#i would change some things though like the background

[jordyn14]

would you write a story where Y/n and Joe are arguing because Joe is making some bad friends and she doesn't want to be around because she's pregnant or something... But in the end everything ends well

Pairing: Joe burrow x fem first person

Words: 4113

Notes: I kind of changed this around slightly to make this a little more emotional and heartfelt, but I tried to stay on track with the request. I hope you enjoy! <3

Taglist: @wickedfun9

I got into my car after working out for the millionth time this week. Normally I would go once, maybe twice a week depending on how my pregnant body felt, but lately, I’ve been going every single day. Why have I been going every single day? To get out of my house. Ever since Joe’s season ending wrist injury, he’s been hanging out with the wrong people. I get why he’s needed an outlet and a group of friends that can take his mind off of it. I do. I get that the injury took a toll on him physically and especially mentally, but right now, I can’t stand to be anywhere his friends are, and they’ve been coming over the house so often, even just to pick Joe up and take him somewhere.

Most of the time they come home drunk and high, and I don’t need nor want that, especially since Joe and I are expecting a baby in a few months. When I told Joe that I was glad that his new friends were helping him take his mind off of it all, I meant it because I thought it would be good for him in the long run, but I was very, very wrong. I found that out when they first got in trouble with the law for the first time. Joe swore it would be the last time, but then it happened again. The last thing I wanted was for Joe to end up in jail or suspended for a few games.

While I headed home, I was hopeful that his friends wouldn’t be over the house and that I would get to spend some quality time with Joe, because right now, that’s all I wanted. This first pregnancy is currently kicking my butt and all I want to do is be with my husband since he’s been in Arizona with his friends this past weekend, which means I haven’t seen him in a few days.

As I merged onto the freeway, I got a call from Joe. With a smile, I grabbed my phone so the music could still play and excitedly answered it. “Hey Joey, I should be home soon. Did you just get home?” I asked him with a big smile on my face. “Hey baby. I can’t wait to see you, it feels like it’s been forever.” Joe said. Hmm, maybe because it has been forever. For the last two weekends he’s been in another state. “We just got home and immediately jumped into the pool. Granted, it’s a lot colder here than in Arizona so we’re kinda cold.” Joe chuckled. We? You’ve got to be kidding me. I pulled the phone away from my ear and started laughing a little bit, unable to hide how annoyed I was. “They’re all at the house? Haven’t you spend enough time with them?” I asked Joe.

Even though my voice was filled with annoyance, he still was oblivious to just how much I hated them. “Probably, but they wanted to swim some more, so I invited them over.” Joe said. In the background, I could hear beer cans getting crushed and shook my head. “Are you drinking beer already? It’s 11am.” I asked Joe. In the background, I not only could hear beer cans being crush, but I also could hear a lot of commotion and water splashing.

“I’m not, but the guys are. They’re fucking hilarious.” Joe said and laughed at something one of them did on the other end of the phone. I rolled my eyes and said, “I’m about to get off of the freeway, I’ll be home in like 5 minutes.” I said and hung up before he could say anything else. More than anything, I wanted to come home to my husband without them being there. I wanted Joe to wrap me in his arms like he does after a long game or a long weekend away from me and hear him repeat the words ‘I love you,’ over and over again as he kisses me. I just wanted some alone time, and on top of that, I wanted to know my husband was being safe.

I pulled into our driveway and pulled into the only spot that was left since there were 3 other cars that weren’t supposed to be here. As soon as I opened the door, I could hear them in the backyard yelling and having what they thought was a great time. This may seem like fun for some people, hell, it would’ve been fun to me…about 4 years ago. But with where we are at in our lives, and with the image that Joe has to uphold at all times, he can’t be doing this. He can’t be going out with people that are constantly doing things that can trash his name, because when he comes to terms with just how lousy he’s been acting, it may be too late.

When I walked inside, I headed for the back door and tried to put on my best fake smile. The last thing I wanted was to get into a fight right here and now about it, but that day would definitely come. It had to come. I just didn’t know when. Putting my hand on the door handle, I hesitated for a few seconds before slowly opening it up. Right when Joe heard the door open from in the deep end of the pool, he immediately jumped out and began to run over to me. “Finally! I missed you both!” Joe yelled as he ran, looking to me and to my stomach where his little boy was.

When he reached me, he picked me up and spun me around a little bit. I couldn’t contain the giggles as I clung onto his wet and muscular body. “We missed you too, Joey.” I said with a laugh as he set me down on the ground. Once on the ground, I couldn’t help but stare at him, in awe of how he looked. Not only was he only in swim trunks which revealed the most perfect amount of leg, ab, back, and arm muscles, but his hair looked amazing. Like most off seasons, he was growing out his hair, so his wet curls were hanging on his forehead and the hair in the back was wild from getting wet. Instinctively, I reached up and ran my fingers through his curls and then let my hand run down his arm.

All joe did was look me up and down before he cupped the side of my face with one hand and the other was wrapped around my waist, pulling me in closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck as our lips connected and arched my back with the faintest moan as he kissed me hard. From the noise I made, Joe smiled into the kiss before we were interrupted by all three of the guys screaming, “get a room!” The both of us pulled away from each other and laughed at the guys reaction. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. “Oh shut up.” I laughed while rolling my eyes at them.

Two out of the three of them got out of the pool and started to dry off slightly before plopping themselves down into the chairs my best friend and I tan in during the summer. “How was your workout? Let’s see those muscles.” Joe joked and gave my arm a little squeeze. “Well, it was going good until the very end when our little crazy pants in here decided it would be a good idea to keep jabbing me in the rib cage.” I said and looked down at my stomach. Joe chuckled and put both of his hands on my stomach so he could try and feel our little boy kick. I studied Joes face, waiting for him to feel the kicks, and after a few seconds, his face lit up and he looked at me with the most amazing smile. “Oh wow, he’s kicking. Our little man is so strong,” Joe said, looking at me and then my stomach in awe, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

I smiled up at Joe and let him feel his son kick in my stomach for a little while longer. Ever since Joe felt him kick for the first time, he’s been obsessed with feeling him kick. Before he leaves to go anywhere, or even go to sleep, he wants to feel his little boy kick first and talk to him so he knows what his voice sounds like. It’s adorable watching Joe transform into a dad, and I can’t wait until the day comes when he can hold his baby boy for the first time.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of Joe’s friends lighting a joint when I specifically told all of them not to a million times. Edibles was one thing, but I really did not want the yard and our clothes smelling like weed. It’s not like I mind them getting high, especially Joe since I know it helps him calm down, but they go completely overboard with it. Almost every time I see them they are faded and despite me telling them not do, the house still smells like weed when I come home sometimes. It’s just gotten out of hand.

Although I was annoyed and wanted nothing more than to never see them again, I tried to shake it off and act like everything was fine for Joe’s sake. As long as they didn’t take it inside. “Do you want to sit down? Your back probably hurts.” Joe said. “That sounds amazing. Your son is being a pain today.” I sighed out and was immediately escorted to another chair by Joe who kept his hand on my lower back the whole time. When I sat down, Joe made sure I didn’t need anything else and then sat down in the chair next to me. “So, did Joe tell you what happened this weekend?” One of Joes friends asked who was laying out on one of the sun tanning chairs while smoking a joint. With a skeptical look, I shook my head and then looked at Joe. I swear to god if he did anything illegal. “No, what did you do?” I asked Joe who looked like he wanted to keep it a secret. “Joey B decided to get drunk and pass out right in front of a police officer.” The other friend said who grabbed the other one’s joint and started to smoke it. I looked over at Joe with a glare on my face and tried my best not to get angry until they left. “How fun. At least you didn’t get thrown in jail.” I said with a fake laugh and then continued to glare at his friends.

While two of them were getting high, the other one was floating on a raft in the pool with some sunglasses on, probably already drunk, knowing them. “You seem uptight, take a hit. It’ll be good for you.” The friend said that was currently holding the joint said. I rolled my eyes with a small smile, thinking he was joking, but he obviously wasn’t since his hand stayed outstretched towards me. While I looked at him, thinking it was a joke, he shrugged a little bit. With a scoff, I shook my head and said, “excuse me? You know I’m pregnant, right?” From next to me, Joe put his hand by his mouth and was about to intervene when I glared at him. No way he was letting this one go. I was so sick and tired of them always being around Joe and me, and making Joe do stupid and illegal things.

“What? My baby mama did it when she was pregnant. Granted, that little bitch of a son is practically a 13 year old drug dealer at his school.” He laughed. With another scoff, I stood up and started to quickly walk over to him. All he did was stare up at me with a confused look on his face as I stormed over to him. As soon as I got to him, I snatched the joint right out of his hand and tossed it on the concrete and smashed it into the ground with my shoe. “Get off of my fucking property. All of you.” I said and looked between the both of them who just stared up at me in shock, then over to Joe. “Don’t look at him, look at me, I’m the one talking. And if you didn’t hear me the first time, I said get off of my property!” I raised my voice at them.

This time, they got the hint and stood up from the chairs. “Your wife is fucking crazy dude. She ain’t any fun.” One of them said as they made their way to the gate which led to the front yard. “Don’t talk about her that way.” Joe stood up for me while he stood up from his chair, though I could tell he was angry with me that I kicked them out. After they left for the front yard, I walked over to the in ground pool where the last one was swimming. “It’s time to go!” I yelled at him. Just as I said this, Joe came over and put his hand on my arm to try and stop me, but I yanked my hand away from him. “What are you doing?” Joe asked me. I looked up at him with a glare on my face and he looked down at me like I was the one in the wrong. I looked him up and down with a scoff and then angrily looked back over to his friend that was fast asleep on the raft.

Not wanting to wait for him to wake up, I leaned down and picked up an empty beer can that one of them smashed and threw it at the guy and hit him in the face with it. Right when it hit him, he leaned forwards with a small scream, not expecting to be hit by anything, and fell off of the raft into the cold water. “What the fuck?” He asked and yanked his sunglasses off of his face which how had a broken lens. “It’s time to go.” I said and started to gather up all of the beer cans from the ground that they left. “I’m drunk, what am I supposed to do?” He asked as he started to walk up the stairs. “Do you have a phone?” I asked him while stopping to look at him for a second. After he nodded, I said, “great, then call an Uber or walk home for all I care. Do anything but stay here.” While he got out of the pool, he scoffed at me, so I flipped him off before I bent down and started to pick up some of the beer cans they left on the ground.

While I picked up the beer cans and tried to make the yard look like it did before they came over, Joe just stood there with his hands on his hips, looking at me with a confused and angry look on his face. After I picked up the last can and threw it in the outside trash bin, I turned to look at him. “What was that? Why did you do that?” Joe asked me. I widened my eyes at him and scoffed while shaking my head. “You aren’t serious, right? Tell me you’re joking.” I said. Joe just shrugged, waiting for me to tell him why. “He offered you a joint, all you had to say was no, not freak out like you did and kick them all out.” Joe said, trying his best to give them the benefit of the doubt. That’s all he’s been doing these past few months. Always giving them excuse after excuse so he doesn’t look like a complete dick for hanging around them.

I guess we’re doing this now. “This wasn’t just from him offering me weed, this is from everything. Every single thing that they’ve done that I’ve ignored for your sake.” I said. “Oh so we’re doing this? We’re making this a thing? No way.” Joe said with a scoff and started to storm towards the door. As he passed me, he looked me up and down with a pissed look on his face. “We are so doing this, Joe, because it’s been a thing, for months now. You’re just too blind to see it apparently.” I said and followed after him as he walked inside, trying to get away from me since he didn’t want that confrontation.

Even though I followed Joe inside and wanted to have this conversation with him, he was still in denial, and pretended like I wasn’t even there. I watched as he went into the kitchen and started to rummage around the cupboards. “Excuse me? Now you’re ignoring me?” I asked him and walked over to him. When I said this, he closed the cupboard he was looking inside of and turned around to face me. “I don’t know what you are getting at right now? This hasn’t been a thing!” Joe said, raising his voice slightly. “Yes it has Joe. It’s been a thing since you started hanging around them after your wrist injury!” I said, raising my voice right back at him.

All joe did was scoff and walk away from me. “Come back here right now. We are having this conversation, whether you like it or not.” I said and turned around. Joe stopped right in his tracks and then slowly turned around to face me. I took a step closer to him while saying, “ever since your wrist injury, you have been hanging around them, and it isn’t good. They aren’t good people and it kills me that you are so blind to that.” I said. As soon as I said this, it looked like something clicked in him, like he was finally waking up to something, but he still shook his head, somewhat in denial, or at least that’s what it looked like. “They aren’t bad people just because they don’t like or don’t do the same things you do!” Joe raised his voice at me. “Two out of three of them have been to jail, the other has had multiple DUI’s and something that should’ve been a felony. But yeah, they totally aren’t bad people.” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice at the last part.

Joe started to bite on the inside of his cheek as he listened to what I had to say. Then, he looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. “If you don’t want to be around them, I won’t have them over the house anymore.” Was all he said as he continued to look at the ground. “I don’t want to be around them, but I also don’t want them around you.” I said. Joe looked up at me and said quietly, “they help.” My heart ached for him. I know how hard it was for him to have his second season ending injury in just two years. I did. I get that he was exhausting. But this has to stop before it’s too late. “They aren’t good people, Joe. I don’t want to see you turn into them.” I said.

“I would never turn into them and you know that. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean I have to stop hanging out with them.” Joe said, fighting back. “Really? Because before you started hanging out with them, you never got in trouble for anything. But right after you met them, boom, you started to have run ins with the police.” I said. “They were over stupid things! That doesn’t count!” Joe yelled slightly. “Those things aren’t stupid Joe! You would’ve never, ever done those things a year ago.” I told him. “What? So now you wish I would change and go back to the way I was? Am I not good enough now?” Joe asked me. I took another step towards him and let out a sigh. I had no clue what to do.

“You will always be good enough, Joe, but you’re going down a dark path, and I’m scared that when you do finally wake up and realize the kind of people you’ve been hanging around, it may already be too late.” I said. Joe looked at the ground as he furrowed his brows. “I know that they aren’t the best people, but they really did help.” Joe said. My heart skipped a beat in my chest and I sucked in a breath. This was the first time in months that he’s actually accepted that they were bad people and didn’t make excuses for them. Now all I needed to do was push a little bit more. “I get that your injury was hard on you physically and mentally. I get that maybe I wasn’t enough for you and only they could help, but they aren’t good people Joe, and I’m honestly scared to raise a child around them…and you if you keep going down this path, although it’s not likely, you may end up in jail or suspended from the league.” I said, telling Joe the truth.

Joe looked up at me and shook his head repeatedly. “You were always enough. You helped me when nobody else could. I needed you, and will always need you.” Joe said. “Then why did you lean on them?” I asked, feeling my eyes prick with tears. Joe sighed, his shoulders hanging low. He looked so defeated. All I wanted to do was wrap him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be alright. “Would you believe me if I said I don’t know? Because I don’t know. I don’t know why I started using them as an outlet, I just did, and it felt good because I didn’t have to think about the possibility of never being able to throw a football again. All I know right now is that I love you and our baby with all of my heart and I am so incredibly sorry for everything.” Joe said, looking at me with those bright and tear filled blue eyes. Sucking in my lips slightly, I nodded and closed to distance between us, wrapping my arms around his neck. “You don’t have to be sorry, Joey, I know how hard this has been for you, I just want you to realize that you’re going down a dark path and that you need to turn around before it’s too late.” I said. Joe wrapped his arms around my waist and held me against him tightly while sniffling into my hair. “I promise you, I’m never seeing them again. You and this baby are all I need and I’m sorry if I may have forgotten that with everything that’s been going on.” Joe said. “It’s okay, Joey. I can’t imagine how hard this is for you. But please, talk to me if you need to. Don’t keep things bottled up, and don’t fall into the wrong crowd when you need an escape.” I said. “I promise you, baby. I know I’ve been such an asshole lately and haven’t been home that much, but please forgive me if you can, because I am so sorry.” Joe said. “Of course I forgive you. No matter what happens, you’re still my husband and I will always love you. Even if you passed out in front of a cop.” I laughed and pulled away from Joe to look into his eyes.

Joe put both of his hands on the sides of my face and swiped his thumbs under my eyes to catch my tears while chuckling at what I said. “Good, because I would be lost without you.” Joe said. As we looked into each other’s eyes, I couldn’t help but let out a small sob. It took everything in me not to have this conversation with him sooner, but I think it was good that I waited until he could realize for himself just how extensive it was getting. I know the injury was hard on him and that he needed an escape from reality sometimes, but he was finally back. My husband was finally back. “I missed you.” I whispered to him. “I missed me too.” Joe sighed and rested his head on mine.

#joe burrow #joeburrow #cincinnati bengals #nfl #joe burrow bengals #joey b #joe shiesty #bengals #joey burrow #joe burr #joe burrow fan fic #joe x reader #joe burrow fic #joe burrow imagine #joe burrow x reader #joe #nfl imagine #imagine #nfl fan fiction #my fic #fanfic

[mareastrorum]

These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.

#critical role #beacon.tv #don’t trust me I’m a lawyer #I’m not your lawyer #I’m not CR’s lawyer #none of you paid me for shit #I do what I want

[druidonity2]

2021 Wrathion dressed as Zagreus from Hades

#world of warcraft #wrathion #zagreus #hades #crossover #i spent SO LONG on this trying to copy the hades style #and i was so proud of it #still love it #i would change some things though like the background #i think ill wait another year to redraw it though #I wanted to draw Anduin as Thanatos #Thanatos is the god of (peaceful/non-violent/etc) death as far as i know and I think it'd be neat to redesign mawduin to fit this crossover #but anyway imagine in this crossover wrathion is being given boons from the other flights helping him escape his father

[iindigoeyed]

A detail I noticed about Feast

Feast (S3E15) is a very important episode for many reasons: it gives us Fu's backstory and origins of the miracle box, it hammers home the element of emotions when creating sentibeings, it restores the Tibetan temple and causes a chain reaction that is relevant later in the series (namely with Su Han), Mayura is there... but I rewatched it recently and I noticed a detail near the end that I believe to be foreshadowing.

At the end of Feast, our heroes defeat the sentimonster by entering it and cataclysm-ing Fu's staff with the amuk in it. Once Ladybug casts her Miraculous Ladybug and returns the world to normal, the Guardian Temple reappears and we can see the news reporting on it:

As the news is reporting on the temple, a few people can be seen watching (or listening). Those would be Gabriel and Nathalie, Tomoe, Alya, and Audrey Bourgeois.

Gabriel and Nathalie makes sense. They are Hawkmoth and Mayura, after all-- and Gabriel used the peacock with Emilie to create Adrien. Tomoe again is understandable, as she is a close ally to Hawkmoth and possibly used the peacock miraculous to create Kagami (which is all but confirmed in canon at this point.) And Alya herself is the catalyst for this episode's events: she brings Marinette to the Louvre where the dormant sentimonster is, shows Marinette her findings about the guardian symbol, and publishes those findings on her Ladyblog which HM & Mayura then discover. She's also a Miraculous holder too.

Now, why is Audrey watching the news? From a meta standpoint there's no need to show her in this scene since she isn't of the same importance that the others are. Hell, Audrey wasn't even in this episode before then. Even if her daughter is a Miraculous holder, Audrey has no reason to be interested in the Temple...

...unless, of course, she has some connection to the Miraculous.

As an aside... I'm not sure exactly what this means. If Audrey used the peacock to create Chloe like many believe, surely Audrey or Andre would've fallen ill like predecessors Emilie and Colt did. You could argue that she used the peacock miraculous to create Zoe as we've never seen Zoe's dad and aren't sure he's even alive, but considering this was in season 3 before Zoe was even introduced to us I have my doubts to believe this was the intent. Or maybe there's some unseen third option that I don't know about.

Regardless, this seems like pretty obvious foreshadowing to me. Even if this ends up going nowhere it's interesting to recontextualize it knowing everything that we know now. I don't think we've seen the last of Chloe or of her family quite yet (even if the writers want us to think we have.)

#as always sorry if someone's pointed this out before. but i didn't see anyone talking about it! #granted it's a really fucking old episode and i'm New In Town #miraculous #chloe bourgeois #indiposts #inditheories #Though to be honest it wouldn't surprise me if they've given up on the whole sentibeing-chloe thing. #TBH i dont think they know what theyre doing with chloe or any of the bourgeouis-es... #it seems like they tossed zoe in there to make up for how unlikeable chloe is #and so they dont have to properly give chloe an arc #because if they did give chloe an arc ppl who dont like her would be mad #and if they DIDNT then ppl who DO like her would be mad. #it's a lose-lose scenario especially since thomas himself hates her. #So things might have changed since feast was released #and chances are this background detail is going no where. #but i thought it was a fun observation to throw out in case they end up using it. #Some other notes: I hesitate to think that there are MORE sentibeings that we dont know about. #I dont think Gabriel seems like the type to toss out his miraculous all willy-nilly. #Him lending it to Colt seemed like a one-off thing #and him lending it to Tomoe seems like an even bigger stretch but not totally implausible esp considering the circumstances #The fact that they found the peacock exactly where it was left (that is to say exactly where Fu left it) #makes me think they are the only ppl who know about it #So while i've seen other ppl say that everyone at the Diamond Dance couldve been a sentibeing #I just don't see it happening. Sorry! #And that's why I don't even really know about Zoe. #But what I find interesting is the age gap between Zoe and Chloe. #Surely they must be close in age since they're in the same grade right? #And if that's the case... how did Audrey get pregnant so close together? #Might be another reason to believe one of them is a sentibeing... or adopted LOL. #Anyway i'm done! Lmk if you remember anything important! ciao

[various-things]

#I made this video years ago before I had access to tools to remove score/background music from footage #and that and the shortness of some shots are the things in hindsight that I would change #though I think the score works in some places as discordance #and thankfully the Master's monologue's backing music #is complimentary to the key of the song #but that said this is one of the videos I've made I like the most #even if the execution isn't as well done (though hell yeah being ambitious in what we try to make) #doctor who #thirteenth doctor #the master #dhawan!master #thirteen & the master

[ttsukiimi]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ F⍣CK HER ‘TILL SHE SORE!

★ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬 ⎯ He’s not addicted to your cũnt—he swears. He swears even as he’s forced the fourth ōrgasm out of you tonight; and there’s more to come.

★ 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 ⎯ gojo x fem!reader, toji x fem!reader, choso x fem!reader, nanami x fem!reader, smut (mdni), tit play, multiple örgasms, size difference (choso), slight còckwarming (nanami), reader referred to as (princess, baby, doll, good girl)

✧･ﾟ𝓖. 𝓢 ✧･ﾟ

Gojo didn’t even know how he even initially found himself inside you—it was like one second he was cuddling closer to you as his eyes glued to the tv, then another your leg was hoisted over his waist as he jerked his hips into you repeatedly. Was it his fault? Had he begged you to let him put just the tip in? Yes.

But you had given in, and that in its own was your mistake.

“Stay still, princess, wanna give it to you good,” he whispered in your ear, the way his shaky breath fanned past your neck causing goosebumps to bloom on your skin. You nodded, though it wasn’t a promise, and tried to take each passionate thrust of his girth he gave to you.

You were clutching the couch pillow for dear life, whining as you felt euphoria rock through you so pleasurably for the umpteenth time that night. The movie playing had long been forgotten—only serving as background noise, and to Satoru a nuisance since the sounds drowned out your heavenly moans.

He huffed into the skin of your neck, determined to now make you louder, and a hot slap landed on your left cheek, effectively coaxing a loud yelp from your lips. “Mh—!”

And you were sensitive by then, his seed dripping from your battered cunt, your body shivering and thighs quivering, but even then he was set on urging one last orgasm out of you.

Or two.

Hell, he couldn’t even promise it wouldn’t be three. But he just needed to stay inside of you.

Satoru’s hands came up from behind you before they latched onto your chest, groping your tits as he muttered lewd words in your ear.

“You like when I fucking play with these pretty tits, hm?” He kissed your shoulder, and you felt a smile form against your skin as the only thing you could let out was a weak whine—too drunk on his dick to speak. Satoru groaned at the sound, his lips finding your pulse point as he spoke.

