#it is due tomorrow and ridiculously easy

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 22 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF, some angst, mentions of drugs (including descriptions of harmful use), very plot-heavy chapter, SLOW BURN

words: 18k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 22 ► if you want an enemy, i’ll be the last one that you ever meet

Jungkook marvelled at how quickly he got used to the peace he felt with you in his hotel room. It was strong, too, this peace. Stable. It seemed to him, as you slept on the bed right by his side, that nothing could disturb the walls of his room.

Sid’s Instagram post had been nothing but a picture. Neither of you interacted with it, nor did you respond to him—although, like a true pest, he continued to message you both throughout the night.

The picture remained as it was: largely anonymous, because Sid, in his petulant haste to post it, had not tagged you. And, from the looks of it, he had not realised he hadn’t tagged you.

The people in the comments—Jungkook checked, after making sure you’d fallen asleep—tried to guess what was happening. Most of the comments, with usernames that made Jungkook chuckle, seemed to recognise him (well, a few people did, and others jumped on this bandwagon with a heedless excitement that brought another smile to his face—they were thrilled to find him in this seemingly random picture, and he was thrilled by their thrill), but no one could understand the context.

So happy for you, Sid’s caption read. But happy for what? Happy for whom?

You’ve both decided to raise this issue with the band before the concert tomorrow. There was very little you could have done this late at night anyway. All the staff had a day off, and you did not want to disturb them over a personal problem that had escalated into something bigger than you.

Jungkook was delighted by your choice to stay in his room. He interpreted your decision to wait until morning as a confirmation of your deeper desire to prolong your time together. He preferred to believe that this was the reason, rather than the circumstances, that allowed you to stay.

And since you were sleeping next to him right now, your chest rising and falling gently under the covers, it was all too easy to give in to this belief.

When Jungkook woke up a few hours later, the room was bathed in a golden glow. The sunlight filtered through a gap in the curtains that he must have overlooked last night.

You weren’t next to him.

Panic seized him almost instantly, and he realised that the peace he had felt last night with you beside him was not quite as stable as he had believed. Now you were awake, and you were not here.

He flipped on his back and pushed himself into a sitting position. He even searched under the bed in irrational desperation—as if you had decided to play hide-and-seek and give him a heart attack for breakfast. And then, as soon as he threw back the covers and scanned the room, he heard your voice—a lifeline, really, amid his suffocating thoughts.

You were still here, in the bathroom, either talking on the phone or to yourself. Honestly, that part did not really matter to him, as long as he knew you were here.

Outrageously relieved, he collapsed back onto the pillows and buried his face in his hands, a ridiculous smile spreading beneath his fingers as his heart continued to race in his chest.

He realised that he was a little out of his mind.

You were on the phone, as Jungkook would later learn, with the founder and CEO of Jett Records, Christian Jett—or simply CJ, as he insisted you call him, even though you’d only spoken to him once in your entire time at the company: right now. You figured one of the reasons he insisted on the abbreviation was that his full name could have worked incredibly well as a Christian rock band name.

If Jungkook had known who you were talking to, his panic might have resurged. Your hands were shaking, too, as you clutched your phone to your ear and took in CJ’s rapid news.

In just one breath, CJ shared his thoughts on Rated Riot’s reception in Europe and outlined his vision for the coming months. He also surprised you with some good news, and you tapped your fingers on the hotel sink, eager to tell the band.

Then, CJ, your new best friend by the sound of it, turned the subject over to you.

“Here’s what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” he said, speaking so quickly that you barely had time to react. By the time your stomach clenched in anticipation, he had already informed you of his plans. “I’ve personally put together a team, just a couple of execs and someone from HR, to recruit support staff for you. We’re thinking two people should suffice for now.”

Your pause seemed incredibly long compared to his—which was virtually non-existent, and CJ opened his mouth to keep speaking.

“I was also thinking that—”

“I—sorry, uh,” you interjected, finally finding your words, “w-what support staff are you referring to, sir?”

“Assistant managers,” CJ replied with a chuckle. “I should’ve started with that, you’re right. You’ll have a team. Naturally, you’ll be promoted to Head of Management.”

You needed some time to process that. It was the “naturally” in particular that confused you because none of this seemed very natural.

When you woke up and saw ‘Christian Jett’ on your phone (the device even vibrated differently, almost nervously), you immediately assumed the worst: Sid had done irreparable damage to the band’s reputation by hard-launching a relationship that no one at the label knew about, and now you were going to be fired because you had not contained it.

That was the only thought you had when you took the call. But you were actually being promoted. Naturally.

Did he even know about Sid?

“That—that’s great,” you managed. You sensed CJ’s anticipation for a more effusive response and he grumbled in mild disapproval when you did not offer one. “I am very happy to hear that.”

“Yeah?” He chuckled again. He sounded like a train veering off its tracks when he laughed, which was very odd, yet somehow felt comforting. “You don’t sound much like it.”

“Oh—m-my apologies, I’m just surprised.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be,” he said. “Others are trying to scout you for their own bands—fucking Reconnaissance, of all people—so, of course, we have to promote you.”

Your fingers stilled on the cool porcelain of the sink.

He said they had to promote you: as if it was a decision forced upon them by some foreign threat, rather than your efforts and the unprecedented growth of the band.

It would have made sense to expand your team eventually—when the tour ended, for example, and everyone could see how far Rated Riot has come. But now, apparently, your career would abruptly progress just because you received an offer from another band.

“Respectfully, sir,” you said, avoiding his nickname, “may I ask how you came by that information? I was under the impression that the offer from Reconnaissance wasn’t official.”

“It’s a small industry,” CJ replied. “We consider any offer aimed at our talents official.”

He gave no further explanations. You had questions, of course, but did not know how to say What the fuck is that supposed to mean? in Corporate.

Instead, you said, “I see.”

“I’ll send one of my assistants and a couple of people from our legal team to go over the new contract with you in the next few days,” he informed you.

You wondered what time it was for him, wherever he was, because here in London, it was far too early to talk about legal teams. The magnitude of the situation made your empty stomach churn.

“Your new contract won’t be much different,” CJ continued. He sensed that the mention of lawyers had unsettled you, and his tone softened. “Bigger pay, a few extra tasks, a more defined division of labour. Your assistants will handle the routine chores, allowing you to concentrate on promoting and advancing Rated Riot. That’s the direction we’re moving in right now, and that’ll be your main priority.”

“I understand, sir,” you said, although you understood fragments.

They could have hired a marketing specialist instead of two assistants for you if they wanted to focus on the advancement of the band. Rated Riot did not even have their own publicist right now. There was one at the company, but she juggled several bands and rarely ventured beyond arranging an occasional interview for Rated Riot if someone contacted the company, and not you.

Evidently, they chose to promote you to Head Manager and Publicist instead of hiring a different person for that job.

“You’ll stay with the band and work on location,” CJ said. “That arrangement seems to bring the best results, especially regarding the band’s schedule. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, sir,” you replied, recognising that CJ probably had the authority to teleport you out of London immediately should you disagree with anything he said.

“Excellent,” he said. “I’d like to move forward with this while the band is still on tour, so you could train your assistants as soon as you are back. From then on, you’ll focus on effective representation and the strengthening of their brand, marketing strategies, bigger shows, more advertising—well, you know the drill.”

“Right,” you said. “Of course.”

You chose not to point out how far these new duties deviated from your original job description. You were already doing all that anyway, even if you weren’t, technically, required to. And they clearly seemed to think that your extra work came without saying—of course, you’d do everything. When have you not?

“And mostly everything else on the contract will remain as it is,” CJ finished. “The legal team will go over the rest with you. It’s the same things: compensation, conflicts of interest, obligations, bonuses, the whole bunch. You know. You’ve done it before.”

You haven’t done it before, actually. When Rated Riot hired you, the company emailed you the contract, you skimmed it, understood about half, and e-signed it without any meetings with HR, let alone the legal team.

Nevertheless, you responded obediently, “I understand. When can I expect to meet with them?”

“Let me check your schedule,” he said. You heard the faint clicking of a laptop mouse and assumed he had Rated Riot’s schedule at the ready. “Alright, you’re in London for the next few days, then almost a week in Paris. How about one of the days there? My assistant will email you later with a more specific time and date.”

