I would have.”
Your cheeks are growing warm again. You’re embarrassed and sensitive to the touch. 
He notices. “You thought about it, didn’t you?” he realizes aloud, and he sounds almost proud. “Thought about me when you touched yourself.”
You shake your head but it’s a lie. You both know it.
“You did,” he repeats, and he’s smirking. “Did you picture me when you read? Picture me in your dirty little taboo fantasy? D’you picture my cock? My hands? My mouth?”
You did, and you’re embarrassed, and he loves it.
“Did I make you cum?” he whispers, and slips a fourth finger inside. “Hm? Did I have you coming all over your pretty hand? All over your sheets? Or did you use a toy, baby?”
You squirm. You try to fight him, try to fight this orgasm, try to fight what he’s making you remember. But it’s useless. 
“How many times did I make you cum?” he nearly purrs, and it’s over. It’s all over. You are powerless to him, and you embrace it. “How many times did you cum for me while you were reading your naughty little books—”
You don’t hear the rest. You’re unraveling for the third time before he can find his answer. But that’s more than all right because this was the answer he really wanted, anyway. 
He strokes your skin as you come down. Then, he pulls his fingers out, takes them in his mouth, and swallows you. Waiting until you’ve caught your breath before he’s crawling back up your body and slipping his tongue against yours.
He kisses you, and you taste everything. Him, you, and five years of memories shared between you. Rebecca slowly starts to dissolve from the picture and now it’s just the two of you. In every flashback, every moment. Maybe it was always him and you.
You reach for his belt. You want his jeans off. You want your hands around his cock. You want to hold him, ride him, gag on him. You’re impatient and he’s amused and it feels as though time is moving far too slow.
“Easy,” he tuts, but he kisses you again. “M’gonna give you my cock, Kitten, just have to wait for me, yeah?”
You pout. He kisses it away. “Can’t wait, Sir. Need it.”
Sir makes him grin, and this seems to work in your favor. “You can’t, hm? Well, what if I wanna take my time?”
You groan and you whimper and you fling your arms around his neck to pull him close and plead with him. “Please,” you whisper, kissing along his neck, and his skin tastes divine. “Please fuck me, Sir. I need it. Might die.”
He chuckles, and the vibration of his chest makes your insides twitch. “I bet. S’been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Three years, and while you know sex isn’t necessary to survive…now that you’re here…you feel rather insatiable. 
Because it’s not the fact that you haven’t had sex in three years that’s making you anxious. It’s the fact that you haven’t had sex with him. And you need to. You need him to scratch this itch that only he can scratch. And you need him to do it now.
“Are you gonna let me take care of you?” he asks, and you want to cry. He’s so good. “Can I do that, Kitten? Can I make it better?”
You nod, and you’re dizzy, and you’re dripping onto your sheets below. You feel so empty without him.
He laughs again and it’s heaven. “Good girl. Take off my jeans, okay?”
You do, and you do it well. They’re off in under thirty-five seconds and on the floor, next to your robe and his shirt. Your clothes look good together. It makes you smile.
He nods at his boxers, the only thing left between you. “Take ‘em off.”
You do. You roll the dark band down his gorgeously strong thighs and help him slip out of them before they’re joining the collection on the ground.
He’s got a large tattoo on his left leg that’s just begging to be licked and muscles in his calves that make your pussy clench.  
You stare at him and you probably drool and he’s laughing again.
He slips his finger under your chin once more and lifts your head until your eyes meet. He is a meadow. Gentle and calm. “Do you want a taste, Kitten?”
More nodding, more drooling. He kneels and you scoot closer, grasping onto his thighs to brace yourself as you stare at him.
He’s hard, and big, and leaking in a way that makes your throat go dry. He is better than you wanted him to be and he is better than the books and he is real. 
You dip down and you allow your lips to graze his tip. He smiles and puts a hand on your head to guide you. Comfort you. Control you in just the right way.
You extend your tongue and drag it up the side. He tastes good. More so than you expected. It’s like candy, and you lick and lick until you needily begin to take him into your mouth. 
He squeezes your scalp lightly. Easy. You’re going fast and he wants to go slow. He wants you to enjoy yourself. 
But you are. How could you not? He’s heavy in your mouth and you never thought you’d enjoy sucking someone’s cock as much as you do his. Maybe it’s true what they say. Maybe you really do get pleasure out of pleasing him.
You take more. As much as you can bear. Your eyes flutter shut. You’re tempted to gag but you don’t, not yet. You don’t want him to think you can’t take him. You want to be good. As good as he was for you.
He slips his fingers into your roots and tugs. “Baby,” he warns softly. “Don’t push yourself—”
You keep going. You groan around him and he curses at the feel of your throat. You go further. Until your eyes are screwing shut and your breathing becomes labored.
Suddenly, he’s yanking on you. Pulling you off as a string of saliva drips from his cock to your mouth.
“Hey,” he grunts, and he looks at you. You want to shrink. “I told you to go easy, yeah? You have nothing to prove to me, Kitten. This is not about doing something you think I need you to do. I want you to do it because you want to do it. It’s not a competition. I’m not gonna be disappointed if you can’t take much of me.”
You frown. “I know, but…I want to. I really do want to. I just…you’re big, Ha—Sir. You’re so big.”
You’re feeding his ego (but you’re also telling the truth) and he exhales a soft laugh. “I know,” he repeats. “But forcing yourself will only hurt. Besides, this is about you, yeah?”
Your expression falls. Another reminder that he’s only here as a service. To get you off and then get out. He won’t be spending the night, and he won’t be calling you tomorrow to set up the next time, and he won’t be promising that he’ll train your throat open to take his cock. 
You nod. You concede. Bring your hands to your lap and pull yourself away.
Now he’s frowning. He smooths his palm down the back of your neck and tugs you to him. He looks at you and he’s looking for what you’re really thinking. Something shifted. He wants to know what. Why.
“This is about you,” he says again, and you wish he’d stop. “Believe me, I’d be happy to have you gag on me, but that’s not what we’re doing tonight, okay? Not tonight.”
And it’s not a promise of next time. You know that. But not tonight implies something more open-ended than before and you finally smile. “Okay.”
He sweeps his thumb along your throat. “Can I fuck you now, baby?”
“God, yes,” you breathe, and nearly drag him on top of you. 
He smiles again and you feel whole. The dance continues. He kisses you and situates himself between your thighs, and you are so very ready. 
“Shit, wait, hold on,” he says, and you almost burst into tears. “I need to grab the condoms—”
“No,” you nearly shout, and his brow raises. “No, I…we’re both clean. And I’m on the pill. Why…why don’t we just…not? Maybe?”
It’s selfish, you know it’s selfish. But you want to feel him. You don’t want something keeping him from you and you want to know that he actually fucked you. 
You like condoms. You prefer condoms. But not now. Not with him. You have to know he really did this. You need to feel him in your pussy for years to come.
He looks at you. “You’re on the pill?” He doesn’t answer your question.
“Yeah. I take ‘em for cramps and regulation and stuff.” You wince. Talking about cramps is not sexy. “The point is…if you want…I mean, I want, but if you want…?”
He thinks about this. Brushes your hip with his thumb. Thinks. “I don’t mind, but only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” you exhale. “God, I’m sure. Honestly. As long as you are. And…and Rebecca. I don’t know if you guys have a rule…or anything.”
You wince again. You don’t want to bring up Rebecca, either. But you know you have to. You know she’s your friend, and she’s Harry’s partner, and this has to be asked. It has to be considered.
So, he considers it. “Most of the time we have a rule, yeah. For safety and peace of mind. But that’s when it’s other people. She doesn’t mind if we do or don’t. She said it’s up to me.”
“You talked about it?” 
“Yeah.” Of course they did. Honesty. “When I was grabbing the condoms. I asked if you had a preference, she said she didn’t think so. Said we could just go without if we wanted. As long as I got tested after.”
“Right.” You almost feel weird knowing they talked about you. But what did you expect? “And…do you want to?”
Another beat. He looks at you. Really looks at you. “I want to fuck you. I want to feel you. I think we’ve taken all of the right steps and I feel comfortable going without. As long as you do.”
“I do,” you assure him again. “I really, really do.”
He smiles. “Good.” He drags his tip down your cunt, gathering your arousal. “Then I wanna start like this. Wanna see your face. Make sure you’re doing all right.”
You nod quickly.
 “And I wanna see you when you cum on my cock for the first time,” he whispers huskily before steadying himself above you.
You are giddy. He is everything. He is so much better than your books and he is lining himself up with you and he is big, and ready, and beautiful.
He kisses you again. “Deep breath, okay? Try to relax. Don’t want to hurt you.”
You do breathe. You do try to relax. You let your mind wander to a world where he does this to you every night. Where your pussy happily accepts him and knows him and molds to him.
He pushes in. You reel.
Still, he is good, and gentle, and kind. He kisses you more. He distracts you, even though he doesn’t need to. You pretend that he’s imagining a world with you, too.
He sinks in further, and life is perfect. Your nails claw at his back—at the many muscles that tense beneath your touch. Your leg hooks to his hip, your heel against his ass. You draw him in. You plead with him for more. You say his name, you moan, you shiver.
“Shh,” he coos, and he wraps his hand around your throat. He remembers what you like, and he squeezes gently. “Let me do this, don’t rush me.”
You whimper, “Sir,” and he kisses you again. You are addicted to his tongue.
He finally buries himself all the way, hips against yours, chests flush together. He’s heavy and he’s warm. Like a weighted blanket and you feel so safe. You’ve missed the feeling of another body on top of you. Of that connection and intimacy. That protection. It’s even better when it’s him.
You cling to him and ask every star in the sky not to take him from you. “Please move, Sir.”
He draws back. He begins to fuck you, and he’s so big. He stretches you, claims you. Owns you, truly. He sucks your tit into his mouth and you melt between his lips. He nips, and pulls, and groans. And you hate everyone he’s ever been with before. You wish you were his only. 
He starts going faster. But not too fast. He wants to make you anxious for it. He wants you to beg. Wants you to unravel yourself from need alone. And you’re so close to doing just that.
“Good girl,” he praises, and your heart cracks down the middle. “Taking me so well. Is this what you needed, Kitten? Needed someone to fuck this tight little pussy until you felt better?”
You nod and you whimper again. He’s fucking you back to life. What happens when he leaves?
You shake the thought free and focus on now. His body feels good against yours. His teeth are perfect on your throat. His curls are soft and his skin is tan and his cock is fucking magic.
He’s relentless. Thick. Splitting you open and drawing you in. Your tits bounce from the thrusts and your back arches from the bed and his face is delicious. 
He’s watching you closely, just like he said. He’s studying your reactions, your noises, your gasps for air and mercy. He wants to know he’s giving you what you wanted. He wants to know he’s doing it right.
And of course he is. He has to know that. He has to assume he’s better than the average man. You wonder if he learned this from Rebecca or someone else. You wonder what would happen if you were his. Could you be okay with him sleeping with other people? Could you accept that he still wants you? 
You close your eyes and scrunch your nose. You’re doing it again. You’re letting yourself imagine a world you can’t have. You aren’t being present; you aren’t enjoying what you’re being given now. 
Suddenly, his hand is back on your throat. He’s squeezing, but pointedly. Asking for your attention.
“Hey,” he murmurs, just as stern as before. You look up. “What is this? What is this face for, what’s wrong?”
You blink and then realize your expression is still bunched. You relax. “Nothing, sorry.”
“Hey.” Firm. Unrelenting. He stops thrusting and you want to die.  “Baby, you can’t do that. I told you I need communication, I need honesty. If I’m hurting you, you have to tell me—”
“No,” you insist quickly. You take hold of his shoulders and then his hips as though to get him to continue. “No, that’s not it. I promise. Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t move. “Then what was the face for? What’s wrong?”
You huff. Sigh. Squeeze his waist. “Nothing, I promise. I was just…thinking about something I shouldn’t. And I wanted to stop.”
“Stop fucking? Or stop thinking?”
“Thinking. I wanted to be here. With you.”
He relaxes now and you feel his cock twitch. “Kitten, I want you here with me, too. If you’re not, we can stop for a while—”
“No,” you groan. You feel like a child about to throw a temper tantrum. “No, I swear. I am here. I am. And if you stop, then I won’t be, and it might kill me.”
He sighs now. It’s heavy. “Nobody else exists outside of this room except you and me, yeah? Just us.”
You melt. “Yeah…”
He kisses you. “I want you here with me, baby,” he exhales, and it’s like he’s breathing the sentiment into your lungs. “I need you here. With me. On my cock. Don’t want you to think about anybody else. It’s just us.”
You nod again, and you claw at him, and you beg him to keep going. He does. It fixes everything.
When your fourth hits you, you see the stars. Even if they aren’t in your favor, they are bright, and warm, and they carry you through to the other side.
And once you’ve caught your breath, Harry pulls out. 
You’re tempted to wither, to cry, to beg him to stay but he’s already flipping you around onto your stomach and driving himself back in.
Now you understand. And you’re ecstatic. He’s rough. Pulling your hair, forcing your cheek to the bed, slapping his palm against your ass.
“Give me another,” he demands, and he sounds angry, but he’s not. He’s ready. “Just like you would for your little book boys. You fucking cum for me, right now. Let me feel you. Let me cum with you.”
He slams into you and it’s so full. You could cum for a lifetime and still never feel finished.
He spanks you again. Grips your hair. Forces your nose into the duvet until it’s hard to breathe. It’s rough. Deep. And still…he’s caring for you. You know he’s making sure he isn’t pushing too far. Just enough. You love it.
“What a sweet little pussy,” he seethes, but it’s thick with lust. “Can’t believe you’ve fucking kept this from me for five years. All this time and you were right here.”
You’re glad he can’t see you now. He might be afraid of how happy that sentence makes you.
“S’all I’m gonna think about,” he says. “Tasting you. Fucking you. Feeling you. Gonna dream of this pretty pussy every goddamn night.”
You moan. You hope he does. Hope he dreams of it when he’s lying next to her. 
No. You scrunch your nose. You reject it. You ignore it.
He spanks you. Kneads your ass in his hand, then spanks you again. “Gotta promise me something, Kitten. Yeah? Gotta promise me that you’re gonna think of me, too.”
And you are. Of course you are. You always do. “Yes…yes, Sir. I promise.”
Another slap and squeeze to your scalp. “Good fucking girl. Now cum. Fucking cum for me, baby.”
You want to. But not before he does. You need to feel him, too, and you hold off as best you can until you feel him twitch.
“Kitten,” he says, and you’re ready. “Want you to make me another promise, yeah? Want you to take my cum…and keep it. Keep it in your little pussy, even after I leave. Okay?”
You nod quickly. You will. Of course you will. God, how could he think you wouldn’t?
Your promise tips him over, and he cums, and he’s loud, and it’s the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.
You wish you could see him. It’s so cruel that you can’t, and you try to glance back to catch even a glimpse. You see his brows scrunch together, see his mouth drop open, see his cheeks flush from the force.
And seeing him tips you over. You cum together, a mess of moans, and pants, and nicknames. Sweaty bodies connecting as he collapses on top of you, further burying you into the mattress. And it’s so hot and you can’t breathe, but you have never felt more alive. This moment is infinite. He is infinite, and you are infinite with him.
“Shit,” he says, and you have to agree. “You’re so good, baby. So fucking good. Can’t believe you’ve kept that from me.”
It’s the second time he’s said it. You wonder if he realizes. “I didn’t do anything, this was all you.”
He snorts. “Kitten, I had nothing to do with how fucking good that was. Believe me. You…are fucking perfect. Every cute little flutter of your cunt. Your tits. Those big eyes…”
The room falls silent. You imagine he wants to turn you around and see you, but he doesn’t. He’s keeping himself inside you for as long as he can. 
“Thank you,” you whisper, and the sentiment doesn’t feel strong enough. “For…for doing that, I mean. And…for not making it weird. I know I was probably kind of…rusty and nervous, and I just—”
“No.” He shakes his head. Squeezes your hip. Kisses your bare back until you fall silent. “You are perfect. Okay? That was perfect. I really, really enjoyed it.”
You smile. You are happy and miserable all in the same moment. “Me, too.”
You want to ask if you’ll be doing it again. You want to pretend that he’s not gonna leave you and go back to her. That he’s not Rebecca’s Harry or Just Harry.
That he’s Your Harry.
But all good things must come to an end. He will leave. And you will let him.
“Now what?” you dare to ask.
A small beat. “We don’t have to talk about it after I leave…if that’s what you still want,” he says next, and your chest feels heavy. “I just want to make sure you’re all right before I do. That you pee, and you drink your water, and you take it easy. I know I went kind of hard on you.”
“But it was good,” you tell him, and you grin at the memory. It feels so far away. “Really good. Everything I wanted.”
“Yeah?” He kisses you more. The space between your shoulders. Your neck. Your cheek. “Any notes?”
You laugh. “No notes. God, no. You’re like a sex god.”
“Better than your books?”
“So much fucking better.”
“Hm.” More kisses. “Don’t tell me that. I’ll get a big head.”
“You already have one,” you attempt to tease, and he laughs, too. “Both of them.”
The room fills with giggles until you both fall silent again. He doesn’t leave. You don’t make him.
“Do we…tell Rebecca?” you ask. “Like…the details and things?”
“Only if you want to.” He stops kissing you now but rests his cheek on your head. “She doesn’t expect us to, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
You nod. You like Rebecca. You can’t imagine you’d be so relaxed if you were in her position. “And this…works for you guys? The open relationship?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. Nods. “We have a lot of love and trust and I think that’s why. It’s what we both want.”
You resist the urge to scrunch your nose. You’re happy for him. For both of them, you are. This really is what’s best and you’re so glad they have each other. And you’re glad that they’re both willing to explore it with you and still keep you in their lives.
“Is it just sex?” you ask next, despite your better judgment. “Or…like, what if you wanted to date someone else? Or is that not what it means?”
“We can date around if we want. We haven’t in a while, just because we can’t seem to find people we like enough to keep around.” He smirks. “But we could. It’s not as rigid as it sounds.”
He finally pulls out and you want to cry. You feel cold and empty.
However, he’s quick to scoop the dribbling cum from your pussy and push it back in. Just for a little while longer. 
You close your legs and smile. “I don’t think it’s rigid as long as it’s what you want.”
He smiles back. “It is.”
You shift now. You feel nervous again. “So…then, I guess by the rules and things…it wouldn’t be…totally weird to see if you wanted to do it again? Not that we have to—we could, I mean. Or not, if you don’t want. Or maybe I should ask her. Or you can. Or…actually, it’s dumb, never mind. I don’t know why I thought—”
He grabs your chin. Presses his thumb to your lips to quiet you. “Kitten, breathe.”
You do.
“We can do it again,” he says, and you have never felt so happy. You feel as though you were just set on fire. Your skin is tingling, and your insides are twisting, and your pussy is clenching. “We don’t have to ask permission. We’re adults. We can do whatever we’d like. That’s the point of an open relationship.”
You nod. You want to kiss him. “Okay. Are you…I mean, do you want to? We don’t have to just because I do, honestly. I just…we both liked it, so I thought maybe we’d want to. Unless it wasn’t really that good for you, which I would understand—”
“Kitten.”
You stop. You breathe.
He chuckles. “I would love to fuck you again. And again. And again. As many times as you’ll let me.”
You’re practically shaking. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He grins. He can tell how giddy you are. “What are you doing next Friday?”
“I am doing whatever you want me to.”
The expression that splits his face is like sunshine. He loves this answer, and he loves your pussy, and perhaps one day…he’ll love you, too.
“Good fucking girl,” he breathes, and surges forward to kiss you.
And maybe…this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
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Next Part:
~ Insatiable You*
~ Full Infinite You Masterlist
~ Main Masterlist
Amazing divider by @firefly-graphics! 💞
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swiftispunk · 11 months
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say it with your hands | joel miller x f!reader
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part two
pairing: joel miller x afab!fem!masseuse!reader 
word count: ~5.6k (how did this happen)
rating: 18+ minors dni
summary: post tlou/we are in jackson. ellie convinces joel to see the town masseuse. it goes mostly okay.
warnings etc: smut, awkward!joel, joel being kinda mean to himself, age gap implied, involuntary boners, lots of sexual tension, oral (m receiving), sunshine!reader, pet names (sweetheart, sugar, sweet girl, darlin’), little bit of POV hopping dw about it, probably bad massage technique descriptions idk what i’m doing sorry. NO USE OF Y/N.
A/N: the first of the two soft and sweet joel fics! we are fixing our man’s back whether he wants it or not. god this was sooo cathartic to write actually as someone who wants nothing more than to give this man some goddamn peace. and also as someone who wants to bite his tummy. 
special shoutouts to vee, ziggy, nicole, sam and @pedgito who gave me some much needed advice with this.
inspired by this ask <3 
Joel Miller does not need a massage. 
Sure, his lower back aches most hours of the day and the tension in his shoulders makes it hard to raise his arms above his waistline and fine, being on his feet for too long sends shooting pains up his spine and into his neck. And yeah, okay, maybe right now he’s hunched over the kitchen table after reaching down to tie his boot lace, frozen where he stands with a palm pressed to his back, groaning out a symphony of agonized grunts.
But he does not need a massage.
“Uh, Joel?” 
Shit.
Ellie, catching him in his compromised state, that same supportive hand on his back holding him together as he tries and fails to straighten his wretched, old spine. 
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he says through gritted teeth, because he sure as hell isn’t going to get away with lying, not looking the way he’s looking right now. 
Plus, it’s not the first time she’s found him like this, his aging muscles giving out on him, weakened by time and overuse. It’s hardly a rare occurrence to find Joel clutching at his lower back like he is right now, bemoaning every minor movement or gentle stretch, cursing each time he arches it just so - trying in vain to breathe some life into it - only to find it causes the same excruciating pain.
Still - Joel Miller does not need a massage, goddamnit. 
“You should really get it checked out, dude,” Ellie chides him - again, not for the first time.
“No,” he repeats, voice strained as he slowly but surely straightens himself out - now that he’s got a point to prove. 
“Maria told me there’s a lady who does massages, she can get you an appointment if you just - ”
“I don’t need a massage,” Joel insists, though the achy moan that catches in the back of his throat when he curves his back up just a little too far kind of gives him away. 
It’s just that Joel can’t stand the idea of some stranger’s hands all over him - poking and prodding and pointing out all his various problems. 
He can do that just fine by himself. 
“Suuure, you don’t,” Ellie says with a roll of her eyes, crossing the room to offer Joel a supportive arm, helping to escort him down into one of the kitchen chairs.
“There, we go,” she lauds him for the simple act of taking a fucking seat. Now he’s the one rolling his eyes.
“Don’t patronize me,” he grumbles, but he’s softening the words with an arm around Ellie’s waist, honestly grateful to her and all the unyielding assistance she offers him.
Not that she should fucking have to. 
It’s that thought that has him reluctantly agreeing to let her book an appointment when Ellie implores him again, “Will you just go? Please?”
“Fine.”
-
Joel Miller does not need a massage, and yet here he is at your door, note from Ellie with the address and time Maria’d given her, sighing deeply and steeling his nerves before finally knocking. 
You answer the door and Joel is surprised to find he doesn’t recognize you, or at least, he’s never properly noticed you before. He’s also surprised to find that you’re much younger and, honestly, prettier than Joel had been expecting, having been picturing some crotchety old hippie-dippie type, maybe with prior experience pre-apocalypse. 
Instead, there you are, all smiles and welcoming gaze, throwing a new wrench of unease into the gears of Joel’s anxious brain - the very worst kind of wrench, at that: attraction.
God help him, he’s never going to survive this. 
“Joel Miller?” you ask, already expecting him. 
You know of him of course; everyone knows something of Tommy Miller’s mysterious older brother. You’d heard all the rumours - good and bad. Murderous former smuggler...caring, attentive father...surly old man...doting elder sibling - Joel Miller, as you know him, is something of an enigma. 
But standing in your doorway, head low and shoulders hunched, face contorted in obvious discomfort, you see nothing of the esoteric killer you’d been warned about. All you see is a man - a man in need of serious help. 
You notice he’s also strikingly more handsome up close, having only ever encountered his face from a distance. Now you see him for real - all patchy bearded and grey haired, hook-nosed and strong jawed; Joel is gorgeous.
“Yeah, uh, my kid - ” he clears his throat before going on, “Uh, my kid and Maria? Sent me here,” Joel stammers, eyes fixed on the note in his hands. “I have an appointment, I guess.”
You smile warmly back at him as his - almost helpless - brown eyes meet yours. “Come on in, Joel.”
You lock the door behind him as he obeys; Joel’s your last client of the day.
Your set up is right there in the living room, massage tables foraged from various supply runs, separated by dividers you’d built yourself, handmade candles filling the room with the aroma of lavender of peppermint. 
Joel assesses the scene nervously, looking exceptionally out of place in the centre of it all, awkwardly wringing his hands together.
“So,” you begin, guiding him with a gentle hand over his arm towards one of the beds. “What’s bothering you today, Joel?”
“Uh - back. My back.” He gestures towards it as best he can with his limited mobility. 
“Anywhere specific?”
“Uh...all of it?” he says like a question, embarrassed to admit it. 
You smile at him again, hoping to put him at ease. “That’s no problem. We’ll get you sorted out.”
It’s a promise, one you plan to keep. Joel nods back at you, attempting his own smile in return, still looking visibly tense standing in the middle of the room uncertainly. 
“Okay, well, I’ll just step out of the room,” you say kindly when Joel stays quiet before you. “You - just undress to your level of comfort, and I’ll be right back.”
He nearly chokes, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead.
“My level of...what?”
You give him another smile, because you get it. You’re used to this reaction from your clients in Jackson. It’s new territory for most people who come to see you, having spent the last twenty years experiencing various levels of suffering, many too young to know the process of receiving a professional massage.
Well, semi-professional in your case. But still. 
Joel, however, looks old enough that he could have very well been to a masseuse before the outbreak, but something about his reluctant discomfort tells you that whether today or twenty years ago, Joel Miller is not the type to seek out help for anything. 
“You can strip down completely, or just to your boxers,” you say patiently. “Lie down on your tummy and cover your bottom half with the sheet on the table. I’ll come back when you’re decent.”
You give him one last encouraging smile and duck into the other room.
Joel stands dumbstruck beside the bed, breathing shallowly. He doesn’t know what exactly he’d been preparing for, but getting naked for a pretty, young stranger sure wasn’t it.
Because Joel doesn’t wear boxers - he’s in his late fifties, and has spent the majority of his life up until now on the run to some degree or another. Not to mention the fact that he rarely finds himself in scenarios where he has to take his jeans off in front of another human being. Commando’s just how he lives, it’s habitual.
So he has to make a choice - he could run for it, leave you waiting in the other room till you finally figured out he’d taken off. Or he could suck it up - and see through what he’d fucking come here for.
He sighs, long and agitated. Then he strips off his boots and clothes, leaving them in a messy pile on the floor. Exposed against his own good will, he situates himself face down on the bed, shoddily trying to cover his ass with the sheet, straining his back when he reaches around too far doing it. 
Fuck. 
He can’t contain the laboured sound that catches in his throat, finally succumbing and planting his face into the semi-circular pillow in front of him.
“You okay?” you call from the other room, hearing the strained noise from where you’re waiting. 
“Fine,” Joel responds, sounding anything but. “M’decent,” he adds, feeling anything but. 
You make your way back into the room to find that he’s followed your instructions perfectly, although the sheet looks a bit twisted up over his lower half. No problem, nothing’s exposed that shouldn’t be, and either way, you’re getting an impressive view of his broad back, tan and weathered with time, faded scars lining the thick arms he has glued against his sides.
Keep it professional, you tell yourself. 
You approach his side slowly, making sure he hears you coming, not wanting to startle him. You take a moment to set your faithful kitchen timer to one hour on the desk beside the table, the same desk covered with a combination of bottles of homemade and collected massage oils. 
“So,” you say as you coat your hands with the oil you think Joel will like the most - an all-natural one you made that smells like eucalyptus and patchouli. Your slick fingers finally making contact with Joel’s deliciously broad shoulders elicits a full-body twitch from the man. “Did you do anything in particular to hurt it?”
Joel tenses as you run your hands gingerly over his back, spreading the cool oil over his skin and feeling your way for any noticeable areas of concern, not applying too much pressure just yet. 
“Got older,” he mutters gloomily.
You smile even though he can’t see it, aching to take away some of the sadness in his voice. “We all get older.”
Joel’s heart pounds as you feel your way over his sides, pressing into his lower back gently, pinky fingers brushing the edge of the sheet. You glide your fingertips between his shoulder blades then, finding plenty of tension there. He’d been telling the truth - the damage seems to consume the entire landscape of his back. 