“Always so dumb once I get inside you,”

✧･ﾟ𝓒.𝓚✧･ﾟ

Choso doesn’t have an exact idea of why he loves being buried inside you so much; perhaps it’s the way you sound, the way you feel, or the way you look—tears in your eyes and all—but he does know that he’d die happy if that meant he was inside you in his last moments.

And he absolutely adores every minute that he is.

Because with how much your greedy cunt is pulsing around him, and your manicured nails are scratching red lines down his back, Choso thinks he’s really found heaven. Right between your legs.

“Baby, slow down, Cho,” you whined, your sight obscured with tears though you could still make out the image of his sculpted body over yours, and he’s so big compared to you.

Sometimes he might forget that—but could you blame him though? Anyone would forget about some mere size difference when inside your addictive pussy, and he proved to be that anyone.

Choso leaned forward, and in the process his hair fell forward, framing both yours and his face. His hands ventured up your body and found their place on your chest, squeezing the meleable flesh.

“‘S okay, you can take it,” he mumbled, pressing a quick kiss to your lips, uncaring of the slight drool dribbling from the side of your mouth. With each thrust the course hairs at his base tickled your clit, stimulating you in a way that felt so good your whole body was quivering with pleasure.

“Just..one more, baby,”

✧･ﾟ𝓝.𝓚✧･ﾟ

Sometimes Nanami finds himself wondering just what you do to him, how you’ve changed him in ways he couldn’t himself in the past years you’ve been together. He can't help but smile when he sees your infectious smile, and he melts when he hears your sweet laugh.

But, above all, you've created an addiction in him. One that he seems to think about every waking moment; even at work, and that’s new territory for him.

What’s worse is that you know. Always teasing him about how pussy drunk he is, how he’d really do anything just to be inside you—not like he’s denying that—but he can’t retaliate with the way the tips of his ears burn pink. So, he’ll prove it.

“Kento, what’re you—“ you cut yourself off with an uneven breath, eyes rolling to the back of your head in tandem with the way he pushes himself into you.

His strong arms are wrapped around you, keeping you in place, but he strangely doesn’t begin to move. The reason being—well, he’s testing himself. His resolve, his patience by not moving a single inch, even while being compressed by your tight warmth.

Which is proving to be a challenge already for Nanami.

“Proving to you that ‘m not—“ he halts, groaning and gritting his teeth as you slightly shift, causing a grin to flourish on your face.

“That you’re not what?” you retort, pushing your hips back onto him, taking him in deeper than he already was. Your hand reaches back and caresses his face, cooing above his lips. “Know you wanna move. ‘M not stopping you either, ken.”

You’re so close to his lips Nanami could move an inch and they’d touch, but he won’t, of course. But…when you’re fucking yourself on his cock, moaning out for him to hear, to tease him, Nanami thinks maybe there isn’t anything to prove.

Maybe he is drunk on your pussy.

✧･ﾟ𝓣.𝓕✧･ﾟ

Toji knows of his slight compulsion towards your pussy. His tendency to always want to be inside is truly something that needs to be studied—because there’s absolutely no way his sex drive should be this significant.

Admittedly, he is aware of his addiction, but will he take any action to try to change his behavior? No. That then becomes your problem to tackle, but you have the perfect solution.

“A what?” Toji mumbled, licking the scar on his lip as he creased an eyebrow upwards in confusion. You were sat on his lap, your arms looped around his neck and you began to speak.

“A Sex ban, Toji.” you attempted to suppress your grin when you saw the confusion on his face only deepen, and a big hand came to cup your cheek, forcing you to look at him.

“‘M not for all your little games today, doll. Got a mission tomorrow and y’know what that means.” he sighed, his free hand holding your waist, slowly sliding to the waistband of your shorts and beginning to pull them down.

“But, really baby, we—you need a break.” you protested, but just couldn’t counter back with the way his rough and thick fingers were already playing with your folds, gathering your essence.

Quickly, his lips were on yours and that shut you up, which gave him time to free himself from his sweats and enter you in one, swift motion.

He wasted no time in holding your hips and bouncing you up and down on his cock, a smug smirk on his lips as he looked at the way your eyes rolled back in pleasure. You weren’t one to talk about a sex ban when you could hardly even let him go on a mission for more than 2 days without complaining about how much you missed him and his magic dick.

“Now ya just be quiet and take what I give you, yeah?” he breathed in your ear as his big hands groped your tits, fingers playing with your hardened nipples. The pleasure coursed throughout your body so deliciously, already causing your thighs to begin quivering and your pussy pulsed around him, greedy to suck him dry.

“Good girl,”

#ꔫ : ˚ ͙۪۪̥◌⎯ 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐈’𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 #jjk fic #jjk smut #gojo smut #jjk x reader #jjk headcanons #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk fanfic #jjk x you #toji fushigro x reader #toji smut #fushiguro toji x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x y/n #kento nanami #nanami smut #nanami kento #kamo choso x reader #choso smut #kamo choso #nanami x you #nanami x reader #toji fushiguro #choso kamo #gojo satoru x reader #jjk nanami #toji x you #dilf toji

[readymades2002]

smiling so happily and serenely and kicking my legs a little bit because i can name things in my fantasyworld however i want and no one can tell me not to. la la la

#i don't think i've shared a ton of my writing on here but some of my favorite stuff to write is strings of nonsense text #i should clarify. ive not shared a ton of my FICTION writing on here. though i have shared plenty of nonsense text #and so sometimes i just like to indulge in that while naming things. its fun to me #naming things Mahogonny: Collaborators In Paradise and Fearful Symmetry and Albatrause and Piranesi in the same setting #simply because it is fun to me. purloining words and concepts from works i enjoy and making something new of them. the like #i'm compiling notes on the setting right now just because ive been really into locations lately which is unusual for me #rest assured though i have also designed PLENTY of guys (strange and offputting women and mean gay autistic men) as well #i enjoy many things. i am just kind of slapping everything i like into a setting and well no one has stopped me yet! #its new for me...ive always worked more off a story/character background when making things really #all of my characters have different stories they go to but they're also kind of aimless in that they just live there... #im very bad at imagining characters taking initiative to change their lives which concerns me because it feels like a fantasy #to me so i think it would be cool to like. run this setting as a game for other people to see what it would be like #to be able to animate something like it. idk. chipping away at it slowly (very slowly)(very tired all the time)(job sucks)

[personasintro]

Mutual Help | #58

↳ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; in order for you to pretend to be his girlfriend, he helps you with your sexual desires ⏤ he calls it mutual help

⇢ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: jungkook x reader

⇢ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: fake dating au, fluff, angst, smut, slow burn

⇢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, suggestive content

⇢ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 20.1k+

⇠ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯. | 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ⇢ 

The first issue happens shortly after your shenanigans with Jungkook.

Everything has been dealt with regarding your planned and first official vacation. Accommodation, flight tickets, even some of the activities all of you have agreed on. While you had enough time to dwell back into your working life (Jungkook free to some extent), each day has become closer to the D-day. 

You're not going to lie. You're excited to get out of Seoul – as much as you love the city – and experience some fun memories with your friends. With them, you will have the time of your lives. However, all plans come crashing down with a single message from Jimin. 

For some reason, his previous planned holiday is canceled by his boss himself. They're low on the employees and there's nothing else that could be done. 

“Maybe there will be a last minute change but I don't think that's gonna happen. I think I should cancel my flight tickets while I can.” Is what he said through a message. 

Taehyung was the one who took it the worst. To explain it correctly, Taehyung cursed the shit out of Jimin's boss and how devilish it is of him to ruin the holiday. Holiday without Jimin sounds sad and suddenly, none of it seems as exciting as you once thought. 

Perhaps the reason behind your sulky mood is the fact that you don't like when something is not going according to plans. Or more like – you're excited about something, already imagining and having a certain vision of things when it suddenly gets ruined. Funnily enough, Jimin is the one who takes it the best. He laughed and joked about it, though he surely does feel a little upset by the sudden changes. 

Nobody wants their summer holiday to get taken away, especially when he has to be working instead. Jimin insists all of you should go regardless of his absence when the idea of trying to get another date comes to the surface. Though, that's even trickier when three people have to change their already confirmed and planned holidays. There are your co-workers who have scheduled free days too. To say it shortly – it's not easy at all and would bring more trouble than good. 

Even Jungkook who's his own boss has scheduled photoshoots and overall work. He could possibly cancel it, but that would bring no good to his name and business. Plus, he would lose money obviously. 

Jimin stays positive and prays that maybe someone from their team will come to the rescue. 

It's a little more than two weeks before your planned vacation. You're in the middle of folding your freshly washed and dried clothes while Jungkook's humming can be heard in the background. You video-chat him, giving him advice on what clothes to give away to charity. Something he has been doing for a while now. 

Taehyung would tell him to sell everything and Jimin would tell him to give away everything. You, on the contrary, can reason with him. The piece of clothing he hasn't worn for the last year is good to go, because he will probably never wear it again. It's why you help him with that instead of any of the guys. 

After that is done, you just casually chat which to be honest, you're glad for. It's not like you haven't done that in a long time, but it feels way more calm than anything you've done for the past few months. It's a nice change compared to your wild thoughts. You just can't bring yourself to dwell on it – because you're going to lose it. 

“Oh found this one just now,” Jungkook says, cutting off your thoughts which is probably for the best. 

You look at him, his phone propped on his kitchen counter and from the looks of it, you can just imagine the device leaned against his bowl of fruit. He stands with a leather jacket in his arms, showing it off so you could see it better. Little does he know, that article of clothing is not one to be forgotten. 

“What do you think?”

“You want to give it away?” you almost gasp, hands on your hips with a mouth agape.

“Why not?”

“Because it's the legendary jacket, you can't just give it away.” you protest, seeing him blink at you a few times before he bursts out into the cutest fit of laughter.

Teeth on display, nose scrunched along with the ends of his eyes, he laughs. “Legendary jacket? What are you even talking about?”

You pout, rolling your eyes at him.

“It's just a regular leather jacket. Everyone's got one of these.”

“That might be true,” you start, Jungkook's eyes wide as he teasingly nods, motioning that he's listening. “But it looks way too good. Plus, you wear it often, right?”

God, you hope he does. Now is not the time to thirst over him and how fucking good he looks in that stupid jacket, but well… that's exactly what's happening right now.

“I haven't worn it in a while, it's too hot for it.”

“See? You will wear it once it's colder. Keep it.”

Jungkook stares at the jacket for a moment, his eyes glinting and watching the screen where you're currently finishing up folding your clothes. With a tiny smirk, he places the jacket to the side and leans against the counter. His forearms rest on it, head cocking to the side.

“I can't believe Jimin is not going with us.” Jungkook admits, mouth curling into a displaying frown which you immediately mirror without even looking at him.

Sitting on the couch with your phone in your hand, you sigh disappointedly. “Don't even mention it. I'm so upset over that. Honestly, what a stupid boss.”

“It happens here a lot though.”

“I know,” you whine, “But still. It ruined our plans and I feel so bad for him. We're gonna have fun and he will have to stay here and work. It won't be a proper vacation without him there. It was supposed to be all of us.”

“Jimin wants us to have fun.” he responds with a soft tone, thinking of the stupid situation himself. 

“It's not gonna be it when he's not there.”

“It fucking sucks,” Jungkook sighs. “Maybe he'll be able to join us last minute.”

“I doubt it,” you frown, Jungkook snickering at your pessimistic self as you give him a glare, knowing exactly why he's laughing. “He would have to get his flight tickets at the last minute, plus his accommodation is already canceled. What if the place we'll stay at won't have any free space?”

“There's a couch, he could sleep there.” he shrugs.

“Nah, flight tickets would be a problem. It's vacation season.”

“Or maybe he will be glad to spend some time with his girlfriend.”

You frown, “Not wanting to pull out Taehyung but he's with her almost all the time.”

“And how would you know that?” Jungkook chuckles.

“Well, when he's not working or with us, he's obviously with her.”

Jungkook keeps grinning, not really having any argument because he knows you're right.

“You sound like Taehyung.” he teases.

“Oh fuck off!” You both laugh. “It's true though.”

“It is. Can you blame him?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I had a girlfriend I would wanna be with her too.”

You frown at that again, staring at Jungkook on your screen who seems to shrug innocently. “But Jimin was excited to go to Hawaii.”

“Yes,” he says slowly, “I'm just saying that even if he's not going, he would spend time with his girlfriend and he would enjoy it either way. So no need to be too sad for him. He himself isn't too upset with it.”

“Men,” you sigh, “You all think of pussies.”

“Y/N!” Jungkook almost chokes at your honesty.

“What? Just sayin',” you mutter, “This is important, Kook.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “I was just trying to make you not feel so bad for him. He will be fine. He's a big boy.”

You snicker, “It's a bummer.”

“I know, but I promise you… we will have a good time. Even if it's just three of us.”

“Yeah, I know that–” you mutter, pouting. “Just will miss Jimin there.”

“Speaking of the devil, he's calling me.” Jungkook says, eyes attached to the top of his screen. “I will just call him after this.”

You cackle. 

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“Come on now,” he groans, “It's impolite to end a call just like that.”

“Just admit you love talking to me.”

He rolls his eyes, laughing as he keeps grinning at the screen. Your own mouth turning upwards as something within your chest tickles. “I do.” 

He admits and that something bursts. You freaking look away with a smile, almost too close to giggling loudly like a freaking teenager. You stop yourself, clearing your throat. 

“You should've seen your face,” he suddenly bursts out laughing. “What was that? Do I make you flustered, Y/L/N?”

“You wish, Jeon.” you spit jokingly right away, your senses acting automatically. 

He suddenly sneezes, loudly and forcingly, your head tilting to the side as he lifts up his gaze, eyes mischievous as a teasing grin makes it onto his face again. “I'm sorry, I'm allergic to your bullshit.”

You gasp loudly, “You piece of shit. I'll get you back for that, Jeon.”

“Yeah, wonder how,” he teases cheekily, “Why's Jimin still calling me? Wait hold on–”

He grabs his phone, tapping something there as you get another angle of his face.

“This angle is funny. Too bad I can't see your double-chin. This could be my payback.” you joke, Jungkook clearly too immersed in reading something to pay you his full attention.

You purse your lips. “Hello? I'm trying to be funny here.”

His eyes widen, your smile dropping.

“Kook?”

“Holy shit,”

“What?”

“Fuck, fuck,” He stands up, almost dropping his phone. “Jimin just texted me–Taehyung is in the hospital.”

“What?!” You yell, standing up abruptly as you clutch the phone in your hands. “Jungkook, talk to me! What happened?”

“I literally don't know!” he exclaims. “Jimin just got the call and tried to reach us.”

“Us? He didn't call me!” you panic, checking your notifications to see them empty. Fuck. You would not forgive yourself if you somehow ignored his messages, even though it wouldn't be entirely your fault.

“Fuck, we need to get there. He's going there right now.”

“Is it serious?” you ask, voice shaking at the thought of Taehyung and something happening to him. He's in a hospital which means it's something serious. 

Jungkook stops pacing, hearing the shakiness in your voice. Bringing the phone closer to his face, he watches you. “I'll come get you, alright?”

You nibble on your nails, nodding still staring ahead of you. 

“Y/N,” Jungkook calls out to you. “He's gonna be okay, alright?”

“You don't know that.” you scoff.

“We don't know any details, so let's not jump into conclusions, okay? Just wait there, alright? I will drive to your place right now.”

“Where would I go?” you exclaim, clearly stressed which Jungkook doesn't blame you for. Instead of calling you out for your attitude, he knows you're worried and stressed.

“Just don't drive anywhere.”

“I won't.” you promise, voice softening. 

“I will call you once I'm there. Don't go outside, it's too late.”

“Jungkook, stop worrying so much.” 

He groans, grabbing his keys as the screen keeps glitching here and there how quickly he's moving. “It's too late. Wait inside.” 

“Okay, sir.” you mutter dryly, Jungkook stopping just to glare at you. 

“Stop messing around. I am not.”

“Jesus, sorry.” 

He rolls his eyes. “Keep your pretty ass in your home. I'll call you when I get there.”

“Then get your pretty ass here, Jeon.” you roll your eyes to give back at him.

He sighs, closing his front door with a loud thud. The connection glitches for a second, his internet changing to his mobile data as he waits for the elevator. “Fuck it.” You hear him muttering, running for the stairs.

You keep pacing in your living room, biting off your nails while not having Taehyung beside you to scold you for doing so. Your heart clenches and worry overcomes you once again. It's Jungkook's car door closing that brings your attention back, watching him put his phone into the phone holder. 

“Kook?” 

“Hm?” he says, putting on his seatbelt as he turns on the engine. 

“Drive safely, okay?”

“I will,” he promises, but you keep giving him the same desperate look. “I promise.”

You smile nervously, ending the call just to be met with a spam of messages from Jimin. 

Jungkook comes shortly after, just enough for you to check all the lights and gas before you leave. He definitely drove over the speed limit but you don't dare to scold him once he calls you. You spot the familiar Mercedes slowing down the parking lot just as your phone rings. Just like he wanted, you stayed inside. Knowing there's a low chance of something happening to you – considering this neighborhood is pretty much safe and you've walked when it was way later than now  – you also know he cares about your safety, so you didn't feel like disobeying his direct orders. Or more like a plea that would end up in a frustrating scolding if you didn't listen to him. 

Once you get inside the car, you buckle your seatbelt and Jungkook speeds out of the parking lot, rushing to the hospital where Jimin texted him details.

“Jimin is there.”

“What happened? Did he tell you?”

Jungkook shakes his head, checking on you for a split second before his eyes are back on the road. “No, he's still waiting.”

Luckily, the hospital where Taehyung's at is not that far away and it takes you approximately around fifteen minutes to get there, with all the red lights you had to stop at.

You've never had to go to a hospital here because something happened to one of your friends. To go through this and watch how Jungkook says Taehyung's name at the reception, trying to get any information doesn't sit with you well. You're full of nerves, sticking to Jungkook's side as he handles everything by himself. The nurse questions your relation to Taehyung but luckily, has no problem giving you directions of where to find your friend. 

“Couldn't she tell us if he's alive?” you grumble beside Jungkook as he tries to follow her directions from before. 

Jungkook chuckles, “If he wasn't, she wouldn't just tell us where to find him.”

Sighing, you follow Jungkook the entire time. “Have you been here before?” you question him in the elevator, a suspicious, curious look glinting in your eyes where worry was found before. 

Jungkook gives you a side-glance, sighing before looking ahead. “I have.”

When he doesn't elaborate and is silent, you lean yourself forward to catch his eyes. “When?”

He straightens his posture.

“It's just because you kinda know your way around here.”

You don't remember him mentioning being hospitalized here, nor coming here for examinations. There's a chance you simply don't know about that. There might be things you haven't told each other, it's practically impossible knowing everything about each other. But you feel if it came to this topic, you would know about it. 

But you don't. 

“I was here with Kiko.”

You halt, a taken back expression taking over your face.

“And because of Kiko.” He adds, clearing his throat at the mention of his ex. Almost as if you would bite off his head just for mentioning her name. 

You chuckle at that. “Oh, I didn't know that.”

“Yeah, didn't think of mentioning it before.” he mutters.

“Was she hospitalized here?”

“Do you really wanna know or you're just nosy?” he teases, wiggling his brow at you as you roll your eyes.

“Just answer, Jeon.”

“My curious delicate flower,” he continues to tease, ruffling your hair in the process as you elbow him in the ribs. “She had something with her shoulder once, she went here for rehabilitation.”

“Oh,” you let out slowly. “Was she fine after that?”

Feeling a burn of someone's gaze, you see Jungkook side-eyeing you. “Don't pretend like you care.” he chuckles, shaking his head at you as you smack your lips at him in annoyance.

“I wanna know! Stop making it seem like I'm a heartless monster!” 

“I wouldn't dare.” he jokes, continuing to shake his head as you sigh in irritation at your very annoying friend. 

“I advise you that.”

He snickers, “Damn, so scary.”

“Jungkook, seriously. I'm gonna kick you in the balls if you're gonna continue this.” you warn him, hearing him laugh as he leans against the elevator's wall. 

You glance at him, annoyed expression as his brow cockily lifts up. 

“Not the balls, damn, you monster.”

“Keep talking and you'll see the real monster.” you mutter, your bickering interrupted by the elevator's ring, informing you of your floor. 

Walking out of there, all the fun disappears as soon as you see and smell the sterile surroundings again, along with sick patients of all sorts which truly breaks your heart. You understand why someone hates hospitals so much. You never truly belong to that people, never really had that awful experience. Everyone you lost in the family had left at their peaceful homes. You never had to say goodbye to anyone here. 

Although, you do remember visiting your father's mother – your dear grandmother  – when you were a kid. Unfortunately, she passed away when you were around six. The only thing that bothers you to this day is that you don't have many memories with her. Since you were a little kid, you only remember very little. Plus, there are days when you wished she was still here. To talk about the craziness you've experienced in both families. To help her and show her your gratitude for raising your dad and his four siblings, when she was all alone. She was truly an inspiration for you. 

Your dad says you get a lot from her. You'll never forget a conversation you had with him about her. 

“You remind me of her sometimes. She had a good heart like you have.”

That's what he told you when you were around eighteen. Your dad is not a sentimental person. He doesn't usually say many heart-warming things, so to hear him saying that just made you emotional. Thinking of it now, it still does in a way.

“Sorry, we are here looking for our friend? They told us at the reception he's on this floor. Kim Taehyung?” Jungkook stops one of the nurses, surprisingly stopping a male who kindly shows you the way to see your friend. 

Jungkook looks behind, making sure you're there as he gives you an encouraging smile. You wonder if he's scared as fuck of what you're about to see as well. Is he pretending to be brave and having his shit together because of you? Are you preaching? 

Jungkook is the most caring friend. You don't believe he's not worried as much as you are. 

“Ready?” he asks, tilting his head toward the direction the nurse sent you. 

Naturally, like your body calls for his proximity and safety, you wrap your arms around his forearm, clutching to his side as you give him a nod. He leads you to one of the rooms, both of you cautiously peeking inside as the scene in front of you makes you both gasp loudly, catching everyone's attention in the room. 

There he is. 

If someone told you you will see Kim Taehyung laying in a hospital bed, you would laugh him off for some reason. All of you would. So to not only see him lying there but having a huge cast on his leg, his face pale and hair unkempt, you and Jungkook gulp at the sight. 

Jimin stands there, arms crossed over his chest as his hands rub his lips nervously. A woman stands next to him, a little behind him, noticing your and Jungkook's presence immediately. 

That has to be her.

But before any of you can pay her attention, Taehyung steals it without even knowing as he groans. 

“What the hell happened?” You almost shriek as a panicked mother, tearing yourself off Jungkook's side as you rush to Taehyung's side, Jungkook following you right after.

Both of you having a concerned look, Taehyung takes a minute to recognize you. You make a grimace, you and Jungkook giving Jimin a stare as he goes to say something, but he's interrupted by the patient himself. 

“You guys are here?” He looks shocked, making sure it's really you as he squints his eyes at you both.

“Of course we are–what happened, Tae?”

“Ah, don't even ask! That shit is so fucking embarrassing!” he dramatically sighs, slapping his palm over his forehead as he disappointedly shakes his head at himself.

“Can he just tells us what the fuck happened to him?” Jungkook mutters under his breath, causing you to elbow him like before.

Jimin clears his throat, “He was at the gym and accidentally dropped one of the dumbbells on his feet.”

“Jimin-ah!”

“Man they asked!” Jimin exclaims, trying to keep calm. 

“You guys came here because of me?” Taehyung pouts, changing the topic as you and Jungkook stare at him completely dumbfounded. What is wrong with him?

“Of course we did,” you assure him. “We would be here sooner, but Jimin had to call us. Why didn't you call us too?” you frown.

“Actually, the nurse called me. Taehyung gave them my number.”

“Well, that's great.” you mutter.

“Well, I'm sorry!” Taehyung mocks you, slapping his arms against the fluffy duvet he has thrown over one side of his body. “How could I know if you guys are not fucking somewhere behind our backs?”

“We don't do that!” Jungkook reacts.