“Okay, that sounds perfect,” you replied. “Thank you for taking the time to personally inform me about this, CJ. I—I’m very excited to start this new chapter with the band.”

“I’m excited as well,” CJ said, glad to finally hear your use of his name, even if you wavered while saying it. “Let’s keep this discreet, though, yeah? For now. I’ll mention the changes in management and the band’s upcoming promotions at the executive team meeting next week. Namjoon will update you on how that goes. Until then, let’s keep this within our circle.”

“I—of course, sir,” you replied. CJ allowed you a moment of thought and did not interrupt your silence this time.

You worried that his strong emphasis on discretion indicated his knowledge about something else. And even if it didn’t, you thought it would reflect badly on you later if you did not mention Sid right now, when you had the perfect opportunity for it.

“I’m—I would also like to address the recent speculation online regarding the, uh—bathtub picture,” you said, trying to choose your words without sounding like a three-year-old imitating a businessman. “I want to assure you that—”

“Oh, yeah, no—Namjoon called me earlier. He filled me in,” CJ said. “I hadn’t even seen the picture before he mentioned it. That Sid’s a weird character.”

Your heart jumped over a beat, chilling the blood in your anxious veins.

“Uh—yes,” you played along, wondering all the while where Namjoon was, and what he had done on your behalf. “He is.”

“I trust you’ll ensure no one else leaks the band’s album covers in the future, though,” CJ said. His words sounded like a demand—half a step away from a threat—but you could not recognise your reflection in the mirror all of a sudden and could not reply. “Maybe reset your systems or something.”

Namjoon had called CJ. He had deflected from your relationship with Jungkook and shielded you from what could have happened if someone discovered who the people in the picture were.

Sid leaked the album cover.

You took a fractured breath and leaned against the counter, closing your eyes for a moment.

“Yes—yes, of course,” you finally managed. “We’ll take every precaution to make sure these incidents are avoided in the future. Th-thank you, CJ.”

You could no longer tell if you were still coherent or just trying to be. CJ’s unusual pause seemed to indicate that he sensed your unease, but he chose not to comment on it. He thought you just felt uncomfortable that the album cover had leaked.

“Alright, happy to hear that,” he said. “Talk to you soon. Keep up the good work.”

He ended the call before you could voice any more platitudes about looking forward to hearing from him again. You weren’t. You were looking forward to finding Namjoon and possibly offering your soul to him to repay the debt.

Namjoon had resolved the issue that Sid had caused—the issue you considered personal, because you were keenly aware of the causal relationship between Sid’s post and your relationship with Jungkook: if you hadn’t spent so much time with him on this tour, if you’d kept your professional distance, if you’d closed the damn door in that hotel bathroom, there wouldn’t have been any picture at all.

However, there was more for you to fix. Namjoon had helped you now, but Sid was still at large, wild and unpredictable.

And as you glanced at your phone, you also remembered something else that CJ had said about your contract: conflicts of interest.

In your initial contract, you had declared none, despite already knowing that Jungkook was in the band. You hoped you could carry on quietly enough—as though you had never met him, really—and no one would mind. That more or less worked out, up until this point.

Now you wondered if you could still claim no conflicts of interest without any consequences. Was that what your relationship with Jungkook was, in the eyes of the company?

You took a deep breath and decided to ponder this elsewhere because the bathroom was getting stuffy and the clothes you’d worn for a comfortable film night suddenly felt suffocating against your skin.

Stepping out of the bathroom on the tips of your toes so as not to wake Jungkook, you turned the corner and locked eyes with him right away.

“Hi,” he murmured, the edges of his morning voice hoarse and groggy as he watched you from the mess of sheets on the bed.

Despite hoping to find him still asleep so you could slip back into bed and have the morning together that had been stolen from you, you didn’t feel disappointed that he was awake. He had a lazy smile on his lips. His hair was dishevelled and he kept bringing his hand through it.

There was a glow over your face as you approached the bed. “Hi.”

“I thought you’d left,” he said, his eyes following your every movement as you settled back next to him.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, tilting your head to the side, closer to him. He wasn’t sure if you were even aware you did that, it seemed subconscious, but it prompted his hands to reach for you.

He touched your cheek, running his fingers over your jaw before leaning in to press his lips to yours—quickly, just to remind himself that he could. And to steal just one breath from you.

“No,” he said then. “Never.”

He saw your eyes soften and your smile grow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He traced his thumb over your lower lip before pulling away to sit up on the bed. “Who, um—who was that on the phone?”

The question was expected, but you didn’t have an answer for him personally—you’d planned to explain everything to all of Rated Riot later today.

“Uh,” you leaned against the headboard of the bed, “the label.”

“Yeah?” he encouraged.

“The CEO, actually,” you added briefly. “But I should probably discuss this with the whole band.”

Startled, Jungkook gripped the sheets in his hand. He was worried—rather obviously—that this was about Sid or still about Reconnaissance, and he couldn’t decide which he dreaded more. He was absurdly quick to convince himself that the CEO had told you something so serious that you didn’t even see the point of talking to him about it.

“Did something happen?” he asked, feeling the tips of his fingers grow numb.

You recognised the concern on his face with half of a glance. “Yeah, but it’s something good.”

Relief, excitement, and curiosity replaced the previous anxiety in his eyes at an impressive speed.

He shifted on the bed with a newfound energy, crossing and uncrossing his legs. “Well, tell me!”

“We’ll have a meeting—”

“That’s fair,” he said, moving closer. “But tell me now.”

You were too excited to dwell on the fact that this was the precise conflict of interest that had unsettled your mind earlier—this perception of favouritism, this special treatment that others might assume Jungkook received because he was in a relationship with his manager.

“You’re doing festivals next summer,” you said, pausing for emphasis, “and they’re extending your tour. We’ll be going back to at least five countries in Europe for encore shows.”

You still had to confirm the dates with the venues and perform several additional bureaucratic tasks so your team could stay in Europe longer, but all of that seemed irrelevant in light of this news.

“Ah,” Jungkook replied—happy, but not nearly as exuberant as you’d hoped. “That’s cool.”

You realised quickly that he must have misunderstood.

“No, Jungkook,” you said. “In arenas this time—with a capacity at least three times larger than we have right now.”

Instantly, his eyes ignited with the flames you’d looked forward to before.

“Oh,” he said and now the tingle of adventure was finally there, glistening fervently in his burning eyes.

But he looked at you again, and he thought there was something you hadn’t told him yet. It was the way your lips curled—smiling, but not quite.

“But you look—was there something else you talked about?” he asked.

You were surprised. You had hoped—naively, you now realised—that you could continue to talk about the promising parts of all that CJ had told you, leaving the more questionable parts to wait until the rest of your thoughts had cleared.

“They’re, uh, holding interviews for assistant managers and promoting me to Head Manager,” you said. Jungkook raised his eyebrows, but you continued before he could interject, “they’ll send people to Paris for me to sign the new contract.”

“To—oh, shit. Fuck.” His shock turned to laughter. Just moments ago, he was worried you’d have to leave the band. Now you were signing a new contract to stay. “Oh, but does that—does that mean we will see less of you? Is that why you—why you don’t seem very happy about that?”

“No, it’s—I am happy,” you said. “I’ll stay on-site with you guys. But the focus is—they’re saying we’re focusing more on promoting you and ‘strengthening your brand.’ That was cool, by the way. Your brand. I liked that part. But, uh—that will be my main priority, apparently. I guess I’m not really sure how that’s going to go.”

That wasn’t the only reason for your apprehension, but you did not want to mention Reconnaissance and the unexpected impact that Nick’s offer had on your sudden promotion. You preferred to see Jungkook smiling at you from across the bed—even more so when he was smiling right next to you.

“Well, what will you have to do?” he asked. “I mean, exactly?”

“I guess I will be making phone calls the whole day,” you replied, hoping secretly that this would not turn out to be all you’d have to do. “It also means that none of us will be going home longer than it takes for you to record a new album.”

“Oh.” Jungkook attempted to control his facial expression. For him, this arrangement—album, tour, album, tour—sounded almost ideal. “Well, that’s honestly fine by me.”