“You don’t look old,” you say while you continue getting to know his muscles in slow, calculated movements. 
“Don’t need to lie to me,” he grumbles in that same somber tone.
“Well this is more than age anyway,” you say, feeling just truly how fucked-up his back is. Deep-seated knots twist his muscles from his shoulders to his glutes, buried far below his skin. “Are you on your feet a lot?”
“Was, before I got here.”
“Hm,” you say around a knowing smile. “Weren’t we all?”
Joel hears the undercurrents of a painful backstory behind your words but he doesn’t pry, still trying to slow his heart rate and fucking relax. He has to admit he’s finding it harder to focus as you begin to apply more pressure, concentrating your fingers into the flesh of his lower back now, where you’d felt some of the most glaring snags, kneading into the knots there methodically, calming his muscles and his mind.
“That feel nice there?” you ask quietly, sensing the tension leaving him, wanting to help him just the way he needs.
Joel sighs as your expert touch begins to loosen some of the strain in his low back, a blissful release suddenly spreading throughout his body from the place your fingers touch. His eyes fall closed as he lets slip a tiny moan of pleasure. 
“That feels amazing, sweetheart,” he breathes. 
He goes tense again, eyes flying open. Because he hadn’t meant to say that. 
But you hardly mind, burning pleasantly at the way his Southern drawl cloaks around the endearment, flattered more than anything and understanding to a fault. He’s just comfortable, and you’re glad he is too. That means you’re doing your job right. 
So you just keep working into the area that had made him so relaxed a moment ago, pretending he’d said nothing at all. 
“Where’d you learn how to do this?” Joel asks curiously after a long moment, genuinely interested and also trying not to get too lost in the feeling of your touch - to stay focused and keep you talking so his stupid big mouth doesn’t get away from him again. 
“My mom did it,” you tell him, palms digging deeper into the flesh above his ass, gliding them up in long strokes along either side of his spine languidly, back and forth till you feel the twists in his muscles giving way to you. “She taught me a lot before she died. Then I just read everything I could; books in the QZ I grew up in, more from the library here. Self-taught, really. Council was nice to enough to let me do this as my job.”
“Why do you do it?” Joel presses, voice coming out more wrecked than he intends, as your fingers discover a particularly tricky spot between his shoulder blades. 
“I like helping people feel good,” you tell him. “Plus I think it’s the only thing I’m actually any good at.”
Joel’s not sure about the only part but he definitely agrees you’re good at it.
Then he can’t help it; your obvious kindness coupled with the movements of your palms on his back have Joel descending into an unexpected state of peace, melting into the spongey mattress of the table, face smushed against the hollowed pillow. He realizes, as your fingers work slow miracles over him, how long it’s been since anyone’s had hands on him - let alone meticulous, caring ones like yours. It sparks something in him - something long denied, buried as deep as the knots in his back.
He’s not sure how much time is passing - could be hours, could be days. For once, he’s fine not knowing. 
His breath catches when your fingers wander back down towards his low back and find a tough bundle of knots there. Another moan slips his lips as you lean into it, unwinding the the pain to the best of your ability. 
“There?” you ask, smoothing out the muscles with measured strokes that have Joel’s brain going fuzzy.
“Right there,” he whispers gravelly, butterflies fluttering in your stomach at the sound of his low voice. 
You continue to work your fingers into that same spot, repeating the motion on the other side of his back, where you find similar knots mirrored there. 
From then on, Joel is putty in your hands, every cluster of agony breaking apart at your firm touch. Joel’s eyes flutter closed again as he finally gives his mind permission to lose himself in the feeling of being cared for. And it’s heaven, finally, as you erase all the pain he’s been carrying for months - hell, maybe even years. 
At least until he feels his cock beginning to stiffen under him, jutting uncomfortably against the mattress and -
Shit. 
Fucking - shit. 
It’s fine, he tells himself. He’s on his tummy after all, it’s not like you could see. You wouldn’t have noticed his eyes popping open again or the way he’s balled his hands into tight fists at his sides. You can’t hear his thoughts, can’t hear the way he’s screaming in vain at his cock to behave.
He’s not even aroused, goddamnit - or at least, he doesn’t think he is. 
So he lets your hands keep working, but it just keeps making him harder, every tender graze of your fingers on his touch-starved skin taking on new meaning, deep relaxation giving way to some intrinsic craving he barely feels conscious of.
“I think I want to get some spots around your shoulders, Joel, do you mind turning over for me?”
God-fucking-damnit. 
“Uhhh…”
“It’s just easier for me to reach certain spots - is everything okay?” you ask innocently, noticing the way he’s tensed up under you again. 
Joel sighs deeply, as though he could will his stupid cock to soften if he tried, instead of it growing harder still at the soft sound of your sweet voice. 
Once again, he’s faced with a choice. Lie there in protest and be forced to tell you the truth, or give in and turn over and be forced to show you the truth. 
Somehow, the latter seems easier than trying to find the words to explain himself. 
Against his better judgement, he rolls over onto his back with a sigh as you step back and remove your hands from him. Joel chances a glance down his body and yeah, there’s no denying it, his semi-hard cock is tenting the sheet, noticeably so. 
Fucking hell. 
You fight for your life not to react. 
Of course, Joel doesn’t know you’ve read all about this - there’s an easy decorum for this kind of thing. For one, it’s perfectly normal for men - you know this. And all the books say the same thing: don’t make note of it, don’t make it sexual, and don’t mention it unless the client seems uncomfortable or says something.  
Not making it sexual is already proving to be a bit of a challenge - Joel’s naked front is even more beautiful and broad than this naked back, his chest a sprawling panorama of thick pectoral muscles over a luscious tummy that’s just a little too...distractingly biteable. You take note of the aged scar that lines his one side, ragged and grisly looking, although healed with time. 
What’s more, it’s clear he’s well-endowed beneath the sheet, even when he’s not fully erect. You pointedly avert your eyes before you start thinking about it too much.
You’d be more than happy not to mention it but the problem is that Joel seems visibly embarrassed, his eyes continuously darting downwards when he thinks you’re not looking, giving you no choice.
You’ve got to put this man at ease.
“Hey, Joel, don’t worry about it,” you say soothingly and Joel just about dies with mortification at the acknowledgment. “It’s super normal.”
“Yeah fuckin’ right,” he grumbles.
“It’s true - it’s perfectly natural. You’re just relaxed - it’s a good thing.”
He shakes his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling and very much not on you standing over him, practically right above his eyeline. 
“M’sorry,” he groans, his face burning red, hands still squeezed into fists beside him. Hard and naked in front of a beautiful, sweet, kind, young woman. He’s never felt more vulnerable in his whole goddamn life.
You offer him a smile even though he’s still not looking at you. You hope he can at least hear it in your voice.
“We’ll just both pretend we don’t see it,” you say, applying more oil to your hands and beginning to work your thumbs into the flesh above his shoulders. “Deal?”
Joel takes a deep breath and tries. 
Your fingers are convincing enough all on their own, Joel’s focus going foggy again when you run your hands over the tight lumps in his shoulders and neck, tips of your fingers tracing over his bare chest, the both of you feigning indifference to the very real presence of his now very hard cock under the sheet below you. 
Joel lets his eyes slip closed again and now you’re the one trying to slow your heart rate, reminding yourself for the hundredth time to keep your thoughts professional. 
His shoulders, you find, are almost worse than his lower back when it comes to finding bunches of knotted muscle, no doubt worn and torn from years of gun slinging and backpacking and who-knows-what-else.
“What did you do for work before all this?” you ask in that same honey-sweet voice that has Joel falling deeper into a peaceful trance below you, a tiny moan escaping his lips as your thumbs dig into the muscles where his neck meets his clavicle.
“Contractor,” he answers you, voice coming out a quiet whisper, the most he can muster at the moment.
“Working man,” you sigh, realization washing over you. “You’ve been carrying some of this tension a long time.”
For some reason, Joel feels like he could cry at that.
“You got no idea,” he says instead, voice thick.
It’s quiet for a long while then as you maintain your steady motions on his shoulders and upper back, trying and failing not to ogle at that perfect, wide chest and that supple belly, his hard cock still staring you down intoxicatingly from under the sheet.
His face, too, is difficult not to marvel at - strong lines softened into a restful state, lips parted slightly and eyes sealed shut, his moustache bristling with each lengthy breath that passes through his open mouth.
Because now Joel is the most relaxed he’s been in a long time, he thinks. Even his backstabbing dick, glaring up at him, isn’t enough to deter him from the sense of calm you’re inflicting on him. The scent of your burning candles and the tender touch of your hands on his skin a downright sedating combination.
He’d do anything you say if you said it with your hands. Hell, he could kiss you for making him feel this good and so what if his cock twitches at the thought of that?
Eventually you both just forget about Joel’s erection - or, at the very least, get used to it being there.
The two of you would be content for it to last forever, but then your kitchen timer is going off beside you, a loud ding cutting through the haze - that’s an hour, done in the blink of an eye. 
Your hands linger on his skin as you step back, Joel groaning audibly at the loss.
“That’s our time,” you tell him, wishing it wasn’t true.
“Shit - already?” Joel asks, eyes slowly opening to shoot you a devastating grin, otherwise too blissed-out to move.
It’s the first time you’ve seen him smile. You’d done that.
“Afraid so,” you say like it’s the worst news in the world, which it kind of is. You soften it with a smile back at him. 
“I think I might need a hand gettin’ up here,” he admits, feeling as though he’s been fused to the table, his brain fuzzy from the hour of relaxation and the seemingly uncontrollable arousal between his legs. 
“Of course,” you murmur, happy to keep finding ways to help the man, bracing a hand behind his neck and gripping his arm with the other, slowly pulling him upright, the sheet shifting slightly on his lap, exposing the hairs on his lower belly, an enticing trail leading to his still-hard cock.
You’re face to face now, Joel sitting up on the table and stretching his back experimentally, you standing in front of him, still grasping his arm like you forgot to let go.
“How do you feel?” you ask him faintly.
Joel smiles for real now, a contented, lop-sided thing. “Better’n I’ve felt in a long time, sweetheart.” 
You beam back at him. It’s the best kind of compliment, making someone else feel better; you live for it. And hearing it in Joel’s tantalizing drawl, another charming pet name slipping out once again, it’s enough to make your heart soar. You could die happy knowing you’d made Joel Miller feel good.
You’re still gripping his arm you realize, finally making to pull it away. But Joel, surprising both you and himself, catches your wrist in his hand before you can - holding you there.
“You really don’t accept payment for this?” he asks inquisitively. “’Cause I kinda feel like I owe you my life right now, darlin’.”
His gentle tone softens the intensity of his words, but you find yourself brightening at them nonetheless.
“Helping people is enough for me,” you shrug.
Joel looks back at you with something akin to adoration, eyes narrowing.
“You’re a sweet thing, aren’t you?” he hums in wonder.
There are those damned butterflies again - stronger this time and paired with an unexpected spike of arousal at his tender tone, so different now compared to the surly, grumbling man he’d been when he’s first come through your door.
“J-just happy to help, that’s all,” you say breathlessly.
Joel’s big hand on your wrist spreads out on your forearm and moves up over your elbow. You watch it carefully - curiously - feeling its heat against your skin, welcoming it.
“Real sweet…” he repeats, voice husky and low, looking and sounding totally serene, almost far away. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, doesn’t really think he can stop; that thing that’s buried deep inside him suddenly rising to the forefront -
Desire, he realizes. Radiating out of him and straight into you. 
Joel’s touch is making your head spin a bit - even though you’ve had your hands all over him for the last hour or so. Now his face is closer than it’s ever been to yours, the scent of the fragrant oil on his skin mixing with his undeniably masculine musk, competing for ownership of your nostrils. His cock is still rock hard and very much there under the sheet and your eyes won’t stop flitting down to it no matter how hard you try.
Joel’s eyes follow yours there, his fingers coiling a little tighter around your arm, a charged energy flowing through you where his skin meets yours, so different now than it had felt a moment ago.
Because Joel’s right - you are a sweet girl, most of the time. And you do love helping people. Perhaps it’s that instinct that has your next words falling from your lips before you can stop them,
“You know, Joel,” you say, voice matching his low timbre, tilting your head slightly so his eyes meet yours, your hand drifting to the edge of the sheet, ghosting over his veiled cock. “I could help you with this too, i-if you’d like.”
Your eyes dart down to his hard length beneath the sheet again, just to make sure he knows exactly what you mean.
“Z’at right?” he breathes with a welcome smirk. “What, like, some kinda happy endin’ or somethin’? You do that for anyone who comes in here?”
You smile back at him. Truth is, you’ve never done this with a client before. 
 “Mm-mm. This would just be for you, Joel,” you say, voice dripping with sincerity and seduction. “I just want to help. I wouldn’t feel right sending you home like this.”
An hour ago Joel might have been shocked at the offer. Now his skin prickles at the thought, heart racing in the good way as your fingers grip the fabric invitingly. It would be rather unfortunate to have to leave your place in the state he’s in.
His eyes appear to glaze over completely then as you slowly pull back the sheet, his cock finally springing free. Joel doesn’t feel embarrassed about being exposed anymore, kind of wants to you see it, to see what you’d done to him. 
You, meanwhile, have to fight back a gasp when you see his cock revealed at last; it’s as big as you’d deduced from the towering tent it had created under the sheet, stiff and thick and begging to be touched. Just like the rest of him.
“Can I...?” you ask, hand hovering over it, eyes flipping between it and his face. You’d thrown professionalism to the wind - that much is clear - but you’re still desperate for his approval, to know this is really what he wants. 
Joel’s thoroughly charmed by your asking permission, faint smile now glued to the corners of his lips; you clearly don’t know that he’s already surrendered to you more than he has to anyone in a long time. He doesn’t need to think twice.
“Please, darlin’.”
He sounds so earnest, almost pleading. Who are you to deny a man in need? You keep your eyes fixed on his face as you reach out to wrap your fingers around his cock, watching for the moment his lips fall open at your touch. 
Joel should have seen it coming. Your hands had worked miracles over his back and shoulders - of course they’d do the same on his dick. Palms still slick with residual massage oil, you pump his length in long, firm strokes, coaxing out hearty drops of precum as you squeeze around him competently. You press a hand to his chest - that chest you know so well now - and lay him back down on the table. Joel, defenseless as your fist continues to stroke his aching cock, obliges willingly.
“Shit, sweetheart,” he sighs as he fans out on the table once more, giving your hands tenancy over his body for the second time that day.
“Is that good, Joel?” you inquire softly, fingers gripped tightly around his cock now, focusing your strokes towards the tip so his head falls back against the face cradle.
“Fuckin’ amazin’, sugar,” he hums, voice escaping him in a breathy groan.
Your heart flutters at the praise, and it’s all the encouragement you need to duck down and flick the tip with your tongue enticingly.
Joel just about loses it, his head snapping back up to take in the sight of you leaning over him, hand held around the base of his cock and lips now wrapped around the tip, the taste of his salty precum hitting your tongue as you swirl it over his slit with expert care.
“Christ,” Joel growls, the sound sending sparks flying to your core as you smile around him, beginning to move up and down over his length, wetting it from base to tip and causing Joel to moan out a symphony above you.
Not for the first time that day, Joel is losing focus, your mouth driving him even crazier than your hands. But there’s just one problem -
“Darlin’, wait,” he says, his words getting caught in his throat when you lick a thick stripe along the underside of his dick.
“What, Joel?” you ask, hand still clutched around his cock, voice sickly sweet as you stare up at him wide-eyed and wet-lipped. Joel groans noisily at the sight.
“You’re not gonna make me lie here naked while you keep all those clothes on, are ya?” he manages, voice gruff with unrestrained lust.
You smile. He’s right - it’s hardly fair at all. 
“Of course not,” you assure him. You step back and Joel hoists himself up on his elbows to watch you hungrily as you strip off your shirt and jeans, marvelling at you in just your panties (no bra, not in this world), as you stand before him without an ounce of diffidence in your stance. 
“Goddamn, you’re gorgeous, sweetheart,” he says reverently, shaking his head in near-disbelief. 
“Can I finish taking care of you now, Joel Miller?” you ask him alluringly, taking a moment to coat your hands with a fresh layer of massage oil as you do. 
Joel barely chokes out a, “Yeah - yes,” before you’re bending over his body again to take his cock back in your mouth, sucking and bobbing on his length in earnest as you run your hands over his belly, leaving sleek streaks of oil along the tan, fleshy skin there.
Joel marvels at the curves of your topless body over him - doesn’t want to ever look away from it - but it’s hard; he can’t stay focused as your slippery hands find his cock again, working the base while your mouth works the tip, that skillful combination again making him see stars, elbows giving way under him so he splays out onto the table once more.
“Fuck me, your mouth, sweetheart,” Joel groans, as his big hands tangle in your hair, his touch sending a tingling sensation down your spine and making wetness sprout between your legs. “Don’t stop - fuck - don’t you stop.
You moan softly around him, causing Joel’s hips to buck up into your mouth of their own volition, momentarily making you choke in the most perfect way, spit mingling with precum mingling with oil and it’s exquisitely messy, Joel’s fingers knotting tighter in your hair and giving you the confidence to increase your pace on him, desperate now for his release.
And Joel feels it coming - tight heat knotting in his gut as his cock hits the back of your throat over and over -
“Darlin’, I’m - I’m close - ” he tries to warn you.
“You can come in my mouth, Joel, it’s okay,” you tell him truthfully, voice hoarse and sultry when you pull off of him, just for a moment, glancing up at him with a smile that’s maybe too eager.
Joel doesn’t mind it in the slightest. “Fuckin’ Christ, keep goin’,” he grunts and  you suck him back down, moving with intent now - intent to finish, to taste.
He doesn’t make you wait long, heat in his core erupting at the feeling of your lips locked around him, coming streaks of spend down your waiting throat when you pull off him to stroke him fervently, coating your taste buds and filling your mouth as he groans out a string of curses above you. 
Joel’s eyes stay fixed on the ceiling when he comes, but you make sure he’s looking back at you again before you swallow his seed, just so you can catch his awestruck reaction when you do.
Then, you can’t help it - it’s right there, so close, how could you resist? - you kiss your way over the trail of hairs on his lower belly, taking the opportunity to nip lightly at the squishy skin of his tummy. 
Yep, you’d been right. Way too biteable. 
“Shit, sweetheart,” Joel laughs breathily, skin glossy and muscles gooey, melded into the massage table - probably forever. “Now you gotta let me say thank you somehow.”
Yeah, right. At the moment, you’re not sure Joel can even move. 
“Well,” you say, finding your discarded clothes strewn on the floor and slipping them back on, Joel watching you unabashedly. “You could come back. Same time next week?”
Joel smirks, head titling towards you from its place on the cradle to give you an endearing little wink.
“It’s a date, sweet girl.”
END.
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theemporium · 2 months
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a wee blurb based off this and a conversation with @scuderiahoney 🤠
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Oscar Piastri never got drunk, at least not in front of his fellow Formula One colleagues. 
It wasn’t obvious at first. He was a rookie, a new kid on the grid, the new guy who kind of started off with a bang before he even sat in the car with all the drama surrounding his contract. It wasn’t out of this world to assume he was a little shy and didn’t feel all that comfortable getting drunk with people who had known each other for years. 
But the season progressed and friendships grew, and yet still Oscar Piastri just never seemed to get drunk. 
He would have a drink or two, maybe a bottle of beer on top if he had a big meal beforehand. But he never passed the point of tipsy, never passed the point where he wasn’t totally aware of what he was doing. 
Lando had cornered Logan Sargeant after one of the races, hell bent on trying to figure out what the deal was with his teammate. 
“So what’s Oscar’s deal with drinking?” 
The blond turned to him, brows raised in surprise. “What?” 
“What’s his deal? Why does he not go beyond three drinks?” Lando questioned, insistent and eager for answers. 
“I don’t think that’s in my place to say—” Logan started before he was cut off. 
“Is he a recovering alcoholic?” 
Logan blinked. “What?” 
“I’m not judging!” Lando quickly added, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’d just feel like a right dick if I was pushing him to do something he was recovering from, you know?” 
“And you went straight to alcoholism?” Logan shook his head. “Dude, did it ever occur to you that maybe he just doesn’t like drinking?” 
Lando narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Have you ever seen him drunk?” 
Logan paused, only for a few seconds but it was enough to make the Brit gasp. 
“You have!” Lando grinned when he noticed a flush spread across Logan’s face. “Oh god, that must mean it’s embarrassing! What’s the deal, huh? Does he start stripping after four drinks? Get angry? Turn into the Incredible Hulk?” 
Logan rolled his eyes. “I don’t think Oscar would appreciate me saying, he gets shy about it.”
The Brit let out a huff. “You’re no fun to gossip with, Sargeant.” 
But as it would turn out, Lando and the rest of the grid would find out exactly why Oscar never went beyond his three drink limit in the Aussie’s second season. 
The season was young, the car was good and by some fucking miracle, Oscar had found himself on the podium at his home race. It was a thrill he never expected to feel, it was a buzz that he felt himself slowly becoming addicted to. And the fact there was a large group of people he called home cheering him on when he accepted his trophy definitely didn’t help. 
He was on a high and he didn’t want to stop—and neither did the drinks. It seemed like every driver he bumped into in the small club seemed eager to buy him a drink to celebrate, and Oscar was so high on adrenaline that he couldn’t bring himself to care about his limit. 
It was somewhere after his fifth drink and his third round of shots when Lando found him. He looked lost as he stood in the middle of the dance floor, his lips turned down (almost in a pout) and his wide eyes looking around the place. 
Lando frowned, making his way over as he clapped his teammate on the shoulder. “You all good, mate?” 
To his surprise, Oscar shrugged his hand off with a frown. “No.”
Lando blinked, something quite like concern bubbling inside him. “No? Did something happen?” 
“I—” Oscar paused as he continued to look around the club. “I want her.” 
“Huh?” 
“I want—” Oscar let out a frustrated noise, almost a bit like a whine. “I want my girl. Where’s my girl?” 
Realisation slowly dawned on Lando as he noted the fact you weren’t with your boyfriend. He knew you joined them at the club, the three of you had taken a taxi together but he hadn’t seen you in a few hours. 
“Uh, I don’t know, mate,” Lando answered honestly, which didn’t feel the right thing to say as Oscar began to push through the crowd. “Woah, Oscar—”
“I want my girl,” Oscar muttered once again, barely audible over the blasting music. 
Lando was quick to follow him through the crowd, aimlessly trying to help and make Oscar stand in one place so they could text you but the boy seemed hell bent on having you in his arms in that second. 
It took five minutes—five long, agonising minutes—before they found you. The second Oscar’s eyes landed on you, it was like the pouty boy from before was nowhere to be seen as a huge grin took over his face. 
“MY GIRL!” 
You couldn’t help but let out a giggle as your boyfriend barrelled towards you, wrapping his arms around you and practically pressing every inch of his body against yours. 
Lando watched as you hugged him back, as your grin matched his whilst you pressed a kiss to his cheek. He waited for the two of you to pull apart, to stand shoulder to shoulder because that was usually as touchy as either of you got in public. 
But Oscar didn’t let go. 
“Baby,” you murmured, your voice soft and amused as Oscar nuzzled his head further into the crook of your neck. 
“Uh,” Lando couldn’t even help himself, the alcohol in his system fuelling his confusion and loose lips. “Is he okay?” 
You turned to the Brit, a smile on your lips. “Oh yeah, he just gets a bit…clingy when he’s drunk.” 
“M’not clingy,” Oscar grumbled but he made no move to pull himself away from you. 
“Of course not,” you mused as your hands fell to either side of his cheeks, lifting his head enough to press a kiss to his forehead before letting it fall down to lean on your shoulder again. You turned to Lando with a shrug. “We’ll probably head out now. You joining us?” 
“Nah,” Lando waved you off, still somewhat flabbergasted by what he was witnessing. “You think you’ll get him home alright by yourself?” 
You snorted. “He’s basically a big baby at this point, I’ve got him.” 
“M’not a baby,” Oscar huffed out. 
You only grinned in response. “C’mon, baby, let’s go.” 
Oscar lifted his head, blinking slowly with a hopeful look on his face. “Cuddles?” 
“Cuddles,” you confirmed, waving the Brit goodbye before you made your way towards the exit of the club. 
Lando stood there, mouth agape as he stared at your parting figures when Logan found him. The American was grinning from ear to ear, taking a long dreg from his beer bottle. 
“It would’ve been less of a mindfuck if he was an alcoholic, right?” Logan commented with a snort. 
“I feel…dirty seeing him so touchy,” Lando whispered. 
Logan laughed. “Yeah, just be glad you haven’t seen him when he’s high yet.” 
Lando’s head snapped around, looking both intrigued and alarmed. “Why? What is he like when he’s high?” 
The boy grinned wider.
“LOGAN, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
.
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messylustt · 9 months
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౨ৎ ‧˚
𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨 (𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥) — 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐡𝐞𝐦
miguel o’hara x fem!reader. a lot of words.
fic masterlist previous part pt eight next part
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violence + blood + injuries; making out; suggestive content; my god whew — miguel’s hand raises to…what? you don’t know, because the spider society’s alarm bell is ringing. mayhem, fire, fights…masked men. you only want to help. when miguel confronts you about your ‘help’ clearly displaying anger and well…worry, something unexpected happens…you both getting as close as you did before…maybe closer?
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You’re still staring at Miguel, staying close. Closer than you probably should be. And just as his hand reaches up to…to what? What was he going to do?
Because now the alarms are sounding. Followed by the cries of spider-people. You quickly whip your head to the door. And at first Miguel doesn’t look away from you. As if the word ‘emergency’ isn’t registering in his brain. No. He keeps his eyes on you, his lifted hand having to drop away as you rush to the door.
Miguel clenched his jaw, cursing the whole idea of having an ‘emergency bell’.
You’ve reached the door and then the hallway seeing mayhem. Everyone is running (or more so webbing) around, as a fire had started in the centre.
Miguel is soon joining you, just as you spot Miles and Hobie running up. “There you are, mate.” Hobie sighs in relief, grabbing your shoulders as he goes to move you.
“Wh-“ You look around. “What’s going on?”
Miguel narrows his eyes on Hobie’s hands. He knows now’s really not the time to feel petty, but part of him wants to break his ringed fingers. Hobie moves you with him further down the hallway. “If they recognise ya, they’ll wanna kill ya, luv. So, let’s maybe go…ay?”
Your eyes widen. “Kill?! What? Why?”
Miles is hot on both your heels. Miguel not far behind him. Then Miguel notices Miles, brows slightly furrowing. “Why are you here?” He asks, making Miles glance back.
“Uh…I was invited.” He says slowly.
“Uh huh.” He eyed the kid. “By who? Gwen?”
Miles gulps at the look Miguel is giving him. “Yeah…”
“Mm.” Miguel hums, looking distasteful as he walks past Miles, catching up to you and Hobie. “Now we’re letting anyone in?” He mutters to himself with a small scoff.
“Hobie, what happened?” You ask, as he continues to move you, his grip staying on your shoulders. He brings you to the tech room, it appearing empty. You look behind you at the way you came. “I didn’t know you could get here through there.” You mutter.
“Lyla.” You hear Miguel say, her appearing by his shoulder. “What is this?” Though the look Miguel is displaying makes you feel as though he already knows.
“An attack on HQ.” Lyla says, beginning to tap away at her little screens.
“Okay, there are way too many of them.” You hear Pav say, running into the room.
“We held them off as much as we could.” Gwen is close behind. “But their strong. Like freaky strong.”
“Y/n!” Pav exclaims, bringing you in for a hug.
“Oh—“ You weren’t expecting the hug, everything happening so fast, as you slowly pat his back.
“Where were you?” He sounds concerned.
“I was just…” you drift off, licking your lips. “Gwen, whose really strong?” You quickly look to her.
“You remember the men who attacked last time? The one’s with the masks?” Gwen asks, to which you slowly nod, catching on.
“They’re back?” You ask. Gwen nods.
“But they look different.” Gwen’s says—her having seen the ones who attacked you and the tech room when they were in pools of their own blood, curtesy of Miguel. “They’re…”
“Bigger.” You mutter, picturing the masked men that were in Miles’ universe. “Better suits? Strangely taller?” You ask her.
“Yeah…”
“They’ve upgraded.” You mutter.
“Which means they aren’t here for a tiny thief job.” Miguel says, walking past you all to one of the only computers that didn’t get smashed. He pauses though, licking his teeth, as he mutters rather quietly. “Does anyone know the password?”
You hold back your amused smile, as you walk up to the computer. You lean down, tapping at the keyboard. The screen glitches a little, but for the most part it works.