The room is filled with craziness. 

Jimin sighs, deadpanning at his friend. You and Jungkook loudly gasp, your hand over your fast beating heart. 

The room is silent after that, Jimin's eyes directed somewhere behind you and Jungkook. You both turn around to see a nurse coming in, an awkward smile attached on her lips as she holds the clipboard with her. 

“We had to give him some painkillers, he was close to crushing his toes. He's a little drugged by now.” she informs you, perhaps trying to make you less embarrassed because of your friend. 

“I will come back and fill you with more information.” She sets up the clipboard on his bed, everyone bowing to her as she reciprocates it before walking away. 

“Ignore him, he's drugged.” Jimin apologizes to the female beside him, her eyes eyeing you and Jungkook as you shift on your spot. 

“Yeah, he's just babbling nonsense.” 

Taehyung scoffs, luckily keeping his mouth shut about this topic. “Yeah, by the way guys, Jimin brought his girlfriend. They were on a date when his friend was dying.”

“You weren't dying, Taehyung.” Jimin corrects him, giving him a stern look as the younger friend puts his lips into a thin line, frowning. “Ah, guys. This is Rin. Wanted to introduce you to her under different circumstances but well, babe–” 

Taehyung gags in the distance. “Knowing you, you would've kept her secret for another year.”

“This is Y/N and Jungkook. My friends.” Jimin grits through his teeth, giving a forced smile to his blonde girl. 

“It's nice to meet you. Jimin talked about you a lot.”

“Really? Because he really didn't–”

You kick Taehyung's mattress, ignoring his nasty glare as you both bow at each other. 

“Nice meeting you too, Rin. Welcome to the craziness.” Jungkook chuckles, “Jimin is a great guy. Hope this didn't traumatize you.”

She giggles, Jimin laughing nervously while you watch Taehyung who sulks in his spot. “No. It didn't.” she assures Jimin as she cuddles up to him. 

“Tae, how are you feeling?” you ask, focusing your attention on your sulking friend. 

You sit on the edge of his bed, brushing a few strands off his hair.

“Embarassed and like a fucking idiot,” he mutters. “I got so much attention at the gym. Fuck, I am used to attention but not that kind.”

“The most important thing is that you are okay, Taehyung.” Jungkook butts in, trying to sound gentle as he eyes his friend's new cast. 

Taehyung scoffs, “Does this seem fine to you?”

“I meant it that you're alive. You'll have this cast for a few months but you will be fine. You're lucky nothing worse happened to you.” Jungkook explains. 

“Fuck, I feel high,” he sighs, dropping his head on the pillow as he stares at the ceiling. He gulps, whining. “What about Hawaii? Fucking hell. I can't go.”

The realization hits all of you, yours and Jungkook's eyes meeting as you pout. 

“We can go next year.” Jungkook tries but you know it will only do so little. 

“We will cancel it too. There's no point in going when both of you don't go.” you tell him, Taehyung frowning as Jimin gives you an empathic smile. 

“No, you guys have to go.” Taehyung says, your eyes lifting up in surprise. But before you can say something, mouth already opening, he continues. “Everything's paid for. Jimin barely got the money back for flight tickets, I don't think I will get mine. It's too close to date.”

“Tae is right,” Jimin agrees, “You can still enjoy it without us.”

“I would hate myself if you didn't go there because of my clumsiness,” Taehyung admits, frowning. “Y/N you were so excited to see Hawaii.”

You stare, pouting as your eyes get teary for some reason. The entire situation is shitty as fuck and Taehyung's pale face is not helping. 

“You have to go.”

“I'm sure accommodation can be arranged just for the two of you. It's worth a shot.” Jimin says.

“We could try but I don't know…” Jungkook groans, sighing in disappointment at the fucked up situation. “We'll talk about it later. You're more important now, Tae. What can we do for you?” 

You nod, listening to Taehyung who sighs, cracking his neck. “I would die for McDonald's right now.”

Snorting, you shake your head at your friend. 

“You shouldn't eat right now, Tae. You have a good amount of meds inside you. It would probably make you sick.” Jimin reminds him. 

“We should just wait for the nurse to give us more information. Then we can figure it out from there.” you say, Jimin and Jungkook nodding in agreement. 

“This fucking sucks.” 

You make yourself comfortable on Taehyung's current bed, humming. “Tell me something about it.”

A few minutes later, a male in his mid-thirties (you're guessing) comes in. Wearing a white coat, you almost forgot how handsome some doctors can look, he eyes everyone in the room – mostly surprised to see so many people but then none of you are family members. He does question it but doesn't send you away. 

“...fortunately, Mr. Kim, your accident hasn't permanently damaged any of your nerves or bones. You'll have to wear a cast for a couple of weeks until it's healed, and after that you will need to be careful. But we'll take it from there and discuss further recovery steps.”

Taehyung looks like he's five seconds from dozing off or as if he could care less, you're trying to hold back your laugh while Jimin and Jungkook are the responsible ones. They keep nodding and looking seriously at the doctor using terms you've never heard before. You're sure none of them have and the fact they act like they do makes you want to laugh. Rin stays behind, sitting on the chair next to a window. You get a feeling she might feel not unwelcomed, but definitely out of her comfort zone. 

She sees four friends sticking together, three of them that she hasn't seen before. Honestly, it's not weird to see a woman next to Jimin. It is weird to see the affection they have going on, even though so far it has been pretty low-key. 

As the doctor finishes and informs Taehyung he's able to go home after they run some tests on him, he gives you a shortly lasting look. You smile, looking away in shyness as you're met with Jungkook's side-eyed frown. He has done that a lot today, you think.

You just innocently shrug, both of your attentions turned to Taehyung who starts to complain all over again. 

“You guys should go. You were on a date, right? Me and Kook will take care of him.” you tell Jimin, feeling bad not because they had to cut off their date, but you feel bad toward Rin. 

She probably wants to be with her boyfriend, it has probably been too many events for her tonight. You could sympathize with her and imagine what it feels like for her. Besides, there are three of you here. There's no need for all of you to be here. Taehyung will be fine. 

Someone just has to wait with him for more tests and results, so he's really safe to go home. Plus, he needs to be driven home as his ride here was an ambulance – something he's still complaining about how awkward it was when it arrived in front of the gym. 

“Yeah, go. They will take care of me.” Taehyung mutters like the child he can be, met with yet another glare from you. 

Jungkook tries not to laugh while Jimin frowns. “No. We could wait here and drive him to my place.” Jimin argues, turning to Rin. “You don't mind, right?”

“Fucking hell,” Taehyung whispers under his breath. “Why are you asking her? Just go and have your date.” He rolls his eyes at Jimin who clenches his jaw.

“I don't mind.” Rin tells him silently, assuring him.

“Somebody's gonna have to take care of your ass, Taehyung-ah. You can't be alone at home right now.”

“I'm not a child.”

“Sometimes you act like it.”

“Okay,” you butt in, standing up. “It's too late to be arguing in a freaking hospital. So get it together, both of you–” You're met with a glare from both of them. “Jimin wants to be here for you, so don't be childish Taehyung. They can have a date another time.”

“What she means to say is–” Jungkook starts, standing behind you. “We're all willing to stay here and help.”

Jimin and Rin have a silent conversation as Taehyung purses his lips and closes his eyes, ignoring his surroundings. Deep down, you know he wants Jimin to be here for him. He's just childish because Jimin is dating now and even though Rin doesn't seem to be a bad girl, it's different now. Suddenly, there's another person in his life and in their friendship as well. It awfully reminds you of the situation you had with Jungkook. 

It's still slightly different but similar in many ways. You know how Taehyung feels. The difference is that Taehyung also knows shit about relationships. He can't understand why Jimin, the guy who used to fuck purely for fun and enjoyment, is now dating someone. 

“Guys, could you drop off Rin at her house? She lives nearby, so it's not too far away.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Jungkook responds. 

“Come on, it's late. We should all go to sleep. They can handle it from there,” you say, motioning for Rin to join you. “Don't worry, we're friendly and don't bite.” 

She laughs, some of her nervosity dropping.

“Yeah, they're too into each other to care about anyone else.” Taehyung comments.

“Y'know what Taehyung? If you don't want your other leg in a cast, you better shut up.” you warn him, feeling Jungkook's hand on your lower back as he shakes his head, silently telling you it's not worth it as an amused smile plays on his lips. 

“Which one?” Taehyung asks cheekily, having the time of his life when he watches your realization into disgust.

“Jesus, man. You should sleep it off.”

“That's not gonna help. This is Taehyung we're talking about.” you murmur to Jungkook.

Taehyung is about to say another nonsense, stopped by Jimin's palm as he gives him a warning stare before he walks up to you and Jungkook.

“Guys, please do not interrogate her. Okay?” Jimin pleas, sounding nervous as you and Jungkook share a knowing look. “No, please. Don't look at each other like that.” 

Little does he know it wasn't because of what he thinks it is, that you will go against his wishes, but it's the cuteness of how he doesn't want to ruin anything between them. You've never had a chance to see him like this. 

“Don't worry, we're gonna be on our best behavior.” Jungkook jokes, causing Jimin to whine but there's no time to have such a silly conversation. 

Jimin turns to Rin, telling her something before they share a kiss. You're ready to squeal at the cuteness as Jungkook tries not to laugh at you, cheekily poking you in your side while Taehyung looks grumpy.

“I'll text you and see you tomorrow, okay?” You hear Jimin say just as you bid goodbye to Taehyung, who's already too sleepy. 

Jungkook pats the top of his head before you leave Jimin with him and part your ways. But not before you hear Jimin's silent scolding. “You see? This is exactly why I didn't want to–”

You and Jungkook try not to laugh on your way out of the room, sharing a look in the hallway as Rin silently follows you, probably wondering who the hell has she just met. 

“She's quiet.”

You break a silence by stating something both of you are thinking. Rin is not exactly communicative, kept it very casual and both, you and Jungkook, could get the hint of her not wanting to really talk. 

“She might've felt bad because of Taehyung.” Jungkook responds, a thoughtful frown making it on his face as he drives you through familiar streets that lead toward your home. 

During the slightly awkward drive to Rin's place, Jungkook tried to excuse Taehyung's behavior, thinking it's the main reason for Rin's distant behavior. It's not like she wasn't friendly or has done something out of place. She was just… quiet. She kept it simple, not engaging in any further topics. And regarding Taehyung, she just said it's okay and that was it. 

It was certainly none of you have expected. You tried to make the atmosphere lighter, forcing chuckles and grins for her own sake but she just didn't seem to care. You're not going to lie, that stung a little and you had to grit your teeth to prevent yourself from really asking her – What's up?

But then you realize, you have no idea how she's feeling. She met all three of you in the span of one hour and with Taehyung's insanity and even bolder mouth than ever, it has been a lot for her probably. 

It's not like the three of you are too much to handle, right? 

“You think so?”

Jungkook chuckles at your question, “Tae took it too far. Anyone would've felt uncomfortable.”

“Come on, he's on drugs–” you scoff out a chuckle as if that excuses him. “He wasn't fully himself.”

“He was pretty much Taehyung, what are you sayin'?” Jungkook laughs.

You smack your lips together, a laugh escaping past them as you gently nudge his arm. “You know what I mean–he would've behaved slightly differently if he wasn't in that state.”

“Hm, that could be true,” he mutters, driving with one hand as the other rubs his lips thoughtfully. “Maybe she's just shy, would explain a lot.”

“Maybe,” you hum, “Can you believe it though? Our Jimin has a girlfriend. Who would've thought?”

“Not me,” Jungkook jokes, quoting one of the famous sounds on TikTok which causes both of you to break into laughter. “I hope she's not terrified of us–or Tae.”

“There's nothing to be terrified of when it comes to us!” you exclaim, giggling when you see Jungkook's grimace of pursed lips and raised brows. “I don't know. I thought it would go differently when we would finally meet her. Not like this.”

“None of us expected it,” Jungkook says, “But it doesn't matter. All that matters is that Taehyung is okay.”

“Oh god, he's gonna be such a drama queen once they release him. A cast on his leg?”

Jungkook laughs, knowing exactly what you mean when it comes to Taehyung. “He's gotta get used to it. At least for a while.”

While a short silence follows, one thought is rooted inside your mind which causes you to nibble on your lips. “Kook,”

“Hm?”

“This means we're going alone to Hawaii?”

Jungkook sighs, thinking through his answer as you watch the side of his face and how street's signs and lights illuminate his features. “If you want to.”

He stops at the red light, a few cars stopping behind you as you stare out of the window to avoid his stare once he glances at you. You see him in the reflection. His eyes momentarily watch your form, perhaps trying to decipher what you're thinking before he looks back ahead, staring at the road instead. 

“This is not how it was meant to be.” you mutter.

For some odd reason, you feel bad for even saying it. It almost sounds like you don't want to go with Jungkook. It's not that at all. Sure, the thought scares the fuck out of you – but Jimin and Taehyung were supposed to be there. All four of you. Making new memories and doing something new, something precious for your just as precious friendship. 

“We don't have to go. We could try next year.”

“No,” you shake your head, “Everything's paid for. It was already trouble enough to deal with Jimin's reservations and now it's the same with Taehyung.”

“Listen,” Jungkook sighs, the engine roaring back to life as the red light changes to orange. By the time it's green, Jungkook puts the car into drive and speeds through the main road. “I know it's not ideal, but I don't want you to go if you don't feel like it.”

“It's not ideal but–” you stop yourself, groaning at your stupid way of explaining your feelings. “I made it sound as if I didn't wanna go with you…” you trail off, somehow starting to feel nervous which is stupid. 

Jungkook stays silent. You're not sure if it's because he wants to listen to you or because he silently agrees. You did make it sound like that. 

“I just–would it be wise?”

“Wise?” Jungkook frowns.

“Well–just the two of us.”

Jungkook stares ahead before he throws you a quick glance. It takes approximately five seconds for him to release a chuckle as he shakes his head while you're the one who stares in confusion now. 

“So that's what you're nervous about?”

You roll your eyes, not being able to say anything. It's partly why you're so unsure about this. The last time you and Jungkook stayed alone… things happened. And while you would like to believe you're strong willed, there's a part of you that fears the exact opposite. 

It's insane how Jungkook gets it without you actually having to say anything.

“What? You can't keep it in your pants, Y/L/N?”

It's the cocky tone that makes your mouth drop open, but that single sentence is enough to make you stutter and you literally fight to get proper words out. “You're the one bringing that up!”

But Jungkook laughs, completely ignoring your evident attempt of trying to argue with his statement. 

“I didn't even think about that.”

“Mhm, mhm.”

He bursts out laughing, ignoring the way you glaring at his side with a huffy face. “What else did you mean then?”

“None of your business, Jeon.” you mutter, arms crossed over your chest as you fight back a smile when you hear his bubbly laugh next to you. 

“Oh, we're back to Jeon?”

“You're the first one that started with surnames,” you point out, giving him a playful roll of your eyes before you sigh and relax in the seat. “I just meant… maybe it's stupid but–we all know how it ended the last time. This is a vacation, Jungkook. We're gonna be miles and miles away. It sounds–”

“Couple-y?” He finishes your thought. He shakes his head with a gentle smile. “It sounds like fun to me. I'm still me, Y/N.” It's the way his last sentence sounds so gentle and vulnerable that it makes you feel like an idiot for even bringing it up. 

He's still the same Jungkook you've known for years. With or without intimacy.

You just had to talk about Hawaii one way or another. 

“Yeah–I know it sounds like that but I don't overthink it that much. I just meant–fuck, I guess it's a big change from our plans and just us going is…”

“You're scared.” he says, pointing out the obvious that makes you dryly swallow. 

You mentally groan and slap yourself. “How am I supposed to enjoy it when you will be right there?”

“Ouch.”

“No, not like that!” you correct yourself, groaning loudly this time. “You'll be a distraction.”

Jungkook laughs at that, “Distraction?”

“Yes!” you exclaim, growing frustrated but mainly from yourself and the fact you're talking about this. It makes you slightly embarrassed but at the same time it's a relief that you can talk about this so openly with him. “With Jimin and Taehyung there–”

“I can keep it in my pants,” he informs you of something you've heard many times before. “The question is–”

You inhale shakily.

“Can you?”

You stare ahead, eyes wide and mouth agape, tongue softly grazing your teeth.

Well–fuck.

“Listen, just let me know how you decided.”

Jungkook says with a window opened as you stand next to the driver's side, shifting on your spot nervously. You haven't talked much after that. There was not much time since Jungkook drove here in five minutes. 

“I'm stupid for saying shit like that.”

Jungkook frowns, “Hey, you're not stupid. You're unsure and feel bad for the guys.”

It's not even about the temptation and the stupid break you came up with. It's the entire change of plans you've mentioned to him as well. You made it sound as if it was all about the two of you, but the truth is it feels bad to go there without Taehyung and Jimin. 

And that's exactly what you tell Jungkook as you confess your once said thoughts. This time you're more serious. 

“You heard them. They want us to go either way. Even when we don't think about the money and how's everything already paid for–you were excited to go there,”

He slides his hand off the steering wheel and places it on his lap instead. 

“We're going there to enjoy our vacation. It might not be as we planned it, but we could still have fun. And deep down, I know you really wanna go there.”

“I do,” you admit after a while. When you think about it, this is your opportunity to go. Although, going there alone with him makes you awfully nervous. It's like a huge test for the two of you, one you're not ready for. “You know the last time when we were alone–”

“Mhm,” he says, prompting you to continue.

“I don't wanna make it seem as if that's all I'm thinking about, or that's how I see you but I guess–”

God why is it so hard to put any words out?

“I know,” Jungkook says gently, seeing you struggling a little to properly explain the crazy train of your thoughts. “You wanted us to focus on our friendship. I know, Y/N.”

He's so gentle that you almost want to cry out and have him hug you. You're in a desperate need of a hug. But it's too late and you both had a long day. 

“You sure you don't wanna go upstairs?” 

Jungkook smirks and you groan. “Not like that, Jeon.”

“I feel like I'm gonna pass out the second I take a shower and lay in my bed,” he jokes instead, “You should go inside, it's getting colder.”

You bite the inside of your cheek as you stare at your surroundings. “I wanna go, Kook.”

Jungkook turns his head to look at you, immediately realizing what you're talking about. He doesn't say it but the question in his eyes is clear. You sure?

“Yeah, I made a big deal out of it,” You sigh. “But I really wanna go with you. It would be stupid for us not to go.”

“Okay, then. I'll have to make some calls because of Taehyung, hopefully he will be able to get his money back. At least for the accommodation. If you change your mind, just let me know.”

“I won't,” you assure him with a smile, “And Kook?”

“Yes?”

“It's stupid but… I don't think I've ever felt nervous about you before. The last time was when we first met. Or the first time we started hanging out.”

“I made you nervous?” He laughs.

“Mostly everyone makes me nervous when I first meet them,” you scowl at him as you explain. “We barely hung out after we–took a break or whatever we wanna call it.”

Jungkook snorts at the way you roll your eyes when you say it. 

“I make you nervous. I don't know how to deal with this information.”

“Jeon,” you grit through your teeth, “It's not you. It's more… the situation and all.”

He grins, biting his lower lip before he releases it and stares at the distant street lights. “There's no need to be nervous. No kissing. No sex. We're on a sex ban. Just two best friends in Hawaii.”

You groan his name and at the way he says it with an utmost grin. This man is not serious. 

“That's not what I truly meant but–you know what? Nevermind. Let's just end it here.”

Jungkook doesn't press any further, simply opting for a gentle grin and change of topic. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

You catch yourself wishing he would say something else instead of your name.

And that's your cue to turn around before silently wishing him a goodnight, telling him to drive safe and send you a message once he's home. Perhaps it's for the better that he stayed in his car. 

He waits until you're inside of the building before he drives out of the parking lot, his silver car slowly fading out until it fully disappears. What doesn't disappear are the mixed and crazed feelings that make you question every single thing that has been said. 

One thing you know for sure.

This vacation will be one hell of a ride. 

One, you can't prepare yourself for. One, you're close to shitting your pants for.

Rolling your suitcase down the sidewalk, Jungkook offers to take it but you decline. He has his own suitcase and full hands, therefore all he receives is just an appreciative smile as you enter the airport. 

Namjoon was kind enough to take you and since your flight is early in the morning, he had the time to drive you here.

Sorting out your luggage and going through the security doesn't take too long and before you know it, you're seated in the airplane fighting for a window seat with Jungkook. He lets you have it, of course and slumps into the seat next to you. With a happy and slightly annoying smile, you make sure he sees it as he playfully rolls his eyes.

Since there are still passengers sitting and putting away their luggage, you do have a little time before taking off. You take that time to quickly video chat with Jimin and Taehyung. While Jimin's preparing for his work, Taehyung curses you out for waking him up. Though, there's a tiny smile that tells you that it's okay to go without them and enjoy it to the fullest. 

You share your earphones with Jungkook, so he can hear them too. 

“You guys–” Taehyung sighs, eyes slightly swollen with tiredness. “This sucks but enjoy it, alright? And send me pictures.”

“We will.”

“Yeah, Kook took his camera with him.”

“You and your camera,” Taehyung jokingly shakes his head. “I could've had such nice pictures.”

“You have… lots of them actually,” Jungkook snickers, “We will take some next time.”

“Be safe guys, I gotta run to work but text us when you land.” Jimin says, his screen blurry as he keeps moving.

“Will do.” you assure them. “I'm sorry you guys couldn't come.”

“Stop,” Taehyung cuts you off, giving you a grin that feels oddly comforting. “Have the biggest fucking fun. I'm stuck in bed, so maybe I will annoy you with my phone calls.”

“Great.” Jungkook mutters, causing you to nudge him as the four of you laugh.

“We're about to take off. I will call you, Tae. Don't worry.”

“I am not. What I worry about though, is the amount of times I could've gotten laid. Now I'm stuck here with this fucking cast on.”

“Dude, chill out.” Jimin laughs. 

So do you and Jungkook. Shortly after you all end the call, you and Jungkook snickering between each other at Taehyung's biggest issue. 

While the pilot welcomes everyone on board and informs them of the destination and other important information, you make yourself comfortable in your seat as you place your head on Jungkook's shoulder. 

Jungkook looks down at you, smiling as you catch his glance. “Ready?”

“Is there anything left for me other than to be ready?”

“Well, you could chicken out. The plane is not in the air yet.”

You smack his side, sitting up straight as you're met with the familiar sight of his stretched smile and white pearls. “Dumbass.”

“Love you too.”

You look away, making sure he sees the roll of your eyes before doing so. Though a small smile plays on your lips and as you take off, plane soon in the clouds, you use Jungkook as the softest and best smelling pillow.

The adrenaline and excitement of what's awaiting for you does not allow you to sleep. Yet you don't move an inch, finding comfort in the man sitting beside you. And when you ask him to play with your hair, he does it without any questions. 

“Oh my god.” 

Is the first thing you let out as soon as you get out of the airport and see the beauty around you. The weather is not too hot for you to not have any sunglasses or hat on. You shield your eyes with a palm outstretched above them, stopping in the tracks as Jungkook tries to get a taxi. 

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Jungkook says once he locks his phone and puts it into the pocket of his shorts. “The place we are staying at is even more beautiful.”

Jungkook has managed to make a compromise with the owner of the place you're staying at during the next seven days. Since it would be for the best if Jimin and Taehyung got their money back, they made a deal on swapping apartments. This way the owner could still make a profit while complying with you.

That alone made you a little bit calm because so far, everything is going well and smoothly. 

“Our car should be here in five.” Jungkook informs you and ushers you to go in a shadow.

You obey, feeling already as if you're melting.

“What's our plan for today?”

You haven't really slept during the flight. Jungkook has booked a business class, something you've scolded him for because that's definitely something you haven't paid for when you sent him the money for your flight ticket. There was no need for that eight hour flight, but you both definitely made a good use of it. You turned on a movie and made yourself comfortable while eating snacks. Who knew having a drink on a plane can be actually so relaxing and fun at the same time?

You sit on your suitcase, squinting your eyes at Jungkook who pulls a cap from his suitcase and puts it on your head. 