You knew he would not mind. But you minded. You had not said anything about your own workload to CJ, but you were prepared to use any threats necessary to ensure that Rated Riot had enough time to breathe.

“You say that now,” you pointed out, “but it will eventually get tough, being away from home for so long.”

“I have you,” Jungkook said. “I am home.”

He said that like it was the most obvious statement in the world—the grass is green, the sky is blue—but subtle magic was laced in every letter of every word. When he closed his eyes, when he couldn’t see the unfamiliar surroundings of the hotel room, his senses recognised the warmth of your presence as home.

Unfortunately, the darkness in his thoughts was unforgiving, and he had to ask you something else—but then he lost his resolve momentarily when he met your soft gaze and realised that you’d placed your hand on his.

“I, uh—” he tried, but several more moments had to pass before he sobered, “he—did he say anything about Sid?”

You exhaled. “Yeah.”

Jungkook nodded contemplatively and took a breath, bracing himself. Although it was difficult to imagine what the label could have said about Sid, considering the abundance of good news, he knew better than to expect something positive.

Another book his grandmother had read with him when he was young suddenly returned to his mind, the dark cover with thick red lettering vivid in his memory: Something wicked this way comes.

The book had been sinister, completely unfitting for a child of his age at the time. Just like Sid.

“What was it?” Jungkook asked.

“That picture he posted,” you said, “is apparently the cover of your upcoming album.”

“It—oh.” He looked away, puzzled, suddenly, by the shade of the wallpaper behind the bedframe and the questionable events that had led the label to that conclusion. He tried to say more and managed a very successful, “ah.”

You lowered your head, tugging on the edge of the duvet. “Namjoon, uh—he took care of it before I got the call from CJ, so I don’t know much about what he said to him.”

Jungkook was not sure if he should have been relieved that Sid’s damage had been neutralised seemingly so effortlessly. He could never know with Sid; his refusal to give up rivalled only Voldemort’s immortality. Only Sid’s horcruxes were, apparently, pictures and videos he used to manipulate others.

“It’s a good photo for an album cover,” Jungkook finally said.

“It—it is,” you agreed. “And it’s also—well, you know. A good explanation.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll inform the label about us before I sign the new contract, though,” you decided. “I’ll talk to them. I thought maybe this could wait, but they’re sending over lawyers, so it’s—”

Jungkook’s breath got lodged in his throat and he had to cough several times to clear his airways, interrupting you.

“H-hold on,” he said. “You need lawyers present when you tell them we’re together?”

“They’re coming for the contract,” you explained. “And I’ll have to talk to them before I sign it because I figure you might be my conflict of interest.”

A sudden surge of very different emotions made Jungkook purse his lips. He found himself wondering if there was any term starting with “my” you could have used to describe him that he wouldn’t have liked. My boyfriend. My source of headaches. My biggest nuisance. Ultimately, all of that still meant that he was yours.

Reasonably, however, he did not like the sound of this.

“Huh,” he mused. “Doesn’t work as a pet name. Call me something else.”

“Yeah.” You chuckled. “I don’t like that one, either.”

You did not look particularly troubled. Everything was going to be fine, you were sure of it. You just weren’t sure how soon, and what this “fine” would look like.

“Come here,” Jungkook said before you could begin thinking about the possibilities and the risks.

You moved closer, happy to relish in the warmth of the room for a few more minutes as he wrapped his arms around you.

This was the morning you were looking forward to. Everything else could wait.

The second you stepped out of Jungkook’s hotel room and headed towards yours to pack for the day, Maggie startled you by calling out your name in the otherwise empty, echoing corridor. She appeared a little worried when you turned around, and that was so unbecoming on her normally laid-back face that you took an instinctive step back.

“Is—are you okay?” you asked.

She seemed surprised to see your surprise.

“I slept the whole day,” she explained. She was carrying something in her hands, but she kept it behind her back. “Feels like I was out for a week, actually.”

You smiled. That was hardly anything new.

You remembered the fright of your life that Maggie had given you the first time the two of you went out together. She had an alcohol tolerance that should have been outlawed, so she always drank more than Jungkook could ever handle (though he would argue otherwise, of course). By the time you got her back to your apartment that night, she was already barely conscious.

She had collapsed on your bed and when you brought her a glass of water about three minutes later, she was already snoring. And she’d slept—you counted—for twenty-two hours and thirty-three minutes. You had spent the last eight hours keeping watch over her, periodically checking if she was breathing, with your finger hovering over the emergency number on your phone.

To your amazement, she woke up the next morning without so much as a hint of a headache, perplexed by the concerned look on your face. She looked a bit like that now.

“Yeah,” you replied, a little jealous of her dangerous, but seemingly foolproof ability to avoid hangovers. “Maybe we should have stopped before the tequila shots.”

“Hmm.” She scratched her forehead. It was hard to tell what she was feeling; hesitation flickered in her eyes when she looked at you. “Was, uh—was Jungkook in my room yesterday?”

“He—oh, yeah,” you recalled. “I asked him to check on you.”

“Oh.” Relief washed over her face, adding some vibrancy to her cloudy features. “Okay. So I didn’t hallucinate that.”

You smiled again. “No.”

“I took your jacket,” she said, revealing the item she’d been clutching in her hands. “I don’t remember doing that.”

She seemed to remember even less from last night than you did, which was not uncommon for Maggie. She had a terrible memory in general—she took notes and then forgot she took notes—but this time, you could not help her remember, either.

“Thanks,” you said, taking your jacket from her. It still smelled faintly of your perfume and too much liquor. “Jungkook told me you had it. I still have one of your shoes.”

“Yeah, I—I have yours somewhere, too,” she said. “I assume you have my phone, too, then?”

You looked up. “Why would I have your phone?”

“Hm?” she asked as her heart began to pump blood a tad more effectively than necessary; you hadn’t even properly answered her yet. “But—you—didn’t you put it in your bag last night?”

You stilled and the surprise inside your stomach grew large, floating inside you as if it were a heavy, helium and anxiety-filled balloon.

“I… I had my bag with me?” you asked very slowly, but Maggie still did not understand the essence of your question. She looked around as though she’d just realised she was accidentally having this conversation in a language she did not speak, and she needed someone to translate it for her.

You were baffled. You knew you’d left your phone in your room before you went out with the girls, it was entangled in the sheets when you woke up the next morning. But you couldn’t remember whatever happened with your handbag; you had assumed it remained in your room as well.

“I’m pretty sure you had it with you,” Maggie said. Your heartbeat sped up, matching the frantic rhythm in your friend’s chest. “You took our orders on my phone because you didn’t have yours. And I assumed you put it in your bag after that.”

You turned around, frightened goosebumps rising on the back of your spine as your trembling fingers fumbled with the lock on your door.

“Jungkook said I didn’t have my bag with me when I got back,” you said as you entered the room, your gaze sweeping the space with an ever-mounting sense of panic. “I assumed—I thought I just didn’t take it with me. Nothing was missing. I had my keys in my jacket—I took them out at some point, before the jacket ended up with you—a-and my phone was here.”

You attacked the room, lifting suitcases and inspecting empty closets. Since you hadn’t fully unpacked, there were not a lot of places where your handbag could have been. Maggie tried to help you by holding up furniture for you to check underneath—just in case, she’d said—but it became increasingly clear, with every nook and cranny you searched, that the bag was simply not here.

“Okay, shit,” Maggie finally concluded as the two of you knelt side by side on the floor, the room in disarray around you.

Among the useless clutter, you found a lot of dust, someone’s phone charger, and a forgotten USB flash drive under your nightstand.

“Wait, so—wait, wait.” You stood up, stumbling slightly as your knees cracked. “So, you don’t have your phone?”

The question was redundant, but Maggie didn’t mind repeating herself. She was just as confused as you were. And the handbag was the least of your problems: you did not carry a lot of cash with you when you travelled, so if you didn’t find the bag, all that you’d lose would be a travel-sized container of hand sanitiser, an old tube of lipgloss, and a package of tissues. It was Maggie’s phone that you were worried about—you couldn’t even remember putting it in your bag.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her eyes seemed even wider than they had in the corridor. Her hair fell in chaotic curls over her face. “I couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried Find My iPhone today, but it didn’t show anything. Maybe the phone’s dead? I don’t know. I didn’t check right after we returned to the hotel, because I was sleeping. And then, this morning, I thought, well, of course the app won’t tell me where my phone is. Because you have it, and you’re right next door.”