“You’re looking for the security cameras right?” You ask Miguel, still staring at the screen. Lyla was clearly too busy to compute it, so you tap at more keys, bringing up roughly twenty different security camera images.
You zoom in on the middle three, displaying the fire and the masked men. Miguel leans over the desk beside you, staring at the screen. “They started the fire by smashing the tech there.” You point to a far spot on the screen, noticing the destroyed screens and machines.
Everyone had begun to surround the computer. “Why do they want to destroy tech?” Pav ask, as you shift your gaze to Miguel.
His gaze is focused on the screen, and more specifically on one specific ‘masked man’ . You narrowed your gaze on him. Where had he gone earlier? Has he met this guy? How does he recognise him? They all look the same to you.
Green woven—now metal—suits, but still those handmade masks…except now with added metal elements scattered randomly. “Miguel.” You say, making him shift his gaze to you.
You tilt your head, silently communicating that you know somethings up. The raise of your brows asks him why he isn’t voicing anything.
Miguel’s teeth are grinding as he stares at you, silently communicating back. You narrow your eyes upon understanding his expression as one showing he’s not going to voice anything. If he doesn’t have to anyway.
Hobie stares at you two for a moment, blinking. “Can you two read each others minds now? Is that what we’ve been missin’?”
You shift your gaze to Hobie, who’s standing, arms crossed. Then a rather loud scream makes all your heads whip to the computer. A masked man is holding up a spider-person by the throat. But what makes you want to puke is the way his claw is beginning to stab into the spiders chest and running down, tearing skin and other bodily flesh.
Hobie, Gwen, Pav, and Miles are quick, rushing out of the room and assumably to the lobby, where the guy’s screams are easily heard. Other spider-people are trying to fight back, but the masked men seem to be knocking them down a little too easily. How are they doing that so easily?
You swiftly turn your gaze to the screen, eyes darting, as your chest heaved. “One of them took it, Miguel.” Lyla says, making you shift your gaze to him.
He’s moving away, most likely to get to the action to help as well. He meets your gaze. “Don’t you dare move.” He warns, before he’s slipping through the secret entry.
What did Lyla say? One of the masked men took what? You look back to the computer, wincing every time a spider-person got hit. Hard. You take note of one guy, his hits extra painful to watch—the one Miguel was staring at. You wanted to help. You wished you could help.
Then you hear the shuffle of metal making you spin. But your heart slows upon seeing Peter and Mayday. Wait…mayday?!
You rush forward, seeing Peter’s frantic expression. “Y/n, Thank god. I didn’t—I didn’t know what to do.” He gesturing to Mayday.
“Peter why is she here?!” You’re extremely worried.
“I didn’t know an attack was gonna happen! I would have left her home.” He’s looking behind him, clearly knowing he has to help, but still holding tightly onto an unbothered, babbling Mayday.
You quickly grab her, pulling her into your arms. “Go.” You say. “They need you out there. Go.”
Peter looks hesitant, and you understand why. “I’ll hide.” You say, knowing he’s skeptical because you’re well…human and could barely fight back against those men. Especially if spider variants are getting knocked out.
“They won’t find me. They won’t find her.” You hold Mayday close to you, as she rests her head on your shoulder, her smile still present.
Then Peter is nodding. He trusts you. He knows you’re not one to be stupid. “Go.” You say again, and he moves, rushing out towards the action.
Your heart is beating on overdrive. Holding Mayday tightly, you turned back to the screen. None of your friends were knocked out, injured or…dead. But just as you go to find somewhere to hide—as you had promised, you noticed something.
A small machine, with a switch, it’s almost unseeable through the screen, but you catch it. That isn’t the spider-society’s tech. That’s from the masked men.
No. It suddenly clicks. Why all the spider-people were getting knocked out easy, why they could never sense when a masked man was l close. It was as if someone switched off their spider-sense and strength.
You felt Mayday lean away, using her own spider webs to attach to a farther desk, yanking you along the ground. “Mayday.” You hold her back. Now was not the time. Why did Peter give her her own webs?
You rip the web, pulling her back. “Mayday.” You say making your look at you, hair curling around her face. “You have to stay still. Okay? Just stay in my arms. Then how bout we play a game after?”
Her face lights up. You’d played these games with her, the main two being learning fun handshakes, and the other was hide and seek. “Alright?” You ask gently. She excitedly jumps in your arms. “You gotta stay still, though.” She stills, wrapping her arms around your neck.
You sigh, turning back to the screen. You can spot Gwen looking confused, clearly feeling the effects of not having a spider-sense. Then you spot Miguel. He seems unaffected by the change, noticing the masked men a lot quicker than the other spider people. Then you shift your gaze back to the switch.
The spider variants didn’t know. Shit, shit, shit. You had said you’d hide, to keep Mayday safe. But you can’t just do…nothing. Then you decide something incredibly stupid, like beyond a seeable level of stupid that could turn out terribly.
But you had to try. Because they weren’t winning out there. You pull Mayday away, making sure she caught your gaze. “Okay, Mayday…we’re gonna a play a game now. How’s that?”
She nods quickly, clapping her hands. “Alright…you remember hide and seek?”
She again nods at you, slightly playing with your hair. “I’m gonna count. And you’re gonna hide. Somewhere good. Really good.”
She begins to try and get out for yours arms, eager to play. “Mayday. Find somewhere really good.” She’d always been very good at choosing a hard hiding place. It always took you forever to find her. And you were counting on that.
Then you reluctantly let her go. You wouldn’t be long. You wouldn’t be. “One…” you pretend to cover your eyes, as you watch her waddle away through the cracks between your fingers.
You were stressed. This plan couldn’t go wrong. You wouldn’t let it. “Two…”
You were gonna reach that switch. “Three…”
And now you can’t see Mayday, knowing what direction she ran in, and roughly where she had hid, so that you could rush back to her. You had to be quick.
You ran towards the secret exit, grabbing a loose pipe. You’d rather go out there with a weapon. Loud sounds reach your eardrums when you made it outside the room, but you continued to run.
You couldn’t slow, or take your time. You rushed past spiders, thankful none are noticing you. Just stay unnoticed—you keep repeating to yourself. You reached the middle of the mayhem. And god was it hectic.
You couldn’t let Peter see you. You couldn’t let Miguel see you. You couldn’t let any of them see you. It’s as if you never came here. You ran, skirting past broken tables and machines.
Everything felt hot, the fire still partially there. You held back a scream as a tumbling, fighting duo nearly barrelled into you—it managed to knock away your pipe, but you couldn’t stop to dwell. The switch, the switch, the switch.
You slid to your knees, rushing under a table. You’ve almost gotten punched, and you’re sure a cut is bleeding. But you run, you can now see the switch, and also your friends. They look terrible.
You grit your teeth moving quicker. You’re so close. And just as you think relief is near, a body hits you, knocking you down. You wince, looking up to see a masked man. He tilts his head, blood coating his entire claw along with his suit.
You shuffle back along the floor, trying to get to your feet. But his boot comes down onto your chest, making you wheeze. “Aren’t you that chick who got away?”
“Different chick.” You wheeze out, scrabbling to get his foot off you.
“Nah, I remember the poster they put up in the lab. Your face is recognisable.” He presses harder against your chest. Your hand scrambles to the side, against the dirty floor. Find something. Anything.
Your hand finally clasps around a loose peice of metal. You tighten your hold, the sharpness cutting your palm. You swing your arm across, stabbing it into the guy’s calf.
It goes in deep, resulting in him lessening his boots hold. You manage to roll away, swiftly getting to your feet. He goes to lunge for you again, but your arm shoots out in a punch, right across his face. He stumbles slightly back.
But you seem to be more hurt then him. “Mother fu—“ you hiss, holding your now bruised knuckles. “Shit…why did I do that?” You mutter to yourself.
But you try not to dwell on the pain as you run past him and the others, finally reaching the switch. One hand is bloody while the other is bruised and you’ve never felt more relieved. You push the switch, a small whirring sound reaching your ears.
Then suddenly you catch sight of all the spider-people’s spider-senses turning back on, practically animated. But your relieved smile drops as practically all the masked men shift there gaze to you. Shit.
With all the turned heads, you catch Hobie’s turn as well. His spider-sense now taking note of you. His eyes widen in a mix of confusion, worry and anger? Wow you’ve never really seen him angry before.
Miguel takes note of you now as well now, as you shift your gaze to him, pressing your lips together as you breathe through your nose. Miguel’s expression is downright terrifying. You watch as he snaps one the masked men’s necks as he moves towards you.
You gulp, noticing some of the masked men move to you as well. You swiftly grab the small switch machine, and begin to back out of the room, or at least try to.
And just as a claw reaches for your face, an orange web yanks you aside, nearly making you tumble, but a tight hand wraps around your upper arm. “What the fuck are doing here?” Miguel lowly hisses out.
“Miguel— I have to go.” Mayday. You had to get to Mayday.
“No, no you can’t just go anywhere. You were already practically an enemy to these guy, but oh now they want to kill you.” He says this while slicing his claws across one of the guys throats—having tilted his head back to display the guys bare neck.
“Miguel.” You hiss. “Let go. I have to go.” You rush these words out.
But Miguel didn’t want to let go. You were bleeding, bruised, and almost dead. “Why didn’t you stay put? Why didn’t you stay goddamn put?” He growls.
You’re breathing hard. You had to go, and you didn’t have the time to explain. So you do the best thing you can think of. “I’m sorry about this...”
Your hand had reached for something on the a table, a plate, another peice of metal, whatever it was you knock it across his face. Not to cut, or harm, just so that his grip would loosen around your arm.
And it does, leaving you room to run. And god did you run—fast. You skirted past fighting people, the spider variants finally knocking some of the masked men down, now that the switch was off.
You reached the secret entrance, rushing into the tech room. You kept the switch machine close to you as you rushed to Mayday’s hiding place. You tried to slow your breathing, not wanting to freak her out. You wiped your bloody hand on your pants, wincing as your cut rubs against the material.
You didn’t want to scare her.
You reach the small cupboard type thing, having to lift yourself up. She had clearly webbed herself towards it. But with you being taller than her you managed. You took a breath. Pretending that you had been playing the entire time.
“Oh, Mayday.” You sing songed quietly. “I wonder where you are?”
You neared the closed cupboard door, hearing a faint giggle. You sigh in relief at the fact that she’s still here. You whip the doors open and you hear a small squeak. You scoop her up.
“Found you.” You said softly, earning now huffing giggles from her. She was okay. She was okay.
But then your heart drops. You hear heavy scuffing boots enter the room. No. Please no. Without thinking you rush into the cupboard, shutting the door.
Mayday begins to babble on about something, but you put her head into your neck. “Shh.” You shakily whisper. “Shh.” You stroke her hair. She moves a little, but luckily she begins to relax in your arms.
You can hear the taunting boots near. And you hold your hand over your mouth, quieting your heavy breathing. Please stay quiet Mayday, please stay quiet—you think to yourself, holding her closer to you, as you slide to the floor of the cupboard. It only just fit you both.
Then the door is getting harshly pulled open and your eyes widen. No, no, no. But then just as the masked man comes into view, his body is getting harshly lifted, his feet raising as blood bleeds out from his stomach. Your eyes widen.
Then he falls to the side, revealing a heaving Miguel. Your head knocks back against the cupboard back wall, as you hold Mayday tighter to you. You couldn’t let her see. Any of the blood, you wouldn’t let her see.
Miguel meets your gaze, just as Hobie, Pav, Gwen, Miles and Peter rush to a stop beside him, all staring into the cupboard.
You begin to shakily stand, still holding onto Mayday for dear life. You were scared. Your adrenaline slowly disappearing.
Peter rushes forward taking Mayday from you. He notices there isn’t a scratch on her and Peter is beyond relieved. “Make sure she doesn’t…see.” You say, sounding somewhat out of it as you blink, so your eyes would stay open.
Then Hobie is slipping his arm around your midriff, supporting your legs, as you gulped down arising tears. You wouldn’t cry. Not in front of everyone.
“What the hell was that?” For once there is no joke in Hobie’s tone.
Your eyes a blurring, but you wanted to stay awake. You hated how much your body could exhaust. “You were supposed to stay up here.” Miguel is saying, his breathing still heavy.
You know that you arriving back to the tech room, alerted that now dead masked man of where you were.
For once Miguel doesn’t mind that Hobie is holding you. He’s helping you. And though Miguel would rather help you, his hands are covered in blood—Hobie having used his surroundings and web to mainly fight them, his hands being rather clean from the red.
You half heartedly chuckle. “You can just say thanks.” You meet his gaze, a small smile edging your lips.
“Are they…” You drift off, Gwen filling in.
“They left. They aren’t dead. Some of them are. But the others…left.” She says, making you nod.
“Thank god.” You mutter out, the pain finally feeling like it can catch up to you. “And fuck…” You slightly push off of Hobie, shaking your bruised hand. “When were any of you gonna tell me that punching someone really fuckin’ hurts.”
“Well, usually punching someone with a metal head tends to hurt.” Pav says, raising his brows slightly.
“Eh.” You chuckle, continuing to flex your hand.
;;
Miguel didn’t leave your side when you went to medical, you getting stitched, and mended.
“Don’t sleep in here.” He says, gazing around at practically every spider person. The medical was of course packed.
“But the fire reached my room—“
“Not mine.” Miguel says, already slipping his arms around your body—though he keeps his hands, for the majority, off of you. His hands were still covered in blood, though dry, meaning the blood wouldn’t taint you, he still couldn’t.
“That’s fine—“
“Shut up, and move.” Miguel wasn’t looking for your acceptance, taking you to his room.
;;
Once inside, he shuts the door, leading you to sit on his bed. As you did, he had slightly begun to pace the length of his room.
“What are you doing?” You ask, watching his stressful state. “Can you stop?”
He shifts his gaze to you, semi stopping. His body was still tense, his jaw clenched. “Sit.” You say, gesturing to the chair. You narrow your gaze until he obeys, moving the chair to face you, as he took a seat.
Glass still slightly littered the ground, the slight scratch marks on the chair staying easily visible.
You noticed for a moment that he couldn’t look at you. His gaze instead getting caught up with his wrist. You glanced down at it, noticing a thin…bracelet? It was covered in blood, and he had begin to fiddle with it, making your brows furrow.
“What’s that?” You ask. But he still doesn’t meet your gaze, clenching his hand into a fist.
“Nothing.” He says. But it wasn’t nothing of course. It was your bracelet, the one he had found in your rooms doorway, back in your universe when you had went missing.
“I didn’t know you were one to wear jewellery.” You speak light heartedly. But he barely reacts. “Miguel.” You say, sighing. “Can you at least look at me?”
And it’s the slight sadness in your voice that makes him. He looks up and you’re shocked to see a million different emotions swirling in his eyes.
“Why did you do that?” He asks, now not looking away from your eyes.
“What?”
“That.” He hisses lowly. “You were supposed to stay in the tech room.”
“Miguel you do realise that I couldn’t have just stood there and literally watched…right?” You ask, seeing his gaze flicker everywhere on your face. “I saw something important, and thought i should help.”
“But you shouldn’t have.” He says.
“Yes, I should have…” You stand up now. Miguel moves to stand also, but you hold your hand out, making sure he stayed seated. “I want to help Miguel. I want to be of help.”
“Yeah, well you being of help nearly got you killed.” He snarls.
“Exactly the same as all of you.” You say, stepping closer to his seated self. “You guys go through so much dangerous stuff all the time. And finally when I can actually help you hate me for it.”
“Because you’re—“
“A weak human, yeah I got it. But I wanted to help. And It worked…none of you guys are dead!” You exclaim, breathing heavy.
Miguel stares up at you, his breathing close to matching yours.
“That is all I’ve ever wanted to do, Miguel.” You say. “Help.”
“You almost died out there.” His voice had begun to soften.
“And so did you!” Yours hasn’t yet, though.
He couldn’t resist. Slipping his hand under your thigh he pulled you towards him, making your body tumble. He caught you by a second grip on your other thigh, making sure you landed in a straddle over his lap. His legs were still a fraction spread, which made yours naturally spread further around him. This satisfied Miguel’s want to keep those legs spread. Wide and open for him.
He pulled you even closer, your body sliding along his thighs, right up against him. Your heart was beating like a drum in your ears. You couldn’t think. You couldn’t speak. All you could do was breathe and stare. Stare at Miguel’s piercing red eyes that now practically told you everything he hadn’t voiced yet.
Miguel stared at you, his eyes seeming to hood over on their own. You were yet again, so close. He could taste your breath. And he wanted to. God did he want to.
He’s sure it would taste so sweet. You would taste so fucking sweet. His clawed hands stayed wrapped around your thighs, as he began to lean in, his eyes focused on your freshly wet lips, your nervous habit. You were nervous. He met your gaze once more, before darting his eyes down again. He couldn’t stop leaning in.
Your heart has stopped, having been beating rapidly in your ears. You want to gulp down your nervousness but Miguel is now so close to your neck.
His warm breath fans over your skin as his mouth opens a fraction. His hands ran up your body, to grip around your waist. Then he leaned in, his lips attaching to the side of your neck. You heard him hum, the vibrations sending shivers up your spine.
His hands begun to slip under your shirt, the feel of your bare skin making him go practically insane. He couldn’t believe it. He began to slowly litter small kisses—at first—his breathing growing heavier and heavier.
Your chest was heaving as he pulled you tighter to him, his lips now pressing harder against your skin. When they turned open-mouthed you could feel the drag of his fangs, his tongue coming down to soothe forming bruises.
Your head had begun to roll back, your hands tightly gripped onto Miguel’s shoulders. “I couldn’t let you die, cariño.” He whisper-groaned into your neck. His panting breath only occasionally felt, because he couldn’t back away from your skin.
His kisses began to lead up to your jaw. You were flushed, your body hot, everywhere. “Miguel—“ you breathe out.
“Shh, I just wanna…I just…” but he couldn’t even finish the sentence as he reached to hover over your lips. His hand slipped to the back of your neck, his claws embedding themselves into your hair, as his other hand tightened a fraction around your waist.
Now you’re breathing hard, your eyes slightly glazed over, your mind utterly dazed as you stared at Miguel. “I just want to…”
You gulp. “Want to what?” You quietly asked, your own eyes flickering to his lips.
“I— carajo.” Was the last word he managed before his lips found yours, your head knocking back. Miguel wrapped his lips around your bottom, breathy groans easily escaping him, as he pulled you impossibly closer. His heart was beating on overdrive, nearly at a concerning tempo as he lapped at your mouth.
And god did you taste sweet. So fucking sweet. And he gets to feel you—have you. He doesn’t have a care in the world as long as you stayed this close. Right against him letting him keep you this close. Your tongue dragged across his bottom lip, soon finding his tongue. His head moved to push further against yours, as he swirled his tongue around your mouth.
Then your body slightly jolts. His hand that was gripping your waist had tightened to a point that his claws had cut you a fraction. Miguel immediately let your waist go, realising that his body’s reaction—tightening around you, was to make sure you wouldn’t leave. “I’m—“
But you’re cutting him off with another kiss, slightly raising on your knees, so that his head had to tilt up to stay kissing you. His hands slipped to wrap around your raised thighs. “Tell me you weren’t gonna apologise.” You spoke to his lips, leaning away a fraction.
But Miguel eagerly chased your mouth, managing to pull your head back down, with a swift grip to your hair. “Miguel—“
He shook his head, his lips brushing against yours. “If I say no, will you keep kissing me?” He tilted his head, lips still lightly brushing yours, as his tongue came out to lick your top lip. “Mm?”
“Yea—“ but Miguel cuts you off, kissing you hard as one of his hands stoked up and down your thigh. “Then I’m not sorry at all.” He muttered between kisses. He was addicted. That’s the simplest way to put it. Utterly addicted. “Dios…I’m not sorry.”
Your hands slipped around his neck, beginning to play with the ends of his brown hair, your fingers soon sinking to softly grip the strands. A breathy moan escapes Miguel’s lips at the feeling of your fingers, his mouth opening against your own. A small forming smile edged your lips at the reaction.
“Shut up.” He whispered, smashing his lips back to yours. His kisses had grown even more heated—if possible—spreading across your cheek, his nose brushing against your hair. “Dios, y/n, can I touch you…mm por favor…?” He asks, trying to pull your thighs back down onto him.
But you held your own, staying just out of reach—legs either side of him on the chair. When Miguel would much rather you pressed against him. Of course he was hard, aching almost painfully. “Y/n.” He lowly growled out.
You grabbed his chin, lifting his head up, as you teasingly pecked his lips. “I’ve never seen you beg, give me a moment to enjoy it.”
Miguel clenched his jaw as he harshly pulled your thighs further apart, making you gasp, landing right on top of him. He moved his hands to your hips, keeping you still, as his head slightly leant back at the feeling. “Mm…that’s it…” He whispered out.
You could feel his bulge right under you, making your core ache. Now you felt hot. And as you looked at a breathless Miguel, his chest heaving mismatched you couldn’t help but begin to slightly move your hips.
Miguel’s breathing hitches, his hands gripping your waist. “Y/n…”
“Shh.” You partially mocked, earning a small growl from Miguel. “Didn’t you say I had to do anything for you?” You moved your hips along him, grinding torturously. “This seems like it would certainly help.” Your tone is breathy, as your hips movements sends jolts through you both.
“For a…mission.” Miguel remembers the start of the deal—the conversation—correcting you, through heavy breaths. God, what were you doing…keep doing it.
“Which loosely means for you.” You copy his previous words.
His head slightly falls back. “Mierda, cariño…”
You go to place your hands on his chest, when his head comes back up, his grip slipping from your waist to your hips and managing to stop you. He leans towards your ear. “But do you really think I’m gonna let you grind on me like that? Make me pathetically reach my high with clothes…still on?”
Your breathing hitches. His hand reaches up your shirt again, but pauses by the side of your waist. Then before you know it, Miguel’s holding your thighs—wrapped around him—as he stands. You quickly wrap your hands around his neck thinking you would fall.
Miguel chuckles at the reaction, instead, effortlessly walking with you towards his bed. He leans forward, resting you down as his hands came to cage you in. You’re resting on your elbows, pushing a little higher up. Miguel leans even more forward, so that you’re forced to lean back with him.
“Lie back…eso es (that’s it)…that’s ma’ girl.” Miguel breathes, as your head rests back against his sheets. My girl. His girl. All of Miguel’s previous loud voices, the ones that had quietened when you hugged him have become one. Repeating the words—my girl, my girl, my girl.
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my god, that was a trip. and finallyyyy! AHHH — I hope this is what you guys expected and hope you all liked it
I promise promise promise, I will carry on this smut on the next part <33 it was just getting so long—I couldn’t stop writing (I’m sorry guys I gotta keep eedging ya)
plus since it’s the last part (part 9) next, everything will be concluded, and all mysteries solved! coz that’s just plain cruel if I utterly leave you guys hanging
taglist: @dangerousdreamkitty @ale-maral @inosukesweirdwife @flooftoof @cynicallyaestetic @silassinclair @mariiyoushi @ilovedilfjake @toastlover21 @wlellsl @k1rbbo @bitchotine @guacam011y @blnk338 @wolfiepirate @kurxxmi @corpsebridenightamare @ohantonia @yunonaneko @irenered-20 @z3r0art @sunflowercandie @perilous-pasta @gloriouskryptonitecrown @whyamistillhere78 @ritzzzsblog @mm1sta @tealcoloured-murder @aweebsimp101 @livelaughlaurv @s0dium @roguepancake @sunshiines-stuff @internal-soundtrack @oscarisdaddy69 @clairacassidy @captainquake42 @nanaloverz @ilyless @sindulgent666 @shine101 @thebadasssass @hibeejibees @nirishin @ily2lia @lillunna @cinnamoncattie @futuristicpandakid @maroonobserver @thatsopanu @edgyficuselastica @kittekat420 @stararctic @maxi-ride @renn-pumkin-head @scaraza @justanotherkpopstanlol @fauxizs @cloudsandrenoswife @ilmovor @larissa-lolll @elliemm @httpkiyoomi @j2warren @arquiiva @ilovemiguelohara @a-monster-can-filled-with-cum @fandom-gal44 @elwyn7 @albiebright
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surftrips · 3 months
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BAD REPUTATION | LUKE CASTELLAN
BIG REPUTATION — CHAPTER 01
pairing luke castellan x fem!ares!reader
summary upon her arrival at camp half-blood, y/n quickly captures the attention of the gods and the heart of a certain brunette-haired boy.
author's note so excited to make this an official series! please let me know if you would like to be added to my taglist for bad reputation and other works featuring luke. this is going to be a mix of social media posts / short fics.
→ installment of this au read for context
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As a child of Ares, you were stubborn, short-tempered, and walked around camp with a permanent angry resting face. At the same time, you were known to be loyal, protective, and funny. If being funny was the same thing as being sarcastic.  
The younger campers were scared of you, the older ones around your age respected you, but everyone admired you in some way or another. If not for your excellent fighting skills, you had a demeanor that not even the gods above could ignore. The way you carried yourself was captivating, so much so that your father had claimed you within the first week of your arrival at camp, and ever since then, you had proven your worth to anyone that watched. 
Perhaps one camper kept the closest eye on you, the curly-haired brunette boy did not believe in love, let alone love at first sight— not until he saw you. You and him had arrived at camp around the same time, but your paths did not cross until a Capture the Flag game weeks later, when you both happened to be on the same team. 
Word had already gotten around about your talent with the spear. Clarisse had introduced the weapon to you, and you had caught on quickly. You were in the middle of fighting off multiple campers on the other team when Luke appeared beside you. 
“Need a little help?” he asked.
“Nope, I got it under control.”  
“Are you sure?” 
Even though you were strong, it was still three against one. 
You relented, “Fine.” 
Luke chuckled, hopping in with his sword. You couldn’t help but admire him out of the corner of your eye, and you were glad that your helmet hid the expression on your face. 
You had gone on to win that game and many others alongside each other, in an unspoken allyship. In time, both of your reputations had begun to precede you. 
Each week, campers awaited to hear if they would be playing on the same team as you and Luke, and each week, they would be disappointed to hear otherwise. But your fighting skills were not the only topic of conversation, it was becoming abundantly obvious that a certain boy had fallen for you. 
“Dude, what’s going on with you and Y/N?” Percy asked Luke over dinner one night. 
“What do you mean?” Luke responded, still chewing on his food.
“Come on, you’re not exactly being stealthy about it.” 
Luke laughed, “Yeah, alright, you got me.”
“So you do like her!”
“What? No, who said that?”
“You literally just admitted it.”
“I said, ‘you got me.’”
“Exactly, I figured it out. You have feelings for her,” Percy declared.
You happened to walk over at that moment, interrupting them. “Feelings for who?” 
Luke coughed, allowing Percy to respond for him. “Uh, uhm… no one!”
“Percy, I literally heard you.” Even though he was one of the younger campers that you were close with, the blonde boy still found himself scared of you on occasions such as this one when you were staring at him dead in the eye. 
“Sorry, Luke, you’re on your own for this one,” Percy blurted out before running away.
You turned towards Luke, who had since finished recovering from his coughing. He was nervously smiling at you, some color had slightly rushed into his cheeks. 
“So, who’s the lucky girl?” you asked, smirking at him. 
“Oh, you don’t know her,” he said, shaking his head. 
“Are you sure? I feel like I know pretty much everyone here.” 
“She…. uh… doesn’t go here.” 
You couldn’t help but let out a suppressed laugh. “She doesn’t go here,” you repeated.  
“Nope! I’m gonna go get some dessert.” With that, he left you alone at the table, quietly laughing to yourself. 
You weren’t totally oblivious, you knew that you must have come up in conversation for the two boys to have behaved that way. However, you were content to see how far this would go, and how much teasing you could get away with before Luke got the courage to do anything about it.
Besides, you had a reputation to keep up, and being soft all of a sudden was not part of the plan. 
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steddiejudas · 4 months
Text
STWG Daily Drabble 11/29/23
prompt: modern au
Eddie is harshly woken by his phone ringing at— JESUS christ, 4:30 AM.
The number isn’t saved in his contacts, and normally he would just let it ring or hang up the call so he could go back to sleep, but his brain is a little fried so early in the morning so he answers it like a reflex.
“Hello?” he asks. He can hear the sleep in his own voice and hopes to god this call isn’t something important that his slow, rough voice will make him look bad for.
“Robin!!”
A very loud, very drunk voice screams the name Eddie doesn’t recognize into the line. He lacks the wherewithal to really sus out what’s happening, so he summons every ounce of intelligence to the best of his ability to mutter: “huh?”
“Robbie I’m so drunk and my phone died. The bartender let me use his to call you. come pick me up.”