“We're gonna settle in and maybe we could check the outside?”

“Sounds good.” 

The car comes around the time Jungkook said it would, an older man with a straw hat on welcomes you and helps you with your things. You both thank him and get inside – luckily – with an air condition on.

While he drives and gives you a quick tour of the road you're driving on, he answers any curious and informative questions Jungkook asks him. You sit silently, smiling at the man whenever he jokes around as you stare out of the window, appreciating the nature around you. 

And at that moment you think;

It's a good thing you decided to go.

You've seen the photos of where you were supposed to be staying. All four of you. But since that has changed and the two of you couldn't go, there had to be some changes made. Jungkook informed you about that, so that's no news to you. It would be no use for you and him to share a place designed for four and more people. 

Surrounded by nature and sea air, there's a whole street of houses. It's so close to the sea that you can hear the waves in the distance and smell the salted water. Surely, the location and vacation houses are one of the wealthiest ones, and you just can't seem to pry your eyes at what's around you. 

You let Jungkook handle everything, after you've grabbed your luggage and bid goodbye to the driver. He talks to the owner, or the person who is in charge of the vacation house you'll be staying at. Shortly after, Jungkook is given keys and after waving off one last person, you finally get out of the sun and get inside. 

The first thing you notice is the chilly air hitting your heated bodies, the two of you sighing in delight before you both laugh. 

“AC is gonna be our best friend here.” you comment, squinting your eyes as they adjust to the lack of sun.

“Just don't overboost it, yeah? Or else you're gonna end up sick.”

You turn to Jungkook with raised brows, who simply just shrugs as he sets the luggage down. 

“Says the person who always has his AC turned on in the car.” you point out the obvious fact you both know.

“My immune system is much better than yours.” he points out back, showing you the tip of his tongue in a teasing manner as you shake your head, trying to hide a smile.

Bickering with someone who knows you well – or best even – is tough. 

Now that's done and the two of you don't elaborate to bicker any further, you take the time to look around. The place you've seen from pictures looked different, customized for more people. This house is just as spacious and even though you're standing in the entryway, you can easily tell more people would be able to fit in here.

“Are you sure we're at the right place?” you ask, catching Jungkook sweeping his hair off his forehead with head leaned back. Mentally sighing at the painfully attractive sight, you turn around and admire the place you're in instead.

That's a safer choice anyway.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” he asks instead, confirming that yes, you're at the right place. “Come on, let's see how it looks in person. The pictures were pretty great.”

You wonder why Jungkook hasn't shared them with you once he was able to switch houses. For sure, you haven't had that much time to talk about it. Everyone was busy with their jobs, you included, and then the accident with Taehyung happened which caused this entire planning to get rushed. Poor Jungkook took care of everything – but you know he's the best at it. 

When your mouth drops as you make it to the living room, you notice Jungkook grinning at the side of the entrance to the living room since there is no door. He wanted it to be a surprise.

One that appears to be more than successful.

“Kook–” you stop yourself. The entire side facing the sea is a window wall, giving the best view to the beach and sea. 

The floor is a darker wood, giving the room just the right balance of colors since there are a lot of light colors. The white couch is huge, in the shape of U, similar to what Jungkook owns at his place. There is a big beige carpet underneath the coffee table and couch, making it more cozy. A beautiful chandelier hangs down with transparent bulbs which is undoubtedly even more pretty at night. 

From up here, there's a porch with a pool and your legs itch to find out how big it is. 

It's a one floor beach house, a modern yet cozy one as Jungkook leads you to the right to show you the kitchen. It's a medium sized, smaller than the one he's got and you wonder why it's even here considering you'll get your food brought from the resort. 

The house ends from the left sounds but you move to the opposite side, jaw dropping at the beautiful bedroom. First of all, the interior is beyond any words and leaves you breathless. You've never seen something so beautiful in person. You could cry. And Jungkook's joyful grin is not helping at all.

The bed is not against any walls. It sits almost in the middle of the room. There's a panel behind it and further away, it leads you to a spacious bathroom. There are two sinks and a huge mirror – the room matched in turquoise and white colors.

“Jungkook–this is–how much did you spend on this?” you ask, turning to him with a hand on your hip with a frown. “This was definitely much more than you said.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Jungkook, stop. I'm serious.”

“So am I,” he shrugs, sighing slightly. “I paid a little extra but it wasn't much.”

“I don't believe you.” You narrow your eyes at him as he cheekily grins and shrugs.

“Sounds like a you problem.”

“Jungkook!” 

However, your scolding is cut off by him simply walking away. The bed is facing the beach, the same view as you could see in the living room. Palms surround the house which create a little shade from the burning sun. 

There are dressers where you could store your clothes and stuff, but you don't pay any more attention to it as you follow Jungkook back to the entryway with a frown settled on your face. 

“Jungkook, I'm serious.”

“And so am I, Y/N,” he says simply, dragging your luggage to the living room. “I swear I didn't pay much. The owner wouldn't really have any other place for us. I wanted you to see this beach.”

You raise your brows at him, trying not to crack at the warm and sweet gesture.

“Plus I didn't want to stay anywhere else. So be mad at me all you want, but I'm happy to be here and from the looks of it, so are you.”

“Yes, but–”

“No, buts. Now get ready, we're leaving in twenty.”

You stammer over your words, mustering to ask only one word. “Where?”

“Out. Unless you wanna stay in and rest.”

He says, stopping as he turns around to look at you with raised brow, waiting for your response.

“Ah–no, I am fine with going out.”

“Good.”

And he leaves to the bedroom, “Oh–I hope you don't mind the one bedroom. They didn't have any houses with more rooms left. But I can sleep on the couch.” he calls out from there.

When you don't respond right away, his head pokes out of the corner with a awaiting gaze. 

“Why would I mind?” you breathe out, feeling like you just got awestruck. 

“Uhh–you want me to elaborate?”

You chuckle nervously, scratching your forearm before you shake yourself out of it and drop the expression. “Yah! You wanted to go out! So go get ready too!”

“Yes, m'am.” he salutes and disappears behind the wall of the bedroom. 

You stand there, sighing to yourself and at your fast beating heart. 

He's not going to make this easy, is he?

Happiness oozes out of you and as much as you were unsure about this vacation, you're glad the guys managed to talk you out of backing off. In the end, it was your decision to go without Jimin and Taehyung who are very much missed. Though, you're completely obvious to the fact it's going to be challenging. 

The heat and raging hormones are not making it any easier for you. 

You can control yourself. You can do that as long as there's no impulse from the other side.

This vacation might've not started like you planned, but it started wonderfully without your friends here. It's also a great chance of getting your friendship back where it was. While you're sure the history between you will always be there and it will never go away, you can try to go back and not get pushed to do something silly due to any sort of temptation. 

Because that's what Jeon Jungkook is.

Having him right here, next to you while you explore the Island is a great challenge itself. At first, you don't pay any attention to the mentioned temptation. You're fine. You talk, you joke and have a great time exploring the Island. You go out and eat in one of the restaurants, you have the best ice cream that is like the greatest present for your heated bodies. Taehyung and Jimin facetime with you during it, which ultimately makes you miss them more – especially when you show them around and see their pouty faces.

After that, you visit a few local shops – promising each other that you will come back and shop some souvenirs not just for you two but for your friends as well. The heat is too much to spend the rest of the day in a direct sun with no refreshments. And you didn't come here to just stay inside, so you both decide to go to the beach.

You do want to get the best of it since you're about to get your period in the halfway of this vacation. The timing sucks but you won't let it ruin anything.

Quickly going back to the house to change and pack things, you use the close proximity to the sea and settle on the beach there. You decide to walk a little further, closer to people and other tourists where different bars occur. There will be time to enjoy that privacy later. 

Although, being left with him alone is all the things you're scared of. 

Just focus on you, and your friendship.

“Is here okay?” Jungkook asks, stopping a few meters from the sea.

Looking around, it's a good spot. You're not completely surrounded by the tourists, more to the side where you can enjoy the shade and sun at the same time. There are faint sounds of music coming from the nearby bars, squeals of people's excitement and chatters around you. Beach waves are like a lullaby to your ears, confirming the reality of your presence here. 

There are kids as well, not too many but you spot a few in the distance as they beg their parents to go to the water already. 

“It's perfect.” Is all it takes for Jungkook to drop the beach blankets down. You help him to get it in the right place, making sure the wind doesn't mess it up. 

Air here is far better and you can't wait to get into the water to freshen up. 

“I'm gonna get us some drinks.” Jungkook announces once you settle in, pulling out a straw hat he bought while you were visiting different shops. It's the only thing he had to buy.

At first you weren't sure why, it's not exactly his style and you're sure he packed one of his caps. But then, he just puts it on you and shields the top of your head. You lean your head back to give him a look.

“You don't wanna get a heat stroke.” he shrugs, hands on his hips as he stares down at you.

See, it's very hard to keep it casual and think of Jungkook being an annoying friend. While you fully appreciate his caring, it's hard to focus in general. He has a stupid excuse of a button-up, so thin all his tattoos can be seen through the seen through material. It's not even the tattoos itself. 

He has it completely unbuttoned, showing off his pecs and abs as the thin material barely covers any of his skin. Jungkook has always been handsome, but you also never had to see your friend like… this. 

Iceland would've been a better option than Hawaii. 

So far though, you've been strong – even though it doesn't seem like it. While you're completely obvious to Jungkook's body and additional sight of his skin, you just don't allow your eyes to drop there. You keep them solely on Jungkook's face, hoping he doesn't see the inner turmoil you're going through.

“What are you? My dad?” you ask instead, poking the front of the straw hat with a lifted brow. 

Jungkook grins, “Don't want you to get sick on our first day.”

“You forgot to put sunscreen on me. And bring a swim wheel.” you comment grumpily. 

Something feels odd. It's not like you're truly annoyed by his caring. But looking at the familiarity of this conversation and overall situation, something sits on the tip of your tongue. It's not a word or anything that could be said. It's almost like a taste you can't quite describe. 

And when you see Jungkook who just laughs with his head leaned back, shrugging effortlessly at your comment, you realize that perhaps it's the fact that things really are like they were. At least right now. Jungkook treats you like he has before. He's caring, having that one particular look in his eyes you haven't seen in a while. 

Or perhaps you're just dramatic and you're seeing things. 

Being confused and frustrated at yourself more than ever, luckily Jungkook cuts you off from your never-ending thoughts before you can drive yourself crazy. 

“Ah, maybe I should've. We both know you're not too confident in water.”

You gasp, reaching for your sandal which you throw in his direction. He laughs, dodging it perfectly as despite your attack, he still reaches for it and puts it back to the spot, so it won't get lost. It's a detail but leaves you gulping.

“I'm pretty confident in kicking your ass.”

“Alright,” he laughs, not believing a word you're saying which makes you roll your eyes at him. “Whatever you say.”

He confidently backs away with a smirk, laughing when you flip him off and huff out in frustration once he turns around and walks to one of the bars. He slowly walks further and further away, yet you keep your eyes on him. 

You lay back, staring at the palm tree above you. The sunlight peeks through the leaves, creating patterns on your heated face and cheeks. 

When he comes back, you gulp down the fresh lemon and mint drink without properly tasting it. 

“...okay.” Jungkook says, watching you being halfway down the drink – it's alcohol free which doesn't make you look completely insane. “Wanna go for a swim?”

Putting down the drink, you open your mouth just as Jungkook decides to ditch the stupid excuse of a cover-up. He shrugs it off and tosses it onto the sand, brushing his fingers through his black hair. It has gotten long to the point where it sometimes gets into his eyes.

Standing up, you undo the small knot on your white cover-up that looks like a short dress. It slips down your arms and meets the blanket underneath your feet.

“Ready?” you ask, dropping down the silly straw hat Jungkook has gotten you. 

“Is this new?” Jungkook questions instead, pointing at your white bikini. It's a cute set. What makes it cute looking and pretty is the ruffled style, yet it's complimenting your body in the nicest way. 

“Yeah, I bought it for this trip specially.” 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, you don't like it?” you ask, looking down at yourself and adjusting your bra that's pushing up your breasts. Not in the overly too much type, enough to show them off though. 

In your defense, it didn't look like this on the model when you were ordering it. Luckily, you would say it fits perfectly. Jungkook's silence causes you to look up, almost finding the thought of him not liking it or thinking of it negatively scary. You mentally gag at yourself. Since when do you care what others think?

To be fair, sometimes you do – if those people are close to you and it also happens what it is about. But your choice of fashion matters only to you. You won't let anyone change the way you perceive yourself and your individual style. 

As much as you're independent in this entire matter, you would lie if you didn't say you don't like compliments. Also, there is something about Jungkook's compliments. You almost gag for the second time when just the idea of it makes your stomach tickle.

“Are you staring at my tits, Jeon?”

Caught red-handed, Jungkook's slightly scrunched eyes from the sun widened in a split second. “You don't usually refer to them as tits.” he comments instead.

You chuckle at the ridiculous response, “I usually don't have to refer to them at all. But you were staring.”

“Can you blame the man?” he shrugs, stealing a quick glance again as you give him the look he knows very well. The one where your eyebrow has been lifted for what seems like the hundredth time in the span of thirty minutes.

“Jeon, for this to work, you gotta behave yourself.”

Jungkook frowns at the nickname, “I prefer Kook better.”

“Jeon.” you correct just to annoy him. Deep down you cackle at the way his brows scrunch together in the softest way possible. 

“What do you want me to do? They're just right there! We were talking about your bikini, it's not my fault.”

“You don't have to stare at my breasts though.”

“Did it make you feel weird?”

“Well–”

“See? You don't not like it!” he exclaims, pointing at you accusingly.

“I barely said anything!”

“You don't have to, I know that look.”

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter. “Besides, you didn't answer. You don't like it?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” he deadpans.

“Um–yeah?” you deadpan back. 

He sighs, “I'm not gonna talk about your bikini because you're gonna accuse me of staring.”

“I don't have to accuse you, you were staring!” you laugh.

You're not going to lie. It does compliment you.

Even though you're here to focus on the two of you, in a different way than you were a few weeks ago, you should hate how Jungkook's attention makes your ego grow. 

“You told me to behave, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut.”

“Why?” you question, not doing a great way to show your excitement. 

“Oh, now you want me to talk?” he laughs, “Nah, you wouldn't be able to handle it.”

“Cocky as always.”

He shrugs, “I never hid it.”

You nibble on your bottom lip, “But no, be serious right now.”

“Oh, I have been serious this whole time.”

“Jungkook!” you whine, “Is it not too much?”

“If I told you yes, would you change?”

You stay silent for a moment before simply saying; “No.”

“Then no, it's perfect.”

“Jungkook!” 

He stays silent for a moment, throwing his head back as his eyes squint shut from the trails of sun hitting his face. “God, woman.”

“What?” you mumble innocently.

Since when do you care what anyone thinks? Jungkook questions mentally, trying to keep his thoughts straight before he gets the courage to look you in the eyes.

“You look beautiful.”

You stare, battling with hundreds of things happening inside you. The heat in your cheeks gets almost unbearable and you do what you seem to be best at. Running away and playing it cool. “Yah, don't say it like that!”

“Like what?” Jungkook asks, brows pinched in confusion.

“So seriously.”

“I am serious,” Jungkook informs you, making it worse for your cheeks and the turmoil that's happening in the pit of your stomach. Why did you have to open your mouth? “Now let's go into that fucking water.”

“Woah.”

“Yeah, woah.”

“What's bothering you?” you ask, trailing behind him trying to catch up to him when he suddenly turns around and nears the sea. 

“Nothing,” he says casually, dipping his ankles into the chilly water. You open your mouth but before you can say something that could potentially lead to a conversation you would eventually back out of, Jungkook splashes your heated body.

You gasp, finding him smirking. Before you can get him back for it, he runs to the water and dips his entire body in. He emerges out of it in seconds, the water reaching just somewhere around his hips. You watch droplets of water run down his entire body, hair completely soaked from it as he wipes his face. 

“Are you staring at my abs, Y/L/N?” Jungkook shouts, your eyes widening as embarrassment makes it onto your face. Can he be any louder?

You look around for a second, trying to see if someone is witnessing this embarrassing moment. There's no one that seems to care, besides a group of girls meters away from you as they seem to find a certain interest in Jungkook. You purse your lips, looking at Jungkook. 

“Y'know, if I should behave, so should you.”

“I don't feel like behaving,” you call out to him, watching him as he creates waves with his hands as he effortlessly runs his hands through the water. “They are just there, you know?”

You get him back for it, still watching him and witnessing his lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Oh, are they?”

“Mhm.”

“Get in here.”

“No.” you giggle, laughing when Jungkook grins and shakes his head at you. 

“I'm gonna get you.”

“Come here then.”

And fuck, he does. You laugh through it all, trying to back away as you promise him you will go deeper, though not fully out of respect to the sea you have. He doesn't listen. As soon as his arms wrap around your body, molding into his almost too naturally and perfectly. But you're caught up in the moment and in your giggles, hearing Jungkook's laugh as you squeal when the coldish water wets you. 

You cling to Jungkook's side, “There are no sharks, right?”

Jungkook snickers, “Of course there are. Somewhere in the sea at least.”

You nudge him, but Jungkook holds you close since he can reach better than you. He's also a way better swimmer than you. “Don't say that.”

“Look at those kids,” he says and points to the side. There are kids on their floaties, of course with their parents around. “They're not scared of sharks.”

“They could be dessert for all I care, I'm not gonna be one.” you joke, hearing Jungkook laugh as he doesn't allow you to inch closer to the shore. 

“You could be mine, but you wanted a break.” 

You gasp, tickling his side as he barely falters and just gives you the teasing grin. “Don't say stuff like that. I told you.”

“Alright, I won't.” he promises, imitating his lips being locked as he throws the imaginary key far to the sea. “I was joking.”

“Were you?” you ask, pretending to be teasing and amused but the truth is, there's a part of you trying to know the truth. 

“I guess you'll never know. I told you I'm shut.” he says with a grin like the annoying brat he can be. 

And for the sake of yourself, you decide to leave it be. You splash his face instead, playing it off like you seem to do often. For your own sake. 

Jungkook has always been the adventurous type. You've heard all kinds of stories from Taehyung and Jimin, some of them back from Busan or from the times you haven't been present in their lives back then. Jungkook would be up for anything that could get him the thrill and although, there weren't that many opportunities considering everyone's busy lives – you could see it from his mere decision of being up to all sorts of fun that involves adrenaline. 

So you shouldn't be surprised he practically stuttered and almost jumped from excitement once he spotted a place where jet skis can be rented. You've read his mind even before he opened his mouth and dragged you there.

After swimming and messing around in the sea for a while, you went for a walk and explored the beach, and tasted a few good snacks. You should've known it's not ending with that. 

And that's where you ended up. Sitting behind Jungkook, both of you wearing safety vests and you clutching to his back, arms around his waist. You live in the moment, focusing on each activity the two of you do.

The sun is now setting down, air is still warm but with the sun slowly disappearing, it's not boiling hot. You're exhausted and your body screams for a good cold shower and bed. On your way back to the beach house, you walk in silence and enjoy the sound of waves around you. 

You're the first one to occupy the bathroom, taking the chance to not be in the presence of Jungkook's naked abs and chest. As long as you keep your mind and body busy, there's a low chance of you overthinking and letting your mind wander somewhere where it simply should not. 

Not wanting to dwell any further of how this might have been a mistake, you take it as a test to prove your friendship. Jungkook is a temptation that has grown over the few months you get to experience something you haven't before. 

As the water dribbles down your naked body, wetting every inch of your skin, you think it's too soon to want everything to be different or back like it was. Because it never will be. And for that, you're scared of what's about to come. There are things you can control and then there are things that simply will evolve into something. The feeling of the unknown and fear of ruining your friendship with Jungkook genuinely scares you.

But again. You think of it more positively, you have to or else you're going to lose your mind. Jungkook's attractiveness and the fact you're attracted to him won't go anywhere. At least not in the near future and it's something you need to come to terms with. Like you said, it's too soon to think of it any differently. 

While you're here to focus on your friendship, perhaps you should focus on yourself more as well. 

As you wash yourself in a nice scent of orange and vanilla, you apply a body lotion you've brought to make your skin soft. While you do that and start doing unnecessary steps as your night routine, one you definitely don't do when you've spent the day not wearing make-up specifically, you tell yourself you just pamper yourself instead of trying to look good for someone else. 

Your skin is glowing and hair almost dried by the time you join Jungkook in the living room, wearing one of your night gowns. 

He's on his phone, barely glancing at you before he takes a double-take and eyes you up and down. 

“What?”

You're the first one that breaks the short-lived silence. Any nightgown is a small portion of what could be considered as your sleepwear. Jungkook out of everyone knows that, because he's seen you in everything you usually sleep in. Back in the day, you would never get the courage to let him see you sleep in anything other than oversized shirts and shorts. Even thinking of wearing tank tops made you feel weird, especially if he god forbid could see your nipples peeking through. 

This white nightgown is beautiful, but by no means designed to make men salivate or suggest anything other than having something nice to wear. Besides, the material is thin and light which is perfect for this warm weather. Plus, you and Jungkook have agreed or not having the AC turned on unless it's completely necessary. Not only is it not healthy but you're also very sensitive to coldness. Getting sick on this vacation is just not on your list, therefore you're trying to eliminate that chance as much as possible.

He narrows his eyes at you, trying to figure you out and you realize it right away before he can even open his mouth and offer you any sort of response.

“Oh, don't get this wrong. I packed my best stuff on this vacation and I didn't know we were sharing a bedroom.”

“I haven't said anything.” he says, watching you as if you were a predator as you get closer.

“You didn't have to, it's all over your face.”

As much as you enjoy his eyes on you, which always compliments you – it's one of those moments when you hide behind confidence and ignore the warmth that spreads inside the pit of your stomach. There's no point in thinking how many words from him or simple eye-contact would it take for him to take matters into his own hands. Or more like you. 

But you can't think about that. You can't wonder about it.

“I would suggest wearing something different but I won't.”

He smiles and it's so brief you barely catch it. “And why is that?”

“Because it's not my problem, of course.” you tease. “I'm wearing this for myself.”

“I never initiated anything different,” he tells you, tilting his head to the side while he studies your face. He doesn't even lock his phone as he tosses it beside him. “You should sleep in whatever you're comfortable in.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

You both stare at each other, trying not to crack a good laugh. It's a weird moment. Something between joking, amusement and tension that boils. If this happened a few weeks ago, he would probably have you underneath him as you're speaking. And the image is so explicit that it leaves a warm coat all over your body and you have to take a step back.

“But seriously now, you don't feel weird because of this?”

“If I said I am, would you change?”

“Of course not.”

He cracks a grin, “Then why asking?”

“I'm curious. I don't want to make you feel weird and this wasn't my intention. Besides, this doesn't expose anything major–and you've seen everything–”

“I have and for someone who doesn't care and wears this for herself, you're awfully explanatory.” 

Your eyes narrow into thin slits as you glare at him, sending him a warning look that's easily met with a boyish grin from him. 

“Now that you're finally out and finished making yourself look good for yourself, I'm gonna take a shower.”

Jungkook's laugh booms through the room and bounces off the walls when he manages to escape from your leg aiming at his buttcheek. To be fair, you were there for longer than you initially planned.

“Are you making fun of me, Jeon?” you call out to him, trying to sound pissed as a comfort glazes your soul. 

“When have I ever?” He calls out back, already in the bathroom and hidden from any threats your legs might make. 

It's been ages since you've had such a good sleep.

Exhaustion and the amount of activities you've done yesterday ultimately had a good share of it. The air here is different. The faint sounds of waves have been an additional part of your sleep. No cars passing by or city lights peeking through your blinds, or even occasional footsteps of your neighbors above your head.

You understand why people travel so far to relax. Sunlight peeks through the wide open window you've left and lets the chilly air get through the night. It felt so lovely that you fell asleep as soon as you closed your eyes.

Traces of sun touch your skin and make it warm, warmer than you've appreciated though and that alone tells you you're about to have another hot day ahead of you. Jungkook has briefly informed you of today's plans, always keeping in mind what you want to do but since you're more of a tagging alone vacation type, you just agree with whatever. 