You clenched your jaw. “Okay. Okay, I-I must have left my bag at the club. Or someone took it. We have to call them.”

“Call them?” Maggie repeated, standing up, too. She glanced around your room once more to make sure your bag had not decided to grow feet and return on its own. “What will we say?”

You did not mind the pointlessness of her question, either. Evidently, now was the precise time for stupid questions.

“That I lost it. I don’t know,” you said. “Let’s just see. Maybe I left it there.” But you hesitated as soon as you pulled your phone out. “Shit. Do you remember what the place was called?”

“Oh, yeah, I have the directions open on my pho—” She stopped tapping the pockets of her jeans, realising. “Oh, shit.”

“Fuck.”

It took you less than a second to find the solution to your new problem.

Luna and Taehyung’s room was just down the corridor, and Luna opened the door as soon as you knocked, almost as if she had been waiting for you to require her immediate assistance in this crisis.  

She could not remember many details of how the three of you got home, but she readily supplied the name of the club. Then she joined you and Maggie in your room, where your friends tried to reconstruct the events of the previous night and you dialled the number of the club, your shaky hands and frazzled mind leading you to hit all the wrong keys on your phone.

Finally, the call connected, and a cheerful, young voice introduced himself as, simply, Tom, barkeeper—although your frantic mind interpreted that as Tom Barkeeper initially, which, honestly, seemed like a fitting government name for someone tending the bar.

“Hi!” you said, your nervous voice nearing a screech. Luna and Maggie stopped talking and turned to you. “My friends and I were at your club on Wednesday night, and I seem to have misplaced my handbag. Is there any chance I left it there?”

“Let me check, miss,” Tom Barkeeper replied. You heard the faint sound of his footsteps in the background. “Could you describe it for me?”

“It—well, it was black,” you said, your palm pressed against your forehead. “With a large grey metal zipper, and sort of a—a little chain on the—”

“Er, actually, no, we’ve got no handbags at the Lost and Found,” he interrupted. “Got five watches, though.”

He chuckled lightly, and you looked up at your friends. There was a frown on your face that they immediately took to mean danger, and moved closer, settling on either side of you to listen.

“Uh, right,” you said distractedly, putting the call on speaker. “Are there any phones, by chance? There was a phone in my bag.”

“We had a couple of phones left here, but both have been picked up by their owners,” Tom B. replied. “Sorry.”

You turned to your friends, silently asking them what to do next.

“Perhaps you left your bag somewhere else?” the barkeeper suggested over the phone. “A taxi?”

Maggie, who remembered glimpses of your taxi ride, shook her head.

“Hmm. Or it was stolen,” you speculated.

Tom Barkeeper seemed surprised by this and he stuttered for a second—he had a thick accent, and even his, “well, er—I’d—uhm—” sounded really quite elegant—until he finally composed himself.

“Well, it—it does get rather busy here,” he admitted, and his voice sounded even younger all of a sudden. “I—er, was it very valuable? You could try filing a report, then we’d get our security here and rewind the CCTV footage.”

You glanced at Maggie. She shook her head again. She doubted they could find her phone in time if it really was stolen; you’d be leaving for Paris soon. She was embarrassed, too. There was nothing she could tell the police if you filed a report.

When have you last seen your phone, miss?

I have no idea, officer. I was shitfaced the whole night.

“I think we—no, that, um—we’ll try to see if there are any other places where it could be first,” you told Tom, trying to come up with a logical plan on the spot. “And then I’ll—”

“Yeah,” the barkeeper cut in, sounding relieved. “You check and call us back if you haven’t found it.”

“Yes. Thank you. Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s alright, miss,” he said. “Hope you find it.”

You ended the call with a disheartened sigh and turned to your friends.

“Well, they don’t have it,” you declared, as if they hadn’t heard everything.

“That’s great,” Luna observed. She glanced around the chaos inside your room. “And it’s definitely not here?”

“You can go ahead and look,” you said, stepping back to gesture at the piles of clothes. “I don’t know where else it could be.”

“Okay, well, Maggie and I both remember you having it with you on our way to the club,” she said. She tapped her chin and, because she had her glasses on and wore a sweater with a long white dress shirt underneath, she looked a bit like a heroine from an old Agatha Christie novel. “I remember the pins on my dress getting caught on the chain on your bag in the taxi.”

“That’s right,” you said, pointing at her, although you weren’t sure if you remembered the moment under discussion, or just the way the three of you had laughed about it later that night.

“So maybe you left it there before we even got to the club?” Luna suggested.

“No, but she still had it with her in the club!” Maggie interjected, frustrated. Her hair kept growing wilder the longer she stayed here, tousling it nervously every few seconds. “When she took our drink orders! My phone and her bag were both there.”

You and Luna both groaned, realising Maggie had already mentioned this. You were aware that the three of you had turned into a mess after just one night of drinking. Perhaps the next time you went out, you should consider bringing a chaperone, because this right now felt a lot like the blind leading the blind.

“Right,” Luna mumbled. “Sorry.”

“It’s starting to seem,” you said, “that either I left it in the taxi at the end of the night, or someone grabbed it at the club.”

Maggie nodded, agreeing with these options, even if she did not know what to do with them. You didn’t, either. Was there a Lost and Found for items accidentally abandoned in taxis? Should you have filed a report with the police, after all? Surely, they dealt with drunk people losing their belongings all the time. And maybe they could search for the phone even if you were across the strait.

Then you noticed that Luna was biting her lip, seemingly lost in a recurring thought.

“What are you thinking?” you prodded. She did not react. “Luna?”

She looked up from the floor, surprised to be addressed.

“Nothing,” she said, hesitating. “It’s sort of a conspiracy theory more than it is based on actual facts. But, um, you did mention seeing Sid and Jude at the club.”

You watched Maggie pull on her hair so hard that a few strands stayed in her grasp when she let go. Neither of you liked how plausible Luna’s not-fact-based theory was.

“You think they took my bag,” you surmised. “But why?”

“I don’t know,” Luna replied. “Why does Sid do anything?”

Your frown deepened. She had a disturbingly solid point. Sid was diabolical.

“That’s…” you faltered, thinking. “Well, he could have—although I didn’t even have anything in my bag except for Maggie’s—oh. Shit.”

Your sudden realisation—and the subsequent horror flashing across your face—surprised both girls. Maggie stepped closer to you.

“What is it?” she asked.

You pulled out your phone and opened Instagram.

“Sid posted a—he posted the picture,” you explained, scrolling down your feed, then abandoning this decision and going directly to Sid’s profile. “The one Maggie showed us at the club.”

You found the post and turned your phone towards the girls. The expressions on their faces made it very clear that Luna’s hypothesis was not far-fetched at all. Maggie looked delightfully murderous.

“Jungkook thinks Sid got it from his phone,” you said, “but what if—wh-what—”

“My phone was in your bag. He could have downloaded it from my gallery,” Maggie concluded, staring at the screen.

She wasn’t just angry about her stolen phone or the filter Sid had put over a perfectly good picture. She was also angry about him using a photograph that she was proud of to stir up trouble.

“That fucking loser,” she said. “That massive fucking piece of shit. Fucking good-for-nothing rat. Motherf—”

“Yeah, Mags,” you interjected, knowing she might not stop for a while. Last week, she had kept mumbling curses under her breath for forty minutes straight after Jimin ate the last pack of tomato ketchup crisps that she’d brought with her on tour. “We agree with you.”

Luna continued to bite her lip until it took upon an angry shade of red. She did not want to be responsible if she’d just led you in the wrong direction. Maggie already seemed prepared to crush your phone in her hand as she stared at Sid’s post.

Luna tried to reason, “we don’t know if that’s really what happened, though.”