The guy is whining directly into Eddie’s ear. it should be annoying, should be grating to his sleep-addled brain, but he can’t help but think he sounds cute.
“Uh, hey man, this isn’t Robin. I think you got the wrong number,” Eddie says.
The guy on the other end of the line goes silent, and Eddie imagines he’s pouting over there, probably too drunk to remember he needs to speak into the phone.
“Hey,” he says. “You okay? Are you going to be able to call this Robin person?”
“I did,” the guy whines again. “You’re not Robin.”
“No, I definitely am not. I’m Eddie. And who are you?”
“I’m Steve. Will you please come pick me up?”
He considers this, chuckling lightly to himself. This Steve sure is trusting. Eddie could be a murderer just waiting for a cute boy like Steve to call him up, and he says as much, but apparently all Steve hears is:
“You think I'm cute? Wait, how can you tell? Are you in the walls or something?”
Is he in the walls? Jesus this guy really is ass blasted, huh. And Eddie can’t leave a fellow bad late night decision maker to fend for himself, can he?
“You sound cute enough sweetheart. sit tight, I'll be there in 15 minutes.”
“mmkay!” Steve sounds purely elated to have Eddie on the way, and hangs up before he has the chance to confirm where he is. It’s no matter really, there’s only one bar in the area that’s open this late, and it seems the bartender picked up on that lacking piece of information as his phone pings with a location pin a minute later.
It’s one of Eddie’s usual haunts so he gets there in 10, familiar with the route and aided by the complete lack of traffic at this hour.
He wonders if in the last 10 minutes Steve has forgotten all about him. He is just a stranger he drunk dialed after all, and Steve’s so far gone his short term memory must be nothing at this point.
But when he pulls up and enters the building, he sees the most beautiful face he’s ever seen alone at the bar. He hopes to any god that will listen that Steve at least remembers his enthusiasm about getting home so he can see the way that elation shows on his handsome features. The bartender who’s been babysitting, and appears to be forcing him to drink water, points to the door and Steve turns around, his face alighting with all the brilliance of precious gemstones.
“Eddie!” He shouts, throwing himself off the stool to stumble over to him. He nearly falls to the ground, but Eddie is there to hold him up.
Their faces are inches apart, and Eddie can’t help but notice the way his drunkenness flushes his cheeks, giving the scattering of moles across his cheeks a beautiful backdrop.
“Hey pretty boy. Let’s get you home, okay? Where do you live?”
“With Robin,” Steve says, his face betraying the fact that he really thinks that’s the answer Eddie needs.
“Mhm,” Eddie patiently hums. “And where does Robin live?”
“With me, silly.”
“Oh boy, you’re really out of it. Why don’t I take you back to my place, get some food in you, charge up your phone, and we’ll go from there.”
“Is food the only thing I'll get in me?” Steve asks, pressing in closer to Eddie’s grasp.
It startles a laugh out of him. One that starts deep in his chest and rolls through his body, throwing his head back and shaking his shoulders.
“Steve, you barely know me. You’re just lucky I happen to be a very nice, very respectful guy, who is going to
feed you and nothing. else.”
Steve pouts a little as Eddie puts an arm around his waist and pulls him out to the car, loading him in the passenger seat and buckling him in.
It seems Steve has zoned out on the ride, either lulled by the movements or, god forbid, incredibly carsick. Either way he sits in silence with his face pressed against the cool glass while Eddie lets him be alone with his thoughts for the short drive home.
Getting up the stairs to Eddie’s apartment is a challenge. It’s like Steve is doing his absolute best to go ass over tea kettle down them. Eddie braces himself behind him, hands on his waist to keep him steady, trying his absolute darndest to ignore the lines of hard muscle under his sweater.
Now is NOT the time.
They make it inside with little incident, Eddie plopping Steve down on the couch to disappear into the kitchen after fishing Steve’s phone out of his pocket and plugging it in next to him.
“So, I’m not much of a cook,” Eddie hollers. “But how do you feel about grilled cheese?”
No answer comes.
“Steve?”
Nothing.
Eddie peeks out of the kitchen to find a snoring Steve, sprawled out on the couch like a starfish. Somehow he’s even cuter like this. It brings a fond smile to Eddie’s face as he covers him in a blanket, tucks a pillow under his head and leaves a trash can by his side just in case.
It’s almost 5:30 now, and the exhaustion hits him all at once. Eddie gives the man sawing logs on his couch one last once over before going back to his own bed and crashing, hoping for at least another hour or two of sleep.
When he wakes, it’s with an unexpected sense of excitement, expecting Steve to be on his couch ready to have a coherent conversation and a real introduction, but when he makes his way out to the living room, Steve is gone, his pillow stacked on top of the neatly folded blanket.
He shouldn’t be sad about this. Steve is, after all, just a stranger who was drunk and couldn’t even remember his own address. He was probably embarrassed, confused, hell maybe even scared to be waking up in a stranger’s house with vague memories of how he got there. He tries to focus on that aspect of the situation, rather than his own disappointment. He does not succeed.
Eddie sits down on the couch, in the very same spot Steve laid his head the night before and wraps himself up in the blanket. He buries his face in it, inhaling the faint scent Steve left on it and wonders why he even cares. It wasn’t as if they had some big whirlwind romance in the span of the hour they were together; but Steve was so sweet, so cute, so excited to see him after speaking on the phone for just a couple minutes. It wasn’t anything more than a random act of kindness, but maybe Eddie wanted it to be.
It’s as Eddie is thinking it over that his phone pings with a message. Eddie groans, it’s probably just Gareth, or maybe the bartender from last night checking that everyone is safe. Though even that is wishful thinking. He checks anyway, trying his best to tamp down any wishful thinking until he sees the unknown number on his screen with one simple word.
[463-291-8275]: Thanks.
Eddie feels a lump in his throat, his chest filling up like a balloon. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, doesn’t even know if it is Steve, but shit he fucking hopes so.
[Eddie]: Steve? How did you get my number again?
[463-291-8275]: Uhhh… i definitely didn’t try like 10 variations of Robin’s phone number to find the one number i mistyped when i accidentally called you last night
Eddie frantically adds the number to his contacts before texting back, thanking whatever powers that be for giving him another shot.
[Eddie]: Wow I must have left quite the impression on you Stevie 😏
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: you could say that
Eddie smirks to himself, trying to ignore the blush that warms his face at Steve’s words. He tries to come up with what to say next, how to segue into asking him out on a date, but before he can, his phone buzzes with more messages from Steve.
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: so i know this might seem a little strange since we barely talked before i passed out in a drunk heap on your couch
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: thanks for not killing me btw
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: but um would you maybe want to hang out sometime?
Eddie jumps up from the couch, pumping his fist in the air like he just won the lottery. then, like he’s just remembering he lives alone, he yells at no one in particular: “FUCK! YES!” There’s an angry knock on the wall from his neighbor, but he doesn’t care in the slightest.
[Eddie]: idk about that Stevie
He goes to reply in his typical teasing fashion, but Steve’s reply comes in immediately before he can finish the thought.
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: oh
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: i totally get it
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: last night was probably weird for you
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: feel free to block my number i’m so sorry
[Eddie]: Woah, slow your roll there big boy!
[Eddie]: I said I'm not so sure about hanging out with you.
[Eddie]: But only because I’d rather take you out on a date
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: oh
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: Oh!
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: date! yes! date is good
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: i’d love to go on a date!
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: better even
[Drunk Steve 🥵]: i was fighting demons trying not to kiss you in the car last night
Eddie has to set his phone down so he doesn’t throw it to the ground and shatter it, opting instead to fist his hands in the pillow Steve used last night and shove it in his face to scream. He has to regain his composure before he texts back, doing his best to keep cool.
[Eddie]: A date it is then. Can’t wait sweetheart ❤️
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rogueddie · 6 months
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There are a lot of rumors about Eddie Munson. From his sexuality, to his religion, to him being some sort of supernatural creature.
Steve doesn’t put a lot of merit in most of them. They’re usually just bullshit people make up to entertain themselves with whilst beating down on the weird kid. Steve thinks it’s boring… usually.
He’s seen enough weird things happen around Munson to know that something isn’t right. Something about him is unnatural. And Steve is staying clear out of the way of whatever the hell he is, or whatever the hell he’s messing with.
Unfortunately, his friends haven’t gotten the message.
“Do it at your own house!” Steve complains, though he makes no move to stop them. He’s sure it’s nothing, that it’ll only lead to an annoying clean-up job, but there’s a nagging sense of dread writhing in his gut. “This shit is bull anyway.”
“If it’s bull then what’s the problem?” Tommy counters.
“Because none of you dickheads are going to help clean this shit up!”
“I promise to help you clean up,” Carol says. “There. Problem solved. Right?”
"It's still stupid," Steve mutters, glaring at the janky make-shift pentagram they've made. "And a bad idea."
It's drawn on nine pieces of paper- they wanted to draw it big on the floor, but Steve had but his foot down. He lets them use some of his moms candles as a compromise.
With the lights off, sitting with the two of them in a circle, it suddenly feels too real. Even Carol looks suddenly nervous.
Tommy is the only one still smirking, though Steve is sure that it's forced. His voice shakes a little as he begins reading off the paper he'd torn out a library book. His Latin is clunky.
At first, nothing happens.
Long enough that Carol says, "did you even say it right?"
"Yes, it even has-" Tommy starts.
The candles all blow out, suddenly. The light Steve had left on in the kitchen flicks off too, plunging them into complete darkness.
After a horrible moment, where they're still and silent, Carol yelps.
"Don't grab me, Tommy, that's not funny!"
"I didn't grab you."
"Wh- Steve?"
"No," is all Steve can get out.
"I'm turning the lights on," Tommy says. "This is ridiculous."
Steve listens to his footsteps and, when he sounds like he's almost at the light switch, he yelps.
"Fuck this," he says.
"What the fuck, Tommy!" Carol yells when they both hear him running past them. She's up on her feet immediately, chasing after him.
He wants to scream after them, plead with them to come back, that they shouldn't be abandoning the circle.
But, the same gut instinct that insists he stay where he is, keeps his mouth shut. Everything in his being is telling him that if he leaves, if he speaks first, horrible things will happen to him.
Something tuts, like a parent admonishing a child.
The living room light flicks on, so bright that Steve has to blink a few times to clear away the white spots.
Eddie Munson sits in the space they left empty.
"Someone didn't read the terms and conditions," he snickers.
"What..." Steve pauses, clearing his throat. "What are the, uh... terms and conditions?"
"Oh, they're simple, really. Look," he holds up the page Tommy had read the incantations from, pointing to the little paragraph at the end. "They even translated it to English! But all you need to know, big boy, is that you are A-OK."
"And... Tommy and Carol?"
"Eh, they're fine. Lucky, really. I'm trying to relax up here. I'm only gonna pay them back with a minor curse or two. Nothing lethal."
"Fuck."
"We haven't even got to you yet!" He spins around so hes laying on his belly, resting his chin on his palm. "You didn't technically summon me so you can just tell me to leave... or."
"Or?"
"Deal with no consequence, baby. One wish, whatever you want, free of charge. Well... I'd want your silence about the whole... summoning thing. Let's consider that payment."
He doesn't need his gut or book to warn him that it's a bad idea. Munson could be lying, easily. There could be fine print. It's a bad, very bad idea.
"There's... definitely no consequences? I won't, like, go to hell for this?" Steve finally asks.
"Do some charity work for a week, you'll be fine," he says, waving his hand around. "What do you want, King Steve?"
"Could- could you make someone love me?"
"Oh, ho ho ho! Who's the unlucky lady who said no to you?"
"No, it... it's not like that. I mean, um... my mom."
Munsons smile drops. The temperature drops with it, making a chill run up Steves spine.
"Your mom," he repeats.
"They're busy like, all the time," Steve automatically defends. "And they're barely here so, uh... of course they wouldn't- I mean, it's normal, right? You can't love a stranger or... whatever. It's fine. It's just... I don't know."
"Steve..." Munson pauses.
He groans, throwing his head into his hands, dramatically. He almost immediately flings his head back up, hair flying everywhere, giving Steve wide and pleading eyes.
"I can't make people fall in love or any shit like that. I can make illusions, that's it. Love is, like... way out of my jurisdiction."
"I- I'm ok with an illusion. Like, just one day or something."
"Steve, baby, you're breaking my heart."
"Please?"
"Jesus- ok!" Grumbling, Munson shifts so he's kneeling. "And in return, you won't say shit about any of this. Deal?"
"Deal."
"Great. Ugh. This next part is... weird."
"What do you mean, weird?"
"It's weird, I don't know. Deals about, like, love are sealed with a kiss."
"You're joking."
"Nope, and that's not even the weird part. Now, come on and pucker up, let's get this over with." He gestures for Steve to shuffle closer, waiting until they're sat close enough that their knees almost bump together. "You can still change your mind. Anything at all, Steve. Anything."
"I thought you wanted to get this over with?"
"On your head..."
Munson leans forward, kissing him. It's just a peck, simple and easy. No big deal, right?
Steve feels possessed. It's like someone lit a match in his stomach, leaving him lightheaded and confused. He's not sure how he ends up in Eddie's lap, clutching onto his shoulders, desperately trying to lick into his mouth. He feels so-
He wakes up in his bed, the morning light blinding him.
"What the fuck..." he mutters to himself, grabbing at his throbbing head.
At first, he thinks he's hungover. That he'd just had a weird dream... but he's wearing the same clothes. And, sat on his stomach, is a guitar pic. It's got 'corroded coffin' written on it too- Eddie's band.
"Steve!" He hears his mom call. "Time to get up!"
He scrambles out of bed, dashing down the stairs.
She smiles when she spots him, so bright and warm. She even raises an arm, laughing when he practically throws himself into her side and hugging her tight.
"Morning, sweetheart. Good dreams?"
"Yeah. Yeah, great. But, uh... I feel sick."
"Oh no," she frowns. She puts her hand to his forehead, cooing when she brushes his hair out his face. "Is it your stomach?"
"Yeah. Just... might be better to stay home today. If that's ok?"
"Of course it is. I'm sure we can find something fun to do together, yeah? How about we get a vhs movie, hm?"
"I'd love that."
"Great. Well, if you're feeling up to it, I've made breakfast." She steps away, plating the food she's cooked up. "Oh, did I ever tell you about Paris? It was beautiful, you would have loved it. We should bring you, next time we go."
Steve can't stop smiling. He's sure that his cheeks will be aching by the end of the day.
He'll have to thank Eddie- as soon as he can even think about him without blushing. He'll need to ask if it's normal to still feel... affected, even after the deal is done.
Part of him knows it isn't the deal. Part of him is too curious about how Eddie will react.
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natailiatulls07 · 5 months
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He doesn’t want any other nurse
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Charles Leclerc x female!nurse!reader
Summary - Charles has a habit of hurting himself so he visits the medical bay quite a lot which he doesn’t mind because his favourite nurse is there
Warning - Cuts, Crash, tripping over, medical centres, bruising
A/n - This was inspired by a character ai bot lmao
-
This was becoming a regular routine. And it’s not like no noticed, everyone noticed. Every other race, Charles would have to be taken to the medical centre in the paddock, why?
Because of her; one of the nurses who would travel around with the FIA as a nurse.
Like Zandvoort, Charles had crashed his SF-23 into the first corner.
“Charles, are you okay? Are you okay?” Xavier voiced through the radio, the race engineer could see Charles moving in his car.
“Yeah I’m good…I think I’ll go to medical just in case…” Surprisingly he sounded somewhat excited to be visiting medical, it was usually dreaded by the drivers.
So that’s what he did. He took himself all the way back to the paddock and through the paddock to medical. There’s was a small waiting room, Charles sat himself down excitedly.
One of the other nurses had come out to the waiting room. “Charles, I can see you now” she offered but he quickly turned her down.
“No thank you, um is Y/n here today?” The Monégasque asked eagerly. The nurse looked back through to the medical bay, and saw that Y/n was in fact treating someone who had fallen in the paddock.
“Uh she’s a bit busy at the moment…please I can help you” The nurse tried again to which Charles just shook his head again.
“I’ll wait…” His tone was blunt and straight to the point. The nurse just sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do to change his mind, before walking back into the medical bay.
-
I was just finishing up cleaning up a small cut on someone’s knee as they fell in the paddock. “There you go ma’am…take it easy on your feet” Smiling softly I walk the women out through the medical bay carefully.
I walk into the medical bay as one of the other nurse told me that a certain Ferrari driver was waiting on me and only me.
Knowing of his refusal of any other nurse here, I strike up a conversation with him “I heard you’ve been waiting for me”
His response is quick and almost impatient “Too long” I look him over and notice a few cuts but other than that he seems okay.
“Why?” I ask in defeat. The driver just stares me down.
“Because I wanted you…” Charles just picks at the skin around his cuts, going silent again.
“You do realise that there are more qualified nurses than me…right?”
Glancing away from his cuts up at me, Charles continues “Yes and I rejected them” He looks around the medical bay before meeting my eyes again. “Your qualifications don’t matter to me, I still want you”
As I treat his cuts, cleaning them up and putting some plasters on, I continue the conversation “I don’t understand…why me?”
He remains still allowing me to treat him correctly “Why not you?” Charles’ green eyes follow my hands as I work.
“Whatever you say…” Chucklibg softly before move to grab the plasters. After I finish fixing him up, I pat his shoulder “You’re all done…”
“Thank you” He mumbles before making his way to the media tent, feeling that bit more excited.
-
The two Ferrari drivers were in their teams hospitality filming a challenge video for the Ferrari YouTube channel. However, Carlos had accidentally tripped up Charles.
That’s how Charles ended up back in the medical bay waiting room, rejecting away any nurse until his favourite arrived in the waiting room. Y/n.
-
“Back again so soon Charles” I teased as I walked over to him, he was sat clutching his head.
Charles just offered me a tired smile. “Why are you so busy when I come in?” He asks with a grumble.
“Because…this is my job, I have to treat other people as well” I smile softly, laughing slightly. Reaching over, I inspect his head.
“What happened?” Asking him, I notice some bruising on his head just before the forehead.
“Carlos, le moromi, tripped me up” Laughing softly as Charles curses in his mother tongue. I move to the medical fridge, picking up a small ice pack wrapping it in a blue paper towel.
Holding to the bruising, I take one of his hand before putting it in place of mine. “Hold this here…” Once Charles is holding onto the ice pack, I take my clipboard “Do you feel dizzy, nauseous?”
Nodding his head, I start to worry before Charles speaks up “Only because of you…”
Crimson blush covers my cheeks, my face feeling flustered. “Okay Charles that’s not what I mean…I uh meant the bruising”
“Oh no but…can I ask you a question?” He looks up at me from his seat. I nod politely. “Are you single?”
Taken back, I am instantly taken back by his confidence. “Uh um yeah…being a nurse and travelling around the world with f1 is that ideal when it comes to relationships…” Once again chuckling quietly.
Despite his injury, Charles laughs along with me before speaking again “Can I ask you another question?”
Nodding my head again, I let me continue. “Are you busy tonight?”
My laughter continues with his questions. “No not really…I was probably order room service and then fall asleep to a chick flick…the usual” I blush at my obvious loneliness.
“That’s cute” My blush on deepens “Do you…um doyouwanttogoonadatewithme?…tonight” Charles just quickly mumbles, this makes it hard for me to hear his question.
“Pardon?” I ask politely and patiently.
The Monégasque breaths in hesitate before speak again, this time more slowly and clearly “Do you…want to go on a date with me?”
I just smile softly, yeah my blush is still there but I don’t care really. “Of course…”
“Oh perfect…I’ll pick you up around seven tonight” Charles is evidently more confident now that I agree to the date.
“I’ll see you then” Walking off to another patient, I feel his green eyes staring at me.
-
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lambertdiary · 5 months
Note
NSFW!! if i can make my request could you write somthing about mike and reader being in a relationship and she takes care of abby when he's working and one day he comes back sad and upset cuz he's been fired and she comforts him?? and yk i feel like he might be a little sub when it comes to doing it
A/N: Hey!! This is my first time writing for this lovely character, so please let me know what you think of this! Also thank you so much for your request, please keep them coming
Word Count: 2.5k+
Warnings: NSFW, smut, brief hand job, blowjob, sub!mike x dom!reader, praise kink, unprotected sex, FNAF movie spoilers
MASTERLIST     ✩    SEND ME A REQUEST
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After A Bad Day
Mike was driving back home from the mall, his hands gripping the wheel a little tighter than usual. He had just been fired from his job, again. He needed that job if he wanted to keep custody of his sister, he needed to look good on paper since he didn’t think a judge would want Abby to live with his unemployed brother. 
The incident that caused him his job was something he wasn’t proud of, but if he was being completely honest it wasn’t even his fault, he was just doing what he thought was right, but his boss did not like that explanation.
He got out of the car as he held his belongings, taking a deep breath as he opened the front door. There was only one thing worse than getting fired, and that was having to tell his girlfriend about it.
“Hey” She greeted him as soon as he walked through the door.
“Hi” He greeted her back, but walked straight to the kitchen counter to drop off the stuff he was holding. It had been a long day and he didn’t wanna have to face her after losing his job, not yet.
“How was your day?” “It was good” He simply said, his short response giving her a heads up that something was off “Yours?”
“Really good actually, I managed to bond with Abby a little better during dinner. I think I’m in one of her drawings but she won’t tell me”
“I can imagine”
She left the couch and tried to approach him without coming off too strong, if something was off then she didn’t want to overwhelm him, so she stopped when she was close enough “I made spaghetti if you’re hungry”
“Thanks. Where’s Abby?”
“She went to her room a while ago, I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping now”
“Did she eat her dinner?”
“I tried my best but you know her”
“Yeah” He turned around to face her, revealing his injured fists.
“What happened to you? Are you okay?” Y/N approached him completely, her hands going straight to his.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just gonna go take a shower” He freed himself from her grip as he started to make his way to his bathroom.
“Mike…” She stopped him, her glance asking for an explanation when he turned to meet her gaze.
“It was stupid, don’t worry about it”
“What happened?”
Mike stayed silent for a moment, struggling to spit the words out “I uh- I got fired”
“Oh my god Mike, I’m sorry” She could see the disappointment in his face. She knew it was hard for him and she wanted to help, but sometimes he would lock himself up and not let her in “What happened?”
“It was a misunderstanding”
“How?” He simply shook his head, his eyes falling to the ground “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter… Look, we can talk about it later, okay? I just need to get my mind off things and take a shower”
She nodded and slowly closed the distance between their bodies, her arms going around his neck “Why don’t you get the shower started while I check on Abby? And I can join you if you want” Her words lingered in the air for a moment as Mike gathered his thoughts. There was a lot going on in his mind. Getting fired, having to look for a new job, the possibility of losing custody of his sister, but it all faded slowly when he was with her “Still there?” She asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“So you’re not mad at me? You wanna join me in the shower?” 
“Of course I’m not mad at you, and I think that you need to relax. You’re right, get your mind off things and we can talk about it later” She guided him to the couch, sitting next to him as one of her hands fell on his knee, tracing small circles on it “Does that sound good?”
“Y- yeah”
“Are you having a stressful day, baby?” He nodded softly, his tongue wetting his lips quickly “You know, I can help with that” Her hand started to rise up his leg, getting closer and closer to his crotch area.
He swallowed hard as he watched her hand, his trousers getting tighter by the second. She was taking her sweet time, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth as her amusement grew watching him get desperate for contact.
She fell to her knees in front of him, her hands spreading his legs to make enough space for her between them “Wanna get rid of these?” She asked, tugging at his bottoms and he just nodded.
He watched and he patiently waited. She imagined him enjoying the tension of anticipation as she hooked her fingers around the sides of his trousers and slowly, slowly, agonisingly slowly worked them down his legs until they pooled around his ankles. She decided to tease him a bit longer, so she admired his cock covered only by the thick black cotton of his boxers that was just a few centimetres away from her face. She dragged her palm over the lump and watched his eyes widen. He breathed a sigh at the contact, the pressure in his stomach releasing just the smallest bit at the relief. She didn’t break eye contact once, she loved to see the effect she had on him.
After just a moment, her hand slid under the waistband of his boxers, her cold hands against his hot skin caused a hiss to leave his mouth as she curled her fingers around his thickness. She laid her cheek on his thigh, watching each pass of her own hand over his cock.
“Do you want me to take you?” She asked him, expecting an obvious answer from him, but she repeated her question when she didn’t hear a single word fall from his mouth “Mhm, do you?”
“Yes, please” He replied in a desperate tone.
A smile appeared on her face. She sat up straight and positioned herself better between his legs, her mouth slowly approaching his cock as he completely got rid of his pants and boxers. She took the base and her fingers barely connected around his cock, a sight that made him moan on his own.
He was looking down at her with his eyes begging for more, his breath staining when he felt the spit she had collected in her mouth go down his cock. She pressed her soft lips against his head, opening her mouth a little wider when she started to slide down his prick. 
A choked moan left his throat at the feeling. She stopped immediately and looked up at him “You have to be quiet, we don’t wanna wake Abby up, do we?” He shook his head, his mouth slightly open “Good boy”
She went back and took him again, hollowing her cheeks around him and her head bobbing painfully slowly. She repeated the motions a few more times but never fully pulled back, and he could feel her warm tongue at different spots and his cum glossing over her lips.
The entire time he was trying his best to stay quiet, he knew he had to, but he couldn’t help himself with how good she was making him feel. He let out a soft moan as her head continued to pump his base to meet with her lips, and as her pace began to quicken the more desperate he was getting for a release. 
It was taking everything in him to keep it together right now, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment to try and calm his urges. He let out a long breath, he needed more but he knew he had to be patient, but a particularly good suck made him involuntarily buck his hips up a bit. His eyes shot open as her hand lightly smacked the side of his thigh, warning him.
“Sorry, sorry, I- I’m sorry”
She continued to take him, and he was repeating in his mind he had to be more careful, but it was hard with the sight of his cock disappearing between her lips and her spit coating in his cock.
He was thankful when she started to go faster and deeper, she was sucking and licking repeatedly, her tongue tracing the vein along his cock as the weight laid heavy in her mouth. The pressure in his stomach was tightening with each pass of her mouth, letting both of them know he was close. He almost begged her to keep going, but the words ‘Don’t stop’ got stuck in his throat and a soft whimper replaced them. She had done that before, taking away the pleasure just moments before his release, but she wasn’t planning on doing that today, not when he was already having a hard day.
One of fists was taking a handful of the couch and the other was placed over his thigh, his nails digging his skin every time he felt his tip brush the back of her throat. The feeling of her spit drooling down onto his balls was what pushed him over the edge, and there was nothing he could do about it but cum.
“Oh fuck, I’m cumming” He moaned as quiet as he could. 
Her thumb circling his hand gave him the permission he was waiting for. It only took a couple more passes of her soft lips before he was shooting his release down her throat, his eyes screwing shut as he tried hard to keep every sound as low as possible.
She was working him through his orgasm, licking and swallowing every single drop of cum he was giving her. Once she took all of it, she pulled back, the smallest lick of her pink tongue rolling over his head to collect the last drop of release that was still there and a thin line of spit and cum was connecting his cock and her lips before breaking and falling over her chin.
Her gaze was glassy, her lips swollen and her hair a bit of a mess, but he swore that it was the most beautiful sight he had ever laid eyes on.
“Do you feel better, baby?” Her voice was as soft and innocent as ever, only adding to the filthy scene.
He swallowed hard before answering “Yes” 
“Good. Are you gonna join me in the shower then?”
He watched her as she got up and made her way to the bathroom, his eyes following her. He wanted to get up and run to the bathroom, but he was still recovering from his orgasm.
“Mike” She whispered when she made it there, waiting for him to follow her “I’ll be waiting for you”
She entered completely and Mike heard the water running so he immediately got up, bursted into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. She smiled when she saw him, the bottom part of his outfit still gone.
Y/N let her sweats fall to the floor, her top joining shortly after. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath and she could almost hear him willing her to turn around to let him see more than just her naked back.
He decided to get rid of the rest of his clothes when she stepped into the shower. He joined her and he secretly admired her naked body. 
She finally turned around, giving him a full view of her front, and her lips found his right away, he could taste the traces of his cum still on her lips. His hands travelled up and down her back as her hands landed on his hair. She lightly pulled his head back to give her more neck space, kissing and softly biting down his neck.
With the water muffling any sounds, he allowed himself to let out a moan slip past his lips “It’s my turn to come, yeah?” She whispered as her hand went down his body, finding his hardening cock.
He nodded frantically as his hips betrayed him again with a buck against her hand, but she let it slide this time. He rolled his head back to feel the water run down his face, taking a deep breath before grabbing her hips and lifting her up, holding her with her back against the wall. 