You're here to relax and if you see something you would like to see or try, you'll feel open to do so. It's something you've assured him right before your body slumped into the comfiest bed you've ever laid in. Not even Jungkook's massive bed can compete with it. 

Or maybe it was the exhaustion all along.

Speaking of Jungkook, you tilt your head sideways to check on him. Not before you rub your eyes off the sleepiness. A sight of Jungkook's exposed back stares at you right back. Similar to the position you've just woken up from, he's sleeping on his stomach while arms underneath the white pillow as he hugs it to his face. You can't see his face and for a moment, you think it's better that way.

Whoever would see you right now, they would get a totally bad perception of the two of you. You look nothing like best friends who occasionally share bed.

Overthinking is not a huge part of your life. At least you think so. But ever since months have passed by and you've decided to take a break from the temptation laying right beside you, you feel like you've done nothing but that. Overthinking every second. 

You believe everything happens for a reason. And while you told yourself you're not going to overthink it and focus on your friendship instead, you do wonder if there's a true reason for why you and him ended up spending this vacation alone. 

Sure, Taehyung got injured and couldn't travel while Jimin couldn't go because of last changes at his work. It shouldn't mean more but just a mere coincidence that consists of bad luck and life. 

Like you've told yourself many times before, you will take this opportunity to focus on your decision of why you decided to take a break. Besides, you can't think about it too much and you do have to put lust aside, focusing on something that is far more sacred and important to you. 

You've no idea how long you lay there with your eyes open, watching the beautiful view out of your bed. You haven't checked your phone, something you would've done by now if you were at home. But not at the moment. You want to fully enjoy this and stay in the present – because right now it feels like you don't need anything else. 

You haven't realized how much you needed to get away. Perhaps the reason for this vacation is not to tell you something secretive, but it's for you to recharge and come back stronger than ever.

And maybe there's no reason for it. Maybe you should just freaking enjoy it and not overthink every second. 

You almost groan out loud, ready to spring out of the bed to stop yourself from thinking and being alone with your mind. The soft groan coming from the person next to you stops you and for some dumb reason, you catch yourself closing your eyes as if to pretend you were sleeping. 

Jungkook tosses around and stretches his limbs, groaning raspily under his breath as he turns to his back. He's back to sleeping, so do you think before you slowly open your eyes and catch the perfect sight of him doing the same a second after. He blinks, frowning slightly as if he realizes where he is.

Witnessing that is cute. Wait. What.

You widen your eyes and quickly shake that thought away. Calling him cute, even if it's in your mind seems illegal. Even though you've done that many times before. Years ago to be exact. 

“Mornin',” he rasps out, hand reaching to his face as long fingers rub the sleep and tiredness off those puffy eyes. 

Muttering the same greeting, you watch him close them for a moment as a soft groan makes it past his lips. “How long have you been awake?” he asks sleepily.

Long enough to watch you sleeping, you admit in your mind but it sounds ridiculous even there. You shouldn't have these thoughts anyway, no matter how honest you are.

“Just a few minutes,” you reply instead, rolling onto your back as you stare at the ceiling. 

A momentary silence has never been an issue with Jungkook. In fact, you don't find it uncomfortable but for some reason, having him so close feels weirdly familiar and odd. It's different now but it is not at the same time. You're both in a completely different state. While you realize it's in your head and sleepy Jungkook has no idea, you decide to cut off the silence and fill it with a conversation.

“It's already ten.” Your eyes drift to the digital clock that sits on the nightstand on your side. 

“Fuuck,” Jungkook sighs, rubbing his face again. “Already?”

You nod, glancing at him to find his arm tucked under his head, his face turned to you as he offers you a sleepy smile. Gulping down, you sit up and pat down your hair to make it less messy. 

“What are we doing first today?” 

Not offering him any more attention with your eyes, your feet slip into your slides easily as he remains silent for a moment. Your back burns, the traces of his eyes are without a doubt the reason for it.

“We should eat something first, then I wanna rent a car so it's easier to travel on the island. And then bungee jumping.” 

“Fuck, you still wanna do that?” you whine a little, glancing over your shoulder to find him grinning at your evident disappointment.

“You only live once.”

“That's a stupid reason to do stuff like that,” you point out.

You're all up for Jungkook having fun and trying new things he hasn't. However, sometimes your type of fun and interest differs from Jungkook's and once again, you're reminded of his adventurous self. There's no way in hell you'll go through that. He knows that.

“But if something happens to you, I want your car.”

Jungkook snorts out loud, your own lips curling into an amused grin as your feet pat into the bathroom. 

“Or no, your apartment will do.” you raise your voice as you call out to him, making sure he hears you. 

He does, along with the amusement and teasing in your soft voice. 

“How generous you are,” he calls back. “You wouldn't survive without me.”

You chuckle under your breath, washing your face in cold water. You're done within a minute, patting down the remains of it.

“Oh, here we go. Cocky much in the morning?” 

“You should know that by now.” 

You jump at how fast and close the answer comes. Jungkook stands between the door frame, leaning against the left side of it. Crossing his arms over his chest, you try to not stare too much at the display of his skin and muscles.

Reaching for your toothbrush instead, you focus on your task instead and stare at your reflection in the mirror. Your cheeks feel warm all of a sudden and you're sure it has nothing to do with Hawaii's warm weather. 

Jungkook watches you in silence. You're not sure if he still has a cocky grin attached to his lips or if he's simply just watching, but you know he is. You can feel it. And then you hear him stepping closer until he reaches for his own toothbrush. The familiar scent of him wraps around you once again as you give him a look with an arched brow. 

Is this his way of keeping his distance? 

Well, to be fair he never said he will keep his distance. Your idea of how this is going to work is simply to focus on your relationship, rather than the physical side of it and what was left of it. 

Although, you have no idea how him standing shirtless next to you is going to help that. You welcome the challenge though. 

You two ignore a lot of facts that surround you. So you continue to brush your teeth next to each other like it's the most normal thing ever. And maybe it is.

But back then none of you were shirtless or exposed enough that there is only so little left to each other's imagination. Is imagination even a thing here? 

You've seen every inch of each other's bodies. You don't have to imagine anything because you've seen it all. You've felt it all.

“Do you mind?”

You straighten up once you spit the remains of mouthwash. Jungkook turns on the shower, checking the temperature as he's visibly ready to take his morning shower. 

“Unless you wanna join me.”

It's the cunning smirk that slowly sneaks onto his face that makes you scrunch up the small face towel that's been used and throw it in his direction. It bounces off his puffed out chest and you hate how he laughs, ignoring your attempt to silently tell him to fuck off.

“Boundaries, Jeon.” You remind him.

“You never minded them before.” He continues to tease you and you snarl at him, throwing him a glare. 

“Now I do.”

“Alright, alright. Sorry.” He bows and you groan, flipping him off before you close the bathroom door with a loud thud.

His humorous laugh behind the door accompanies you long enough until you're far away to breathe it out. You'll have to do that a lot when it comes to Jungkook.

Your soft smile is caught in the reflection of a sparkling clean microwave and you quickly look away, ignoring the previously stated facts. 

“Kook, are you really sure?” 

After you had breakfast, walked around a bit and rented a car like Jungkook said, you stand in a queue that's slowly but surely shortening. 

He would've actually laughed if he didn't glance at you and see your widened eyes, as you stare at staff putting a harness on people and preparing them for the jump. Whenever someone jumps with a loud scream, some people as a pair, he sees your breath hitching and stopping for a moment.

Of course he is sure. He's mentioned this a couple of times throughout the years but he never really had the opportunity to do this. So you're aware of not only his interest but excitement as well. 

Unfortunately for him, this is a hard no for you and even though you would do anything for Jungkook – go special lengths such as pretending to be his girlfriend – this is where you draw the line. It's comical. 

“You sure you don't wanna jump with me?” He asks instead, laughing when he sees your dumbfounded look. Is he serious?

He had to sign a freaking liability waiver that he's doing this at his own risk. While you're aware this is a standard contract for all these kinds of sports, you've almost thrown up when the woman handed it to him and he signed it. 

“Worth a shot.” he mumbles.

It's laughable as you stand beside him, shifting uncomfortably from side to side as if you were the one doing this. Meanwhile Jungkook is close to jumping from excitement as he watches other participants before him in a complete awe and excitement. 

“Have you not watched a horror movie when the most ridiculous stuff happens once people do this kind of stuff?”

He gives you a side glance, “Are you talking about Final Destination?” he stops for a second, “I don't remember there was a bungee jumping scene.”

“It's not about bungee jumping itself.” you point out, growing frustrated that he's practically just making fun of it.

“You should stop watching horror movies.”

Your response comes right away. “I would have, if you guys didn't force me every time.”

He snickers, “Y'know, for someone who's always very considerate and empathic, you sure know when to talk about the right stuff.”

“Talking about all the risks this includes is right,” you inform him. “I'm worried.”

“No one wants to hear there's a risk of a plane falling when you're about to board the plane.”

Oh shit, he's right. You know he is, yet you couldn't help yourself and hoped that he's going to change his mind at the last minute. Obviously, for your own selfish reasons.

“Flying a plane is different though.” You still stubbornly mumble, hearing another scream from one of the participants which makes you flinch. 

“The point is not,” he points out but as you open your mouth to argue, he grabs you by your shoulders and has you standing in front of him. “Stop worrying, I would do this with or without you.”

“Damn, how sweet of you.” you mutter, causing him to laugh. “Couldn't we ride horses or something instead?”

“We could still do that. After I jump.”

“Oh god, don't say it like that!” you whine. He laughs, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as he hugs you to his side. 

“Taehyung would jump with me.”

“Taehyung would probably be drunk out of his ass if he happened to jump.”

You look at each other, laughing before the woman's staff calls out for Jungkook. She asks if you're jumping together and you wildly shake your head at her, stepping aside as you let her put a harness on Jungkook. 

He's grinning, watching her excitedly as she says all kinds of information about safety to him. You don't listen to that. For a moment you just focus on the happiness and excitement on him that has been evident ever since you stepped out of the car.

Their conversation is a little lost on you, therefore your brows are furrowed in utter confusion when Jungkook sits down and gets his legs secured. 

“Wait–what are you doing?” you ask. 

All people before him either sat when they were jumping or they looked as if they were lying, in a flying position. Jungkook puts a helmet on, shooting you a thumbs up as he ignores your ready to flip out. 

He's being hoisted up, upside down as he grins like a kid at you. 

“What the hell, are you crazy, Jungkook?” you yell, hands gripping the railing for dear life.

You thought this center did just those positions and Jungkook flying upside down just never crossed your mind, even though you know people jump like that too. 

“See you soon.”

“Jungkook!”

But before he can focus on your angry expression, he flies you a kiss and is let go. You yelp, wincing as you his body flies into the distance in a rapid motion. You can't help but watch, your eyes lingering on what seems like a dot down there the entire time. 

“My boyfriend jumped as well, a couple of times actually.” Someone says beside you and you don't look, you can't as your eyes stay on Jungkook. But from the voice, her accent tells you she's local. “If it makes you feel better, no accidents happened here. A few people threw up but that's it.”

You offer her a nervous chuckle, not really thinking Jungkook will be throwing up. In the worst case scenario, he would want to jump again. 

“See?” She stands closer, taking a closer look as they start pulling him up and you sigh in relief. “Your boyfriend is safe. Is he the throwing up type?”

You finally glance at her, seeing her tan face and curly hair surrounding it. 

“He's not my boyfriend,” you tell her, “He's my best friend. Psycho best friend it seems.”

She laughs but her eyes linger on you, looking as if she doesn't believe you. You subtly roll your eyes. You know exactly what she's thinking. You've seen that reaction many times before and by now, it no longer phases you. 

Everything else becomes a white noise and the girl beside you is long forgotten as the cord springs back to its original space and with that, they pull Jungkook slowly up. They help him balance. Letting go of the railing, you wait for him to move aside so he's not that close to the edge as it's another person's turn. 

But none of that matters and when Jungkook finds you at your original spot, he smirks. “Missed me?”

“You idiot!” you curse, punching his chest before you hug him. He laughs, chest vibrating as he hugs you back.

“I would jump again but I wouldn't wanna give you a heart attack.”

You smack him again, giving the girl that still stands there a knowing look. Jungkook's eyes move toward her for a moment, wondering who she is but his attention is back at you as you breathe out loudly. 

“You're crazy, you know that?”

He shrugs, effortlessly running his fingers through his hair. “I'm crazy about a lot of things.”

Rolling your eyes, you nudge your head toward the exit before he changes his mind and you'll be charged for a murder. “Let's go.”

He listens, but not before he tickles your side for a good measure, earning another smack. 

He's a crazy idiot for making you worry like that.

“Awww, you were so worried about your Kookie?”

Baring your teeth at Taehyung's huge grin that displays on Jungkook's phone screen, he's a lucky person that you're currently sitting at one of the restaurants near the beach. There are too many people for you to tell him to fuck off. 

You knew the moment Jungkook decided to accept the video call, they would have a field day. Honestly, they make the situation way more dramatic than it was. Luckily for them, you know your friends and their annoying teasing that is purely raged by your annoyed reactions. It's what makes their eyes lit up until you put a stop to their charades. 

That's what you get for being the only woman in your inner and close circle. 

You glare at Jungkook, non-verbally asking him do you see what you did?

As always, Taehyung asked about your day and since he can't be a part of it, he likes to hear details. He doesn't mind it, as he assured you many times. You still feel bad that he can't be here with you. Jimin too.

And luckily for Jungkook, he briefly mentioned you almost shit your pants when you saw him actually doing it. He wasn't really making fun of you, until Taehyung took the matters into his hands and turned it into a teasing battle that you're a victim of. 

You lean toward the table where Jungkook holds his phone, facing you as he watches your interaction with Taehyung with amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Fuck both of you,” you whisper, making sure Taehyung hears it. 

He does.

It makes his grin even bigger. 

“You should've seen him. He jumped upside down.”

“Isn't that what people do when they bungee jump?” Taehyung asks, met with another huff coming out of you.

“Yes, but dozens of people before him didn't jump upside down.” you inform him with a sass, seeing him put his hands up in surrender.

“Honestly, you're like an old married couple. You scold him and he fucking enjoys it.”

Rolling your eyes, you adjust the napkin that's sitting on your lap. It's getting dark now. Until the adventurous day, you wanted to have a calm dinner by the beach. Tomorrow's plan is to enjoy at least a half of the day there, relaxing. No adrenaline sports.

“Are you even scared of anything?” you ask Jungkook, lifting up both your brows.

“I'm scared of many things.”

“Yeah and you're one of them.” Taehyung butts in. Jungkook rolls his eyes and so do you.

“You guys make it seem as if I torture you on daily basis.”

“Well, you can be scary sometimes.”

“You know what, Tae?” you press your lips together in a fake smile.

“Wha–”

You don't give him a chance to respond, ending the call. Jungkook snickers, pulling his phone to him as he checks the screen. You sit back with a satisfied smile.

“You know Tae… He would tease shit out of everyone and everything.”

“Oh, you're not so innocent either.” you point out with a chuckle.

He frowns, momentarily pausing as he reads out a message. “He just texted me–fucking rude.”

“Send him a kissing emoji, he's gonna know it's me.”

Jungkook shakes his head with a chuckle, typing something there. He locks his phone, putting it away as it has become a strict and unsaid rule to not have phones when you're out. To be honest, it happened naturally and you're guessing, both of you want to enjoy this time without the internet. Unless it's to make calls of course.

“Besides, you were shaking when I danced on the table. You were practically shitting your pants back then–do you see me teasing you for it?”

He frowns, “When?”

“The NYE party? Jin's cabin?”

Quiet follows for a moment as the mention of one of the very significant nights comes to the surface. Not even the waves in the background can wash out the slight odd vibe in the air. So much happened there.

“You remember that?”

“Faintly, but Taehyung filled me in.” you shrug.

“That was different,” he simply says.

“Different how? I was having fun and you begged me to come down.”

“Yes, because you were wasted out of your ass. I had all safety measures taken care of, while you were dancing, wasted wearing heels.”

You purse your lips.

“So don't compare those two.”

He doesn't sound angry, he's strictly informative and you wonder what he's so defensive about. Perhaps the memories from that night aren't exactly pleasant. You might've looked like you were having the time of your life, but you were going through hell back then. 

“Damn, alright. Point taken.” you mutter, seeing him roll his eyes but his lips crack a grin.

“Just don't dance on the table this time.”

“Why would I do that?” you laugh.

“To get back at me.”

It's silly. You wouldn't do that and he knows that. There it is. It's the innocent teasing you've missed. Innocent. That's what you need. 

You still reach toward the wine glass as you gulp it down. A tight smile is the last thing you offer Jungkook before you dig into your meal.

It's the next and second day of you officially being here. 

Over the short period of your stay, it's crazy to realize how used to you've become to the new world around you. You and Jungkook have fallen into the routine of waking up without any alarm, not bothering yourselves to set one so you could do as many things as you can during your stay. 

Both of you relax and let things happen naturally, with a bit of planning because you still want to have fun and experience fun things. It's not hectic at all. 

Jungkook drags you to learn how to surfboard and while he's a natural talent (another of course), you're having just as much fun even though you're nowhere near Jungkook's level. You taste the most delicious food until you can't eat anymore, worrying you're going to have a stomach ache if you won't stop at the right time.

Now you're laying on the beach blanket with eyes closed, listening to the waves that are always there. 

Jungkook has gone to grab you some alcohol free drinks, cold drinks, after you both agreed on having them. It's been a while since he left, so you crack your eyes open and squint at the bright sun even though you've been lying in the shade. 

You look around. A part of people playing beach volleyball, tanning or swimming in the water, you don't spot him right away. Until you would recognize his figure everywhere and from miles away. He's bringing his drink with him, staring at the sand under his bare feet and you can't help but watch him the entire time. 

His hair is still a bit wet from swimming that he decided on earlier. Jungkook knows how to relax and you've seen him relaxing more than ever here. However, he still needs to get active somehow so every few minutes, he decides to do something. It's quite laughable and adorable, considering he would be lifting weights if he was back at home. 

He's passing by the volleyball court that someone provisionally made and entertained a bunch of tourists that were looking for a bit of sport and fun. You're supposed to go jet skiing with Jungkook tomorrow, so you will save that later and just bask in the sun for now. 

Your thoughts fade away just as they naturally came when you spot a group of girls, calling out to Jungkook which stops in his tracks and looks at them with curious eyes. His mouth stretches into a smile as he nods, looking around with drinks in his hand until one of the girls points toward the little table next to their deck chairs. He sets it there carefully before he pats his hands over his swim trunks. Another girl eagerly hands him something which you soon realize is a phone.

They pose for him as Jungkook snatches a few pictures of them. Sitting in the distance for a good minute, he keeps taking pictures of them as they pose in typical poses with the beach and sea behind them. 

It's pointless to mention they're all wearing bikinis. You're not one to judge and you would never criticize their bodies but shit, they all look good and definitely stand out with their different body types. They're hot and you don't have to be a man to conclude that. 

They chat for a while and you hate yourself for growing slightly annoyed at Jungkook's absence and clear interest in whatever conversation they have. Minutes seem like hours and you look away, watching your surroundings. God, you're pathetic. You act as if your eyes don't move in their direction every now and then. 

Until you're staring at the sea in front of you and notice Jungkook's nearing. He sets your drinks down. “Here you go, but be careful when drinking. It's cold.”

Cold? All the ice probably melted until you stopped chatting with the girls.

Pressing your lips together, you nod understandingly and take a sip so you bite your tongue and don't say something that could spiral into any sort of confrontation. What's the deal? You're not even mad at him. You're mad at him for being bothered. 

It's okay. They just wanted a group photo and Jungkook was passing by. No big deal. 

You sigh, giving him a smile as you look at the nice pink colors your strawberry drink's having.

“I met some girls on my way here. They're about to play volleyball. They ask me to join, you wanna join too?”

You freeze for a second, only your eyes sending him a glance. Of fucking course.

Can you blame them though? Jungkook's hot and has been catching women's gazes every time he comes out. They're shooting their shots and who are you to stand in their way? You've learned from your past mistakes when it came to Ester or another girl in Jungkook's life. Plus, you're on a vacation and they're strangers.

“Nah, you go. I'm gonna sit here and fangirl.”

He lifts his brow, “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

He eyes you suspiciously. “I'll stay if you want me to.”

You give him a dumbfounded look. “I'm not your mother, Kook. Go have fun.” you chuckle.

“Alright.” he nods, standing up. “I'll be right there if you need anything.”

“I'm all good,” you assure him. “Go kick their asses.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “They're girls, Y/N.”

He heads back to them, unaware when you mutter under your breath; “So?”

At first, you thought there's no reason for you to dig deeper in things that don't matter and would show overtime. You've stuck to your own little world, relaxing and checking your phone every now and then. You've also watched the volleyball game. 

Interesting to watch, you may say. 

Jungkook's in his element and you're not exactly talking about the female audience around him. Some guys joined them too and you soon realize they know the girls, or at least are familiar with them. Jungkook's team is winning. No doubt there and you find yourself smiling whenever he shoots, and the ball hits the sand on the opposite side of the other team. You silently cheer for him.

For a second you think of recording him and sending it to Jimin and Taehyung. But knowing Taehyung, he would thirst over the women playing the game rather than the real meaning of the video. Perhaps you're a bit selfish because you definitely don't need to hear about how hot those women are. Because that's what they are. 

They're women.

But you should've expected this to happen. It's what you maybe wanted to happen. It's a great opportunity to fully move on. There will be many occasions and situations like this. You shouldn't be mad.

So why the fuck your lips turn downwards like you've been kicked to the stomach?

Jungkook comes back after running with everyone to the water to freshen up. He yells something to them when walking out of the sea, grinning from ear to ear. You feel like an idiot. How can you be so bothered when he seems happy?

“Hey, they want to jet ski for a bit. You wanna join?”

Jet skiing is fun, you would go but you stop yourself from nodding because of your own partially selfish reasons. “No, you go.”

“I know we're supposed to go tomorrow and we will–”

“Kook, it's no big deal,” you laugh, “We can go tomorrow.”

“You sure you don't wanna go? They're all nice.”

You're sure they are.

“Maybe I will join you later or something.”

“They wanna play volleyball again, so you can join, then.”

“Yeah, sure.” you smile, giving him a thumbs up as he gulps more of the drink until it's finished. 

You wave at him as he joins them again, going to rent the jets. You sigh, groaning silently at yourself. A part of you wanted to join them just to stick with Jungkook. It's okay for him to have fun with someone else.

Your throat feels tight when you see the woman sticking to his side. Her caramel skin glistens under the sun rays and she looks straight out of any male fantasy. You've seen so many different models coming from your model agency, but this one takes the cake and you're not sure if she's a model. 

Her curves are thicker than the models you usually see. She's wearing a revealing bikini, her breasts almost spilling out of the bra but it's not because of that. It's because she's gorgeous. She's different from Kiko. She's different from you.

You would guess she might not be Jungkook's type. But then he looks down at her, smiling widely as he fastens her vest and something kicks inside you. 

“Hey–” 

Your head moves quickly toward the male with full on abs, nearing you carefully as he chuckles when you give him a glare.

“The guy–Jungkook?” he stops for a moment, “He told us you're his friend.”

Friend. That stings for a split second.

“I am, and?”

He chuckles, not put off by your raised brow and dangerous eyes. The man's skin is tanned and his dark wet hair is pushed back, showing you his sharp jawline. 

“And I wanted to check on you and ask if you really don't wanna join.”

Oh god, he must think you're some kind of introvert that avoids all social interactions. Little does he know you did it for your and Jungkook's sake. 

You glance back at them, Jungkook sitting on a jet ski as the girl sits behind him, hugging him from behind. Your throat goes dry and you swallow down the lump that suddenly appears there.

“Officially, you don't have to if you do–”

You roll your eyes at the familiar sentence and you grow slightly annoyed at that. You brush any sand that might appear on your moisturized skin. 

“Y'know what? I was starting to get bored.”

His smile grows and he looks you up and down. Not in the disgusting and perverted way, but in an almost challenging way as he smirks. 