“No, but it makes sense. You have to be right,” you insisted, glancing at the clock above the door. “Fuck. I—I have to—I have to get the band together before their soundcheck, but after that, I’m—I’ll talk to Minjun.” You brought your hand through your hair, angrier at yourself than you were at Sid right now. “We should have left the club right after I talked to Jude. It was a shitty call to stay there. But we’ll find your phone, Mags. And if Sid was really the one who took it, he’s—well, he’s not going to be taking shit from anyone anymore.”

Some of the tension in Maggie’s posture eased at your words.

“Well, we couldn’t have known they’d do something like that when we decided to stay,” Luna said, her voice comforting. “If they indeed—”

“Alright,” Maggie interrupted, taking a deep breath and returning your phone to you. “Let’s kill him.”

The room fell silent. You did not know if Maggie was aware of the undeniable resolve in her voice. She’d said that like she would have said, “let’s get lunch,” while already holding boxes of take-out in her hands.

“Or, you know,” she added in response to your and Luna’s expressions, “let’s beat him up. That’ll work, too.”

You glanced at Luna and the smile spreading on her face made you lose your calm, too.

“We’ll do that,” you promised Maggie, grinning as you wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned your head against hers. “If we can’t come up with anything better.”

“Hell yeah,” Luna agreed, joining you on Maggie’s other side. “He’s got a few teeth left, right? We can start counting who knocks out more. Jungkook is in the lead right now, but I don’t like losing, so—”

You and Maggie burst into laughter so loud and sudden that Luna flinched in surprise. Maggie even had to clutch your arm for support as she bent over, struggling to breathe in between wheezes. Her laughter was so infectious that Luna couldn’t keep a straight face much longer, either.

You were convinced that you would fix everything.

You’d find Minjun and ask if he had talked to Sid or Jude since Wednesday. If not, you’d get to the two of them yourself. Maggie would take care of them if they had your bag. And if, by some lucky chance, they would turn out to be innocent, you’d go to the police to find the real culprit.

You gathered the band—and Namjoon, of course—in the changing room of the venue before the soundcheck. Mindful of your limited time, you started by sharing the updates from CJ – the festivals next summer, the arena tour, and finally, the strategic shift that Jett Records was planning for Rated Riot, including your promotion and the expansion of the management team.

Once the cheers and the high-fives died down, you asked the boys to settle down for one last thing.

“The opening act,” you said, scrolling to the very bottom of the meeting agenda you’d prepared on your Notes. “Ren is still recovering from his broken foot, so we—”

“Because Ren is a whiny baby,” Jungkook chimed in helpfully. He was leaning against the wall instead of sitting around the table like the rest of his bandmates.

You gave him a look that was not particularly grateful but lacked any real threat. He grinned.

“So, Poison Tongue might be out for the rest of the tour,” you went on. “We’re talking to several other bands that might join you instead. Ivy will continue to support you on the upcoming shows in London and Paris.”

The band members nodded. They’d grown accustomed to Ivy’s presence—she used to be a tattoo artist and brought her equipment with her when she travelled, which everyone on tour appreciated. You and your girls personally found it wonderful to have another girl around.

“Alright. That was the last thing on my list, but it—there’s something else we have to discuss,” you paused, glancing around the room to keep your voice steady. Jungkook gave you a firm nod of support from the back of the room, no longer fooling around. “Uh, there was a picture posted last night. I’m sure you’ve all seen it. Namjoon took care of it; he informed the label that it’s the leaked cover of your upcoming album. But I want to emphasise that it doesn’t have to be the cover of anything. We can say it was one of the options, but we settled on something—”

“I like it,” Taehyung interjected. “The picture, I mean. I think we could use it as the cover for our next single, at least. It fits, right?”

“It does,” Yoongi agreed. You felt a tingle of unease creeping down your spine. “The lyrics match the picture very well.”

That was understandable, given the subject matter of the lyrics, but you were grateful that Yoongi did not elaborate further. You felt Jungkook watching you from across the room and your skin was burning.

“And it fits in with the rest of our album covers, too,” Hoseok joined, solidifying the consensus.

The decision had already been made, so Jungkook only shrugged when your eyes slid over to him.

“I say we use it,” he said. “It’s a great shot.”

For the first time since you joined Rated Riot, you genuinely worried that you might not keep your composure.

Every person in this room—and many people in the corridors, working on Rated Riot’s show—knew that you and Jungkook were the people in the photograph, and they all agreed to help you hide your relationship in plain sight. Aching discomfort and heartfelt gratitude fought a fierce battle inside your chest.

“Well, then, alright,” you said, your voice quivering slightly on the last syllable. You fixed your gaze on the white table. “That’s, uh, settled, then. Thank you, Namjoon, by the way. That was great quick thinking on your part.”

“No problem,” Namjoon replied. Hoseok leaned back in his chair to pat him on the shoulder and Namjoon gave him a smile before explaining, “I didn’t mean to jump the gun, but—”

“No, no,” you cut him off. “You did great. It’s—well, it’s good PR, claiming he just leaked the cover art. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Maggie’s the one who took a great picture.”

Hums of agreement filled the room, and you nodded, too. Maggie had always been a field photographer. She felt claustrophobic in a closed photo studio, she needed the space, the action, the emotion. And she knew how to capture it all. It was a great picture. It was a shame what Sid was trying to do with it.

“She did, yeah,” you said before noticing the time on your phone. “But, uh, anyway, that—that was all. Any quick questions?”

No one spoke, and the momentary silence in the room felt a little disconcerting. These were the loudest people you’ve ever met, so you did not enjoy feeling like a teacher, asking for volunteers to solve an excruciating equation. Actually, you did not enjoy standing here at all right now; pins and needles chased each other all across your body.

“In that case,” you locked your phone and set it down on the table, “go out, and get ready for the night. It’s going to be a good one.”

Someone cried out, “fuck yes!”—it was hard to determine who, due to the immediate shouts of agreement that followed—and the boys tumbled out of the room, making as much noise as they could. Right away you felt a little better. Everyone had already been excited about the concert tonight, but the news about the extended tour and bigger venues only amplified their emotions.

You ended up watching each of the boys leap over the threshold of the door for no reason whatsoever, just to see who could jump the farthest—until Jungkook smacked his head right into the top of the door frame.

Pouting, he walked over to you after everyone else had finished laughing and left. You fixed his hair, trying to bite back your laughter, and he pulled you into a hug, groaning in disapproval when he felt you chuckle softly against his chest.

“Is your head okay?” you asked, the humour in your tone undeniable, despite your attempts to suppress it.

“No,” he said, tightening his grip on your waist until he heard your quiet gasp. “Oh, now it’s a little better.”

“Oh, it’s better,” you retorted, evidently taking up the challenge. “I see.”

The force of your grip was nowhere near as strong as his—although it was very impressive, he had to admit; he did lose his breath for a split second—but you felt his smile spread as he leaned his head against yours, and that was good enough.

He hummed against your neck, swaying with you in his arms, and you realised that you could not think about Sid’s picture or Maggie’s phone now that it was just the two of you in the room. That was good. You wouldn’t have wanted to speak to Jungkook about any of that right before his concert anyway.

“Now it’s okay,” he whispered. “Fifteen more minutes and I’ll be good as new. Maybe twenty.”

You smiled, but one of your hands had stopped drawing soothing patterns on his back.

“You have to go, though,” you reminded him reluctantly. “Jin will rip you a new one if you’re not on stage in two and a half minutes. He and Jimin got into an argument with one of the local sound engineers earlier today, so he wants to finish the soundcheck as quickly as possible.”

Jungkook groaned, releasing you, but keeping his gaze on yours.

“Can I just tell him I hurt my head,” he asked, “so I deserve special treatment?”

“Not sure,” you replied. “I think that only works with me.”

His laughter was loud and unapologetic. Before you could say anything else, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you back into his chest again, resting his forehead against yours.

“What are you doing?” you whispered, concerned about his poor time management and the relatively open space that you were in. The door was closed this time, but not locked.

“Nothing,” he replied softly. His lower lip brushed against yours as he spoke. You felt dangerously light. “If you say I’m late.”

“Well, n-not yet... You have about,” your breath hitched momentarily when he pressed a gentle kiss just under your jaw, “a minute and forty-five seconds left.”