They started kissing again, this time more desperate for each other, but especially Y/N who had been getting uncomfortably and painfully wet between her legs the moment she went down on him. Her front was pressed against his and she could feel his hard pressing against her tummy.
“Go on baby, I want you inside me” His response was a low grunt, so he positioned himself and slid his aching cock inside her, slowly moving in and out until she asked for more. He was going deeper with each thrust, and her eyes began welling up with tears at the complete ecstasy coursing through her veins. He went even deeper, hitting her special spot just right. Her walls began to tighten around every inch of him as his brows furrowed in pleasure.
“Faster” She whimpered and he happily obliged.
He quickly picked up a faster pace, her breathing becoming stained at the motions as her nails scratched down his back.
“Play with my clit baby, I know you can handle it” Her words made him moan but he did as she said. He positioned his left arm better to be able to hold her with it alone while his right hand found her clit between their bodies, the immediate feeling of pressure making her head fuzzy.
He motioned slightly faster, this time making small circles around it. The pressure had her crumbling against him almost instantly, as soon as he felt her legs begin to shake against him he started to thrust deeper into her. 
By the way her eyes squeezed shut he knew she was close, and so was he, but he had to wait a little longer this time. Finally, that familiar feeling was coming closer and closer, the edge of her climax making her walls tighten around him and her mouth hanging open as moans of his pretty name fell repeatedly from her lips.
“You’re doing so good, baby” She breathed, the praise making him go deeper “Just a little more, I’m almost there”
Just a few seconds after that, the knot in the pit of her stomach became tighter and tighter, her soft moans flowing out of her mouth even more as the pressure sent her into complete bliss. Her entire body twitched against his, her head rolled back in pleasure. 
His second orgasm followed shortly after, this time his cum staining her walls as his thrust became sloppy. He fucked himself through his overwhelming orgasm, prolonging hers.
When they were both done, he let her down gently, pinning her against the wall with one arm above her shoulder and his head pressed against the wall as he looked down at her body. 
“Good job” She whispered into his ear.
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ahundredtimesover · 2 months
Text
I Want You to Stay (06) | JJK
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Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader
Genre/Tags: boss!JK x assistant!reader; idiot strangers to lovers; slow slow burn; k-drama feels; angst, drama, fluff, smut
Chapter (Series) Warnings: foul/explicit language; alcohol consumption & passing out, unhealthy coping mechanisms; family drama; minor injuries; power dynamics (JK starts off as a jerk); work-related anxiety, feelings of helplessness, insecurities; childhood traumatic experiences, nightmares; sexual harassment, prior incidence of domestic violence (PLS PLS BE CAREFUL WHEN READING); arts and business/property devt talk that’s probably inaccurate; commitment issues & emotionally constipated characters; cold and detached JK; eventual explicit sexual content (specific warnings stated per chapter) (18+)
Chapter Word count: 14.6k
Series Masterlist
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Status: Ongoing
Series summary: Working for Jungkook isn’t the same as working for Hoseok. For starters, Jungkook doesn’t smile, he doesn’t appreciate you, and he gives you too much work. It doesn’t help that he’s incredibly handsome and has women at his beck and call. But as the tension grows, it becomes impossible to resist him. You’ve dedicated yourself to your job for 8 years so when you finally decide to put yourself first, he asks you to reconsider. And while you know that leaving is difficult, you learn that when it comes to Jungkook, staying is always so much harder.
Playlist 🎶: on the way home
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A/N: We're slowly heading somewhere! Still slow but it's something hehe thank you again for appreciating this piece! 🥰 Also... JK in that Vogue outfit with a corsage. YEP.
And as always, my biggest thanks to @wonwoonlight  🥰
PS. If I can’t tag you, pls fix your settings!
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The silence that engulfs Jungkook’s apartment once you enter the following Monday is quite unnerving, as it brings back memories of the last time this happened and a half-naked woman came out of the bedroom and questioned who you were. The gym is empty. There’s no other sound of someone typing away or talking on the phone like the few times that you found Jungkook working before you even arrived.
You take a deep breath and decide to just face whoever comes out of these doors until one of them opens and out comes the man himself - alone - dressed in an oversized jumper and sweatpants. He looks like he just got out of bed with his semi-mussed hair - with a little sprout bouncing along as he moves - and groggy eyes, which widen once it registers that you’re here.
“Mr. Jeon,” you bow in greeting. “Are you feeling better?”
“A little,” he replies, his deep and gruff voice startling you a little. “What do you have there?”
He gestures towards the paper bag you’re holding, and you remember what you decided to bring over.
“Uh, chicken noodle soup,” you mutter, somehow suddenly shy. “Just an option for this morning. I wasn’t sure if you were still feeling under the weather.”
“I think I’m just fatigued,” he says. “But uh, I can have that.”
“Yes, sir,” you nod, putting it in a pot to eventually heat. 
You prepare his suits for the week then prepare his breakfast, pouring yourself a small serving as well. He takes his seat and starts eating, and you glance at him to see his reaction.
“Where did you get the one from last Saturday?” He asks, his face expressionless.
“From a store nearby,” you answer. “I was heading somewhere and your building was on the way.”
“This tastes better. Where did you get this from?” 
“I, uh, I made it,” you say softly, feeling a bit of pride that it’s something he complimented. 
There’s prolonged silence that you’re suddenly nervous about. His eyes remain focused straight ahead while yours constantly flit towards him, partly to gauge if he’ll start talking about last week’s meeting and partly to see his reaction about your dish.
“You don’t have to send or make me food, Ms. Cho,” he finally says, wishing he’d said it with a bit more warmth. 
But he’s not used to speaking that way, so it comes off as displeasure, as if he doesn’t appreciate what you’d done even if that’s exactly how he feels. He’s grateful; he just doesn’t want another reason to think that you actually care about him. 
“My health is my responsibility, not yours,” he adds.
“I, uh… I suppose that’s true,” you say even more softly. “I just thought it would be nice to be given something like this when you’re sick.”
And it’s the truth. During the times you were unwell, Hoseok would remind you to rest or take your medicines; he even bought you vitamins and it’s why taking them became a habit of yours. You barely had the energy to make soup. But after that one time when you braved through an event and Yoongi noticed you feeling under the weather, he took you to a noodle house and ordered extra chicken noodle soup for you to take home. You had it all through the weekend, and though it wasn’t like your mom’s, it was still something familiar, and it was comfort that you badly needed.
You thought it was something you could extend to Jungkook. You weren’t sure if he was spending the weekend at home by himself, but in case he was, you thought that something warm would help. You were on your way to watch a local film and happened to pass by his area, the image of him sick and probably alone prompting you to just buy that dish and leave it at the reception. You suddenly craved it and made one for yourself last night, thinking it wouldn’t hurt if you brought some over for him as well. Even if he thinks it isn’t your responsibility, you think it’s still within your role to make sure that your boss - the Vice President - conducts his functions properly, and he can only do so if he’s healthy. 
As you finish the small portion that you prepared for yourself, Jungkook wonders who’d taken care of you during the times you were sick. With your friends and family miles away, perhaps there wasn’t anyone. Maybe it was a boyfriend. Or maybe like what he’s come to see, you did things on your own. Maybe you think there’s no one doing that for him, too. 
And you wouldn’t be wrong. He was never good with company, after all, whether it was offering or keeping it. So when someone offers something as simple as a bowl of soup for when he’s feeling unwell, it cuts through the walls he’s built around himself because he’s become used to no one even knocking to check how he’s doing. 
But in an effort to remain unmoved and insistent on keeping his distance, he sets boundaries once more. 
“You don’t need to do this for me, Mr. Cho,” he states. “I appreciate it, but I’d prefer if you don’t do it again.”
He sees your face fall from his periphery, and much as he wants to take it back, he knows he has to hold back. It was hard enough to resist feeling cared for. 
He’d really spent the weekend by himself, turning down his friends’ invitation to go to a resort and Hoseok’s offer of dinner at this newly opened steak house. Jungkook was buried under the covers when the phone rang informing him that you’d left something for him, unwilling to move and get off the bed because he was too tired but also too hungry, so when he opened the bag and it registered to him what you've given him, he felt less alone and less sad for himself. The image of your shy expression flashed through his mind and he couldn’t help the smile he let out, giving himself only a minute to bask in your kindness before reminding himself that it means nothing more than making sure he’s well. It’s harder for you if he’s sick, he convinced himself. Still, he’d rather not think about it; he’d rather not torture himself by his brain wanting you to mean one thing, but his heart hoping it was another.
“I understand, Mr. Jeon,” you say, your voice a little too firm for his liking. “I apologize if it made you uncomfortable.”
“It—” didn’t, he wants to say. It made him feel nice and comfortable and that’s what he can’t let himself feel around you. 
“I treat this as part of my job,” you reason, a half lie because you really did want to extend some kindness even if he may not exactly be deserving of it. “But it may not be so for you. I’ll take note of this moving forward.”
Jungkook concedes. Any objection will counter what he’s been saying, even if he didn’t mean all of it. And like how you always do, you get over it quickly, flashing him a measured smile and taking out your iPad to go through this week’s schedule. 
You both head to the car after and discuss his previous meetings. You’re detailed and engaged, taking down notes and asking him questions like the professional that you are. He tells you about his meeting with artist Lee Jaemin and that he agreed with 80% of the pieces that you and Yoongi chose. You talk about the Board members’ reactions during his presentation and he shares what they talked to him about during the dinner. 
“Socializing with them was tiring,” he admits. “I couldn’t keep up with all the things that they wanted to talk about.”
You give him an assuring smile. “You looked like you did well,” you assure him. “They seemed engaged, although as Mr. Jung would say, part of that is for show, to get on your good side. It would be smarter to think that not all of it was genuine.”
“True. But I enjoyed speaking with Mr. Saito. He’s an architect, too, and we had a really good talk about incorporating traditional elements in a modern design.”
“Yes, he’s always been kind,” you say. “But it’s good that you’re able to forge these relationships. Perhaps it’s also new to them, seeing you in that light. I suppose they don’t know you all that much. It’s a nice change being able to engage with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, well, it’s just during the company events that you attended, it wasn’t exactly hard to spot you,” you chuckle, seemingly comfortable now.
“And why is that so?” 
He turns to you, legitimately curious because he’d never really noticed you before, even if he knew you as Hoseok’s assistant. If he’s being honest, you didn’t even look familiar when you first met, and that just reinforces the fact that Jungkook didn’t really care for the other people around him, especially during those events he was required to fly to Seoul to attend. If he’d paid a bit more attention, maybe he wouldn’t have been caught off guard when he did finally meet you. Maybe he wouldn’t have been as rude, too.
“If I may, sir, it was quite easy to spot one of the Jeon sons always at the bar,” you chuckle. “Your father and cousin would often look for you and you were always in the same spot.”
You’d noticed him, Jungkook thinks to himself. He wonders what you’d thought about him then, but given how he hated those events, it probably wouldn’t be something good. He just always couldn’t wait to leave. 
“Ah. As you can tell, I’m not one who likes to socialize,” he says. “I don’t really know what to talk to people about. And I’m not that good with names nor faces. It was easier to keep to myself.”
“That’s understandable. But you already know that’ll have to change,” you remind him. “Half of what Mr. Jung did was attend events.”
“I know. He’s been preparing me for that. I need your help in that aspect, too, from remembering names to getting my energy up. Those are oddly what I’m most nervous about, if I’m being honest.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Jeon,” you assure him. “I hope I can make things easy for you.”
You’ll never know the irony of your words, and perhaps the push and pull it brings about - as you try to make things easy for him, the harder it actually becomes on his end. 
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You find yourself back at the tailor shop the next Thursday for Jungkook’s suit fitting, and if it wasn’t for Taehyung telling you that your gowns are ready, you would have totally forgotten that you had some dresses made as well. 
While Jungkook tries on his outfits, you’re instructed to choose several dress shirts that he’d be adding to his wardrobe, given the various functions he’d be attending from now on. You didn’t anticipate for this to be part of your role, but you don’t mind, as it’s a welcome change to what you normally do, which is attend meetings, bury yourself in paperwork, and everything else in between. At least you’ll be visiting the venue for the Arts Center event tomorrow, but today, you focus on the task at hand, which turns out to be harder than expected.
The options are endless. It doesn’t help that you have to envision Jungkook in each piece of clothing and that he looks good in every one of them, and that you have to imagine him at all. You see him everyday - and have seen him in as little as in just his gym shorts - and you don’t really want to have him in your mind as well. But how he presents himself is a big part of his new role, as Hoseok had told you. As the Vice President, Jungkook needs to look sophisticated and respectable, someone worthy to represent the company and the Jeon family name. 
You go for different hues of grays and blacks and other colors, too. There’s an olive green that looks really nice, and a few maroons and pinks that would add variety to his everyday look. You’re focused on making your choices, but your focus shifts to Jungkook when he comes out of the dressing room donned in a patterned  black suit. The fit is perfect and even with the distance between you two, you could spot impeccable details that make the outfit look elegant yet fresh. 
“This is for the gala,” Taehyung states. “What do you think, Ms. Cho?”
“It looks nice” is all you manage to say. 
It’s the only word you feel is neutral enough to describe him. Even if you could accept that Jungkook is handsome, you don’t exactly want to say so in front of him.
“I was going for something better than nice, but that should be fine, I guess. What do you think, Kook?”
“I like it. But don’t you think the sleeves are a bit too fit on my arms?” Jungkook asks his friend.
“Well, it’s not like you were flexing them when I was measuring you,” Taehyung playfully rolls his eyes. “But I can adjust it, since I doubt you’d take a pause on lifting weights anyway. It’s probably the material though so don’t worry, I’ll fix this. Okay, on to the next one.”
You return to your task at hand, choosing some patterned tops that are appropriate for less formal events, and you inform Taehyung who then says that he’ll have those made in Jungkook’s measurements. With your task finished, Taehyung instructs you to head downstairs so you could fit your gowns as well, and you follow in anticipation because these might just be the first and only custom-made pieces of clothing you’ll ever have the luxury of wearing.
A female staff assists you, making sure that the length and neckline are to your liking. The first outfit, the one for the Arts Center event, is an old rose sleeveless lace midi dress that looks even more gorgeous when worn. The gown for the Appointment Dinner is a black short-sleeved pleated piece that is both functional and fashionable, but it’s the last one - the one for the gala - that has your jaw dropping to the ground.
“Ms. Cho,” you hear Taehyung call out from outside the fitting room. “Is everything okay?”
“Y-yeah,” you stutter, unable to stop looking at yourself in the mirror and turning around to try to see every angle of the stunning dress. “It’s just, uh…”
“It’s what?” He asks worriedly. “Can you come outside so I can see?” 
You take a breath before pulling the heavy curtains open and find Taehyung and Jungkook standing not far away.
“It’s too pretty, Mr. Kim,” you say shyly. “I don’t think I can wear this.”
“Well, you will. Because it’s custom-made,” he points out. “And it looks gorgeous on you. It fits perfectly. I assume the others do as well?”
“Yes,” you smile, feeling like a fairytale princess who gets to wear a gown that her fairy godmother had made for her. “They’re just…”
“Exactly what you need as this guy’s right hand woman,” Taehyung finishes for you.
He gestures towards his best friend who seems expressionless and probably unimpressed by how you look. It’s not like you mind but it at least wouldn’t be humiliating if he just stood there looking uninterested.
“What do you think, Kook?”
“It looks nice,” Jungkook shrugs, repeating the words you’d used on him earlier. Shifting his gaze from you to Taehyung, he excuses himself. “I’ll head to the car, I have calls to make.”
“I’ll finish up here,” you say, turning around to go back to the fitting room.
Jungkook exits the shop and finally breathes, feeling like he’d suffocated inside because of how you looked. He’d wondered how the dresses turned out, curious about the designs because Taehyung didn’t want to show him; it’s a surprise, the man had said. And now Jungkook knows why. 
Stunning would be an inadequate word to use. The burgundy color of the gown made it look sophisticated on you, even more with the off-shoulder that showed off some of your features that he’d rather not think about. The flow was elegant, and he half wishes that he hadn’t thought of having these made only so he could avoid the moment earlier when he felt his throat dry up because of how beautiful you looked. 
He’s gonna have to get used to being rendered speechless every time, he thinks, but it’s not like it doesn’t happen everyday, anyway. Every morning that he finds you standing in his kitchen, donning the pencil skirt and blouse ensemble that assistants are recommended to wear, his mind short circuits. There’s something especially fresh and electrifying about you at the start of the day, and he always has to pull himself together and act normal around you without giving himself away. 
He can’t nurture the attraction, after all, even if he’s reminded of it during times like earlier, even more so when he gazes at you and you hold it, letting the tension build unconsciously. Because that’s what happened, as you pulled open the curtains and looked up. He wishes you were too shy to notice how long he had his eyes on you. But it’s why he had to get away. You’re too much for him sometimes, and he doesn’t know if you have any idea of how you affect him.
Jungkook stares at his phone, half hoping that an actual call would come to distract him. But nothing does, and he leans his head back and groans in frustration. What is it about you that makes him absolutely weak in the knees and stupid in the head? 
Back inside, you give Taehyung your address so he can have the gowns delivered to your apartment for your convenience. 
“Thank you again, Mr. Kim,” you say. “I wish I could do your creations justice.”
“You will. It’s in the confidence, so exude it, okay?”
“I’ll try,” you giggle. “Especially since those pieces will pretty much blow the Office of the VP’s budget.”
“Is that what Kook said? That these are budgeted under him?” Taehyung arches an eyebrow.
“Uh, yes, sort of. I just assumed because he’d pointed out that they were being made as part of my functions,” you explain. 
“Hmm. I know his office has a lot of money but these gowns would definitely blow up any contingency fund you have,” he chuckles. “So no, your assumption is wrong. Kook’s paying for all this.”
“What?” You exclaim. “But that’s— why?”
“Well, you do need these as part of your job, and he wanted to save you the inconvenience of spending for them. I mean, he did buy Lucas some suits, too. But between you and me, I think this is his way of apologizing to you, just in a very gallant way.”
“You mean unnecessary and undeserving,” you correct, still in shock that Jungkook is paying for all those, even if yes, he can easily afford them. 
“Nope, not at all. I know he’s been difficult to deal with and I’d like to apologize on his behalf, seeing that he’s terrible at doing it. I know it doesn’t make things better but at least it’s something you don’t have to worry about anymore.”
“Well, that does help a bit,” you smile, following him as he heads out the door. “But thank you again, Mr. Kim.”
“Off with the formalities,” he laughs. “It’s Taehyung. And you’re welcome. It’s the least I could do to somehow make up for my ass of a best friend.” 
“He’s not too bad. Not anymore, at least,” you counter. “I’ll go ahead. Have a good day, Taehyung!”
Jungkook manages to look down on his phone in time for you not to see him watch you talk freely and casually with his friend. That’s another person close to him who gets to experience how you’re like - joyful and warm, perhaps a little shy sometimes, but comfortable just the same. It’s something he’ll only see from afar; your positions necessitate some distance, but perhaps that’s better than not having you around at all. 
You enter the car and you’re back to being quiet and reserved, your eyes focused on the road while Jungkook, in an effort not to keep glancing at you, turns to his leather notebook and doodles some designs that pop in his head. It’s his way of calming himself down most days, helping him focus given that his mind is often filled with too many thoughts that he can’t express. He hopes that in drawing them, he can somehow rid himself of the feelings he’s locked in and it helps, as he’s somehow able to get over the tension from earlier and the tiniest bit of jealousy over your casual engagement with Taehyung.
You both return to the office, with Jungkook proceeding to his room to prepare for a lunch meeting and you follow, taking some signed documents that he’d left earlier.
“Mr. Jeon,” you say as he settles in his seat. “Thank you for the dresses. I… I’ve never had anything as beautiful as those and undeserving as I may feel, I’m just really appreciative.”
Jungkook isn’t prepared for the softness in your voice as you say the words, and like the consistent jerk that he is, he brushes it off.
“Taehyung made them; you should thank him. I just paid for them,” he utters, his tone stern and uncaring.
His eyes flit to you when there’s silence on your end, and he wishes they hadn’t. There’s resignation in yours, as if he’s shattering another moment you’re creating where you’re just being sincere and he’s being dismissive. It’s his default, he reasons, not just towards you but towards everyone. Normally he wouldn’t mind how the other would take it, but with you right now, he wishes he was so much better than this. 
You hold his gaze, as if trying to tell him things you don’t want to express. He’s not one to apologize, but he also won’t accept gratitude. You’re starting to think that what Jungkook can’t handle is any form of human connection. It’s something you struggle with at times, but you’re at least open to it, willing to accept kindness and appreciating people for what they have to offer. Jungkook deflects; he turns away. It seemed like it took so much for him to even verbalize needing your help and perhaps he was desperate; his reputation was on the line after all. But even then, he doesn’t give nor does he accept, and you wonder what made him that way. 
“Is there anything else?” He finally asks after a long beat of silence. 
“Nothing more,” you shake your head and excuse yourself. 
Returning to your desk, you look at Jungkook from your seat. There’s a hint of emptiness in his eyes that you often mistake for apathy. Perhaps there’s more and perhaps the help he really needs isn’t just about dealing with his father or remembering names or navigating relationships required for his role. Maybe it’s about opening himself up a little, or smiling when the situation calls for it, or not questioning other people’s kindness towards him. Maybe it’s about realizing he’s more than just this heir to the company or the playboy he’s known as. Maybe it’s about seeing that he’s capable of sincerity and gentleness as well.
You sigh to yourself. It’s probably a long shot but you only feel strongly about it because you know what it’s like to turn people away. If it hadn’t been for your family and friends, you probably would’ve continued to do so. Jungkook may be your boss but he’s human, too, and he may just be waiting around to see who’d be patient enough to extend a hand and let him know that he’s not alone, that someone understands, and maybe that someone is you.
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The days fly by too quickly for your liking and you haven't been able to take a breath. You had a meeting with the organizing committee of the Appointment Dinner most of last Friday and you spent your weekend coordinating with the designers for the Arts Center launch. It’s been last minute preparations these past two days and before you know it, Wednesday has come. You stayed late the night before and were gladly checked in at the hotel with the other assistants, so you at least got a bit of sleep even if your body felt like it continued to stay awake. 
But tonight is important, as the newly appointed executives will be formally introduced to the corporation’s directors, shareholders, and subsidiary companies. You’ve been organizing this with the planning committee since the appointments were announced, and given that coordinating events like this is one of your primary tasks, you’re exhausted and excited and nervous all at once. But it’s the second time you’re doing this and you’ve learned so much since you did this for Hoseok. There’s more knowledge, sure, but there’s also more confidence. You also know enough to eat before the guests arrive and at 3PM, it’s exactly what you do, knowing you won’t have much else until the event ends.
The other employees compliment your dress, and you’re too shy to say who had designed it but you eventually do, knowing it’s good for Taehyung’s brand. But you don’t say much else, choosing instead to focus on the guest list as you’re tasked to do, and you go around the events hall to make sure that the VIP name cards are placed on their proper tables. You’re able to sneak bites of the canapes as you go, allowing yourself a flute of champagne for that kick you need to socialize with the guests tonight. 
You engage with the early birds when they arrive, guiding them to their seats and putting on your most welcoming smile. You get Mr. Ri’s message that they’re nearby, so you head outside and stand by the entrance and wait for them, knowing Jungkook would want to know how things are going.
He exits the car in a black suit and white top, a statement brooch adorning his classic coat. The strands of his long hair are tucked behind his ears and he looks even more polished than usual, a look that catches attention; it definitely catches yours. 
“Mr. Jeon,” you bow in greeting. “Some of your invited guests have arrived.” 
“Have you spoken to them?” He asks, as you walk slightly behind him towards the venue. 
“I have, and they’re looking forward to seeing you.” 
He nods, and just as he’s about to enter the hall, he stops and turns towards you. 
“You’re busy tonight, aren’t you?”
“Somewhat, sir,” you reply. “We all have our tasks but I’m free to move around. Do you need help with anything?”
“Just, uh, names.”
“I’ll always be nearby,” you assure him. 
Your smile gives him the comfort he needs. He’s been without it since yesterday afternoon, given that you had to prepare as part of the organizing committee. And while the support team and Yoongi have been encouraging, only you really know why every event such as this is important for him. 
Jungkook has already made gains with some of the Board members last week; this time, it’s about engaging everyone else - the staff, the partners, and key personalities in the industry. Hoseok and Ji-woo have done this before but it’s Jungkook’s first time. He’s no longer just an executive in the Southeast Asian office; he’s now the Vice President of the entire company. There’s a lot of pressure that comes from carrying the Jeon family name, and even more being the only one of the two sons who’s taking on such an important role. 
The event hall is grand. It’s pretty special, too. It’s one of the projects he worked on as part of the design department years ago before he left for Singapore, and the thought makes him stop. Perhaps this is the reason why his father chose this venue for tonight; if anything, it’s a reminder of what Jungkook is capable of. He takes a breath and looks around to soak everything in before approaching his invited guests - partners and consultants he worked with in his previous role. 
But that ends quickly, as many more people approach him for a greeting. 
Jungkook is a bit overwhelmed. He tries to hold eye contact when he speaks to them but he can only do so for so long. Some faces are familiar but the names escape him, and he starts to regret all the times that he flew here for events like this and never engaged with the other guests. If he had, perhaps this wouldn’t be so hard. 
There are those who introduce themselves, while there are those who don’t, perhaps assuming that he’d know who they are. Just like the couple who’s speaking to him excitedly, and he wants to return the energy by at least calling them by their names. His mind is blank, and just as he’s about to give up, he looks up and sees you, your eyes catching his as if you’re just waiting for his cry for help. 
There’s pleading in his eyes and you get it immediately, as you walk towards his direction then greet the pair next to him.
“Mr. and Mrs. Yamada,” you say. “It’s lovely to see both of you again. I saw in the news that you’re launching a new project with our partners from Dubai. That’s quite exciting.”
“Ah, Ms. Cho,” they greet you back. “Yes, all thanks to Mr. Jung who helped us with that partnership. We’re excited for it as well.”
“Oh, I’m sure. We’re looking forward to it,” you smile.
“Thank you. I’m pleased to know that you remain as the Vice President’s assistant,” Mrs. Yamada says. “Perhaps we can invite Mr. Jeon to one of our hotels in Japan? Or even in London?”
You turn to Jungkook who looks less tense than he did a few minutes ago.
“Ah, yes, that would be great, Mr. and Mrs. Yamada,” he responds. “I’m sure I’ll find time during one of my trips and I’ll definitely give you a call. Perhaps we can talk about projects we can work on as well.”
The excitement in the couple’s faces is a joy to see and for their sake, you really do wish that Jungkook makes good on his promise. You ask him about it after they leave, and he says that the names were familiar. Ji-woo’s talked about working with them before and that they’re long-time friends of the family, so he should maintain that relationship. 
A call of his name prompts both of you to look to the side, and he turns to you with a questioning face. 
“Mr. Adam’s an investor. Behind him is Professor Zhang from SNU. They’re friends of your father,” you tell him. Seeing Bitna signal for you, you say, “I have to check on something, Mr. Jeon. I’ll be back.”
You turn around to head to one of the tables, but you look back to watch Jungkook greet those who approach him, his smile becoming more natural as the moments pass by. You briefly meet with some staff about the musical guest and some other last minute adjustments. You greet Taehyung and Seokjin who show up to support their best friend, with both men complimenting how you look.
Knowing that Jungkook will be needing you again after, you call over Do-hyun and Yohan and delegate some of your monitoring tasks to them, and then stand by one of the tables as you watch the socialization take place as more guests come in.
Your eyes find Jungkook again as he’s engaged in a conversation with some Board members and other partners, and you smile a little at how he’s able to maintain eye contact and look like he’s actually interested, especially after he looks up and gives you a look as if to say that he’s trying his best. 
“Why are you watching him like some child who’s trying to make friends at the playground?” Chin-sun asks, the teasing tone of her voice making you chuckle. “He’s a grown man, you know? He can hold his own.”
“I know,” you reply, turning to her. “But it’s one of the many things that’s new about his role. And probably one of the more important ones. I just wanna let him know that he’s doing a good job.”
“Well, there’s no wife or girlfriend to do that. I guess that makes it your responsibility then.”
You disregard her comment’s implication and point out that Hoseok does that for Jungkook, too, but he’s just as busy and perhaps just as nervous as well. 
“It matters a lot to hear it. Plus, social events can be overwhelming and isolating at the same time. He’s still getting used to it,” you add.
The prolonged silence prompts you to turn to her.