“What about my things though?” you look down at your phone. 

“We can leave it in the bar there. They always look after our things when we do stuff like this.”

“Always?”

“We're here for the third time.”

“We.”

“Some of our friends. But we always meet someone new too, so they join us.” 

Just like Jungkook right now. 

“Oh, so you're the friendly type?”

He chuckles, “Not always. Just for specific people.”

And then there's the look in his eyes. Challenging and telling you more than his lips are. Oh god. He's flirting with you. 

You grab your and Jungkook's phones, not wanting them to get stolen. When you straighten and balance yourself, he holds out his hand for you to take. You slap his hand, brushing past him. “Let's go.”

You hear his amused chuckle behind you as he guides you toward the bar. After your stuff is taken care of and the staff is obviously familiar with him, you join the others. 

“Guys, someone's gonna join us after all.” He calls out and you realize you don't know his name.

Jungkook is in the middle of conversation, grinning as he looks up curiously. His smile falls when he spots you and you almost lift your brow at him. 

“Cool!”

“Great!”

“I'm Nat, what's your name?”

All kinds of questions and reactions are thrown at you. Welcoming and warm which you're glad for.

You introduce yourself, feeling a hand on the back of your back, not going any lower out of respect as the man who brought you here, guides you to one of the jets. 

“Mind sharing this one with me, Y/N?” he asks, handing you the vest. 

“No,” you say lightly and feigning innocence. “Do you?”

“Of course not.”

“You could at least tell me your name. Y'know, in case something happens to me.”

“What's fun in that?”

“So you're also the mysterious type?” Cocking your brow at him in challenge, he smirks. 

“Gabriel.”

He excuses himself for a minute, to grab his own vest as you put the one he handed you on. 

“I thought you didn't wanna go.” Jungkook suddenly says, standing right in front of you. He lightly nudges your hands as he helps you to fasten up your vest. 

You stare at him, “Changed my mind.”

“You could've told me. Wanna ride with me?”

“You already have someone to ride with.” you tell him, chuckling as you're trying your best to appear light and carefree.

“I see you do too. Doesn't mean we can change it up.”

You shrug, “He offered.”

He frowns, his eyes dropping all over your face as they stop on your lips for a quick moment. “So, you cool with that?”

“Yeah,” you say, swallowing. “It's okay to meet new people.”

His eyes snap to yours. He watches you, causing you to almost squirm in his never flattering eye contact. “What do you mean?”

Fuck, you should've stay silent. 

“Well, we talked about this earlier. We're not–it's probably for the best.”

You watch his tongue poke the inside of his cheek, a knowing look crossing over his features as he momentarily looks away before he chuckles. He rubs his nose as he backs away. 

“Okay.”

Him going back to the woman, watching her arms around his waist when they haven't even set off yet, is not the most disturbing feeling. As Gabriel joins you and you sit in the same position like Jungkook and the woman, you can't help but realize that none of this seems okay.

a/n: Oh god. It's already out! It's been a while since I wrote an author's note & to be honest, there's so much that I wanna say. At first, I wasn't really sure what – minus of course to thank you for your understanding and patience which unfortunately doesn't involve everyone. I'm glad that this chapter is finally out! To think it was supposed to be out in summer (and it's already close to winter 🥴) and even earlier than that, is insane!! 

I don't wanna go into too much detail and make this a/n too long, most of you probably have been hanging around for a while to know everything that has happened since the last update. Life has been busy but I don't think about it negatively, even tho it obviously affects my writing schedule. I needed the hectic lifestyle. Sometimes I felt too exhausted, but I would rather take something positive from it than think of it negatively, especially since I wasn't in a good space before. 

I wanna apologize for taking so long. I know y'all have been waiting. For me, it didn't even feel that long which shows just how quickly everything has been happening in my life. There are so many things that affected it and I could literally make a list (lol) but I'm sure most of you know a good amount of it, since I've been as honest as I could've been. I know I couldn't control 99% of how busy I got. There were times when I wanted to write badly but I barely could even think of it. There were also times when I could've found inspiration and time, but then one look at my Wattpad profile or my inbox made me just lock my phone and do other things. 

I don't want to make this a/n to give off a negative vibe, because there is so much to be happy about, but I just wish some people could be more understanding. Some of them have been extremely toxic, not making it any easier for me. I'm slightly sad to admit that if it wasn't for my passion and love for this story, I probably would just pack it off because the hate and messages I got are insane. I know me saying this won't change anything – I've tried multiple times. But please for love of God, stop pressuring writers and gaslight them, or many other unnecessary and disgusting things.

But putting this aside, I wanna thank everyone who's shown me love and support – made all of this worth it. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, there is more to come and I've already started working on the next one. Please, don't ask when and how much. I don't know. I'll do my best. My goal is to post at least once a month, but this doesn't mean it will happen. I've learned not to plan much because I don't wanna disappoint anyone. So I'll just work on my stories privately and once I have something to share, I'll inform you 😊

So, yeah, that's it guys! I'm glad to be back with another chapter and hopefully, there won't be such a long wait anymore! I really wish this won't happen again for multiple reasons. Thank you for cheering me on and letting me know there are such great readers like you. I'll be forever thankful. During this story and after it finishes as well!

If you've enjoyed this chapter, please consider buying me a coffee☕️: https://ko-fi.com/personasintro ♡ Teaser for 59 along with a special unfinished scene (that didn't make it in 58) will be posted there!

goal: 2k notes 🌙

© 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨 (𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝) | 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭: @kithtaehyung

#networkbangtan #ksmutclub #ficswithluv #btswritingcafe #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #jungkook x reader #bts au #jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #mutual help #personasintro

[eternally-racing]

baby steps | lando norris

pairing: lando norris x wife!reader (plus their adorable lil kiddo) 

genre: fluff

warnings: none 

word count: 2.5k

summary: Lando needs a little bit of encouragement to head off to his first race after the birth of your daughter, so what better thing to do than surprise him on race day?

note: this fic can be read as a stand alone or as part of the racer girl series !

---

When you first showed Lando the two lines on your positive pregnancy test, your entire world had changed. It felt like such a whirlwind of excitement, and before you knew it you were 9 months pregnant watching Lando’s races on television. It was pure luck that your water only broke the day after the season ended, which meant that Lando had a cherished couple of months with your baby girl, Piper, before heading back to racing. 

The two of them had become quite the dynamic duo in your household. From the moment that Lando first looked at your daughter, he knew that he was in love. He was an amazing father and you told him exactly that at every moment you could. It was one of the biggest fears that Lando had, being an absent father or not knowing what to do. Before you met Lando he was fully in his bachelor lifestyle, not once even thinking of kids, but now he was the biggest girl dad you’ve ever seen, giving into your daughter’s every whim. It’s exactly why Lando says he wants to give up racing all together once he sees your daughter cry for the first time when he leaves to go to the MTC for the first time since she was born - he would do anything for Piper, he would give up everything he loved if it meant that his little girl would be happy. Luckily, he had you to keep him grounded, and after more than a couple of tearful conversations you had helped Lando make peace with continuing on with his career with you and your daughter there to support him in the background. This was the first week that this was truly going to be tested though, since it was finally time for him to fly to Bahrain. 

“Say goodbye to daddy!” you say as you pick up your daughter’s hand to make her wave. 

You can see the way the wheels are turning in Lando’s head as he stays frozen in the entryway. He’s not forgetting anything, there’s no way he could with your packing lists that he’s used for every single race since you started dating. Even if he did forget something, he knows he could easily get someone from the team to either shop for him or send it over.

“Y/N I - , I don’t know anymore about this,” Lando mutters with his grip on the door handle loosening. 

“Lan, cmon now, I can’t have two babies in this house at once.” you joke as you pinch his cheek. “But seriously, you’re gonna be okay? Just do your best out there. I’m only a phone call away all the time if you need me. You’re going to be great and we’re cheering you on from here. I’ll send you all the pictures and videos and everything so it’ll feel like you’re still with us.”

While Piper can’t talk yet, she still reaches out to Lando to gently pat his shoulder - which only brings more tears to the forefront of Lando’s eyes. He always said his daughter was smart beyond her years, able to sense things even some adults don’t notice. 

“What if Piper can’t fall asleep without me reading her story? What if she learns how to walk before I’m gone? Or what if she forgets that I even exist?” 

“First off, I have memorized “the Rainbow Fish” perfectly from the 7 different times you taught me it. She’s not going to walk because she’s barely 8 months old. And lastly, she’s not going to forget you Lando, I promise you that. Do you trust me?” 

Lando doesn’t miss a beat when he says “always.” 

You hand your daughter off to Lando’s arms in exchange for the carry on that’s currently in his hands. You know that all he needs to do is hold her, to remember that feeling of being with her so he can keep that memory with him for the week ahead. You’re not the only one who’s noticed the way that Piper always immediately seems to calm down whenever she’s in her dad’s arms. There was something special between the two of them, something so unbreakable - which is exactly what you tell Lando. 

“Plus I think she’s in that phase where she’s starting to like you better, so I could use some alone time with our little bug” you tease as you squish your daughter’s cheeks. When Lando sees you cracking jokes it makes him feel a little more at ease - if you were so comfortable with this then why shouldn’t he be too? With one last hug and kiss, Lando finally walks out the door with a promise to facetime you once he gets to the airport. 

Piper starts crying the second she realizes that her dad is really gone, and honestly you shed a few tears too.

 “Don’t worry Pipes, we’re going to see daddy sooner than you think,” you whisper to your daughter as you try to soothe her. Little did Lando know that you had a bag packed in your bedroom for you and your daughter to surprise him at the paddock on race day.

—

The expectations were low for Lando in Bahrain, both from the media and from himself. He had been very upfront about having different priorities this summer than just racing, so he had been a write-off in so many people’s minds. That’s what made it even sweeter when Lando saw the checkered flag first in Bahrain, marking the very first time he had ever won at the circuit. It’s no secret that Lando had become more sensitive since he had become a dad, but when he says “This one is for my girls, I love you Y/N and Piper” over the radio, it brings tears to everyone’s eyes. 

Lando is already over the moon. He gives a big cheer to the roaring crowd before going to hug the rest of the team. It’s absolutely electric and it really seems like everyone, regardless of whether they are a McLaren fan or not, could appreciate how much this win meant to him. 

But the sweetest moment is when he spots you. You’re a little bit off to the side, a couple of security guards standing around you to make sure that nobody would try and trample over you and Piper. Little Piper is wearing a pair of noise canceling McLaren branded headphones on her ears as she hangs out happily in your arms. It’s like she spots her dad at the same time too, since she starts waving her arms in Lando’s direction. Lando immediately stops everything he’s doing to run over to you two. You have a knowing look in your eye, like you were just waiting for him to finally spot you both. 

“Oh my god, you’re here.”  Lando lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Having you both here makes him finally feel complete, like his heart was finally whole again. 

“There’s no way we were going to miss daddy’s first race of the season. Congratulations, babe” 

Lando has questions of course - how you managed to pull this off without him noticing, whether Piper gave you trouble on the plane, and so much more. For now, though, he just wants to spend time with you two. He almost forgets that he’s at the race entirely, let alone that he won it until a team member comes up behind him to ask him if he’s ready to do his interview 5 minutes from now. 

When Piper reaches over with her little grabby hands for Lando, you of course give into her whims as you pass her over to the sweaty driver. It also gives you a second to pull out your phone and capture the moment for yourself. Piper is playing with the visor on Lando’s helmet, learning a new form of peek a boo that you know that she’s going to want to keep playing when you get home. You’re the one who helps keep Lando on track, giving him one last kiss on his helmet before you tell him to head off towards the hoard of media personnel eagerly awaiting his appearance. When you go to take Piper back from him she refuses to budge, and with both Piper and Lando giving you their classic puppy dog eyes, you know you’re outnumbered. 

“Keep her safe, Lan, okay?” It’s a rhetorical question. You know that Lando wouldn’t let anything happen to her - but it’s still a big crowd, the biggest you’ve ever been since you gave birth, and it’s a little scary to not hold onto her here. 

You don’t think anyone has ever seen Will Buxton this happy as he pulls Lando aside for his post-race interview. 

“I have to say, congratulations on an absolutely brilliant drive from you today, Lando - and would you like to introduce the special guest you’ve brought with you?” Will asks with a grin. 

Lando can’t help the similar smile that is etched on his face as he looks at his little girl. “This is my daughter Piper, and she’s just the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I can’t share enough praise for my beautiful wife Y/N too - words can’t describe how much she means to me.I really wouldn’t be standing here in front of you today without her support.”  Lando looks back at you with a smile and kisses Piper on the cheek to end off his sentence, but Piper seems to be more interested in the texture of the mic than her dad at the moment. 

“What does it mean to you to have this be your first win as a father, Lando?” 

“Oh man, this little girl is everything to me - I just want to do my best on the track so that Piper can look back and always be proud to have me as her dad.” 

The moment is made extra sweet as Piper tosses and turns in Lando’s hold so that she can cling to him like a koala bear, pulling herself further into Lando’s chest. She is starting to like the microphone just as much as Lando, so she pulls her face right onto it before she says her very first word - “dada”.

At first Lando thinks he’s hallucinating - there’s so many people around and there’s so much noise that he can barely hear himself think. But then Piper says it again and he can’t help but start to cry.

“She -, she- called me dada, oh my god I can’t believe it,” Lando’s in pure disbelief as he stares in awe at his little girl and looks back at you watching in the crowd. For a minute he forgets that there’s a full corral of people watching him until he hears a collective “awww” from the crowd.  “Sorry it’s just -, wow, she’s never done that before.” he says sincerely as he wipes the tears from his cheeks.

It’s now Piper’s turn to cry as she gets overwhelmed with all the eyes that are staring at her, pushing the microphone away from her as she buries her head into Lando’s shoulder. She is just a little kid, after all. Lando wraps up the interview as fast as he can, apologizing as he whisks Piper away to try and lift her spirits. 

Luckily it’s time to head into the cooldown room, which proves to be the perfect place for Piper to calm down from her outburst. The antics continue there as Lando bounces Piper on her lap, pointing to the TV screen to show her all the highlights. 

“Look at daddy about to overtake uncle Charles! And there’s uncle Alex, and uncle George...” Lando continues to retell the story of the last two hours as the other two podium sitters, Max and Oscar, chime in intermittently. Sometimes Piper’s gaze falls to Lando’s new hat instead of the screen, but he’s happy to have her in the room with him to share this moment. 

You have to really bargain with Lando to get him to hand Piper back to you so he can head to the podium by himself - it’s only at the rational explanation of not wanting your baby covered in champagne that he finally gives in to reason. Piper loves seeing the celebrations on the podium, adding in some cheers of her own when she sees her dad jumping up and down with joy on the podium. The little girl is addicted to the shine of the Bahrain trophy in the sun and you and Lando both later joke that she likes the piece of metal better than the both of you combined. 

It’s no surprise that Piper falls asleep on the car ride home - you do the same next to her as the jet lag catches up to you both. Piper still keeps one hand firmly on the trophy, having barely let it out of her sight since Lando brought it to her. Lando can’t help but feel so lucky as he looks through the rearview mirror at the both of you. 

It never gets any easier - leaving. The next weekend Lando heads to the United States and Piper cries the whole day once she notices that he’s packing a suitcase. You’re honest with Lando when you tell him that you’ll see him once he gets back, there’s no way you and Piper would be able to handle all the time changes and long haul flights that would come with going to every race.

You still watch every race though, throwing sleep training to the wind as Piper often stays up at all odd hours to watch with you. There are so many moments where you wish that you could be there with Lando, especially with the season he’s having. As the journalists would say, Lando’s “dad powers” have brought him his best ever start to a Formula 1 season, as he has yet to finish outside the top 3 so far. 

“What do you think is going to happen when I don’t come home from a trip with one of those?” Lando jokes as he sees your daughter absolutely enamored with the newest addition to her trophy collection. It’s the Australian GP trophy, which proves to be the perfect vessel for Piper to put her cereal pieces into. The little girl has taken to yelling as her new favorite hobby, and she shows it off every time she squeals with joy when Lando walks through the door after a race.

“I don’t want to find out, so you’ll just have to keep getting podiums, Lan” you joke back as you lean your head onto his shoulder. 

----

author's note: oh man, this has been sitting in my drafts FOREVER as i tried to perfect it but i really wanted to share it with you all. Thanks for all the love - asks are open if you want to say hello or make a request! Until next time! - Em 🤍

#lando norris #f1 imagine #lando norris x reader #lando norris x you #ln4 #f1 fluff #f1 fic #formula 1 #f1 x reader #lando norris fluff #lando norris x y/n #lando norris imagine #ln4 imagine #f1 fanfic #mclaren f1 #lando x reader #lando imagine #lando fluff #formula one #ln4 x reader

[jyoongim]

~Blood & BLISS~

Human!Alastor x wife!Reader

Themes: 1930 based! Human!Alastor x wife!Reader, domestic life! fluff, smut, devotion, slight manipulation, mention of children, pregnancy,  blood, murder, secrets 

chapter two

Synopsis: Marrying New Orleans famous radio host had been a shocker to everyone. You, a southern belle from an esteemed family, had somehow managed to catch the attention of the mysterious bachelor. 

Your wedding was all in the papers and talk of the town, even though the ceremony was rather private.

You quickly settled in as the homemaker as Alastor brought home the dough and took care of you. 

It was a dream come true.

But Alastor was strange, even to you and you were his wife, but you brushed it off as him just being a man.  You had nothing to complain about. You lived in a nice big house, had the finest luxuries, and Alastor would dote on you. What wasn’t to love?

Well… all those things were nice, but you were starting to crave a family with your husband.

You knew of Alastor’s upbringing and had an inkling that children might not be an option…but Alastor wouldn’t deny you what you desired most would he? Of course not ma belle.

Alastor prided himself on how people often wondered about him. The renowned radio host, who the public rarely saw. He was a mystery to many. He frequented jazz lounges and often could be found drinking whiskey as he listened to the Mimzy gossip about the latest news.

He,  himself was shocked when he met you, the prettiest thing in the city. He had to have you. He knew you were the one.

Like the gentleman he was, he sent you flowers and love letters to begin courting you. He never tired of how shy you were around him. 

It wasn’t long before he asked your father for your hand and the two of you got hitched.

And what a wedding it was! he spared no expense to your disapproval.

Alastor was the epitome of what every husband inspired to be! 

Doting, providing, and attentive.

But he had a secret he kept from his little wife…

Can he maintain control over his domestic affairs and his sinister ones?

Soft jazz played in the background as you busied around the kitchen preparing dinner. The sizzling of the oil carried the scent of fried chicken as you chopped collards and added them to another pan to fry.

You hummed along to whatever song was playing as you cooked.

You took the chicken out of the grease, poured some of it in a can for later and used the rest to make cornbread. You stirred the collards a bit, adding pepper and a little salt before turning the stove off. You glanced at the clock; 6pm, Alastor should be coming home soon.

After putting everything in pretty dishes and wrapping it in foil you sighed tiredly as you finally got off your feet, plopping down on a couch.

You almost wanted to go back into the kitchen and clean up, but thought to just wait after dinner to do so. 

You perked as your radio made a noise, static as if the channel had changed, before the voice of your husband came through.

”Well folks that is all. I have for you tonight! I hope you enjoyed today’s broadcast and I will see you tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to be late for dinner nonono haha. Until next time!”

You smiled, feeling happy he wasn’t going to stay at the studio all night.

With that in mind, you quickly ran upstairs to freshen up, wanting to greet your husband without the smell of grease clinging to you.

“I’m home!” A voice called as the sound of the front door closing had you rushing downstairs.

Alastor was taking off his coat, when you greeted him “Oh let me take that” you smiled, grabbing his coat to put it away. He let out a relieved sigh as he removed his shoes and put them by the door. Once comfortable, his long arms were around your waist, pulling you into a kiss “And how was my beautiful wife today hmm?” He asked bringing a dainty hand to his lips. You giggled “Oh nothing worth mentioning. How was work today? I heard you signing off. I hate that I missed tonight’s broadcast” you mused, untying his bow tie. Alastor hummed “oh you know same ole same ole, through I will say I got a lot of fan mail today” he chuckled as you rolled your eyes. He took a whiff of the air and grinned “Hmm looks like I actually made it in time for dinner”

You both made your way to the kitchen and you immediately went to fix his plate, while he got glasses out of the cabinet and some red wine.

Alastor practically had drool coming out of his mouth as the smell of food wafted into his nose. You took a seat across from him and smiled. “My my my dear what a meal youve prepared tonight!” He commented as he took a bite out of the cornbread, moaning in delight.

It always filled your heart with happiness seeing Alastor eat your food. When you first got married, you didn’t have a clue on how to cook. It was rather embarrassing, but you had grown up with personal cooks.

But Alastor didn’t mind teaching you, and soon enough you were whipping up delicious meals that filled his stomach, rather than upset it.

Dinner was quiet as the two of you enjoyed each others company, Alastor making comments about the lastest gossip he had heard and you catching him on the neighborhood gossip. “Oh before I forget,  Mimzy wants to know if you wanted to swing by the lounge this weekend. Something about I keep you to myself too much” Alastor laughed, swiping at his mouth. You laughed, that sounded like Mimzy. Always hoping to get a chance at you singing on stage so she could make a few extra bucks. “Well tell ‘er not this weekend, I have plans to host a few of the ladies for book club. Rosie is sure to have some gossip I’ve missed.” 

Alastor quirked a brow “You sure dear? I fear Mimzy will chew me a new one if she don’t get to see ou” You mulled it over “Well book club usually don’t take that long and its during tea time so I guess I don’t mind gracing the lounge with my presence” you giggled, getting up and taking your empty dishes to the sink. Alastor followed you and quickly swatted your hands as you reached to turn the sink on. 

“Now now my dear, you spent all evening cooking the least I can do is wash the dishes. The chef shouldn’t cook and clean” he nudged you away from the sink as you pouted.

It never ceased to amazed you that Alastor took on household chores. Most husbands had their wives cook and clean, but not your Alastor.

He didn’t like you to tire out from maintaining the home all day.

You pressed a kiss to his cheek in thanks and told him you’ll be upstairs getting ready for bed.

You had just finished rolling your hair when Alastor came up to your bedroom. You sighed as you sunk into the cool cotton sheets, finally relaxing for the day. You didn’t realized you had quickly fell asleep until feeling Alastor slide into bed beside you, arm pulling you to tuck you into his side and rest your head on his chest.

You happily cuddled into him, breathing in his scent as the sound of his heartbeat lulled you back to sleep.

A yawn passed your lips as began to fall asleep

”Goodnight” 

”Sleep tight dear”

”Don’t let the bedbugs bite”

”haha see you in the morning light love” he whispered pressing a kiss to your forehead as you sighed, chest heaving in deep breaths.

Alastor smiled at your sleeping face; how lucky was he to have a sweet wife who worked so hard while he was gone. His eyes grew heavy as he listened to your soft snores.

What bliss. He wouldn’t give this up for anything in the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOTE: aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh why and how did my mind conjure this when I have other things to write eeeeeeehhhh!!!!!!!

Anyway….this is gonna be ANOTHER short story hehehe. Since I wrote it on a whim it might take some time for me to post the next part but I hope y’all enjoy it nevertheless!

Remember to comment on the pinned post as I have a hard time finding everyone to tag since y’all are scattered on different posts!

if i missed anyone my bad!!!!