“Well, then,” he lifted his eyes to look at you again, but only for a moment, “I have to make the most of my,” his lips touched yours slowly, but firmly, “one minute and,” his quick kiss gained more force, “thirty seconds.”

You were laughing by the time he kissed you again, and he could not stop himself from smiling, too. He knew he was running late, but he kept his lips on yours, the kiss focused, lingering, and locked your taste in a separate part of his brain—a part so full of you that it was beginning to overtake other, much less important parts.

“I love you,” he whispered, pulling away.

His lips glistened slightly from your gloss. Your heart, having already finished three laps around the venue, had now taken up parkour in the crevices of your chest.

“I love you,” you replied. You ran your fingers down his cheek, forgetting yourself, almost, when he leaned into your touch. Then you pulled back and nodded at the door. “Go now. I’ll see you after the show tonight. There’s, uh—I have a plan I want to discuss with you.”

Jungkook was about to object—you couldn’t remove your hands from his skin so abruptly, there was a certain procedure you had to follow to ensure he could still breathe when you were no longer touching him, similar to replacing nicotine patches for someone trying to quit smoking—but then he realised what you were saying.

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow and stayed still despite your utmost attempts to push his shoulder to get him to turn around. “About Sid?”

You nodded. “Yeah. But I’ll explain later.”

You expected him to question this, to try to find out what the plan was right now, but he did no such thing. He felt happy and optimistic—kissing you might have helped with that—so he did not need to know more. You could have said that you were taking all of your staff to Argentina to escape Sid, and he would have grabbed his sunglasses.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in, either way. Operation Cobra-Rabbit.”

“Operat—” You scoffed, suddenly remembering your conversation after the film yesterday. “We’re not calling it that. It’s not a secret operation, it doesn’t need a name. You’re going to your soundcheck now, and then we’ll—”

“How about Operation: Escape from London?” he suggested, dragging his feet as you pushed him towards the door. “Since, you know, we’re in—”

“No,” you said. “Go.”

He didn’t protest this time, because Seokjin’s angry, hurried footsteps were already reverberating down the corridor, and Jungkook did not want to piss him off more. Still, he paused again by the door, giving you one last overly dramatic nod over his shoulder as if he were in a spy film. Then he left with a triumphant fist in the air after finally earning a chuckle from you.

You shook your head as he shut the door of the room behind himself, leaving you alone—not for very long, however.

Less than a minute later, as you returned to the table that Hoseok and Yoongi had dragged to the centre of the room for your meeting, you heard the door open again. You lifted your head, ready to scold Jungkook, and saw Namjoon instead, peeking inside sheepishly.

“Hey,” he greeted, hesitating in the doorway. “Didn’t want to interrupt your meeting, so I, uh, waited until it’s over. Do you have a minute?”

A knot tightened in the pit of your stomach. There were too many things that already took you by surprise today. You were not sure how many more of them you could take.

“You wouldn’t have interrupted,” you said, mustering a smile. “You’re part of the team. Come in.”

Namjoon slipped into the room without any sound at all and took a moment to close the door, his hand lingering on the engraved knob.

“Yeah, uh—I just want to have a quick word with you,” he said, turning around. “About why I called CJ in advance.”

“Oh. You don’t have to explain that,” you said. “It—that was a good decision. Thank you for thinking of it. You might have really saved—”

Namjoon started to speak in the middle of your sentence as if he hadn’t heard you.

“I was with Yoongi in his room, working on the song, when we saw Sid’s post,” he said, clearly battling his guilt about the extra attention the picture had gained because of him. He wanted you to know that he had no bad intentions. “It was about four in the morning when we—well, actually, a fan sent it to Yoongi, and asked, “oh my god, is this the cover of your new album?” Obviously, Yoongi and I thought that was impossible; we haven’t even decided when we’re releasing this new song. We could tell that Sid was just trying to mess with Jungkook, and that it had to be you in that picture with him.”

Self-conscious when he gave you a questioning glance, you brought a hand over your neck. “It is.”

“Yeah. So, I called CJ right away,” Namjoon continued. “I don’t think I even had a clear plan of what I was going to say to him or what time it was for him. But he picked up, and I just blurted out, “our album cover leaked,” because that was what that fan had assumed. And why not, you know? If the fans think that’s what happened, why not utilise that to eradicate whatever Sid was trying to do? The picture’s really good. Might as well use it for—for a good cause, instead of whatever Sid was hoping for.”

“Right. Yeah. Exactly,” you said. The more words you used to agree with him, the clearer it became that you still wished you could have escaped this situation. “And now Sid’s caption makes it seem like he’s just—”

“Congratulating them,” Namjoon finished for you. “Happy for you, he’d said. Makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you allowed for several quiet moments to pass, lost in your own thoughts. Namjoon shifted his weight to his right leg and tucked his thumb into his belt loop.

“I, um—I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, though,” he said, looking up. “I knew things might get… weird if I didn’t do anything. The picture itself might not have caused any harm, but given the speculation surrounding it, and your upcoming promotion… I thought that using the picture as an album cover was just safer.”

“Yeah, it—no, I—I’m glad you did that, really,” you said, a little thrown off by the mention of your promotion. “I don’t know if I would have thought of a solution like that.”

Namjoon believed you would have come up with a similar plan quite easily. The problem was that you did not want to draw even more attention to the picture.

“Y-you said—um,” you added, “did you know that CJ was going to call me?”

His pursed lips turned into a timid smile.

“I heard some things…” he admitted.

You arched a surprised eyebrow. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I hear a lot of things you wouldn’t want to know.”

You nodded. You were fortunate to work with many amazing people, but you had heard their stories. You knew what this industry had been like to them before they reached this point. And you felt very blessed that these same people now shielded you from the negativity that they had not been able to escape themselves.

“Alright,” you said. You were glad, all of a sudden, that CJ had not elaborated on his decision to suddenly promote you. “That’s fair enough.”

You returned to your belongings, sliding your phone into your pocket, and Namjoon observed you in silence for a second, only moving to assist you when you began to push the table back to its original place by the window.

“So,” he said, once the room was restored to its former order, “how come you look so worried? Head Manager! That’s great.”

“Oh,” you said. “It is great.”

Namjoon knew there was more. The two of you hadn’t had many chances to have private conversations during this tour, but usually, you were the person he came to talk to about the problems in his job, and he expected the same from you.

He gestured towards the couch next to the table and waited until you took a seat before sitting down next to you with an expectant look on his face.

“It—well, really, this is great,” you said, clasping your hands together as you rested your elbows on your knees. This was standard, Namjoon knew. You needed a minute to admit what was bothering you. “I’m grateful. There’s just a lot of stuff going on right now. Nothing I want to trouble you with, but, uh, this promotion feels… well, it feels like my work had very little to do with it. They found out about Reconnaissance and just decided to promote me. I’m happy, of course, but I wish they had waited until after the tour, so I could say, with confidence, that this was due to everything I’ve achieved with Rated Riot. And not just because Nick Zhou called me one time.”

Namjoon appeared to be highly interested in one specific crack in the floorboards.

“But this is because of everything you’ve achieved with Rated Riot,” he said, not looking up. You wondered if he did that on purpose, to make you feel less like you were talking to a specific person, and more like you were just talking—so you would not feel bad about sharing your troubles. “You took the abstract concept of a European tour and brought it to life. And then Rated Riot got on stage, and the whole Europe fell in love with them. But you brought them here. You looked after them. And the staff. And, actually, their personal belongings. Sorry about Tilburg.”

You smiled, recalling the Lost Laptops of Tilburg.

“It’s nothing. I was just doing my job,” you said. “And everyone on this tour looks after one another. That—well, that’s the whole point, I—”

“No,” he disagreed, finally giving you a look. “You’re never just doing your job. You’re always doing more. You earned this. Accept it.”

Namjoon had used a very similar tone to defend you from bitter, middle-aged men who had a problem with your promotion after CJ’s assistant had brought it up at the last Zoom meeting with the executives at the company. Their issue was your young age. Namjoon did not think a person needed to start balding to be awarded for their great work.