“You know, I admire you for a lot of things,” she says. “Your ability to remain kind after everything is one of them. I mean, after how he treated you those first few weeks? That was tough.”
Your resigned face pushes her to continue. “Do-hyun could’ve gone on without telling me about seeing you cry and I still would’ve known. You tried to hide it but your smile always fell too fast and your eyes were just always sad. Must’ve been hard, trying to get the team on his side when you couldn’t do that for yourself.”
“I honestly don’t know how I survived that first month,” you laugh to mask the sadness from that experience. “But that’s in the past. He still has his moments but at least there are good ones now. I’m here to do my job. Being kind after everything is part of it.”
“I wish you didn’t have to keep it to yourself though,” she laments. “If we couldn’t help, we could’ve at least cheered you up.”
“I didn’t want to bring you guys into it,” you say. “The team was incredibly busy with so many things and I managed. That’s what matters.”
“Oh, ___,” she sighs. “You put so much of yourself in your job. I think that’s why the bosses trust you. But that takes so much out of you, too. Do you have anything left for yourself?”
“What’s left is right here, Chin-sun. I don’t think I know what I am outside of all this.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? I mean, I’ve worked with you for three years and I can’t say I really know you outside of this, too. And if you can’t… well, that’s something to think about.”
“And I have. It’s something I’ve asked myself, but trying to find the answer isn’t as easy as asking the question. So I just put all my energy into my work because where else would I? It at least pays the bills and lets me enjoy little luxuries every once in a while,” you reason. 
“Well, I know what learning who you are outside of this job would entail, and I’m a little selfish because I need you around,” she smiles. “No one does things the way you do, and that’s also why I figured that at some point, Mr. Jeon was gonna get himself together because he can’t afford to lose you. You’re so good at this, ___. He’s lucky you didn’t quit.”
“Apparently, it takes a lot to get me to quit,” you reply. 
Or I was just never brave enough to do it, you want to say. Asking the question is indeed always easier than finding the answer. 
“Let’s hope you find a way to find yourself without resigning. We can’t afford to lose you, too,” she winks. 
“I appreciate that, Chin-sun. Thank you.”
“Well, I think it matters that you know that you’re doing amazing. I hope he treats you as you deserve.”
He tries, you think to yourself. At least that’s what you hope. 
The call of your names from a familiar voice excites you, as A-yeong approaches you and Chin-sun. You engage in your usual hushed conversations until you see Jungkook in another sea of people and you decide to approach him, the relief on his face telling you that he’s indeed been needing you. 
It’s not your preferred crowd. Something you’ve learned in your years of attending these events is that you would smile and entertain them and men would think it’s an invitation to invade your personal space. A lingering touch on the elbow, a hand on your waist, standing a millimeter too close… and they disregard your uncomfortable look or attempts at stepping away. 
The man you’re introduced to is new but his ways aren’t, and you scan the hall to find Bitna who turns to you in time, the look you give her signaling another person to look out for. It’s a system they developed that they’ve filled you in on, and you immediately excuse yourself and check on the food served at the back even if you know they’re still well stocked. It at least allows you a breather. You’re not even a main actor but you’re tired as hell from socializing with people. 
It’s not long after when the event starts. Speeches and a performance take place while dishes are being put out, and it’s after the main course is served when Jungkook steps away from his seat. 
Choosing to stand towards the back before he’s called on stage to be introduced, he scans the hall and thinks about the work that the committee put in, including you, who had to deal with him while dealing with all this. He catches sight of you speaking with the other assistants, and he already knows there’s some planning going on. But like the last time, he felt you around even if you were busy; you held his gaze during the times he felt a little overwhelmed. 
“You ready?”
Yoongi’s voice is deep but calming, and Jungkook takes it as his friend’s way of encouraging him. 
“Not really, but I’ll manage.” 
“Good. You’ve got people on your side,” Yoongi assures him. “Like me. And especially her.”
He gestures towards the left where Jungkook sees you approaching them. Since you started working for him, he didn’t expect how easily he could find comfort in your presence. He went from wishing you were someone else, to wanting to distance himself from you, to constantly hoping you were around. Those last two could actually coexist, and they do. There’s still detachment as his means to combat the attraction - he tries not to care about you, to not get to know you, to remind himself of who you are in his life, but he still depends on you for support, for comfort, for stability. You make his life easier; you also make it feel less lonely. And every time you’re there is a moment where he feels like he could breathe, like the noise in his mind stills because he’s forced to focus on you; somehow, you captivate him that way. 
“Are you ready, Mr. Jeon?”
The contrasting tenderness of your voice gives him that boost and he nods despite the lingering nervousness.
“I guess so,” he huffs. “Let’s get this over with.”
He walks towards his seat up front while you stay behind with Yoongi who leads you to one of the free tables at the back. You both don’t say much to each other, focusing instead on the short speeches that Ji-woo and Hoseok give, both of them expressing their gratitude and giving previews of upcoming projects to look forward to. They’re masters at commanding a crowd, as evidenced by their engagement and loud applause at the end of it. You can already imagine Jungkook feeling even more nervous, knowing that’s not really his style, but you hope that your earlier encouragement lingers, as he walks towards the stage.
He delivers his speech flawlessly. Knowing him the way you do, you could tell he let his vulnerability shine through, even if it may not seem much to everyone else. The teaser about the Arts Center gets people excited, which he builds up on. He even slides in a few jokes that surprisingly get the audience entertained. 
A small smile paints your face and from next to you, Yoongi chuckles in almost disbelief. 
“Is it safe to say you’re proud of him?” He asks, as Jungkook walks down the stage and CEO Jeon takes the mic. 
“You could say that,” you turn to him. “It’s silly, considering how things started. I… I didn’t think I’d be genuinely rooting for him, you know? But I am. I really want him to do well.”
“That’s good to hear, ___. I guess it means that things really are changing and he’s treating you better.”
“I think they are,” you hum. “I mean, not the best, but I also don’t know what that’s supposed to look like. I guess I’m just understanding who he is a little bit better now. And I think that makes the difference.”
“Like I said, he’s not a terrible person. He just needs… someone to be patient with him, someone to show him kindness,” Yoongi says. “I think that’s what he lost along the way. He stopped being that way to himself and so did people. They just didn’t want to upset him, but they also didn’t give or show anything more.”
“You think so?”
“Why do you think it’s so hard for him to forge even the simplest and most basic connections?” Yoongi questions. “They lack meaning for him. I think he’s forgotten what that’s like. Without sincerity or kindness, without intensity or honesty, there’s just… emptiness. Everything is fleeting for him.”
“And you’re telling me this, why?” You eye him curiously. 
“Because I think your kindness did something to him.”
“And that is?”
“He’s showing a bit of that to himself, too. And I guess to others as well,” Yoongi explains. 
“I’m a mere assistant doing her job, Yoongi,” you shake your head. “It’s a little selfish but I do what I can to appease him and to make our relationship good enough to make this job bearable for me. If it makes him a better person, good for him and better for me. I’ll just keep doing it then.”
Your friend’s silence prompts you to turn towards him. He seems to be in deep thought, perhaps analyzing what you’d just said, which he tends to do. 
There’s no lie in your statement. You’d done your part of standing up to Jungkook at the start; you at least got to show you were capable of fighting for yourself in that sense. But after that, you learned that keeping things in and letting him see how his actions affect you works as well. You show kindness because it’s natural for you, but also because it keeps the peace, it keeps both of you stable. 
But you can also admit that you do all that because wanting him to know that he’s got you on his side is a way to tell yourself that you’ve got people rooting for you, too, even if you’re not the best at keeping relationships nor keeping people close. You show Jungkook what you want to experience from people; you make him feel what you want to feel. Maybe that makes you selfish. You think it also makes you human.
It’s not something you tell Yoongi, though. But maybe with the way he looks at you assuringly, you suppose he knows it, too.
The event finally ends and the guests start exiting the venue. You bid them goodbye while instructing some in-house staff about cleaning up. Mr. and Mrs. Jeon greet you on their way out, commending you for your work along with the others, and it’s their encouraging smiles that remind you of one of the reasons why you stick to this job. They’re people you don’t want to disappoint as well, and seeing them satisfied is always a good thing. 
“Hey, you’re officially off the clock,” Bitna reminds you. “A couple of us are staying for closing, remember?”
“Right,” you smile. 
They have a day off tomorrow because of tonight but it’s not something you can afford, given that you’ve got the Arts Center event one a week from now. It’s almost midnight and you’d have to be up in 5 hours.
“I’ll get going then. I’ll just say goodbye to— oh, Mr. Jeon,” you say, finding him just as you were about to look for him. “Is there anything I can help you with before I leave?”
“Oh, there’s nothing. Just, uh, how are you getting home?”
“A cab,” you answer. 
Yoongi nudges your arm from next to you with a pout on his face. “Yah! I’ll take you home. It’s not safe to take a cab this late.”
“Yes, that’s preferable, Ms. Cho,” Jungkook says. “It’s been a long night.”
“Okay, sir,” you nod. “And it has. You also did really well. I didn’t expect the jokes but they were obviously a hit. Yoongi laughed, that’s how I know.”
“You laughed, too,” Yoongi points out.
“I’m glad it worked, then,” Jungkook says. “You can get going. You can also report to my place at 8AM to give you more time to rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jungkook heads out and rushes to the car where Mr. Ri drives him home. His mind is still buzzing from what transpired but he’s glad he managed like he said he would, like you believed he would. 
And amidst the relief that he did well and the nervousness from having to do something similar again next week, there’s you, a vision that he quickly shakes off and one he finds himself seeing after every big and small thing that he does. 
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Your warm shower and your bed have never felt this good, only because you’re as tired as you are and you want nothing more than the weekend to come. But you’ve got a few more stressful days ahead of you and you try to push through them one at a time.
You go to Jungkook later than usual that Thursday then spend much of the entire day meeting with him and the team about next week’s event. You conduct a visit to the venue the next day and then spend the weekend answering guests’ queries and helping Chin-sun coordinate with suppliers. Monday and Tuesday have you going from one place to another and hopping from one meeting to the next, all while balancing your executive assistant and events manager responsibilities. 
It’s incredibly tiring, but you also won’t deny the exhilaration you feel. There’s something so satisfying about seeing everything come together, especially as you look around the venue - an industrial commercial space that Jungkook and Yoongi jointly designed specifically for tonight. The high ceilings allow for the large panels that project the Arts Center design, with bright lights Illuminating the curated sculptures and art pieces placed around. The space elicits a feeling of newness and familiarity, of hollowness and clarity. There’s integration of traditional and modern elements and essentially, of history and emergence. 
It leaves you quite breathless as you look around. It’s not even the Arts Center itself but you know that this is the emotion that Jungkook wants the guests to feel. He wants them to be in awe, to look on in excitement. 
“It’s pretty great, huh?” Yoongi asks next to you. “Worth all the hard work.”
“It is. Design and logistics did amazing in putting this together,” you say, given that you’ve spent the entire day working with both teams to set this up.
“Well, Jungkook’s vision is captivating to begin with. It really makes a difference when you’re led by a creative mind. Selling the idea won’t be so hard in a place like this.”
“I really hope so. We’re banking on the artists for exposure. There are gonna be articles about it, too. The whole process is being documented and that makes the final product much more exciting,” you explain. “I… I actually feel really good being a part of this. I’m glad I didn’t quit after that first week.”
Yoongi laughs along with you, knowing now that that experience no longer bothers you the way it used to. But he’s glad about it, too, not only because he selfishly wants you around but even more, he knew that you needed this, that you needed to feel redeemed in Jungkook’s eyes and in yours. Yoongi hopes that as the project goes on, you’ll learn more about yourself and what you want, what you’re good at, what you can give, and what makes you happy. 
“That makes both of us. I’m sure Jungkook thinks so, too,” Yoongi replies.
“Well, we’ll never know because he’ll probably never admit it but it’s a good thought,” you smile. “As long as we maintain this unproblematic dynamic, I’m good.”
“Speaking of which, where is he?”
“On the way,” you say. “He had a meeting to attend and he said he’ll be fixing up here. He should be here in a few minutes.”
Do-hyun approaches you about the photographer and you excuse yourself, instructing Yohan next to her to lead Jungkook to the waiting room when he arrives. 
Jungkook steps into the venue and like he’d hoped, he feels the energy as he takes it all in. There’s a lot of possibility as he looks around, and that’s what he wants the guests to see. He wants the artists to envision their own pieces displayed; he wants the creatives to imagine fashion shows and photo shoots and videos that come to life; he wants people to see the potential of an Arts Center beyond just looking at art pieces.
But underneath the pride is nervousness. There will be important personalities coming today and it’s his opportunity to engage with them, to make them want to be a part of this. Talking about the details of the project would be easy; it’s connecting with them that’s a challenge. He had last week’s Appointment Dinner as a trial and like you said, he did well. It’s tonight that matters so much more to him. He supposes that what happens will set the trajectory for how the promotion of the Center will go, so making a good first impression is crucial. 
Yohan approaches him and leads him towards the waiting room where his outfit, which Taehyung had pressed and sent over here, hangs on a rack. There are two magazine publications that will feature this event and both include an interview with him and some photos. 
Jungkook starts dressing up, knowing he’ll be called for those not long from now. He looks at himself in the mirror and the uncertainty fills him again. It’s not the look he would’ve gone for but his best friend was adamant that an event like this calls for something new. With his trousers and fitted shirt on, Jungkook breathes in and out, and it’s at the same time when there’s a knock on the door and your call of his name suddenly makes him nervous. 
You enter, stopping as you shut the door, your eyes a little wide, and look at him. You’re a sight to behold in your floral-laced dress and if he was anxious seconds ago, he’s even more now.
“I knew I should’ve stuck to the classic,” Jungkook sighs at your unmoving form. 
“What—what do you mean, Mr. Jeon?” You ask, finally finding your voice. 
“You’re not saying anything,” he frowns. “Tonight probably wasn’t the best time to show up in an outfit like this.”
“And why is that?” You wonder, walking closer to him now. You try to calm your racing heart because Jungkook looking this good in a checkered flared trouser and white v-neck shirt was not something you expected. “You look…”
“Pretentious?” He chuckles, shaking his head and bending towards the mirror, his angled body making you feel even hotter.
You’ve long accepted that Jungkook is a very handsome man. It’s probably why it was more frustrating despising him and, like Soomin said, also satisfying. He’s got a perfect mix of boyish and manly features with his doe eyes and chiseled jaw; the aura of confidence and nonchalance perhaps add to that as well. It also doesn’t help that he has a really good physique, something you’d seen on his first day on the job and one you’d denied affected you. You’d gotten used to it somehow. Hard as it was to suppress those thoughts every time you fixed his tie or watched him walk about his penthouse in his gym clothes, you managed. You’ve always been professional, and you’ve always reminded yourself to not let it affect you.
But tonight, it’s just hard not to, especially with the way his biceps are popping out of those short sleeves; and if the shirt were an inch tighter, you’d probably be able to trace his toned chest and abs as well. He’s cut his hair, too, slick and pushed back as if he's starring in some western rockstar film. 
“Good…” you manage to say after what seemed like minutes. “The outfit looks good on you, sir. It’s new and fresh, not like the usual formal attire that screams ‘businessman who only wants profits.’ This is posh and stylish. It makes you look more approachable.”
“This is what would make me look approachable?” He asks incredulously.
“Actually, a smile would,” you say too quickly, earning you a laugh. “But this works, too. It fits with the theme.”
“That’s what Tae said, too,” Jungkook sighs. “He insisted that at least for these Arts Center-related events, I should dress a little more boldly and more interesting, things I definitely am not but, well, I couldn’t counter him when he said that my usual prints and styles make me look like I’m just going to a meeting or some business conference.”
“And he’s not wrong,” you point out, walking closer to him. “You don’t need anything eccentric, just something exciting. This is simple yet sophisticated.”
“Have you seen the coat?” He asks, gesturing to the rack when you say no.
“Oh. There’s a corsage,” you say, admiring the matching brown checkered piece.
“An oversized one,” he rolls his eyes. 
“It looks pretty.”
“That’s what he said, too.”
“If you don’t like it, why didn’t you tell him during the fitting?”
“I did like it but it’s Tae - he’s good at convincing people that they look good. And I probably thought that, too. But he’s not yet here and he’s gonna be late so right now, all I can think about is that I’ll look ridiculous.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” you say, surprising him. “If what I think matters, then you’d have to take my word for it. The outfit looks good. It captures people’s attention and that’s what you need. You’re just gonna have to follow this up with similar styles but that wouldn’t be a problem. Just carry yourself with confidence. It’s what Mr. Kim would say.”
“I know. He texted that same line to me five times today.”
“He’s your best friend, Mr. Jeon. I’m sure he’s looking out for your best interest.”
“True, but then again, we were forced to become friends when we were young so who knows?”
You laugh at his words. “Is that so?”
“Our fathers are best friends so we spent a lot of time together,” Jungkook shares. “We were all so different and we got on each other’s nerves but I guess that made us closer. I… I wasn’t close to my brother so I just stuck with those who stuck around. It’s a good thing they turned out to be decent people.”
“They’re very kind, I should say.”
“Yeah. It sucks that their kindness didn’t rub off on me,” he says as he holds your gaze.
The tension rises as you look back at him. It’s hard not to fall into his eyes, and you’re thankful for the knock on the door and Yohan’s voice on the other side saying that the interviewer is ready for Jungkook now. 
“Five minutes,” you call out, breaking the moment and retrieving his last piece of clothing. 
You assist him in wearing his coat and just like reflex, you immediately fix the sleeves and adjust the corsage that isn’t actually that big. You look at him from head to toe and see Taehyung’s vision. There’s something captivating about Jungkook in this fit; it makes him intriguing and someone to look out for. You suppose that was the intention.
“Respectable enough?” He asks worriedly once you meet his eyes.
“Respectable enough,” you affirm, hoping your smile can give him the encouragement he needs. 
You open the door and let the first set of crew in. You watch on as they interview and take snapshots while your own team from the marketing department capture what’s happening as well. 
Jungkook sits cross-legged on the sofa, his eyes looking out into the distance as he absorbs the questions and thinks of his answers. He gesticulates as he responds, something you noticed him only ever do about topics that seem very important to him. He’s done it during meetings with the team and with Yoongi, and you suppose there’s that level of honesty that he shows then. His responses are thoughtful and profound, as the questions revolve around the type of art pieces to be displayed, how culture can be celebrated and respected, and what the public can look forward to once the Center is open to everyone. 
The next interviewer starts off with the practical questions before moving to the technicalities of the design and structure such as the materials used, the techniques utilized in renovating such a massive complex, and how the Center itself represents art and culture. This is when Jungkook fully relaxes. You see it in his body language, in the softness of his expressions, and in the mellow tone of his voice as he discusses in terms you don’t fully understand but somehow still make you feel like you know exactly what he’s talking about.
It’s different seeing him in this way. Your team vetted these interviewers and publications and they seem sincere about their articles and so you know they aren’t there to judge; Jungkook knows they aren’t there to scrutinize him. He’s not there to impress them or even to sell the idea; he just wants to share it, to make it known, to narrate the process of this project that may still be in its very early stages but which has lived in his mind for years.
He may not always be good with words but you can tell that he finds them when the ideas are clear to him. He’s able to articulate what he sees in his mind and there’s something captivating about that. There’s a lot you can learn from him, you think, and if what you develop after having stayed this long is even just a fraction of his creativity, then you’d feel accomplished. 
You can tell even more now how important this is to him, especially when he emphasizes the individual’s need and desire for connection and how he wants the Center to be a hub for that, or perhaps its creator. You wonder if he knows so much about it, or if, like you, it’s something he also constantly seeks. 
You’re so focused on taking him all in that you don’t notice that you’ve been staring. Your eyes fall on his fingers, waving about as he draws imaginary pictures; they land on his lips, pink and dry as they utter words that are perhaps the most he’s said, and suddenly, his voice is the most comforting it’s ever sounded to you. You look upwards and that’s when you notice it - his eyes are on you just as yours are on him yet he continues talking, and you hold onto it for a few seconds before you feel the heat reach your cheeks. It feels like a burn and you snap out of the spell-like feeling you were caught in as you turn away now and try to catch your breath.
You hadn’t meant to stare but you were drawn to him at that moment, and as he talked about how the designs reflect the tangibility yet elusiveness of human connection, you found yourself drowning in his words and in the way he said them. He’d caught you before you could look away, and you decide that the only way to go about it is to pretend it didn’t happen.
And that’s what you do, as you remain on your spot with your eyes scanning the room, no longer focused on him.
The interview ends right as Chin-sun enters to say that some guests have arrived. You instruct her to entertain them first with Manager Lee as you wrap up in here and it’s not long after when you’re left with Jungkook once again.
“Was that good?” He asks, his gaze on you as you look elsewhere.
“It was. You seemed more relaxed,” you state, unnecessarily fixing the couch to distract yourself. “That’s a good way to start the evening, Mr. Jeon. I’m sure the guests would enjoy speaking with you tonight.”
“That’s what I hope,” he replies. “I’ll need you close to me to keep track of scheduled meetings or any invitations. I’d also like them to be familiar with you as my assistant so they know who to reach out to in case I’m not available.”
“Of course, sir,” you say, turning around to face him again, suddenly feeling nervous about the intensity of his look. “I’ll take note of all those.” 
He nods then exits the room and you follow. You trail him as he starts to greet the guests one by one.
There are heads of private foundations and curators. There are creative directors from entertainment agencies and some art enthusiasts. There are artists and authors and poets, all of whom are intrigued and seemingly excited about what’s in store. 
Jungkook heads to the front after being introduced by Manager Lee and takes his time to introduce the project, utilizing the panels and all of the interiors’ walls to showcase the design virtually. He presents his plans and the role of artists, creatives, creators, and consumers. It’s a half hour speech that ends, followed by a light sit-down dinner that Jungkook takes advantage of to engage with the guests. 
He first greets the deputy minister of the arts and culture ministry and then Mr. Saito, who’d likewise brought some of his artist friends from Japan. 
You then follow Jungkook around as instructed, taking notes on your phone in between to list all the upcoming meetings and other activities scheduled on the spot. You’ve somehow developed this skill with Hoseok but it still doesn’t get any easier. The fact that so many of them want to touch base with Jungkook after his pitch says a lot about how well he did and how much it resonated with the people he wanted to connect with. 
Based on your notes, you can already tell it’s gonna be incredibly busy moving forward, and the thought suddenly makes your head hurt. But you push through, knowing there are more people to meet with, even with Chin-sun and Manager Lee entertaining half of them. 
Jungkook takes the stage again to introduce some of the artists whose works will be displayed in the Arts Center, and he gives them time to talk about their pieces and what drew them into the project. The company head who’s been contracted to create the products for the souvenir shop also speaks, and as they share, you feel the excitement heighten. The opening is still a long time from now but things seem so clear and so certain, and you know that was because of Jungkook - because he demands the same level of excellence he practices from others, because he’s committed to his vision and he makes sure to see it through. 
More engagement takes place, and your only breather is when Jungkook decides to talk to his father and then Hoseok but after that, you’re back to following him around and running out of calling cards for people to keep and call you in the future. 
The last of the remaining guests finally leave at 10PM. You look around and the art pieces are being carefully wrapped for transport. The panels remain but Do-hyun and Yohan will be returning in the morning to pack everything up. Slowly, you start to feel the soreness creep in and the headache intensify but you shake all the pain off. There are two more days left for the week and you just have to power through them to survive. 
“You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” Chin-sun asks as she readies to leave.
“I live on the other side of the city from you. From all of you,” you remind them. It’s really the only reason why you don’t hitch a ride with them, especially considering that they have families and pets they go home to. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
“What about Yoongi?” Jungkook asks, surprising you because you thought he’d been on the phone. “Can’t he drive you?”
“He left an hour ago, Mr. Jeon,” you reply. “He has that early morning flight to Jeju tomorrow.”
“Mr. Ri can drive you home after he drops me off,” Jungkook says. “It’s too late in the night and it might be hard for you to get a cab.”
“Okay, sir. Thank you,” you mumble, waving everybody goodbye as you follow him towards the car. 
You get inside and find him sitting in the backseat, his coat removed and his head rolled back. You can tell all the socializing drained his energy again, and you’d hate to remind him that there’s a Property Expo next week that his father assigned him to attend, as well as a Partners’ Fellowship Dinner where he has to deliver another speech. You decide to do so in the morning instead and let the soft sounds of the radio soothe your mind.
“I think tonight was a success,” he mutters, prompting you to turn towards him. “Everyone I spoke to seemed excited.”
“They were,” you affirm. “They wouldn’t be scheduling meetings with you if they weren’t.”
“That’s true,” he hums. “That’s one major event down and several more to go.”
“I hope the team was able to show you how well we work together, Mr. Jeon. And that like me, they’re all on your side.”
Jungkook lets your words settle. He agrees. The team was like a well-oiled machine. Each member knew their roles and performed their tasks excellently. And there was you, of course, handling every one of his instructions and requests with grace. You looked really beautiful doing it, too, and he doesn’t know if he wants to thank or curse Taehyung for designing another dress that makes you stand out from the crowd because that’s what happened tonight - everywhere Jungkook looked, it seemed like all he could see was you.
He shakes away the thought, knowing that constantly acknowledging his attraction towards you would just make things harder for him the way that denying it would, and while he doesn’t have a solution for that either, he supposes that not acknowledging it at all would be the best option. 
So he focuses on the team instead, and he feels comforted to know that they worked hard because they knew how much tonight mattered to him, as Do-hyun expressed earlier. 
“I’m glad they are,” he finally replies. “I… I still don’t think I’m their favorite person but as long as they don’t despise me anymore, then I’m satisfied with that.”
“They don’t,” you counter, although even you’d know that’s a half-lie.
“They do. Or did, at least,” he laughs dryly. “It’s easy to stay unnoticed outside of the team’s office, you know?”
The tinge of sadness in his eyes confirms what you’re thinking - he’s heard some of the team conversations about him. And while you’d argue that they’re not vile or anything close to that, you also know that talking about him not smiling or not expressing his gratitude are things you shouldn’t be saying behind his back. Even if they’re true.
“I”m so, so sorry, Mr. Jeon. We–”
“It’s okay, it’s not a big deal,” he interjects. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t given you reasons to feel that way. You all did go from Hoseok to me and that’s quite the downgrade in terms of camaraderie and stuff.”
“We still didn’t have the right to say those things. And no, I’m not agreeing that you’re a downgrade,” you clarify. “Like you said, you and your cousin are very different.”
“I did. And that’s why I’m not surprised, is all I’m saying. But despite all that, the team did amazing tonight. Not like I’d expect they wouldn’t because they prefer someone more joyful or expressive, but it… it was also nice to see them enjoying themselves. I hope you did, too.”
“It was a memorable experience, Mr. Jeon,” you say. “It’s something new. The previous projects and events we handled were either residential or commercial in nature and our creativity wasn’t pushed as far as the Arts Center is doing. And we all appreciate that, even if we may not show it.”
“That’s good. At least there’s still something that you’re all getting out of this.”
There’s a sadness in his voice that you’re hearing for the first time. You don’t know what about tonight that’s making him vulnerable and honest with you. Perhaps it’s all the talk about human connection that he seems to struggle with, and maybe he’s realizing now that even with the team performing as well as they are, there’s still something lacking in soul and emotion that he thinks is because of him. 
Whatever it is, you hope that he doesn’t let it bring him down too much. Working closely with him, you’ve come to see more of him despite his efforts to keep those layers unpeeled and you’ve come to understand him a little more. You’ve forgiven him in the process, too. The team is still adjusting and you know it’s your job to bridge that gap. You’ll just have to figure out how. 
You let the silence end the conversation, not knowing what else you can say to comfort him at this moment. But you try though, as the car stops in front of his building and you call his name right before he closes the door.
“Yeah?” He asks, looking curiously at you. 
You almost forget what you’re about to say as he’s bent forward, his arm propped on the car roof, the surrounding lights highlighting the features of his face. 
“You did great tonight, too. And I learned a lot from you. Thank you for guiding us, sir.”
He’s left speechless, as he holds your gaze for a moment before nodding and closing the door. Mr. Ri drives away and you look back to see Jungkook walk slowly towards the building entrance, briefly looking your way before disappearing inside. 
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You arrive at the office the next morning at 9AM with a splitting headache, your body dragging itself towards your chair as you try to maintain balance and get yourself together. Jungkook had messaged late last night that he was going to have a breakfast meeting with his father so you could go straight to work, and given last night’s late finish, you could come at a later time as well.