@nightshadelm @th3-st4r-gur1 @amurtan @lunaramune @southern-bayou-beau @monstersealclubber @certifiedcrybabyyy @karolinda007-blog @theveiledlibrarian @simphornies @yourdoorisunlocked @nettaw @purplecatsandhearts @catherine1206 @jellibean2018 @thewinchestah @wonderlandangelsposts @alishii @readergirlstuff @whydohumansss @missgurlsstuff @yuzurixx @darkovergrownforestnymph @dasimp777 @markster666 @alastorsgirl48 @alastor-simp @alastorsaries @preciousbabypeter @alastwhore666 @strawberrypimp666 @stawberrypimpsimp @queenariesofnarnia @peachedtvs @peachedtv @tpks @siiv3r @hazelfoureyes @okay-babe @aconfusedworld @chewbrry @altruisticalastor @yunimimii @dievia3 @alastorsdear @alastorsdarlingdoe @t0byisher3 @dennsfz @twismare @nanami1chu @yoongibabs @menthatilove @smoky000

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #alastor #alastor the radio demon #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel fanfiction #jyoongim #alastor x y/n #alastor smut #alastor hazbin hotel #human alastor x reader #human alastor #alastor x wife reader #alastor fluff #hazbin alastor x reader #alastor imagine #alastor x you #alastor headcanons

[understandableparadox]

a comprehensive list of everything wrong with hazbin hotel.

quick note before i lose myself in madness, my standards for helluvaboss are non existent because its a free show on youtube. also i kinda like helluvaboss and i will indulge in any bias i damn well please.

oh and spoilers. i guess.

the greater narrative of the entire season is "White lady civilize inner city hoodlum". ex: The blind side. rich girl, affluent family yadda yadda.

the story is set up to be like amphibia, owl house, svtfoe, steven universe, that being starting as something episodic then transforming into story driven narrative. why? because we know the benefits and drawbacks, episodic starts allows us to wander the world, it allows us to understand the dynamics, we are not forced to reckon with anything because there is no deadline. characters are allowed to bloom and shine and the audience can actually get attached.

the source material is Vary Clearly formed from remnants of something out of a middle school edgelord narrative. the usage of transformation, the big spooky grins, the "and then i smile as my eyes glow and-"-isms which in most cases i don't mind because in some instances but in a vary Particular case its astoundingly annoying and that annoyance is like a mold, shit spreads quick.

the color Red. as a lover of homestuck cherubs and karkat and aradia, as someone who fucking loves the color red, it is so painful to say but holy shit tone it the fuck down, i know its hell but their are so many other colors that you can use, its everywhere, the streets, the air, the windows, the screens, the characters, i know the pride ring is represented with red but change up the palates every so often for backgrounds

the rush, this ties into the second point made but i think the story itself is rushed. we know everything way to early. i know way to much and it makes it hard to care about anything because im still trying to digest the last chunk of info. "oh ok, so they clear out hell once a year. oh hell has a heaven embassy? ok. oh that adam the angel, i though he wou- oh its every 6 months now. wait the exterminators die a lot? then why is everyone sca- people in hell already have weapons that can kill angels? w- oh we are in heaven now, ok ma- no one in heaven except for the elites know the exterminations occur? how do-" and its that, just this incessant rush to explain everything to you. notably that's just the god damn spark notes, we need to know everything about the characters now, every single bit of their story, their insecurities, what charlie needs to fix, how she can fix them, the major bad guys, everything. you are never allowed to dwell on a character because we need to rush towards something else. it almost feels like this should have been like... season three, it would have been a fantastic season three if you dropped the introductions honestly.

the concept of redemption. for a story of redemption to work you need to look at three things. What is there crime, Do they want to change, What is preventing them from changeing? there is only one single character that has a notable path of redemption, angel dust, but if you look through their story it feels off. What Exactly is he guilty of? he has sex, does drugs and drinks. his apparent nymphomania is tied to his sad backstory as someone forced into the sex industry so how is that their fault? then if you think about it you start to spiral and notice "hey why are most of these people in hell?" like sure some of them may deserve punishment but then you see the fucking dichotomy and its like "I was a inventor in england and died of the fucking plague, i may have made evil little contraption hoohoohoo" vs "I was a cannibal, a full on cannibal, i fucking killed people and ate them and then someone shot me". ONE OF THESE THINGS ARE A LITTLE MORE FUCKING EXTREME. i'm going to go fucking nuts, the thing they went to heaven with when presenting a case to angels on the idea that redemption and becoming a better person is actually real was angel dust not drinking at a party and not having sex with consenting adults and i want to go fucking insane. WHAT IS THE CRIME, WHO IS THROWING THE BOOK, WHAT DOES THE BOOK INTEL, ARE WE ON GOOD PLACE RULES?! half the cast dont Need redemption they need fucking help, and the other half of the cast do need redemption but they do not seek it making the point moot. sir pentious acts like he has the brain of a hyper intelligent toddler tossing about toys, its almost like he did his one bad thing of spying and then got caught, sank his little diddy about forgiveness and second chances and become a null point through out the rest of the series, sure their was Some weight to him sacrificing himself, he was a decently funny character and he had good moments but him popping up in heaven felt like a fore gone conclusion, he didn't deserve to be in hell so why do i care that he is suddenly in heaven? because its working on the concept the good place already made. no one actually deserves eternal punishment they just need help processing what makes them a dick, but instead of looking at all the parts of the afterlife that make it bad, inefficient and then creating and trying ideas to see if it work instead over a few seasons, we crash dick first into all the major plot points in regards to that and say "tada, we fixed it.".

having a sub-plot about sexual assault and its victims then having multiple sexual assault related gag ruins your point.

don't make a bunch of stereotypically jewish characters into cannibals, that was a big thing, really shouldn't have to say it.

if you are going to make a character black, make them black, you can say alastor was black but sweet seren-fucking-dippity that's not a black man.

pot meet kettle but yeah the cursing could be a little less liberal. maybe just blue hair or the pronouns, not both.

there is a very distinctive art deco/jazz aesthetic which normally i love but i feel as though it is not used to its full extent and in some cases really hurts the character design in and of itself.

this is a vary obvious bit but the story is a million times more interested in gay men then it is of lesbians, which culminates in this insane thing where the writers clearly have more talent or perhaps it would be more abt to say practice writing male gay pining then they are with lesbian pining. which i personally think is hilarious because i did not know you could min max fujoshi-ism that hard.

this next section is more to do with each character on a fundamental level, for the sake of brevity whatever there is left, i'm just doing ones with speaking roles.

13. Charlie:

(see what i mean about that red thing?)

as originally stated charlie fits rather comfortably into every white saviour narrative, though that seems to be part of her joke. though i'm not entirely sure how much of a joke it can be when its rewarded and expected to advance the plot.

her character design says nothing, it has the motif of old puppets or dolls, she wears something vaguely similar to service suits, her demonic form is just some extra horns.not to say every character needs to have their life on a clothes rack but some more snake and goat imagery would be nice

its not the chol design of charlie with snake hair, not an actual problem but its a problem to me, damn you @cholvoq for ruining my ability to look at any of the characters without wishing i was seeing your designs instead.

character wise aside from the white savoir bit, i'm having a bit of trouble understanding what the arc of the character is. she is shown to be naive, someone who doesn't understand how the world works but everytime she says something its something astoundingly clear like "people can actually get better". and its treated like someone demanded faygo in every water fountain. is the joke that the world around her to cynical or is so to naive? please pick one or the other.

now if you know me, you know i fucking hate overpowered characters with a blinding passion, one that would set alit the god damn abyss but in this one special instance, i feel like its warranted, she's the direct descendant of fucking God, she can swing her weight around a little, i mean god damn. she in so many instances looks like shes cowering so often, why would the daughter of lucifer get backed down by some rando pimp? why wasn't she the one to fight adam? sure you can say she is young but how young? her parents were there since pre-abrahamic times, most of the characters showed up in hell in the 1900s, some of them showed up in the 1600s, how old is charlie??? how long does it take for her to learn how to be strong? The story does not suffer if charlie is strong and knows she is strong. it can easily be a case of "i don't believe in violence to a weird degree". fit it into her apparent naivety about the world to believe that violence is never the answer even when dealing with a being that is unilaterally horrible and abusive and monstrous.

she ga- no im kidding, i do think her romance was waysided a bit, it would have been fine to have more scenes of them togather and in love you know?

14. Vaggie

why did you name the lesbian vaggie...? Don't do that maybe?

I like how her design is almost moth like but again i feel as though you could have amped that up.

she feels as though someone tried to combine undyne and pearl from steven universe, same story beats and design elements. it makes it hard to really distinguish her as a character.

i honestly dont have much to say about her. she is fine.

christ kill me, lets just get the big one out of the way

15. Alastor.

God Damn

where to start.

"alastor is mixed race" mixed with fucking what? concrete? there is not a single black feature on that creature, now im not saying you have to make him a png of louie armstrong but it wouldn't hurt to add a curl to the hair maybe? make it a tiny bit more wavy? Something? a crumb i beg of thee?

his symbolism is all over the god damn place, native american monsters (you know the one), voodoo, radio, puppets, stitches, circuses??? and Tentacles i guess. two of those are from closed religions so if you dumped those you would actually get a more concise character focused on the concept of vox populi as a means of societal control and influence as we see in his first song. but again that gets drowned out repeatedly by all the other random toy box bits shoved into him.

tumblr sexy man bait

he serves no purpose in the story. he does spooky stuff, pretends to do things and then goes back to sitting around looking spooky. i understand that his motif is supposed to be aloof mastermind but maybe have him do more mastermindy things? if you remove most of alastors scenes, bar the songs, it doesn't change all to much. husk and nifity can still be at the hotel, they could be looking for outs in their contracts the same as angel dust. hell it even helps with the one scene where he dose some spooky shit, asking charlie for a favor in exchange for his help in the fight with the angels instead of asking him about angel weapons which should have remained a strictly vaggie scene.

his presence in a way delegitimize the story, as I noted in in the section regarding redemption, the three parts are "what is the crime, do they want to change, what is stopping them?" and alastor kinda just spits in the face of that. he is a serial killer cannibal that has no qualms about how evil he is and apparently must continue being evil due to being under the control under someone legitimately called the Root Of All Evil. show him take a slight interest in the idea that maybe shit for him could be better, make him Want Change at the bare fucking minimum or dont have him at the hotel.

his stupid little fucking horns, big shot the troll liker wants characters to have big fucking horns, make them noticeable or dont have them.

he looks more like a dog boy, which could have been an interesting thing with the collar motif but fuck me i guess.

personal pet peeve but i fucking hate characters that have a million plus powers, stick to a set number, be creative.

im getting more petty as i go on so last point: he could have been in less episodes, he didn't need to be in dad beat dad, that should have been just a lucifer and charlie episode. inverse the red and black and i think he would be fucking great color wise, his body type is the same as ten different characters, he isnt radio enough, aside from the voice and and staff if you told me he was the fucking Cat Demon i would have been just as convinced.

16. Angel Dust

what the fuck, gay spider? its hard to actully articulate all the thoughts i have on angel dust, not in the sense that he is a deeply thought provoking character but in the fact that there is not much meat on the bones.

all around i think angel dust is kinda middling. he has a decent enough romance with husk, he has a decent enough story line that revolves around battling addiction and removing yourself from an abuser (which the story tries to brand as "Redemption???")

I dont like that most of his jokes would qualify as sexual harassment, i don't mind him being sexual as a character but continuing on when clearly someone doesn't like the jokes hurts the character.

not a critique but he is pink, which honestly ill fucking take at point, as long as its not more fucking red.

i think his design is an improvement over some of the old vivzie designs but it feels like it could have done with going a few more rounds of design changes.

same thing with alastor, charlie and vaggie, there is not enough of the animal that they are supposed to be. You could have told me angel dust was a fucking bee or something and i would have had to believe you. nothing about angel dust initially says spider, hell he dosent even have enough limps to be a fucking spider.

17. Carmilla carmine

are... are you supposed to be a rabbit...?

Big Yoai Hands

ballet fighting style, could have been cool, wish she fought more like sanji or chun li.

A single mom that works to hard, who loves her kids and never stops-

her song was decent, not great, decent. it feels as though the actress has experience singing but not in the way they tried to make her sing during her two songs. they have a obvious mexican influence, honestly just let her sing in spanish in the english dub. go listen to the spanish dub, "out for love" sounds great in spanish.

i wish i had more thoughts on them, fucking rip.

18. cherri bomb

that's not a punk aesthetic that's 2010s alt

decent character, they showed up once or twice i guess, no real thoughts.

19. egg boiz

absolutely perfect, i have not notes on them, these are perfect creatures.

20. Emily

im so fucking happy to see a singular blue character

does the naive dreamer bit better then charlie

We really shouldnt have seen her until the end of season two or middle of three.

good contrast with the other angels on screen.

Wait she is supposed to be black??? Where???

21. Husk

keith david you absolute delight, Why on gods green earth did they only give you one singing part?

one of the few charecters where its clear husk is a cat, i do like the kinda... marquee design, he is a magic cat, thats neat. i still think you can toss the wings and eyebrows and still have just as good of a charecter.

has a deeply intresting story of someone who died as a nobody, became the fat cat of hell and then was forced back to the bottom by their own vices, not used at fucking all.

huge potential, little pay off.

22. lillith

I know nothing about her except she ditched her kid and husband to vacation in heaven and i think thats kinda funny.

alot of werid things floating around her, again she shouldnt have been shown in the show at all until next season.

23. lucifer morningstar

no notes, funniest charecter, did a song based on friend like me.

few notes: i do like the idea that the immortal symbol of pride is a constant emotional wreckage constantly seeking approval through grand showmanship and manic energy that threatens to take over anything they touch.

would have liked more snake stuff on him, maybe some more goat things like horns.

that is such a stupid fucking staff lmao.

24. Adam.

alex brightman you absolute fucking delight, you should have had more songs.

I wish his design was more focused on the idea of him being a glam rock wash up

I fucking hate his mask

We shouldn't have met him until the end of the season.

25. Niffty

again she is supposed to be a bug or cockroach but nothing about her points to that.

token straight

keeps rocketing back and fourth between sexulization and infantilization

you had kimiko glenn but didnt give her a single fucking song?

26. Sir Pentious

the secret season one redeemed.

the pilot version of him felt more like someone that could do a season one redemption arc, a megalomaniac constantly attempting territory grabs, there is something you can work with, actual character flaws to work through.

essentially a child after the first episode.

actually a snake which i appreciate.

no where near steampunky enough.

27. the villians of the show dont make much sense, each one feels like they should be season long deals on their own instead of a bunch of team rocket esque idiots that show up on occasion, do a bad thing and then leave.

28. Valentino

gOD THERE IS SO MUCH RED

only a moth some of the time.

sucks as a villain, maybe they need more screen time to show why they suck in a more substantial way aside from being told that he sucks.

it is interesting that angel dust is only under his magical control when in the studio, it shows that angel dust has to make a conscious choice to return, which in turn can be made to show how abusers can draw back their victims. I do not think it was done well in this circumstance as it shows him to be cartoonishly evil, constantly flying back and fourth between sweet and utter psycho, there is no actual reason for angel dust to ever actually go back to the studio, he just does so every so often.

29. Vox

legit who cares? the only thing about him that is in any way substantial is all the dope ass fan art we get.

propaganda machine angle that is not explored at all, just hinted at. no actual barring on the story whatsoever.

why didn't he try to do the same shit as alastor by the way? he knows its bad if alastor gets in good with charlie so shouldn't it be a ass kissing race?

same body shape as literally every other male character.

tumblr sexy man version of pyrocynicals fursona.

30. Valvette

the actual poster child of the shows huge problem of "Show me, don't tell me".

apparently the glue that holds the villains together. never shown.

apparently the one that makes the love potions that valentino is famous for. had to learn about that in the fuckin wiki trivias

we know so much about her from things outside of the show.

was there to call carmilla a coward, that's her plot contribution. she shows up every now and again but its never anything substantial and serves to more around take up run time for people We Don't Need To Know Yet.

im not trying to be mean, animation is animation, we need smaller studios to have success in the industry so that other indie studios can have that success, felling a tree makes it easier for others to follow. showing that its possible to number brain rot exacs helps all animators.

but this show has so much bullshit attached to it, it has so much fucking potential that it fries my brain with unyielding frustration.

this took a bit to write, im tired, thanks for reading.

#hazbin hotel

[notherpuppet]

I know they’re probably not going to go into this (which i understand, there’s only so much time in an episode and they’re telling a different story) but I think about Al’s background a LOT. Get ready if ur in the mood for a read.

To be a mixed Black person in America is a…bizarre experience. You come to realize that due to the coincidence of your genetic makeup, white folks may divulge information that they keep so closely guarded from the ears of “more obvious-looking” black folks. Im gonna bring it back to Alastor, but lemme give some personal context. I’m mixed with Filipino, so I’m pretty obviously not white, yet my ambiguous ethnic makeup in a predominantly white suburbia seemed to make white peers and people feel much more at ease in relaying their criticisms or prejudices of black people to me. I would hear someone feel comfy enough to spew vitriolic racist shit with me, then toe the line like a circus acrobat when around someone a few shades darker in skin tone and a few coils curlier in hair texture. It was constantly infuriating and holding my tongue was a practice to both investigate someone’s true nature and preserve my own safety. I did abandon that method of navigating life in America, and experienced the switch-up white folks made when I started ‘broadcasting’ my blackness. (E.G. beyonce pre vs. post Lemonade). The criticisms and prejudice confessions just came less often, til I saw them being caged up completely after white peers experienced backlash from me. After they realized “OH this bitch is a n*****!?”

Now this is from someone who is brown, but i also wanna talk about my white-passing cousin with a similar racial makeup as Al, who is from the south and oh BOY. (Let’s call him J for this post’s purposes). J’s navigation though simple daily life is such a constant contradictory experience, of which he is still working through in therapy. I think of one moment when he was manager at retail gig and his boss told him that whenever a Black customer enters, it’s policy to give them “exceptionally attentive customer service”. Essentially, “follow that n***** around”. This is just one modern incident of when J would hear the quiet part out loud, despite his Blackness, because his appearance was white enough to make white folks drop their guard. Eventually, my cousin and I took to the same direction where we used our advantage of disarming white folks against them when the time came. We would keep note and record of racism and unlock a sort of “this you?” when the opportunity to expose that person’s true nature came. It’s pretty vengeful thinking ngl, but it is really REALLY hard to resist exposing an asshole rather than attempting to teach an asshole to change their ways. Especially given that such an attempt is an ARDUOUS uphill battle. The experience of KNOWING the truth about what someone thinks of your people, and being opened to opportunities and information that you would not have access to if the chance of your genetics was only slightly different is bIZARRE, horrific, and fuel for constant inner turmoil. (It sucks y’all)

Now back to Alastor; to have been a mixed person in the Deep South in 1930s America—it’s not too difficult for me to imagine how traumatic and convoluted that experience must have been. Especially when legally and socially, things were so much more Black and White. And when you’re on the line in between that, when society does not prepare a place for your existence, it can be SO isolating. You may consider the absurdity of such an arbitrary method of determining class, status, and/or caste much earlier in life than peers, which only further isolates you. You hold a resentment of society now that you know exactly how the other side is operating to ensure your oppression.

And then I think of Al’s weird ass moral code. How he arrived in Hell and (according to Mimzy) began killing overlords with reckless abandon. This is someone who likely had to develop the cunning to navigate 1930s Deep South America as a mixed, murdering, psychopath without getting caught by authorities who are already gunning for you. And now he is in Hell where the rules of society have gone up in smoke and he can fully embrace his rage, resentment, and vengeance. A desire to burn down the powerful people of the world can be accommodated and ANY previous inhibitions can finally be released. The morality of rising above someone by cutting them down (instead of developing emotional/spiritual healing) has become the easier and satisfying option. Finally the opportunity to show the power-secure villains of the world how easily you can tear them down when nothing is holding you back any longer.

TLDR; The trauma of racism in America is pretty sufficient cannon fodder for a severe psychotic break, the development of socially debilitating behaviors and isolation, and a quest for profound vengeance. So maybe that can explain some of the enigma that is Alastor.

And this is just ONE facet of Al. I didn’t even get to bring up the isolation that comes with being an aroace nonbeliever in the 1930s Deep South. Like FUCK. I’m a mixed, aroace nonbeliever from a modern day conservative town and yall….what a weird experience for sure lol but anyway lemme get back to my life. Whole point of this was—-WHAT AN INTERESTING FUCKEN CHARACTER TO THINK ABOUT

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin hotel spoilers #it’s an alastor analysis yalllll #character analysis gives my media and art engagement brain the wiggles #also I hate racism!!!! :)

[jessicalprice]

I think the thing that most Christian atheists who are rebelling against authoritarian Christian backgrounds don't get is why Jews remain Jewish.

Like, I get it, you engaged in your practices because you were told that God would punish you if you didn't, because you're told you're supposed to fear God.

(Incidentally, we don't even use the same language about this. The term that gets translated in most English bibles as "fear" is, like many classical Hebrew words, a lot more multivalent than the English term, and has more of a connotation of "awe." (See, for example, the Gilgamesh dream sequence: "Why am I trembling? No god passed this way." A god is something in whose wake one trembles.) It's what one feels when one is faced with something bigger than oneself, something overwhelming. For some people that may be fear of being harmed. For others it may be wonder or even ecstasy, standing outside oneself.)

But in 2023, Jews have the option (and, indeed, still the cultural pressure) to completely abandon Judaism. Very easily. We can, in fact, do it quite passively. If we're not actively trying to engage with it, it will very much drift away from us.

And it's not fear of divine punishment keeping most of us engaged.

The thing is, if you proved to me tomorrow that God doesn't exist, I'm not sure anything about my life or my practice would change. (I'm already agnostic, so *shrug*. I don't believe in a God-person. Sometimes I believe in a unity to reality, a life and a direction to it. Sometimes I don't. I just don't have the arrogance to think I understand definitively the way the universe does or doesn't work.) I still would celebrate Shabbat, I still wouldn't eat pork, I still would have a mezuzah on my doorway.

I do all that stuff because I'm Jewish, not because I think God will get mad if I don't. I do all that stuff because it's part of a cultural system that I see as wise and life-giving and therapeutic and worth maintaining.

And the thing is, the cultural system that Christian antitheists want us to assimilate into, under the guise of "getting rid of religion", is very much a white Protestant culture. It's not culturally neutral. It has practices, and it has a particular worldview, and it has cultural norms that are just as irrational as any other culture's.

It's also very telling that Christian antitheists purport to be harmed by Jews continuing to be Jewish. Why? We don't impose our norms on anyone else, and we overwhelmingly vote (and organize, and engage in activism) against the imposition of Christian "religious" norms, such as the curtailing of reproductive freedom, blue laws, etc.

So you're only "harmed" by our continued existence in the same way Christians purport to be harmed by it: by claiming that the very existence of a group that doesn't share your worldview and practices is somehow an act of oppression against you.

Which is, you know, white supremacist logic.

You're still upholding the logic of Jesus's genocidal, colonial Great Commission even though you supposedly don't believe in the god that ordered it anymore.

That's gotta be one of the saddest things I encounter among my fellow humans.

You took down all the crosses in the church of your mind and chucked them out the window, but you still refuse to step foot outside the church building, contenting yourself with claiming it's not a church, and firing out the windows at the synagogue and mosque down the road, the same way you used to.

[yoonbroom]

SEVENTEEN FIC RECS

a list of seventeen fics I really enjoyed! pls go and show these amazing authors some love <3 also if there wasn't a summary on the fic I just included a little paragraph or the request! now onto the recs ↓

CHOI SEUNGCHEOL

HELLO TUTORIAL - @97-liners

oneshot, fluff, college au, frat au

it’s your final year of college, and you’ve been elected president of your sorority. this is all great and fine, but as the semester goes on, you find yourself having repeated run-ins with the president of the fraternity next door in a series of unfortunate coincidences (that might not actually be coincidences, as you come to discover). or: in which you’re trying to deal with your crush on seungcheol in a normal way, but the meddling kids are making it harder than it needs to be.

FRACTURED PARENTING, PT.2 - @berriesandjunnie

oneshot angst, fluff, idol au, separated parents au, enemies to lovers

parenting can be an emotional rollercoaster when you’re far from divorced and the flames are far from dying.

YOON JEONGHAN

UNTITLED - @userjuyo

drabble, fluff, est relationship

"i just know than jeonghan would tease his s/o a lot, but whenever they went “hannie :(“ he would literally MELT like he’d just be like “okay sweetheart i’m sorry 🥺” and the members would be like ????? BC HE WON’T LET THEM LIVE but it’s his baby so &lt;;3"

UNTITLED - @wqnwoos

drabble, fluff, est relationship

“what if crabs think that fish can fly?” your question is whispered into the darkness of your bedroom — you gazing at the ceiling thoughtfully, while jeonghan curls up beside you.