“CJ actually didn’t even give me the option to refuse,” you said, your smile turning wry. “He just told me I’m getting promoted and I felt like I had to go along with it.”

Namjoon nodded knowingly. He had several similar experiences with Christian Jett before. He had even played tennis with him once and called him Chris—not CJ—by accident. Luckily, he managed to duck before a tennis ball came hurling at his head. Namjoon knew CJ did not give suggestions; he gave orders.

“Would you have refused, if he’d asked?” he asked you.

“No, but…” You spun your ring around your index finger and settled back against the couch. “Can I be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I am—honestly, I’m also worried about my relationship with Jungkook,” you said.

Namjoon noted that this was the first time you brought this up to him without encouragement. Despite his surprise, however, he did not want to let the awkward silence take over the room, so he coughed politely into his fist and tried to reply, not particularly smoothly.

“What do you—what are you worried about?” he asked, even though that was obvious.

“I talked to Jin the other day,” you said. “He said that as long as the band makes a profit, no one’s going to care—which is true enough. But with this happening, with Rated Riot growing more and more popular, with my promotion… they will have to care. Our relationship has, obviously, never been strictly professional. And now it could hinder their plans for the band.”

Namjoon mulled over this for a minute, his gaze drifting to the expanse of the empty room. He had obviously had similar thoughts as you when he made the call to CJ, but now he realised that this was only half the picture.

“If they’re promoting you,” he began, his voice steady against the subdued air in the room, “that obviously means they want to keep you in the company. So, when they learn about your relationship, they definitely won’t immediately decide to fire you. I suppose they will ask you to end the relationship, or they won’t care about it at all. Those are the only two logical possibilities, right?”

“Right,” you agreed.

“If they tell you to end it,” Namjoon continued, “I think you’re in a position to present them with a similar ultimatum. Tell them that you will leave if they won’t accept your relationship. That is risky, I’ll admit. But they need you. And, from what I hear, they know you have other options.”

There was a quality about Namjoon that you really admired. Often, when people wanted to make someone feel better, they said things that they knew would lift their spirits—you appreciated that as well, just in a different way. Namjoon, on the other hand, managed to offer comfort tempered with rationality.

You took a deep breath and stretched your legs.

“Yeah,” you said. “Negotiate, is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes. More or less,” he confirmed. “But, of course, you have to decide what, uh—what you will do if they refuse to do it your way.”

You shook your head.

“I’ve already decided,” you said. The smile on your face was as sad as smiles could be. “If they will tell me it’s one or the other, I won’t choose to stay at the company. I’ll choose him.”

Namjoon nodded and hung his head. He hoped you would think he did that in solidarity, but, really, he was trying to hide his smile. Of course, he was a little worried about the label’s reaction. But he was also happy for you and Jungkook.

Not to mention, he had been roped into joining the bet about your relationship backstage—Seokjin was very loud, and Namjoon embarrassed very easily—and now he might have been the first to find out that he’d won.

He couldn’t resist the urge to ask, “I—are you guys, um, back together, then?”

“Honestly,” you said, snickering at the absurdity of your position, “at this point, it feels like we never even broke up.”

Namjoon’s smile was too big to hide it. “So, you are, then.”

“We are. And, it’s—you know,” you said with a shrug that was not one bit nonchalant, despite your best attempts to make it seem so, “I’d love to still be able to keep working with you guys despite that, but, uh—I’ll deal with whatever happens. If they will think this is unacceptable, I’ll leave.”

“It may not come to that,” he said, his tone reassuring, yet grounded. “There’s still a good chance that the label won’t care. I mean, Taehyung is in a relationship.”

“Yeah,” you gave him a skeptical look, “but Luna isn’t working with him.”

“True,” he acknowledged before pursuing his point further, “but that relationship only has a positive impact on the band. He’s relaxed when she’s here, her presence helps him cope with the stress of the tour… on and on this list goes.”

That was a great observation, of course. Not to mention, you enjoyed having Luna around, too. But you knew that there was more to the story.

“I had to fight for that, though,” you said. “Jett Records didn’t think we should allow any girlfriends, friends, or relatives on tour. I had a different opinion.”

Namjoon did not know this, but his surprise quickly turned to pride.

“Oh,” he said, beaming. “But you won, though. They allowed our loved ones to join. You got your way.”

“Yes, but that could be because they didn’t think the tour would be this successful,” you countered. “Sure, most of the dates sold out before we came here, but it—that’s the minimum requirement. You know that. So, alright, the label already knew that Rated Riot would gather two or three thousand people every night. But they didn’t realise there’d be another thousand waiting outside the venue in every city we visited. Their attitude might change now that they know about the level of interest in the band.”

Namjoon noticed a tentative smile tugging at your lips. Despite your concerns about the future, the fact was that this tour—with all its mishaps and accidents—had already surpassed everyone’s expectations. Rated Riot were on a clear path to success and the unexpected crowds at each venue made it impossible not to feel excited, no matter what happened next.

“That’s just the thing, though,” Namjoon said, his eyes kind. “When you came to manage Rated Riot, they were still playing in bars and restaurants. All they had was potential. But with you, they’re starting to live up to it. Not to mention... there has to be a reason why Nick wanted to scout you for Reconnaissance. The label knows they need you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in such a rush to promote you without even asking if you agree.”

You realised you hadn’t thought of it like that. But Namjoon was right. Everything he’d said to you was true.

You loved your job, and you were good at it. It was just this one hiccup in your otherwise excellent performance as the band’s manager that made you doubt everything you’ve done for them: you were dating the lead vocalist.

But you listened to Namjoon now, and you realised your thoughts weren’t fair. Your relationship with Jungkook did not—and never would—impact your ability to do your job, and do it well. It was not an indicator of the quality of your work. It was not proof of your lack of effort or motivation.

You were learning, through agonising trial and error almost every day, that these two roles—manager and girlfriend—could co-exist. You did not need to relinquish one to succeed at the other.

Namjoon noticed that your eyes seemed brighter, your shoulders were less hunched and you no longer averted your gaze when he looked at you. The melodic strains you heard as the band finally started their soundcheck likely helped you calm down, too.

“I realise,” you admitted, “that I am nervous about big changes. About multiple big changes, concurrently.”

Namjoon had to lean in closer to be able to hear you—Hoseok pounded his drums behind the wall as if his life depended on it.

“I think that’s normal,” he noted. “Who wouldn’t be?”

He hoped to remind you that it was very easy to get lost in your feelings and experiences, and convince yourself that you were going through them alone—but you weren’t. And you saw that very clearly today.

“And it’s okay,” he continued. “I can’t make decisions for you, but you’re—you have us. We’ll always have your back. We won’t sit idly if we find out the label made you resign.”

You took a breath and finally allowed the gratitude in your heart to really settle.

“Thank you,” you said. “For everything. I really liked your advice about standing my ground. I think I’ll try to follow it.”

Namjoon smiled at this and nudged your shoulder with his. Smiling in response, you nudged his right back.

You’ve found your family when you met Rated Riot. They made bets about your relationship, they teased each other at nearly every possible moment, they complained and argued, but they supported each other with unwavering loyalty. And you were prepared to fight, if it came to it, to stay with them.

You were convinced that CJ had put a hex on you, because you had to spend the rest of the day on your phone, arranging interviews, giving comments about the band’s plans for the future, and pacing in the corridors of the venue. You could not even return to the hotel to pick up your forgotten laptop, you had to do all the work on your phone.

You still had to figure out what happened to Maggie’s phone, but you resolved to track down Minjun and ask him about Sid and Jude later, after the incessant calls stopped. For some reason, everyone demanded to talk to you in Dutch or Swedish or something that sounded vaguely German, and all you could gather from their speech was ‘Rated Riot’ and a questioning tone at the end of the sentence.

You still hadn’t finished by the time Rated Riot began their set on stage, so you had to return to the dressing room for some silence, no matter how much you’d missed hearing the way the audience responded to the band. Thankfully, you only had two more calls to get through—both in Swedish, much to your enormous joy.

After you left the changing room to finally join Luna by the stage, you heard a peculiar sound—a soft, conspiratorial shushing from somewhere in the corridor backstage, like someone trying to beckon a cautious cat.