That gave you another two hours of sleep, which you were thankful for considering the terrible state you were in when you woke up. Your body felt sore and the dryness of your throat signaled that you’re about to get sick - it was just a matter of when it was going to fully kick in. It’s how your body reacts to stress, a pattern you noticed since you started working in the company. It’s usually after succeeding weeks of late nights and big events when you give in - the headaches start then the sore throat; not long after, the fever hits and you’d have to spend days just doing nothing until you’ve expelled the exhaustion away. 
On rare occasions, your mother or friends come, knowing you’d be too sick to make yourself some food. But they don’t always have that luxury. They have their own lives, too, lives that they just happen to have far away from you. But it’s why it mattered that you gave Jungkook that noodle soup when he was unwell. You know what it’s like to be sick and hungry and completely helpless, and you had a feeling that just like yourself, he’d deal with it on his own. You’ll probably have to stock up on food tonight to get you through the next few days; you just hope you haven’t completely fallen apart by then.
You take your medicines and try to focus on your tasks for this morning, scheduling meetings and screening photos from last night to be used for marketing purposes. Needing some tea, you head to the pantry and briefly check in with the team before heading back. You see that Jungkook has just arrived, as he accompanied his father to one of their project sites after their meeting. He calls you over and asks if Do-hyun and Yohan have come back from fixing things at last night’s venue.
“Yes, sir, they just got here,” you reply. “Everything’s been stored properly and Chin-sun’s working on the payments already.”
“Good,” Jungkook responds. “It’s lunchtime though, so you should all grab a meal. There’s a French restaurant that just opened a block from here. I heard it’s got great reviews, so take the team there and have them order anything they want. You can just use your card to pay but it’s under the office’s budget.”
“Okay, sir. Uhm, that sounds great,” you manage to say, excitement filling you because you spent the other night watching review videos of that restaurant on YouTube and immediately told Jimin and Soomin that you’ll be eating there when they visit you the next time. “What about you though? Aren’t you joining us?”
“I… Well…”
“You don’t have any other scheduled meeting other than the one we’ll have as a team at 2:30.”
“I don’t have to go,” he answers. “You all worked hard and deserve to enjoy yourselves and I don’t think that’ll happen if I’m around. We can all debrief during the meeting but lunch is your time to get together and bond as a group.”
“You’re part of that group, too, Mr. Jeon. You are our boss,” you counter.
“Exactly.”
“But Mr. Ju–” you stop, not wanting to draw another comparison, which you said you’ll stop doing.
“I know. Hoseok would join you for lunch or dinner and the team enjoyed his presence,” Jungkook states. “I don’t think that’s the case with me. This isn’t me putting myself down but… you know that I don’t really… do things like that. I’m still learning that part of the role and I don’t want to spoil their fun.”
“You can’t really speak for the team though,” you point out.
“Well, you represent them to me. Am I wrong to assume all that?”
“No, but I think it would be a good opportunity to prove to them otherwise,” you advise.
Jungkook sighs, knowing you’ve got a point. But he insists, claiming that he’s still figuring out the team and how to relate with them. 
“I understand, Mr. Jeon,” you concede. “How about your lunch?”
“I’ll manage. You can all go ahead so you can get back on time.”
“We will. Thank you. I already know they’re going to enjoy it.”
The team is ecstatic when you tell them about lunch plans. They also only wonder about Jungkook’s presence once they’ve ordered and perhaps they’re still figuring him out, too. Much of their engagement with Jungkook is through meetings, as none of them, save for Manager Lee, feel comfortable or even free enough to just approach him. They also don’t know much about his interests or his quirks, and that puts you in the same boat as them. 
You said once that you’re not sure if you’ve gotten used to him already. Maybe slowly you are, as you look around and wish that he was here to experience this, too. Somehow you just think he’d love the duck confit dish that you eventually order for yourself. Maybe you can let him know, and he can order it on his own time. 
Lunch ends with everyone on a high from the delicious meal. Even you forget how terrible you’re actually feeling and let the laughs and scrumptious food compensate for the fatigue. 
You get back to the office and head to Jungkook as the rest of the team prepares the conference room for the meeting. You see a half-eaten sandwich on his desk and hate to think that it’s all he had while you enjoyed a fancy lunch that he ordered you all to have. He seems to pick up your thoughts as your eyes flit from him to his food and he affirms you that he’s not that hungry, given the heavy breakfast he had this morning.
“How was lunch?” He asks. 
“It was great. The food was really good. I had the duck confit that I think you’ll like and… uh, they were asking where you were.”
“They were?” 
“Yeah,” you respond. “They were wondering why you didn’t join us.”
“What did you say?”
“That you were on a conference call,” you say. You didn’t like that you had to lie to them about it, but you also didn’t want to use that time to talk about Jungkook behind his back again. “Yohan said that it’s understandable; you’re always busy and he doubts you get a break while you’re here.”
“Oh. Well, he’s not wrong.”
“We had a good time though, and I’m sure they’ll tell you later but thank you. It’s nice seeing the team enjoy themselves. I wish you could see it, too.”
“Maybe one day,” he says sullenly, standing up right after to head to the meeting with you.
The room quiets down when you both arrive and Jungkook feels once more the shift in their disposition once he joins them. He can’t fault them for it knowing that’s because of him, but as time passes and the more he talks about the value of human connections - which the Arts Center aims to foster - the more he starts to think of exactly what he’s missing by keeping himself too far a distance from everyone else around him. 
His father tries, he can tell. Most of their breakfast or lunch or dinner meetings aren’t actually meetings, and he supposes it’s just his old man’s way of spending time with him by disguising it as something work-related, knowing that Jungkook wouldn’t be into it if it wasn’t. His mother asks him over to their house on some weekends for lunch, her own way of reconnecting with him after years of being apart, but even with that, Jungkook just gives the bare minimum. 
He doesn’t not like them; he just stopped being close to them at some point and he didn’t really care to mend it as he grew older. The women he sleeps with don’t count since he doesn’t even really talk to them, and other than Taehyung and Seokjin, and occasionally Yoongi, who keep up with his attitude, there really isn’t anyone else whom he thinks enjoys his presence enough to want to have him around. 
He doesn’t know about you though, but he makes an educated guess and thinks there’s not much of him you’d miss just like anyone, and while the thought stings a bit, it’s one he tries to live with.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Jeon,” Manager Lee greets and implores the others to do the same. “Thank you again for lunch. It was really delicious and pretty fancy. I wish I’d worn a prettier tie than the one I have right now.”
“Your tie looks fine, Manager Lee,” Jungkook replies.
“Ms. Cho said you were busy, that's why you weren’t there,” Do-hyun boldly says. “Hopefully next time you can join us. I mean, not to assume you’ll treat us again, although that would be nice, but–” 
“Do-hyun just wanted to say thank you,” Chin-sun butts in. “And that we understand you have so many things going on, Mr. Jeon, so hopefully, when you have time in the future, you can join us for a meal, too.”
“That, uh, that would be fine, yes,” he mumbles, taking his seat and avoiding looking at everyone except you. “Let’s start the meeting.”
You’re there for over two hours, rehashing the entire process, given that it’s the first event out of many that the team organized. Jungkook is generous in complimenting everyone, including you, and he gives updates on the interest generated and all the artists he’ll be meeting in their respective studios as a result. 
The Ministry of Culture minister likewise pledged support, promising a linkage with the international media festival organizers like Jungkook had hoped. You’ve all accomplished so much in so little time, but the rest of the timeline shows that there’s still so much ground to cover. You plan the next steps and then spend half an hour talking about the other small projects that the VP’s office is managing before Jungkook adjourns the meeting and orders you all to head home to get some rest while he stays behind to work some more.
You follow him this time, trying your best to be stable as you take the bus home. You manage to buy some beef bone soup on the way for dinner, and once that’s all finished and you take a long hot shower to hopefully get rid of the stress in your body, you plop down on your bed and fall asleep with no warning at all. 
You wake up in the middle of the night, your clogged nose keeping you from breathing. With puffy eyes, you search for your eucalyptus inhaler and take your medicine before going back to bed and hoping that when you wake up, you’ll feel less terrible than you do right now. 
But you don’t, as you wake up to your alarm not long after and feel even worse. Your body is sore, your head feels heavy, and it’s a struggle to even turn to your side to try to pull yourself off the bed. Knowing there’s no way you’ll manage today, you call Mr. Ri and inform him that you’re unwell and can’t make it to work. 
“I can’t even type nor talk properly right now,” you tell him. “Can you–”
“I’ll tell Jungkook, don’t worry,” he assures you. “And just to remind you, you’re sick, okay? So stay in bed, don’t do chores or anything, and don’t think about work for even a second. You hear me? And update me on how you are.”
“Yes,” you cough out. “Thank you.”
You lie underneath the covers and hope to the heavens that more sleep would make you feel a bit of relief and it does, given that when your phone rings five hours later, you don’t feel like your head is splitting apart. 
“Good, you’re awake,” Mr. Ri says on the other end after you greet him. “Can you open your door?”
“Okay, just give me a few minutes. I’m exceptionally slow this morning.”
Mr. Ri laughs but tells you to take your time. You put on a hoodie over your gray sweatpants and briefly wash your face before opening the door. 
“Work’s got to you, huh?” He asks worriedly as he stands in front of you. “Is it bad enough to warrant a visit to the hospital? I can drive you there.”
“I’ll manage,” you mumble. “But what are you doing here, Mr. Ri? Mr. Jeon has a meeting in an hour.”
“I know. But he wanted me to give you this.”
The older man initially hands you a large paper bag but decides to just place it on your table given your weak state. He removes the containers of chicken noodle soup, rice porridge, and soybean sprout soup, boxes of soft bread, and a small jar of yuja marmalade for tea. 
“What–”
“Your meals for the next few days so you don’t have to worry about preparing them,” Mr. Ri says. “Jungkook wants you to focus on resting. He wants you to take Monday off, too.”
You look at him and suddenly feel like crying. You knew that waking up, you’d be worrying about what to eat, given that you barely have ingredients to work with. You also don’t have the energy to make anything, especially something that’d help with your health. Jungkook just relieved you of that, and at a time like today, you feel what it’s like to be cared for. And though you can argue with him using his own words - your health isn’t his responsibility - you won’t pretend that it doesn’t give you comfort knowing that he’d made the effort to buy all this and have them brought to you. 
You talk a little bit more before he heads out, and you lead him to the door where you look across the street where the car is parked. Your eyes may be puffy but you don’t miss the silhouette behind that backseat window. 
“How is she?” Jungkook asks as Mr. Ri enters the car and slowly drives away.
“She looks like someone who’s been working hard these past months and in need of rest. She says it’s normal but this is probably the worst. These few days off will be good for her.”
“I hope so, too.”
“She’s thankful for the food, Jungkook,” the older man says. “I know she’d probably say you didn’t have to but I could tell it meant a lot to her. She doesn’t always ask for help, you know? It’s good you’re somehow letting her know that she can count on you when she needs you. If this is you making it up to her, you’re on the right path.”
Jungkook hums in acknowledgement, although unsure what it means for him. Is it to compensate? To apologize again? To return the favor because you’d done it first? Is it to let you know that he has your back, too, the way you’ve been showing him that you have his? 
He’s alerted by a message, your name on his screen somehow making his heart jump. It’s a text message and not one from the usual messaging app you both use for work purposes because, well, that’s really the only thing you talk about.
[From: EA Cho] Thank you, Jungkook. I really appreciate it.
It’s the use of his name. It’s the sincerity in your simple words. 
He smiles to himself. 
Whatever it means to you, he knows it means another thing to him. He doesn’t want you to feel alone. And that in the coldest nooks of his uncaring heart, he actually does care for you. For this moment, he’ll acknowledge it. For this moment, he’ll let himself feel it. He can only hope you feel it, too.
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ew-selfish-art · 8 months
Text
Dp x Dc AU: Tim doesn’t rest, not even in Death.
It’s a heart attack that gets him, well, that and the insane amount of fear toxin flooding his system. He was dead for a full three minutes before he watches (how was he watching?) his eldest brother get his heart going again and get his unconscious body to the cave. Alfred gets him onto bat-life support and Leslie looks gravely at his family after she’s done her best to heal him. They decide to keep trying, they don’t want to believe he’s gone.
Tim watches in fury. He’s more useful than this, he’s not just going to die and let the family mourn him! Tim sets to work trying to understand what’s happened to him and he realizes he must be a ghost. Therefore, if he wants to understand ghosts he needs to go where ghosts are, and thankfully he just read a JLD doc saying to avoid Amity Park at all costs.
It’s takes him a second to get used to flying at full speed, but he finds himself surrounded by strange people in a strange town and… he notices himself becoming more visible. He’s able to interact with more and more objects, he even picked up a pencil! Poltergeist is a step forward in his plan, Tim accepts this change of pace.
Then Tim meets Danny, a normal human kid who looks like he could be brought into the manor and given a cape, who looks straight at him.
“Wait, who are you? You didn’t die in Amity did you?”
“No, I died in Gotham. I came here to understand how I’m a ghost and how I can get back to my dying body. I just need a few answers.” Tim explains, and notices that his voice isn’t his own, like it’s a different language entirely that comes out.
“Well, uh, I dunno about going back to your body but it’s not safe for you to be here. The GIW are looking for lost souls like you that people won’t notice go missing. So get back to your family and find peace. Im sorry but that’s really the best advice I have.” Danny answers.
Tim begs him for answers on the GIW. Begs him for any answers at all. Danny shrugs him off each time, tell him that he’s just a ghost and he needs to move on before he gets hurt or becomes a problem.
Tim decides if he’s a problem, he’ll probably get more answers.
Soon enough, he’s stepping into the end of a battle where Phantom is getting Skulker into a thermos, and demands answers, and if not answers help.
They brawl, and Tim’s training as Red Robin gets him farther than a lot of ghosts. And then, when he knows he’s beat and he’s about to share thermos space with the robot jackass (who he can interrogate and then build his own robot) Tim realizes something.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you? You’re Danny, black hair and blue eyes.” Tim says and suddenly Phantom is as still as the dead despite the accusation.
“How the fuck- dude. Okay, you know what? Fine. Lets go talk, you’re clearly not giving up and I need you to never say that shit out loud ever again.”
Because blackmail works in life for Tim, blackmail also apparently works in death.
He’s given all of the info they have on the GIW, he’s introduced to ghost technology and how it works with ectoplasm. He’s told about the portal (although they refuse to sneak him into the house to see it- he can handle a few lasers, ugh) and he’s told about the general sequence of events in Danny’s life/death.
And then Tim is suddenly back in his body in Gotham.
The family found a way to bring him back and he’s 100% alive, no longer ghostly, but he retained all his memories.
“We have a war against the government to start” are not the first words his family expected to hear from Tim post death.
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flowercrowngods · 2 months
Text
who did this to you. part 3
🤍🌷 read part 1 here | read part 2 here pre-s4, steve whump, protective (but scared) eddie. now with robin!
The number rings in his head, echoing off the inside of his skull and sinking lower and lower until his heart strings join the symphony that leaves him shaking as the memory of Harrington’s slurred voice is drowned out by the dial tone that feels harrowingly like a flatline right now. 
Said I’ll go blind. Or deaf. Or just… die.
Eddie doesn’t really feel like his body belongs to him anymore, or like there’s anything left inside him other than panic and fear and that stupid, stupid shaking that he can’t suppress even as he bites his knuckles. Hard. 
The pain helps a little not to startle too much when the dial tone stops and a female voice begins speaking to him. Still he almost drops the phone, cursing under his breath as he pulls his hair to collect himself and get his voice to work. 
“H— Hi, hello, Mrs Buckley? This is, uh. I. I’m. A friend of Robin’s, could you, uh—“ 
“Oh, of course, dear,” the woman says, and Eddie feels his eyes beginning to prick with how nice she sounds even through the phone. 
Does she know Steve, too? Would she worry if she knew? Would she curse Eddie for not taking him to the hospital right away? Would she blame him if anything happened? 
“I’m sorry? What did you say your name was?” she asks, repeating herself by the sound of it. 
He blanks, for a whole five seconds, before he spots a note stuck to the fridge saying Don’t forget to eat, Eddie :-)
“Eddie,” he croaks. “Uh, Eddie Munson.”
“Alright, Eddie Munson, I’ll see if I can grab Robin for you. You have a good day, dear, yes?” 
No. “Thanks.” 
The hand clenched in his hair pulls tighter and tighter until the tears fall and he can pretend it’s from pain and not from— whatever the fuck is happening. 
He waits, phone pressed to his ear with a kind of desperation he’s never really felt, and never wants to feel again. He doesn’t even know what to tell Robin; what to say. It’s not like they ever hang out or have anything to say to each other, so why would she— 
“Munson?” Robin’s voice appears on the other end, a little too loud for Eddie’s certain state, and he does drop the phone this time, scrambling to catch it and only making the situation worse as it dangles by his knees. 
He drops to the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and reaching for the phone again. 
“Hi.” 
“What do you want? How’d you even get this number? I swear, if you—“ 
“It’s Blue. I mean, Steve. Harrington.” 
That shuts her right up, and Eddie clenches his eyes shut for a moment, hoping to keep the tremor out of his voice if only he takes a moment to breathe. 
The moment stretches. And Robin’s voice is wary and quiet when she speaks again. 
“What about Steve.” 
Eddie rubs his face, leaving more dirt and grime to fill the tear tracks, and clenches his fist before his mouth. 
“Eddie,” Robin demands, dangerous now. Nothing left of the rambling, bubbling mess he knows her to be on the school hallways. “What. About. Steve.” 
“He… He’s hurt.” 
There’s a bit of a commotion on the other end, before Robin declares, “I’m coming over. You tell me everything.” 
“You— I mean, he’s in the hospital with my uncle, so—“ 
“I am. Coming. Over,” she says, enunciating every word as though she were making a threat. Maybe she is. But the certainty in her voice helps a little, anchors him the same way that Wayne’s calmness did. “And you tell me everything.” 
Eddie finds himself nodding along, knowing intuitively that there is nothing that could stop her now. Knowing that he doesn’t want to stop her. 
“‘Kay.” It’s a pathetic little sound, all choked up and tiny. She doesn’t comment on it. 
One second he hears her determined exhale, the next she’s hung up on him and Eddie is greeted by the flatline again. He lets out a shuddering breath and leans his head back against the wall. 
Breathing is hard again, but it’s all he has to do now, all that’s left to do, so he focuses. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. His lungs are burning and there’s something wrong about the way he pulls in air and keeps it there, desperately latching onto it until the very last second, his exhales more of a gasping cough than calm and controlled. 
It takes a while. Longer than it should. But with Harrington’s blood still on his hands, with his heartbeat in his ears so loud he can’t even hear the words Wayne used to say about breathing in through the mouth or the nose or… or something, he— 
He’s fine. He’s home. Wayne’s got Blue, and Buckley is on her way, and… He’s fine. 
People don’t just die. 
They don’t. 
He’s fine. 
Eventually, Eddie manages to breathe steadily, the air no longer shuddering and his hands no longer shaking. It’s stupid, really, being so worked up over someone he doesn’t even really know. Sure, everyone knows Steve fucking Harrington, and everyone sees Steve fucking Harrington — whether they want it or not. He has a way of drawing eyes toward him even if all he does is walk the halls with his dorky smile and that stupidly charming swagger he’s got going on. Always matching his shoes to his outfit.
Eddie can relate.
Always reaching out to touch the person he’s talking to; clapping their back or shoulder, lightly shoving them in jest, ruffling their hair or chasing them through the halls, moving and holding himself like teenage angst can’t reach him. Like he belongs wherever he goes. Like he’s so, so comfortable in his own skin. Like the clothes he wears aren’t armour but just a part of him; a means of self-expression. 
Again, Eddie can relate. He can relate to all of this. 
It’s almost like the two of them aren’t so different after all. Just going about it differently. 
And now he’s… Bleeding. Slurring his speech. Wheezing his breath. And Eddie feels protective. Eddie feels responsible. Like he should be there, like he should get to know more about him. About Steve. About Blue. 
But he can’t. And he won’t. So he gets up with a groan that expresses his frustration and the need to make a sound, to fight the oppressive silence that only encourages his thoughts to run in obsessive little circles, and he hangs up the phone that’s been dangling beside him all this time. 
He needs a smoke. 
He needs a smoke and a blunt and a drink and for this day to be over and for time to revert and to leave him out of whatever business he stumbled into by opening the door to the boathouse and, apparently, Steve Harrington’s life. 
But unfortunately, the universe doesn’t seem to care about what he needs, because just as he steps outside and goes to light his cig, he catches sight of a harried looking Robin Buckley, standing on the pedals of her bike as she kicks them, her hair blowing in the wind to reveal a frown between her brows. A wave of unease overcomes Eddie, an unease he can’t really place. Maybe it’s the set of her jaw, or the tension in her shoulders, or maybe it’s the worry and anger she exudes. 
It never occurred to him before that Robin Buckley might not be a person you’d want to set off. And not because of her uncontrollable rambles. 
“Munson!” she calls over, carelessly dropping her bike in the driveway and stalking toward him. 
Almost as if summoning a shield, Eddie does light the cigarette. Pretends like the smoke can protect him. 
She doesn’t stop at the foot of the steps, though, climbs them in two leaps and gets all up in his space with that unwavering look of determination — so unwavering, in fact, that it almost looks like wrath. Cold. Eddie wants to shrink away from it, not at all daring to wonder what could make her look like that upon hearing that Steve’s hurt. 
I don’t wanna die, Munson. I never… I didn’t. With the monsters or the torture.
But those are the words of a semi-conscious teenage boy beat to a pulp, they can’t— There’s no way. Eddie misheard him, or Steve was talking about some kind of inside joke, using the wrong terminology with the wrong guy. It happens. It happens when you’re out of it, really! The shit he’s said when he was shot up, canned up, all strung out and high as a kite… He’d be talking of monsters, too, and mean some benign shit. 
But the way Harrington looked, none of that was benign. The bruising all over his face, the blood still dripping from the wound by his temple or his nose, the way he held himself, breath rattling in his lungs, or— 
“Hey!” Buckley demands his attention, giving him a light shove; just enough to catch his attention, really, and just what he needed to snap out of it. Still the smoke hits his lungs wrong and he coughs up a lung, further cementing his role of the pathetic little guy today. 
“Hey,” he says lamely, his voice still croaking as he crushes the half-smoked cigarette under his boot. “Sorry.” He doesn’t know for what. But it feels appropriate. 
She shakes her head, rolling her eyes at him as she crosses her arms in front of her chest. 
“Tell me,” she says at last, and even though there is a tremor in her voice, she sounds nothing short of demanding. “I want the whole story, and I want it now.” 
And so he does. He tells her everything, bidding her inside because he needs the relative safety of the trailer even though the air in here is stuffy and still faintly smells blue. He pours them both some coffee and some tea, because asking what she wants doesn’t feel right in the middle of telling her how he found her supposed best friend beat to shit in the boathouse he went to to forget about the world for a while. 
She stills as she listens to him, staring ahead into the middle distance somewhere beneath the floor and the walls, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug of coffee. Eddie stumbles over his words a lot, unsettled by her stillness, her lack of reaction. She doesn’t even react to his fuck-ups. People usually do.
He wants to ask. Where are you right now? What have you seen? What’s on your mind? What the fuck is happening?
But he doesn’t ask, instead he tells her more about Steve. About how he seemed to forget where he was. About the pain he was in. About the smiles nonetheless. The way he reassured Eddie. 
That one finally gets a choked little huff from her, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. 
“Yeah, that sounds like him alright. He’s such a dingus.” 
There is so much affection in her voice as she says it that Eddie can’t help but smile into his mug. 
“Dingus?” he asks, hoping for some lightness, hoping to keep it. 
But the light fades, and her eyes get distant again. Eddie wants to kick himself. 
“Just a stupid little nickname. An insult, really.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t know what to do with that. If he should ask more or if he should say that he has a feeling Steve might appreciate stupid little nicknames. Especially if they’re unique. Especially if they’re for him. But what right does he have to say that now? What knowledge does he have about Steve Harrington that Robin doesn’t? 
So he bites his tongue and drinks his coffee, cursing the silence that falls over them as Robin mirrors him, albeit slow and stilted, like she doesn’t know what to do either. Or where to put her limbs. 
“Wayne’s got him now. I took him here, after the boathouse, because I didn’t know what to do. He said he didn’t want the hospital, said there’s…” He trails off. 
Robin looks at him, her eyes wary but alert. “Said there’s what?” 
It’s stupid. Don’t say it. 
“Eddie?” 
With a sigh, he puts his mug on the counter and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “He said there’s monsters. In the hospital, I mean. He said that.”
Instead of scoffing or at least frowning, Robin clenches her jaw and nods imperceptibly, her eyes going distant again. Eddie blinks, the urge to just fucking ask overcoming him again, but with every passing second he realises that he doesn’t actually want to ask. He doesn’t want to know, let alone find out. 
He just… He just wants to go to bed. Forget any of this ever happened. But he can’t do that, so he continues. 
“Brought him here and Wayne took one look at him and convinced him he needed a doctor. And, Jesus H Christ, he was right. I’ve never… I mean, those things don’t happen,” he urges, balling his hands into fists even in the confined space of his pockets. “Right? I mean… Shit, man.” He bumps his shoe into the kitchen counter; gently, so as not to startle Buckley out of her fugue like state. 
“You’d be surprised,” she rasps, staring into the middle distance again and slowly sinking to the floor. There is a tremor in her shoulders now, barely noticeable, but Eddie knows where to look. Without really thinking about it, he grabs two of his hoodies he’d haphazardly thrown over the kitchen chairs this morning while deciding on his outfit and realising that it was altogether too warm for long sleeves today. But now, right here in this kitchen, the air tinged with blue, they’re both freezing. 
Because fear and worry will take all the warmth right from inside of you and leave you freezing even on the hottest day of the year. 
She barely looks at him when he holds out his all-black Iron Maiden hoodie to her, freshly washed and all that, but she takes it nonetheless, immediately pulling it on. It’s way too large on her, her hands not showing through the sleeves, her balled fists safe and warm inside the fabric. It would make him smile if only it didn’t highlight her stillness, her faraway stare, and the years he has on her. She’s, what, two years younger than him? Three? 
It seems surreal. Everything, everything does. 
Robin Buckley in his home, sitting on his kitchen floor, swallowed by a hoodie that is a size too large even for him, but it was the last one they had in the store and he doesn’t mind oversized clothes, can just cut them shorter when the need arises or layer them or declare them comfort sweaters for when he wants to just have his hands not slip through the sleeves on some days. And now Robin is wearing his comfort hoodie because her best friend was bleeding in his car earlier and then on his couch and now in his uncle’s car, and they never even talk, but he knows that Robin’s favourite colour is blue, but not morning hour blue because that makes her sad; only deep, dark blues. 
Her favourite colour. Her favourite person. 
It’s so fucking surreal. 
He drops down beside her, leaving enough space between them so neither of them feels caged, and mirrors her position: knees to his chest, chin on his forearms. Staring ahead. 
And silence reigns. 
“Your uncle,” she says at last, finally breaking the silence that’s been grating on Eddie’s nerves and looking at him, really looking as she rests her cheek on her forearms crossed over her knees. “Tell me about him.” 
There is a gentleness to her voice now despite how hoarse it is. Maybe she’s just tired, too. And scared. At least the shivering has stopped. 
Still Eddie frowns, confused as to why she should be breaking the silence to ask about Wayne when everything today has been about Harrington. About Steve. About deep and dark blues. 
“Uncle Wayne?” he asks. “Why?”
“Because,” she begins, and sighs deeply, works to get the air back in her lungs. Eddie wants to reach out, but instead he just clenches his fingers a little deeper into the fabric of his hoodie. “My best friend is hurt very badly and the only person with him is your uncle, and I need to know that he’s in good hands. Or I swear to whatever god you may or may not believe in, and granted, it’s probably the latter, but still I swear I’ll give into my arsonist tendencies and burn down this city, starting with your trailer if you don’t tell me that your uncle is a good man who will do anything in his power to make sure that boy gets the help and care he needs. And deserves.” 
Her jaw is set and her bottom lip trembles, but it doesn’t take away from the absolute sincerity in her threat. 
“So, please,” she continues, her voice breaking just a little bit. “Tell me. Tell me about your uncle.” 
Tell me about your favourite person. 
Eddie swallows, and mirrors her position once more, so she can see his eyes and know he’s sincere. Because he’s learned something about eyes today, about how much in the world can change if only you have a pair of eyes to look into. 
And he nods, looking for somewhere to start. “He’s the best man I know. He’s the best man you’ll ever meet.”
She clings to his eyes. Searches them for the truth, beseeching them not to lie. He lets her. 