OF RAINY NIGHTS AND ROSES - @chenfleur

oneshot, angst, fluff, idol au, est relationship

In the heat of the moment, Jeonghan grows careless with his words. Now, he has to bear the weight of saying things he didn't mean.

DAISIES - @viastro

oneshot, angst, fluff, strangers to lovers

the best type of revenge is to hurt the person that means the most to them. aka, in which jeonghan is in charge of making you fall in love with him, just to break your heart. 

JOSHUA HONG

BEST FRIENDS BROTHER - @chocosvt

oneshot, fluff, angst, smut, best friends brother

joshua happens to be your best friend’s older brother. he’s pretty, and he’s got a lot of cool details about him that you pay a concerning amount of attention to, but he’s just a friend (if you could even call it that). still, what does he think of you, anyway? that is—if he thinks of you.

IT TAKES TWO - @/berriesandjunnie

oneshot, fluff, idol au, parent au, est relationship

a family is a little scary when your partner has over millions of fans.

UNTITLED - @/wqnwoos

drabble, fluff, est relationship

"it feels like the sky has only just welcomed the sun when joshua tries to get up to leave."

WEN JUNHUI

HEAVEN COULDN'T WAIT FOR YOU - @/berriesandjunnie

oneshot, angst, idol au

i just couldn’t stand to see you leaving but heaven couldn’t wait for you.

HAPPY ENDING - @junkissed

one shot, angst, fluff, marriage, est relationship

a pointless argument escalates until both of you need some space, but it couldn't come at a worse time.

KWON SOONYOUNG

LET ME TRY AGAIN - @papermatisse

oneshot, angst, fluff, exes to lovers, parent au

Soonyoung had never wanted to live a restrained capitalistic life, forced to work a tiresome 9 to 5, paying taxes until the day he dies. Though in exchange to pursue the other option, that being devotion to a career, he had to pay an unfathomably large price—he had to abandon everything and everyone he's ever loved. can he fit himself back into his former life? one that's changed more than he can possibly imagine? could the ones he loved forgive him for his wrongdoings? could he get the second chance he wants so desperately?

(UN)TRADITIONAL - @neonun-au

oneshot, fluff, wedding au, est relationship

"The digital clock on the hotel night stand flashes the next minute as it passes. A re-run of Law & Order: SVU drones on in the background as you sit at the edge of the bed, staring sleeplessly at your wedding dress hanging on the back of the closet door. "

VOWELS AND VERACITY - @hansolmates

oneshot, fluff, angst, smut, teacher au, single parent

after a blind date that makes you feel like a giddy teenager all over again, you’re forced to grow up and take a chance when you realize that special someone is your daughter’s kindergarten teacher.

BE SWEET - @heartkyeom

oneshot, fluff, angst, smut, royalty, arranged marriage, enemies to lovers

“Why are you here?” Your tone is resolute, not allowing for even an inch of resistance. “That’s what we need to talk about. We’re getting married,” He lifts the corner of his mouth. You let out a laugh that is nowhere near polite, in fact, you’re nearly cackling at the prospect of this idea. It’s simply so outlandish, so fantastical that every time you look at his face it seems more unfathomable.

JEON WONWOO

FOR THE BOOKS - @trblsvt

oneshot, fluff, teacher au, est relationship

wonwoo's students seemed intent on matching him up with a fellow teacher. he didn't really want to stop them, it was too funny for him to break up their fun. plus, he didn't mind the certain someone he was being "set up" with.

HOW TO FALL - @because-of-a-friend

oneshot, fluff, angst, idol au

"hi!! <3 i love ur acc and i was wondering if you'd be able to write an imagine where you're besties with joshua and he invites you to meet the rest of seventeen for the first time and you instantly fall for wonwoo? maybe some angst but overall fluff? thank you!! no rush!! i love your work!!!"

UNTITLED - @/97-liners

oneshot, fluff, royalty au, friends to lovers, childhood friends

"a royalty au where you’re the heir to the throne and wonwoo is your shy (and lowkey bumbling) royal advisor…. he’s smart and always has his head stuck in a book but he’s also painfully awkward and clueless to how deeply in love with him you are. until your parents decide it’s time for you to get married. and suddenly you’re inundated by suitor after suitor, and wonwoo is quizzing them on their credentials and doubting their suitability for you, this one makes brash political decisions, this one spends too freely, this one has no tact for diplomacy. until one day, you turn to him and ask, “you’ve hated every single one of them. who, then, do you think i should marry?” and wonwoo blushes red and presses his lips together."

SCANDAL, PT.2, PT.3, PT.4- @fantasyescapes17

series, angst, fluff, enemies to lovers, regency au

this is part of an extensive series that includes other members! you can check it out ⤳ here

The Viscount's sister with an enormous dowry, beauty and unmistakable talent- you began the London season as the most desired woman in any room. But Jeon Wonwoo (a man who would rather hide in the library than dance at a ball) is beyond your comprehension. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it embroiled you into a scandal with a man you could never love.

MEET CUTE OF THE CENTURY - @lovelyhan

oneshot, fluff, angst, smut, idol au, strangers to lovers

the last thing you expected when you volunteered at your city’s local animal shelter is to meet the hottest cat person in the world. now if only he’d just adopt one of them so you’d stop ogling him every time he drops by.

MARRIAGE - @yikesmary

drabble, fluff, parent au, est relationship

where wonwoo’s nightmare is coming true.

BIRTHDAY SURPRISE - @/yikesmary

oneshot, fluff, parent au, est relationship

where you and nari try to make breakfast and a cake before wonwoo wakes up… if only your daughter knew what the word “surprise” meant.

LEE JIHOON

GUITAR STRING - @leejungchans

oneshot, fluff, angst, royalty au

"“Take me away.” Jihoon’s elegant fingers, previously plucking at his guitar strings, freeze at your words. The soothing, lullaby-like chords he had been playing echo into the inky darkness, carried away by the chilly night breeze."

WE'LL BE OK - @atinykidult

drabble, angst, fluff, idol au, est relationship

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you” for hurt!Jihoon

LIVE - @wondernus

oneshot, fluff, idol au, est relationship

having just finished composing a song a few hours ago, jihoon starts a live on his phone to sing to those who are feeling a little lonely at night. little does he know, your sleeping figure could be seen in the corner of his little livestream, causing his fans to go crazy.

MWHA - @cheolism

oneshot, fluff, est relationship

three times you said "mwah" at the end of a kiss and one time jihoon said it back

IM DATING WOOZI - @jihoonotes

oneshot, fluff, smau, est relationship, idol au

y/n is in a public relationship w/ woozi of SVTZ and decides to make a twitter acc to support jihoon, but SVTZ fans seem to think they're delusional.

JIHOON'S PUPPY - @rubyreduji

oneshot, angst, fluff, college au

jihoon can’t seem to shake the puppy dog who keeps following him around or the teasing he gets for it

HEARTSTRINGS - @wavelikewhat

oneshot, fluff, strangers to lovers, idol au

You help Jihoon meet an unexpected deadline for a song and he wonders why he can’t stop thinking about you. Luckily his members nudge him toward the answer.

LEE SEOKMIN

WARM ME UP ! - @ponkwan

drabble, fluff, est relationship

the one where you’re on your third date with seokmin.

KIM MNGYU

HOT OR COLD? - @jjuniehao

oneshot, fluff, est relationship

when looking for something on his phone, you find an email you didn’t expect…

BOYFRIEND PHOTOS - @babyleostuff

oneshot, fluff, est relationship, idol au

a sunny date spent with your precious boyfriend

XU MINGHAO

THE LETTER - @toruro

oneshot, fluff, angst, smut, brothers best friend, childhood friends to lovers, idol au

in which you’re jun's little sister and have been pining for a man so close yet so out of reach for ages. now, years later, when you see minghao all grown up, famous, and still making your heart flutter, you're not so sure what to do about your not-so-little crush.

BOO SEUNGKWAN

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE - @sungbeam

oneshot, fluff, childhood friends, est relationship

Boo Seungkwan asked you to marry him beneath the shade of an orange tree.

CHWE VERNON

ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE - @suhnshinehaos

series, fluff, angst, childhood friends to lovers, arranged marriage, smau

the one where you get into an arranged marriage with your childhood best friend vernon, but neither of you seem to mind that much

UNTITLED - @/wqnwoos

drabble, fluff, est relationship, idol au

“vernon, we need to talk.”

OR, WOULD YOU RATHER IT BE ME? - @thepixelelf

oneshot, fluff, childhood friends to lovers, college au, soulmate au

A detested soulmark, a friendship over a decade in the making, and an unexpected proposal from one friend to another… what could possibly go wrong?

LEE CHAN

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE - @/berriesandjunnie

oneshot, fluff, est relationship, parent au, idol au

no matter what stage in life you’re at, or after all these years, you can count on his hyungs to still treat him the same.

08:23 AM - @wheeboo

drabble, fluff, est relationship, idol au

in which chan is late to dance practice.

want recs for other groups? check out my navigation → here!

#fic lists📃 #seventeen fic recs #svt recs #seventeen fics #seventeen x reader #svt angst #svt fluff #svt smut #seventeen idol au #svt fanfic #seventeen dad au #seventeen smau #seventeen friends to lovers au #seventeen parent au #seventeen recs

[propertyofwicked]

HOMESICK - LN

content warnings: just fluff really, mentions of anxiety, being far from family

2.4k words - lemme know if u want a pt2 for this one :)

masterlist

y/n hated new places, she hated change, and most of all she hated being away from home. y/n knew she would eventually feel a sense of comfort and familiarity in woking, but for now, her blood ran hot, and an icy sweat took over her body, her eyes tearful even though she couldn’t pin point why she felt so upset. the flat was silent, and yet deafening, every whistle of wind or creak of a floorboard serving as her constant reminder - you are alone, your are miles away from your family, everything is unfamiliar.

she found herself constantly shaking her head, trying to knock some sense into herself

you’ve done this before, you went to university even further from your family, you did this for 3 years, you can do it again. you are a grown woman now sort yourself out.

her thoughts battled loudly with each other, one side of her brain logical, the other trying to sabotage her.

it just didn’t make sense - she travelled across the world almost weekly, filming and editing content for the mclaren social media pages, working closely with the drivers, engineers and management and never once felt overwhelmed with the distance from home comforts. she supposed being constantly on the move, keeping her mind and body occupied with her work boded well in distracting her from feeling homesick. the close bond she’d formed with everyone in the garages probably aided her even further, provided her with a new sense of family away from home.

but for now, she sat cross legged on her desk chair, arms resting on the table, her head balancing precariously in her hands, deep in sleep. y/n had arrived at the offices at 10pm, unable to sleep in her empty flat, the feeling of constant nausea and upset overbearing, and deciding that being productive was a much better use of her time - a great distraction from her loneliness. she hadn’t intended to fall asleep, especially not in a position that put so much strain on her back, and yet here she was.

3am in the mclaren offices and all that could be heard was heavy, exhausted breathing and the soft whir of a computer fan that ran idly in the background.

this is something that lando found peculiar - who was sleeping in the office? and why were they sleeping here? he thought to himself as he and oscar snuck into the building from the side door.

as they rounded the corner, oscar’s mouth opened, starting to ask the same thing lando had been questioning, but was cut off by lando’s finger raising to his own lips, shushing the younger man before pointing to y/n’s desk, her head now resting on the table cheek smushing her forgotten glasses further into her face uncomfortably.

the two of them, stared at the girl before moving to look back at each other, a mix of confusion and amusement glossing their faces.

“wh- why is she here?” he asked, out of pure concern for the girl.

“i don’t know oscar, we walked in at the same time?” lando responds, taking long but quiet steps to stand behind her chair.

“didn’t she just get a new flat near here? why wouldn’t she go home?” oscar asked again, mindlessly, knowing that lando was also bewildered to the sight in front of them. the older man simply shrugged in response, moving to rest a hand on the sleeping girl’s shoulder, bending slightly till he was level with her face.

“y/n? y/n?” he asked her softly, moving her shoulder gently in his hand as to not startle her, “you need to wake up, darlin’, can’t sleep here,” he adds, noting her breathing change as she came back to reality.

“lando?” she asked, startled, despite his best efforts, “what are you doing here it’s like -” she wiggled the mouse on her computer to bring up the home screen, “3am?”

“what are you doing here at 3am? not to mention, fast asleep at your desk,” he retorts, standing back and crossing his arms over his chest. she finally clocks oscar stood awkwardly behind him, sending him a quick smile, before leaning back in her chair, looking at lando again.

“i asked first.”

“we’re breaking in to decorate zach’s office for his birthday,” he says as though it was obvious, laughing slightly at the thought of the hello kitty balloons stuffed into the bag oscar held behind his back, “now, what are you doing here?”

“working,” she replied, offering no more to her story.

“with your eyes closed? drooling on your desk? i don’t think so.”

“i was not drooling,” she argues, confident in her words despite the back of her hand moving to wipe her mouth just in case.

“you we-”

“didn’t you just move in to a new flat y/n?” oscar asks, interrupting what he was sure would be an entertaining round of bickering between the two.

“i did,” she says with a nod, “i just got so caught up in my work. didn’t realise what the time was,” she adds, dodging the subject of her empty flat. the flat so empty of life, but so full of overwhelming silence and dread, and yet she found solace in the silence of the mclaren offices.

“do you want a ride home?” lando asked, sensing there was more to the story, but leaving the can unopened, for now.

she shook her head, breathing out a long sigh as she did.

“no thanks, i might just stay here till the work day starts,” she adds, her hand rubbing her eyes slightly, feeling the exhaustion still looming in her brain.

“are you sure?” oscar asked, concern rising in his voice again.

“yep,” y/n replied, the ‘p’ exaggerated.

the boys looked at each other, a silent exchange of words between the team mates as they moved in the direction of zach’s office once again.

“we’ll come check in with you before we leave, yeah?” lando added, before turning on his heel and following oscar down the long hallway. she nodded even though they couldn’t see her, before pulling the hood of her jumper over her hair, and letting her head fall back onto the desk, using her arms as makeshift pillows.

it was nearing 4am when the two returned, once again guided down the hallway by the sound of y/n’s heavy breathing. they stopped just before they could see her, turning to each other.

“we gotta get her home. her back is gonna be ruined if she keeps sleeping like that,” oscar says, keeping his voice low.

“i know - she still hasn’t forgiven jon for letting her sleep curled up under a table a year ago. spent the whole week complaining about her spine aching,” lando replied, smiling softly at the memory of her trying to bend herself backwards over a chair to ‘reset’ her back, as she had claimed.

“how do we get her to leave? willingly? without the kicking and screaming?” lando asked after a moment of silence, the boys plotting their next moves.

“you’ll think of something, im sure. she’ll never say no to you,” oscar replies, his hands moving to grip his car keys in the pockets of his joggers.

“what do you mean? ill think of something? you’re not leaving me to deal with her on my own, are you?” lando asked, suddenly doubting his abilities to contend with the strong willed woman asleep not 3 metres away from them.

“i left lily sleeping 2 hours ago, and i don’t feel like explaining this,” he says, pointing at the room in general, “when she wakes up and realises im not there,” he finishes with a shrug.

“fine,” lando says with a huff, “wish me luck.”

“good luck. lemme know how she gets on,” the australian replies, walking away from lando slowly, but glancing into the office space to check on y/n one last time.

lando sighed again, before sauntering back into the room he had left her in an hour ago. he moved to crouch next to her again, his fingers moving to pull her hood back, tucking her hair out of her face as he did. she looked so peaceful like this, her eyes twitching slightly under the pressure of sleep, a lose strand of hair blowing with every exhale. he didn’t want to wake her, but there was no other option unless he wheeled her out on the chair she sat on.

“angel? y/n?” he paused, grimacing slightly at his slip up, “it’s time to go,” he said softly, stroking her arm gently. he hoped she was too sleepy to notice the pet name.

“go where?” she mumbled, in her half-asleep state, eyes opening to look at him.

“home, y/n. need to get you in a proper bed.”

“no, im fine here,” she said, quickly defending her choice of sleeping position, “you go, ill see you later.”

“nuh-uh,” he tutted, standing in front of her to grip both her arms, dragging her up from the chair, “you are going to go home and sleep in a proper bed.”

“i don’t have my car and there’s no buses at this time.”

“ill drive you home.”

“it’s out of your way, you’d be wasting a journey.”

“don’t care. you’re getting in my car and im taking you home,” he argued back, finalising the argument she knew she wouldn’t win.

“fine,” she huffed, still clawing for the last word even if she had lost the battle.

soon, they were stood in the car park, lando stepping to the side to pull the passenger door open, a hand firmly on her back pushing her into the car. she wanted to argue that she was fully capable of getting in the car on her own, but the pure exhaustion took over as she adjusted the seat to her comfort, clicking her belt in as lando started the engine.

the car was silent, asides from the fans that pushed warm air into the vehicle and the low humming of the engine. he tried his best to take the roads slow, especially as he neared her flat, fearing waking up the neighbourhood with the growling of his car when he accelerated.

“what’s the real reason you didn’t wanna go home?” he asked, arm coming to rest at his side.

“i told you, i didn’t realise what time it was,” she said, refusing to let her lie catch up with her.

“bullshit.”

“what?”

“i said, bullshit. that’s not the real reason.”

“im homesick,” she spat out, “ok? im an adult woman who can’t handle the prospect of being home alone, 200 miles away from her family. happy now?”

“happ- why would i be happy about that?” he asked, his tone softer than his previous outburst. they were now pulling into her apartment building, y/n still neglecting to answer him until the car pulled to a complete stop.

“you wanna come in, for a bit?” she asked, biting her tongue.

“do you want me to come in?”

“yeah, if you want to. only for a bit,” she said again.

“ok,” his response was simple, he didn’t really need to think it through. he glanced down at his watch, 5:15am, and yet, he could not feel more awake. he didn’t mind staying, especially if it gave her the comfort to move freely in her own home.

walking into her flat felt oddly natural to him, despite him having never been there. the two could be considered close friends, not that either of them would acknowledge it, but spending years working closely together, travelling around the world, tends to do that. they’d started working at mclaren at similar times, him as a driver and her as a content creator for the brand, the new job nerves acting as almost a trauma bond between the two. they’d spent many nights in each others hotel rooms, playing games, watching films, often with oscar in tow - anything to pass the time in between races - but the two had never crossed the personal boundary into each others homes.

and yet, lando strolled in, took his shoes off by the door, and threw himself down on the sofa as if this was a daily thing. y/n dropped herself down next to him, sighing as she did.

“you need to sleep,” he said, turning to look at her, his arm thrown over the back of the sofa where she sat.

“my brain is too awake now,” she said, voice never faltering despite her stomach turning as she realises how close they were sat, the way his warmth surrounded her as his fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the seat behind her head.

“you wanna watch something till you settle again?” he asked, tv remote already in hand.

“sounds good,” she replied, tight lipped, eyes focusing as he scrolled through her netflix, settling on a film she didn’t care to remember the name of.

before the opening credits had even started, y/n body slumped against lando’s, head dropping to rest below his shoulder. he tensed slightly, relaxing again when he looked down to see her eyes closed, chest heaving deep breathes once again. his arm resting on the sofa dropped behind her back, his hand moving to hold her waist gently, fingers drawing light circles on the fabric of her leggings.

a while later, he moved his hips slightly, trying to re adjust his position to stop his legs going dead. he feared he had woken her, when she mumbled something incoherent and began moving. lando allowed himself to let out a shaky breath as she twisted herself into his side, her arm moving to wrap around his waist, her leg bending upwards to rest on top of his.

he waited a moment, as if to check she was really sleeping, before leaning down to press a soft kiss to the top of her head.

“goodnight, angel,” he whispered.

lando told himself he’d leave when the film ended. in his silence he planned how to move from the sofa without waking her. but then his eyes grew tired, and he told himself he’d shut them, just for a moment.

the two of them lay on the sofa, fast asleep. his posture had sloped in his slumber, shifting their bodies into a recline, his arms wrapped tightly around her and she settled onto his chest. their legs entwined with each other, a blanket lando had attempted to wrap around her had fallen haphazardly to the floor.

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris smut #lando x reader #lando smut #lando norris imagine #lando norris fanfic #formula 1 #mclaren f1 #mclaren #lando norris fluff #propertyofwicked #oscar piastri #LN4 #OP81

[tblsomedoodles]

Here's an art/info dump about this stupidly cute idea that's been rotating in my brain for three day.

(the first comic here is just how they first met. they ended up in the same alley, pestering the same cat without noticing. Then the cat left and they notice they're not alone lol)

(Second is Donnie 'talking' with Mikey for the first time. He only uses Mind Mend to communicate and is just as surprised as Mikey to find it worked on him. (it has only worked with Leo before this))

I'll put the rest under a break b/c i will be going off about this and i don't want it to take up your entire feed.

I'm jokingly calling this "Mikey's Imaginary Friends" though that might change if i continue this.

Basically it's this, the twins grew up with Draxum while Raph and Mikey grew up with Splinter. Neither set knew about the other (b/c splinter though they were dead and didn't want his two remaining kids to worry about it, and Draxum was too focused on fixing his lab to pay much attention to the twins.) So, imagine Mikey's shock when, at age 8, he's out exploring topside (having snuck out) and runs into two more mutant turtles (who also snuck out and are exploring.) Thus begins an ongoing sneaking out to meet up thing between the three b/c Mikey's excited to have new friends and the twins are just as fascinated with Mikey as he is with them.

And before you ask, "hey, why doesn't Mikey tell his family about the two other turtles?" he does. Raph thinks he just made up some imaginary friends so he plays along but doesn't believe they're real. Splinter, on the other hand, thinks he's talking to Hamato ancestors due to some very big miscommunications (that i'll probably draw out at some point b/c it's silly)

Twins background wise, i'm still thinking through a lot of it, but i'll put my thoughts down anyways.

Draxum knew that training the twins at a young age would be counterproductive, so he doesn't train them beyond some basics a few times a week. Other than those sessions, he leaves them alone with their less-than-stellar caretaker, in favor of rebuilding his lab. The caretaker doesn't do much for them beyond give them food and very basic school like lessons. Beyond that the twins are left on their own.

they come to the conclusion that the only people that will care for them is themselves. They discover Mind Meld very early as a result of this and will not talk verbally b/c they found out early on with their caretaker, that if they tried to talk, they were just ignored anyways, so what's the point.

(I'm also thinking Donnie might be deaf or hard of hearing in this, with the pair of them using Mind Meld as a way for him to temporarily hear through Leo and thus keep Drax from finding out. but i'll have to do some more research before i decide for sure/figure out the specifics)

as for Meeting Mikey

That's why they became so fascinated with mikey. B/c mikey was the first person that treated them like a person and not a job or an incomplete experiment. (He's also so happy and bright, they can't avoid getting drawn to him lol)

Mikey's probably the only one they verbally start talking to, even after they teach him mind meld. (though Leo's the one to pick up on that more than Donnie. Donnie doesn't do much talking at all outside mind meld).

They also come out of their shells (hehe) a lot as they interact more with Mikey. Before they met him, they acted more like automatons, even when alone. The more they socialize with Mikey, the sillier these two get. Leo learns about puns and starts going mad with them, Donnie starts happy stimming about thing (which he has either been suppressing or just never had the urge to do before.) Basically they stop acting like little creepy statues and start acting like kids.

Honestly, it's just a cute idea with the kiddos meeting each other and Mikey inadvertently socializing his not-well-socialized brothers.

(also, the twins wear masks b/c Donnie doesn't like the smell of the city and he's worried about germs. Not for any ninja reasons, what so ever.)

Alright, that's it for my info dump. maybe more later? Maybe not? Depends on how much longer these kids keep my attentions (though right now, they're doing a pretty good job at it lol)

#tmnt #rottmnt #my doodles #rise michelangelo #rise leonardo #rise donatello #Mikey's imaginary friends #b/c if i don't tag it with somethign now #i'll probably loose it in my mess of a blog #anyways #here you go #i should be doing a speedpaint rn #instead i drew all this #i'll do the speedpaint later today