“Took me in when I was ten, because my dad’s a fuck-up and my mom’s a goner. Took me in again when I was twelve after I ran away. Makes me breakfast and I pretends the dinner I make him is more than edible.” He smiles a little, because how could he not? “He’s my uncle, but still he’s the best parent anyone could wish for. Writes those little notes that he sticks to the fridge, y’know, the one with the smiley face? Tells me to eat, because I forget sometimes. I tell him to drink water, because he forgets. First few years, he’d read to me. And the man’s a shit reader, has some kind of disability I think, and at some point I learned that he wasn’t reading at all. He was telling me stories all the time, conning me into thinking that the books were magic, and that every time I’d try to read the book for myself, the story would change.” 
There’s a lump in his throat now, and his eyes sting again. But Robin doesn’t seem to fare any better than him if her wavering smile is any indication. 
“There’s no one,” Eddie continues, “who will make you believe in magic quite like uncle Wayne. Or in good things. And d’you wanna know what he told Blue when he said he was scared of going to the hospital?” 
Sniffling, Robin shakes her head. 
“He said, Okay. Then we do it scared. And all of that after he just… with that patience he has, told him everything that was gonna happen. And that he’d be there with him through it all. That he knew the doc and wouldn’t let anyone else near him, and that there’s no need to be scared at all.” 
He sighs, breathes, stills. Swallows, before looking back at Robin. 
“So, if there’s one person who’ll make sure that boy gets the help and care he needs and deserves…” 
“It’s uncle Wayne,” Robin finishes his sentence, her voice still hoarse, but Eddie likes to think it’s for a different reason now. 
“It’s uncle Wayne,” Eddie says, nodding along as he does. 
There is something like understanding in Robin’s eyes now, and Eddie hopes it’s enough. Enough to calm the spiking of her nerves, enough to settle the coil of freezing nausea that must reside in the pit of her stomach, enough to let the next breath she takes feel a little more like it’s supposed to be there. 
He wants to say something more, wants to reach out and reassure her that everything will be okay, but he can’t know that. He doesn’t feel like it’s entirely true, let alone appropriate right now. 
There’s something in Robin’s eyes, in the way she holds herself, like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like she accepts his words at face value but doesn’t really believe them. Like she’ll only rest when she’s got her best friend back in her arms and hears the story — the whole story — from him. 
And Eddie doesn’t fault her, because the thing is, he doesn’t know what happened. Steve said that Hagan came at him, but that’s really all he got out of him before he started talking about death and shit, and Eddie really didn’t want to ask any more questions then. 
So they sit there for a while, the silence oppressive and unwelcome, clumsy and awkward; Robin’s mouth opening and closing a lot, like she wants to ask questions but doesn’t dare to ask them — and Eddie doesn’t know if he’s glad about it or not. Doesn’t know if he wants to hear the kind of questions asked with that kind of stare. 
It is only after a long while, when Robin’s shoulders start shaking again and she buries deeper into the hoodie and her own spiralling thoughts, that Eddie breaks the silence again, replaying in his head the last moment between him and Steve. 
“He’s not gonna break,” he tells her, aiming for gentle and reassuring. 
What he doesn’t expect is the minute flinch, the jolt shooting through her body and the pained expression it leaves her with. What he doesn’t expect is what she says next. 
“You know,” she begins, her voice as far away as her eyes, and it’s like she doesn’t even know she’s speaking. “Sometimes I wish he would.” 
What?
Eddie blinks, swallowing hard.
“Just for, just for a break. Just so he can rest. Let the rest take over for a while.” 
That… He doesn’t— What the hell does that even mean? 
“Like maybe then the world would… snap back.” She snaps her fingers, just once. This time it’s Eddie who flinches. “And everything bad would disappear. But it won’t. And he won’t.” She swallows. Then quietly, almost inaudible, “He won’t break.” 
And the way she says it… It was reassuring before. And now it feels like a burden. A curse. 
Who the fuck are you, Steve Harrington? And you, Robin Buckley. 
Eddie shudders, knowing he doesn’t want the answer to that anymore. He doesn’t want the questions either. So he buries his face in his hands, closes his eyes, and breathes. The adrenaline has worn off by now, the repeated panicking that added fuse to the fire has ceased now, leaving him worn out and strung out, tired and exhausted. He pulls up the hood, burrowing into the warmth. 
And then he stills. His usually twitching, fumbling, fiddling body falling entirely still beside Buckley. 
It’s like time stops for a while there, even though Eddie knows that it’s dragging ever on and on. He’s inclined to let it, though. He’s too tired, too exhausted to really care about what time may or may not be doing. 
“Why’d you call me?” 
It takes a while for Eddie to realise that Robin’s spoken again, asked him a question out loud, the cadence of it different to the endless circles of questions Eddie’s got stuck in his head since the early afternoon tinged in blue against crimson. 
He lifts his head, tucking his hands underneath his chin, and looks over at Buckley. Her hair is dishevelled now, her mascara smudged and crusty. Her lipstick is almost all gone, with the way he sees her biting and chewing on her lips. 
“I… It seemed like the right thing to do, y’know? He kept repeating your number. In the car, it was like… Sounds dramatic, but it was like his lifeline, almost. Repeated it so often it kinda got stuck.” He shrugs. “Seemed important, too.”
Robin frowns; a careful little thing. “How’d you know it was me?”
“Well, he just talked about you. Y’know. Tell me about your favourite person, I told him, because that’s the thing you gotta do to keep people, like, talking to you. Not shit about what day it is, or what. Just, y’know. Let them talk about things they like. Things they’ll wanna tell you about. ’N’ he talked about you.” 
She’s quiet for a while, letting his words sink in. And Eddie wonders if she knew. That she’s his favourite person. If he ever told her. If maybe he took that from him now. It’s a stupid thing to worry about, really; the boy was bloodied and bruised on his couch just an hour ago, there are worse things at hand for Eddie to worry about. But now he wonders if he just spilled some sort of secret. Some sort of love confession. 
“Did you, I mean… Are you guys, like, dating? Did I just steal his moment?” 
Robin huffs, but it’s more like a smile that needs a little more space in the room, a little more air to really bloom. It’s fond. She shakes her head, her eyes far away again, but closer somehow. 
“Nah,” she says, and the smile is in her voice, too. Eddie kind of likes her voice like that. “We’re platonic. Which is something I’d never thought I’d say. Not about Steve Harrington, y’know?” 
And the way she drags out his name… Eddie can relate. Like it means something, but like what it means is nowhere close to reality. Nowhere close to what it really means. Nowhere close to Blue. 
Robin sighs, the sound more gentle than it should be, and leans her head against the cabinet behind her. “We worked together over summer break. Scoops Ahoy.” Her voice does a funny thing, and her eyes glaze over as she pauses. Eddie waits, his lips tipped up into a little smile, too; to match hers. 
“What, the ice cream parlour?” 
Robin hums, her smile widening at what Eddie guesses must be memories of chaos and ridiculousness. “I wanted to hate him,” she continues. “But try as I might, he wouldn’t let me. Or, he did. He did let me. Just, it turns out, there’s no use hating Steve Harrington, not when he’s so… So endlessly genuine. There’s nothing to hate, y’know? And then he…” 
She stops, her mouth clicking shut as her eyes tear up a little. The Starcourt fire. Eddie remembers the news, remembers the self-satisfied smirk when he’d heard about it, remembers sticking it to the Man and to capitalism and to the idea of malls over supporting your friendly neighbourhood businesses. 
Guilt and shame overcome him as he realises that they must have been in there when it happened. 
“He saved your life?” 
Robin’s eyes snap toward him, wide and caught, and Eddie raises his hands in placation. 
“In the fire? Were you there?” 
“Y—yeah.” She swallows hard, avoiding his eyes. “The fire. He saved me. Yeah.” 
Eddie nods, deciding to drop that topic right there; to lay it on the ground as gently as he can and cover it with bright red colours so he never steps on it ever again. 
“He must be your favourite person, too, then, hm?” he steers the conversation back away into safer waters. 
“He is,” she says, sure and genuine and true. “It’s just. I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s favourite. He has a lot of people who care about him, you know? A lot of people he cares about. Even more numbers memorised in that stupidly smart head of his.” She huffs again, burrowing deeper into Eddie’s hoodie, pulling the sleeves over her hands some more. “It’s stupid, to be so hung up on this. Is it stupid?” 
“I don’t think it is,” Eddie says, scooting a little closer to Robin. “Like, I don’t even know that boy, right? But even I know that he’s got some ways to shift your focus or something. Give you a silver lining, or something to take the pain away even when he’s the one who… I don’t know, that’s probably stupid, too.” 
“Nah,” Robin says, scooting closer to him, too, until their sides are pressed together and she can lay her head on his shoulder. “It’s not stupid. You’re right; that’s Steve for you. ’S just who he is.” 
It is, isn’t it? 
You’re so blue, Stevie. 
She’ll say something corny when, when you ask her, jus’ to fuck with you. Sunset gold or rose, jus’ to mess with… But is blue.
Blue. ‘S nice. 
Yeah. Yeah, he is. 
Eddie lets his thoughts roam the endless possibilities and realities that is Steve Harrington, the depths he hides — or won’t hide, maybe, if you know how to ask. Where to look. 
Maybe he’ll find out, one of these days. Not about the terrible things that leave him scared of the hospital, not about the horrible things that have him speaking of death and dying like he’s accepted them as a possibility a long time ago. 
He swallows hard and shakes off these thoughts, because things like that just. They don’t happen. They don’t happen to blue-smiled boys who trust you to be kind even when they’re beaten straight to hell. And they sure as hell don’t happen when uncle Wayne’s around. 
Nothing bad has ever happened when uncle Wayne was around. 
And he wants to tell Robin, wants to make that promise. But part of him can’t bear the thought of being wrong. So he keeps his mouth shut and just sits with her, their heads as heavy as their hearts as they wait. 
The sun is long gone when the phone above him rings again, spooking and startling them out of their timeless existence. 
“Yeah?” he answers, his heart hammering in his chest. “Wayne?” 
“Hey, Ed,” Wayne’s voice comes through the phone like a melody. Calm and steady. Robin is scooting closer, and Eddie shifts the phone to accommodate her so they can both listen. Somehow, they ended up holding hands — and holding on hard. “We’re coming home now.” 
🤍🌷 tagging:
@theshippirate22 @mentallyundone @ledleaf @imfinereallyy @itsall-taken @simply-shin @romanticdestruction @temptingfatetakingnames @stevesbipanic @steddie-island @estrellami-1 @jackiemonroe5512 @emofratboy @writing-kiki @steviesummer @devondespresso @swimmingbirdrunningrock @dodger-chan @tellatoast @inkjette @weirdandabsurd42 @annabanannabeth @deany-baby @mc-i-r @mugloversonly @viridianphtalo @nightmareglitter @jamieweasley13 @copingmechanizm @marklee-blackmore @sirsnacksalot @justrandomfandomstm @hairdryerducks @silenzioperso @newtstabber @fantrash @zaddipax @cometsandstardust @rowanshadow26 @limpingpenguin @finntheehumaneater @extra-transitional (sorry if i missed anyone! lmk if you don't wanna be tagged for part 4 🫶)
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Transcript -
Gabriel : *heavy breathing and grunting* Bastard. 
Useless bucket of bolts. Yeah, you better run!
Load back to your- Ah shit, that was hard. Load back to your little checkpoint.
Yeah, go ahead. Go P rank the other levels. 
Oh… I’m sorry. Can-can-can I? Excuse me, can I help you?
Columbo : Oh, uh, hi there. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.
Uh, I’m looking for somebody. 
Uh, Gabriel is it? Is that you? Is that who I’m lookin for?
Listen, I just gotta say, you did an amazing job uh… Fighting off that uh. 
What’d ya-what’d ya call it?
Uh, you called it a… 
Gabriel : A mere object?
Columbo : That’s right. A mere object. 
Phenomenal work. 
I gotta tell ya. Robots, I don’t trust em myself. 
Ya know, I had-I had this one episode where uh, there was this robot named Rob and uh-
Gabriel : Uh, yes. 
That’s very fascinating, but could you perhaps get on with your introduction? 
Columbo : Uh, certainly. So I’m, uh, I’m lieutenant Columbo. Uh, I’m with the LAPD. Uh, I'm in the homicide department. 
Gabriel : Homicide? You can’t kill a machine. 
Columbo : No no no! Of course not. But um… Well… Ya can certainly love one.
Gabriel : D-d-d-detective I- I don’t- I don’t know what you’re implying there with that statement!
As you can tell I… Despise machines and wouldn’t think about doing so- Loving them, I mean.
Columbo : Yes, of course uh. Absolutely, it’s completely unthinkable. 
Except, well. While I was- while I was over here and I opened this door and uh fourteen- fourteen V1 body pillows fell out. Along with a buncha the plushies. 
Uh, and I just can’t imagine how ya- how ya happened upon something like that by accident.
It’s a little ridiculous! Uh, frankly.
Gabriel : Uh, no no no, listen.  
Detective. I can explain, okay? 
Those belong to- uh! That guy over there! 
*Filth-like scream*
Gabriel : Yeah! A real freak! 
Some kinda pervert. I don’t know why we keep him around.
But uh, I-I have nothing to do with it. 
Columbo : Well, ya see, I would believe- I would believe that, but uh. 
It’s just that- Well we had the boys at the lab run these pillows and we found your cum- We found your DNA all over em, uh.
You’re-You’re under arrest, I’m killing you.
Gabriel : K-hah. Kill me? *laughs*
Oh detective. 
Columbo : Oh. Aw fuck.
Gabriel : I’m afraid you’ve made a grave mistake. 
Because, in fact… What is going to happen instead…
Is actually what I’m gonna- AHHHG MOTHERFUCKER
I’LL FUCKIN KILL YOU
SON OF A BITCH 
AHHG YOU BASTARD
I’LL RIP YOU APART 
PIECE OF SHIT
YOU FUCK
ASSHOLE
BITCH
*Grunting* 
Oh Shit. 
Oh. What have I done? 
V1 : Bro, tell me you didn’t just kill a fucking cop.
Gabriel : The law will be here any second now… 
Machine, flush the drugs.
V1 : No way, bro. Let’s smoke that.
Gabriel : All of it?!?
Hm… One last ride…
Well, alright.
*coughing his lungs out*
V1 : No Gabriel, holding it in doesn’t do anything!
*Gabriel continues to cough his lungs out*
End of transcription
Audio source part 1
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pinkie-pop · 5 months
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"Do Paimons Dream of Floating Sheep?"
Mondstadt: Part I Part II Part III Part IV
Based on this
Featuring: Gender-Neutral Reader, Paimon!Reader, Genshin Impact various x Reader, Yandere Genshin Impact
Word count: 3k
Synopsis: Being dragged into the world of your favorite video game is hardly your idea of a relaxing Saturday, and being dragged into the world of your favorite game, taking over the role of mascot even less so. Unfortunately, it seems fate has no interest in what you consider to be a normal day, and it will do anything to replace your idea of normal entirely.
Includes: Fear of heights, death, vomiting, Reader straight up not having a good time
Stormterror has arrived in Mondstadt city.
You, the Traveler, and Amber run past the city gates as Stormterror lunges towards the giant statue. Three large, whistling tornados whirl to life at his command. You can clearly see the tainted blood pulsing upon his back. It seems your plan of stopping Stormterror without hassle has completely fallen apart. Of course. Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. You suppose not even the Anemo Archon himself is strong enough to go against the script. 
You narrowly avoid a gust of wind that comes your way, but the Traveler isn’t so lucky. He’s swept up by the current immediately, reaching out a hand to you as if you held the power to stop it.
You don’t. 
You can’t do anything.
“Kaeya!” Amber calls, running up to the blue-haired man. The two of them begin chatting, catching each other up to speed on the situation at hand. “Kaeya, this is [Name] and Aether, and…wait, where’s Aether?” 
“He got swept uo by the storm. Look,” you say, pointing up towards him.
“He’s fighting Stormterror?” Says Amber. “But that’s so dangerous!”
“Amber, why does he have one of your windgliders?” Asks Kaeya. 
“Huh? Oh, uh…eheh…No…reason…” Amber scratches the back of her head and Kaeya raises an eyebrow. You’re pretty sure he only asked that to get a rise out of her. You pay it no mind, however, instead focusing on the battle above you. You want to help, but there’s nothing you can do. You’re not the protagonist of this story. No, you’re nothing but a mascot. You can do nothing but grit your teeth and watch.
Meanwhile…
A gust of wind picks Aether right up off of the ground, hurtling upwards towards the sky. He uses his windglider, hoping to glide down somewhere safely and reconvene with you as soon as possible. He can’t protect you from up here. 
That was his plan, but…
“I’m preventing your fall with the power of a thousand winds.” An unfamiliar voice calls out to him from beyond the clouds. He whirls around, hoping to find the source of the sound, but to no avail. 
“You can’t see me,” the voice—a male, he thinks—says. “That’s okay, just listen to my voice. They’re safe down there. I need you to trust me.” Aether nods, though he isn’t sure if the man can see him. 
“Good. Now, concentrate. See yourself grasping on the wind and harness its power.” Aether does as he’s told and gathers a huge sphere of anemo and hurls it at Stormterror. He weaves through clouds, collecting their power and directing it back towards the dragon. The wind hits a glowing, purple spot on the dragon's back and it cries out in agony.
A weak point. Good.
Aether readies more anemo, preparing to hit the same spot again when Stormterror flies upwards and out of sight, retreating. Aether doesn’t bother chasing after it. There’s no need to. Instead, he glides back down towards the city, where you, Amber, and a person he doesn’t recognize all stand around.
Amber waves Aether down as he lands, introducing him to Kaeya. “You really gave us a fright,” she says. “I can’t believe you went up against a dragon!”
“Are you okay?” You ask. “What happened up there?” 
“I heard a voice,” he said. “It told me that it prevented my fall using the ‘power of a thousand winds’.”
“Do you think it could have been Barbatos? What did the voice sound like?” You, of course, already know the answer to these questions, but you ask anyways, hoping to guide the conversation to a realization.
“It sounded like the voice of a young boy,” says Aether. “I don’t know who it was, though.”
“The power of a thousand winds, hmm?” Kaeya puts a hand up to his chin, seeming to be in deep thought. “I don’t know if the voice you heard really was Barbatos or not, but either way, I think we ought to report this to our Acting Grand Master.” 
The four of you head to the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, where Jean and Lisa are there waiting for you.
“Mondstadt welcomes you, windborne travelers. I am Jean, the Acting Grand Master, and this is Lisa, our resident librarian.”
“Oh, are you two sweeties here to help us out? You’re both so adorable! Especially you, cutie,” Lisa winks at you. “Sadly, the timing is regrettable… Stormterror, or Dvalin, his true name, has been ravaging our cities as of late. The Ley Lines and elemental energy are completely out of control.” 
”Right,” Jean says. “If it weren’t for that, we would have had better ways to help you than just putting up wanted posters. We simply ask that you rest in Mondstadt while we help look for your sister.”
“Sounds good. Where’s the Inn?” You sputter as his lax response. Wasn’t the protagonist supposed to be eager to help?
“H-hey! Shouldn’t we at least offer to help out?” Aether looks at you as if to ask, ‘Why would we do that?’ “I mean, isn’t that the right thing to do? Besides, if that really was the voice of Barbatos you heard, wouldn’t he be more likely to help us if we help him first?” You say. Aether seems to ponder over this for a minute, then nods. 
“Alright. If you want to help, then let’s help.”
“Good. In that case, we’ll need a plan.” Kaeya says.
"Since Stormterror is now attacking the city directly, we may have an
opportunity to cut this problem off at the source. Lisa has revealed the sources of Stormterror's power with her magic."
"Right," Lisa says. "They're located in the abandoned Four Winds' Temples. Stormterror's ability is likely the result of it drawing its power from the temples. Our objective is to deal with three of the four temples.
"I trust everyone understands why we are only dealing with three." Jean looks around for confirmation, and everyone, save for Aether, nods their head.
"I don't," says the Traveler.
"Dvalin is the last of the four winds," you explain.
"Knights of Favonius," Everyone seems to stand at even greater attention as Jean addresses them. "Time is against us. We need to take the initiative and act before the situation gets even worse. There is no point in maintaining a defensive position."
•~•~•~•~•~•
You and the Traveler arrive at the Temple of The Falcon where Amber is waiting for you. 
"[Name]! Traveler! It's good to see you," she says as you approach. The three of you exchange greetings, and Amber fills you in on the mission. 
"These temples have been abandoned for years now, so there might be a monster nest inside. [Name], you can't fight, right? Don't worry, just leave it to me! I'll protect you!" 
"Me too," says Aether. You smile at them.
"Alright, I'm counting on you. Let's head in." Aether and Amber nod, and the three of you enter the temple.
The temple is more or less how you remember it (though, to be perfectly honest, you hardly remember it at all), a decrepit building with an open ceiling showcasing the "sky" above. There's a pyro mechanism shooting fire to your left and a few boxes to your right. Amber shoots the mechanism to put it out of commission, then you and your party head left. 
A Door of Resurrection activates as you walk past it, and you find yourself wondering what would happen if someone were to die here. The door indicates that they would come back, just like in a video game, but there's no way to know for sure.
Unless…
No. You can live with not knowing. You hope you never have to find out.
Amber and Aether make quick work of the rooms while you stand back and try to stay out of the way. It isn’t long at all before you end up in the third or fourth room. That on its own is hardly anything notable, but this room is different from the others. 
In the previous rooms, you could see the “sky” above you, but you had no way of knowing whether it was real or not. Did the domain create its own sky? Was it a pocket dimension? You had no way to know for certain. 
Until now, that is. 
You stare out into the sea of clouds before you, your feet planted firmly on a floating pedestal in the sky, and at once, you know. This is the truth behind the domains. They are not just old ruins, they are gateways. Portals to another world. 
Perhaps you can find your own world through these as well…
You are brought out of your musings by an arrow shooting its way past you and popping the anemo slime in front of you. Then, two more, and again, more slimes fall, each creating a wind current upwards. Amber and the Traveler both outstretch their hands to you, windgliders already at the ready.
“Let’s glide together!” They say in unison, then turn around to glare at the other. Though you feel a little awkward about taking sides, you eventually take Amber’s hand and allow her to carry you. She is the champion glider of Mondstadt, after all. You trust her experience. You don’t look at Aether when you take her hand, you know you wouldn’t be able to bear his hurt face if you did.
The three of you set off into the air, and you try not to look down. Unfortunately, the view upwards is hardly any less nervewracking. You see a large anemo slime off in the distance, heading straight towards you. Amber can’t shoot it while she’s carrying you, and Aether is too far away to hit it with his sword. It is all you can do to brace for impact as the slime shoots wind your way, knocking you from Amber’s hold.
You fall, but only for a moment. Something catches you.
No, that’s not quite right. Nothing catches you. You catch yourself. You’re flying. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. Amber and Aether are both gaping at you as you twirl around in the air. Perhaps this new body isn’t so bad after all. 
You fly up to the top platform, then start to get dizzy, so you lower yourself to the floor. 
“I thought you were afraid of heights,” Amber teased, gliding up to you.
“This is different,” you huff. “At least when I’m flying, I can control where I’m going. You can’t do that with a windglider at all!” 
“I suppose that’s true,” Amber laughs. “Still, though, that really surprised me. I had no idea you could fly.” 
“You’re not the only one,” Aether chimes in. 
“I actually didn’t know I could do that either.” You say. 
Finally, you arrive in the room where Stormterror’s crystal is. It doesn’t take long for Aether to destroy it with the power of anemo while Amber gives support and you watch. 
•~•~•~•~•~•
You and the Traveler arrive at the Temple of The Wolf, where Kaeya is waiting for you. 
“Ah, [Name], it’s good to see you. You too, Traveler.” You think Kaeya is trying to wink, but there’s really no way to be sure. Either way, his flirtatious tone has Aether glaring. You have a feeling this raid is going to be exhausting, and not just physically. “Come closer. Can you smell that?” Kaeya says, gesturing to the two of you.
“Uh…smell what?” You ask. 
“Something has happened in the temple. I imagine there’ll be slimes, hilichurls, and whatever is giving Stormterror that power. Ah, don’t worry about the fighting, [Name], your friend and I will take care of that.” Perhaps it’s just his voice, but there’s something oddly gleeful in his tone that sets you off.
“I’m not some damsel, you know?!”
You smile and nod, but you don’t say anything. The three of you head off into the domain, where another series of challenges await you. 
Another Door of Resurrection bursts to life in front of you, and it occurs to you that no one commented on the last one. Perhaps it’s something only you can see..? You open your mouth to ask, but Kaeya speaks up first.
“Hm, if I’m not mistaken, the end of the temple should be up there.” You look up. Above you is a large platform in the sky where, like Kaeya guessed, lies the end of the temple. You’re trying to figure out how to get a wind current to take you up there when an idea strikes you.
Right. How could you have forgotten?
“Leave it to me!” You say, glad to finally have something to do. You crack your knuckles, bracing yourself for flight. How did this go again? Right, first you need to lift off, then…
You did it! You’re flying! You look down, excited to see the look on Kaeya’s face when…
You look down. Oh. Oh wow. The ground sure is far. Were you always this high up? You start to feel nauseous. You hear Aether’s voice, but it sounds so far away. The room is spinning; you’re seeing double. Is the ground getting bigger or are you getting closer? 
Dizziness overtakes you, and you fall head-first into the stone flooring. You feel pain shoot up from your neck down to the base of your spine, but only for a moment. 
“Hm, if I’m not mistaken, the end of the temple should be up there.”
Huh..?
You blink, looking around dumbly as confusion washes over you. Green light pulses from behind you.
Could it be? You whip around, staring at the Door of Resurrection as if it would grow a mouth and tell you the answers. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t even need to. You already know.
You just died. But the Door saved you. 
“[Name]? We really ought to get a move on. What are you spacing out for?” Kaeya’s voice tears you away from your thoughts.
“I…I’m afraid of heights. I’m sorry, but I can’t go up there. I’ll wait for you down here.” Aether looks at you, clearly worried but unsure of what to say. 
“At least when I’m flying, I can control where I’m going. You can’t do that with a windglider at all!”
You try to smile at Aether, urging him to go on despite his worries.
At least when I’m flying…
Aether, after much hesitation, leaves with Kaeya. They’ll make quick work of the temple, you’re sure. Perhaps even quicker than they would have with you around. 
I can control where I’m going.
You let out a sigh as you sink to the floor.
Nothing else happens.
•~•~•~•~•~•
You and the Traveler arrive at the Temple of The Lion, where Lisa is waiting for you.
“Hey there, cuties. Good to see you—especially you, [Name].” Lisa winks at you, leaving you a bit puzzled. Her words seem to have put Aether in a bad mood. Well, you wouldn’t be happy if someone called you their second favorite, either. Still exhausted from the last temple, you merely wave to Lisa, hoping to get this temple over with as soon as possible. “Is everyone ready?” She asks. You nod. 
“I hope this trip is uneventful,” you murmur. The doors open, and the three of you step inside. You allow your mind to wander as you follow behind the others. Normally, it’d be a bad idea to be so absent-minded in a domain, but…
Well, what’s the worst that could happen? 
You shuffle along through the hallways as Aether and Lisa take care of any nearby threats. As suspected, they really didn’t need you here. Well, that’s okay. You’re fine with being useless so long as it means you can rest. 
Aether slashes another hilichurl with his sword, and for a moment, you imagine yourself in its place. You wonder what it would feel like to die from an injury like that. Surely, it can’t be pleasant. Would it be worse than the stomach-dropping sensation of falling from a great height? Would it be worse than a broken neck? You aren’t sure. More hilichurls fall to the ground. It isn’t like the game. They don’t just disintegrate when they die. They bleed when they’re hit, their corpses don’t disappear. There’s no XP or rewards to be found here. Only bloodshed. Only death.
This whole temple reeks of iron. You cover your nose and mouth, but the stench doesn’t go away.
You don’t think you can take any more of this. You turn and run down the nearest hall, heaving and retching when you arrive in the next room over. You can hardly hear it over your own vomiting, but the sound of stone rolling across stone comes from behind you. You glance back down the hall, only to see it replaced with a solid stone wall.
Fuck.
You bang your hands on the wall and yell for help, but you succeed in nothing except for making your voice tired and your hands bruised. You might be here for a while, so you look around.
The room is square, and completely empty aside from a pedestal in the center (one that you really should have noticed earlier), upon which rests a glowing book of some sort. The cover is lined with gold, and it looks as though it holds the galaxy between its twinkling pages. 
You walk closer to it, hoping to get a better look. The book opens itself before you, and at once, you recognize it.
It’s the Archive.
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