“Psst. Psst. Pss—hey!”

You did not immediately realise that this was aimed at you. Stopping, you looked around warily until you finally spotted Minjun’s head peeking out from behind the corridor wall. He was trying not to attract too much attention to himself, so he did not use your name.

“What’s going on?” you asked, approaching him. “Why—”

“Come with me.”

“Wh—” you began, but Minjun’s hand darted out from behind the wall, joining his head, and he seized your wrist.

He pulled you down the corridor with an urgency that made your heart drop to your knees and he refused to stop no matter how much you struggled to watch your steps.

“What’s going on?” you demanded, altering between genuine fear and irritation.

“Jude’s here,” Minjun said and tripped over something as soon as he did, forcing you to stumble, too.

“Jude—with Sid?” you asked, your insides stirring with newfound horror.

Jude never went anywhere alone, and you did not like this rush that Minjun was in to get to him. You tried once more to stop running, or slow down at the very least, but Minjun was a train, running late on schedule.

“No,” he said, his grip on your wrist firm, his eyes frantic. “Alone.”

“Why?” you pressed.

He did not reply until he brought you to a halt outside the door at the far end of the corridor, leading to what appeared to be either a utility closet or an unusually small dressing room.

“Come in,” he said then, without any explanation, and held the door open for you.

You pushed the door further.

Jude stood before you inside the room. He looked more transparent than he had at the club the other night, and you weren’t sure if this wasn’t just a hazy memory. He was holding your handbag in his hands.

You wished you were back on the phone with the impatient Swedish journalist from before.

“Hi. This is yours,” Jude said awkwardly, extending your bag towards you.

You stood in the doorway and did not move. “How did you get that?”

Minjun had to gently push your arm with his shoulder so he could enter the room. Jude appeared very small as he held out your bag and tried to find his words.

“I, um—after I talked to you at the club,” he said, “I told Sid that I saw you, and he—he made me hang around and wait until you weren’t paying attention. I told him I knew which table you and your friends were at, and he thought—h-he wanted your phone.”

He waved the handbag, his alarmingly thin arms growing tired, and you finally took it from him. Maggie’s phone was inside, snug among scattered receipts.

Luna had been right—not that you doubted her for a second. And it made sense now, why Jude had lingered that night: he was waiting for Maggie and Luna to pick a table.

“I ju—I just had to wait until you all went dancing,” Jude continued, his voice unsteady. “A-and I was supposed to grab your phone. Sid was—he was desperate.”

Your posture was rigid, your eyes locked on Jude in a way that stopped him from breaking eye contact, and even Minjun felt a little uncomfortable. He knew more of what happened, after all; Jude had to explain it all to him to persuade him to find you. Minjun did nothing to interfere now, however. Jude was the one who wanted to talk to you, so he should have been the one to convince you to listen.

“Why?” you asked finally, your voice cutting through the tense silence, and slicing into Jude’s fragile confidence.

He glanced at Minjun, who gave him a small nod. Encouraged, Jude rubbed his hands together and began to speak. He could taste bile at the back of his throat, but the bitter sensation had been there for a while.

“He was looking for something to use against you and Jungkook,” he explained. “He hoped to find an old picture or video of the two of you together. When you were—when you dated. He wanted t-to cause a little trouble. If he couldn’t find anything, then h-he would have called Jungkook from your phone to, um—to give him the wrong idea.”

You gritted your teeth, reminding yourself that Jude was the accessory and the messenger. Your desire to slam someone’s face into a wall was not aimed at him.

“This isn’t mine, though,” you said, nodding at the phone inside your bag.

“Well, wh—it doesn’t matter,” Jude dismissed it with a shrug that seemed to propel his whole body backwards. “There were a lot of pictures from backstage in the gallery. Sid thought that was good enough.”

You wished Luna or Maggie were here with you right now, maybe both. Granted, Maggie might have attacked Jude—and you weren’t sure if you would have tried to restrain her, given your own urges—but at least you wouldn’t be standing here alone, trying to make sense of what was happening. Minjun’s quiet presence in the corner of the room did not offer much comfort. He was poised to intervene as if he was waiting for you to throw a punch.

“And why are you here?” you asked Jude.

You noticed that he was leaning slightly to one side despite standing firmly on both feet, and you wondered if this was a sign of how accustomed he was to standing on Sid’s right. Or maybe he was just drunk or under the influence of something stronger.

“Because you—you don’t owe me anything,” Jude replied, and you felt even more confused. His eyes looked watery, the edges of his pupils blurred. “You hate me, actually. And you have that right, I haven’t—I haven’t been very nice to you over the years. But you—you’re the one who told me to be careful. And Sid—I was—he left me for dead when he got bored later that night.”

You frowned, meeting Minjun’s brooding eyes across the room. He knew about this, you could tell. But he wanted Jude to do the talking.

Jude continued, “it started with a nosebleed. Then, I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. Sid tossed me another bag of ice as if I hadn’t already taken enough.”

You were slow to grasp that “ice” did not mean frozen water in this case, and you wondered how many different ways to describe meth Jude knew at this point.

Then you needed another second to stop your heart from overexerting itself. Your initial plan for Sid paled in comparison to the new one burgeoning in the dark depths of your mind.

“A-and then he left the hotel between my third and fourth wheeze,” Jude finished. “He said he didn’t have time for this shit.”

You allowed Minjun to give the appropriate reactions to the story—and he nodded empathetically every few seconds—while you were only half-listening.

This happened in their hotel room, then. And Jude had said, another bag.

How many bags of methamphetamine did Sid keep in his hotel room in a foreign country with possibly very strict drug regulations?

“I-I remembered you, sud—suddenly,” Jude stammered when you did not respond. You looked up, surprised by the weight of your presence in his memory. “You told me to drink water. I drank a lot that night, but it—it obviously wasn’t water. Water was—it’s not what we usually drink. I didn’t—but there was half a bottle in the room, so I finished that. I could see a little clearer after that. Or so I thought. I went to the sink, and—and drank as much tap water as I could bef—before I threw up.”

“You might have overdosed,” you observed, studying his appearance again. His bronze complexion had taken an unsettling, ashy pallor. His hands were shaking and he kept rubbing them together. He looked cold, but beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “Are you—”

“I don’t—it’s not my first time taking a bit too much,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow after he sensed your scrutiny. You blinked and looked away. “I’ve never really—never thought I would die before, so that was new. B-but I don’t think that I—I didn’t overdose. I think I just lost track of time because I was—I was waiting to steal your bag. For Sid.” His right hand trembled so awfully that he had to clutch it with his left to steady himself. “I’m really sorry.”

“Jude, I’m—”

“He left me for dead,” he reiterated before you could suggest calling a doctor. “You were right. He doesn’t care. I-I could have—I was de—dehyder—”

“Dehydrated,” you supplied.

“Yeah. That,” he affirmed, pausing to give you a grateful smile, then looking at Minjun for approval. Minjun did not move. Jude lowered his gaze again. “A-and he thought I was being a nuisance. He thought another dose would help me, and he just left.”

“And are you sure you don’t need help?” you finally asked. Your tone was strict, but Jude was touched by the sentiment so much that he swayed slightly on his feet. “You look like you could use some.”

He cast a pleading look at Minjun, and you feared that he was teetering on the verge of tears.

“Shit—y-you see,” he said, though it was not clear if he was addressing you or Minjun. “That’s what I mean. I don—I am—I’m fine now. I’m—I’ll be fine. I’m going home. I won’t go back to the hotel.”

Your surprise was quick and obvious, prompting Jude to launch into a hurried, almost fanatical explanation. He was eager to break through the formidable barriers of his usual reticence, which felt awkward and embarrassing now that Sid wasn’t here to tell him to keep quiet.

“I don’t want shit—I don’t want to deal with his shit anymore,” he said. “I’m flying home. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that. Y-you don’t even—you didn’t have to say anything to me, especially after all that I’ve done, but you said that, you told me to look after myself, a-and I don’t know. You might have saved my life that night. And—and you’re—y-you want to help me now. I’m—I’ll be okay. I’m just—I’m sorry.”

You winced at his exaggeration about your conversation at the club, but Minjun was the only one who’d noticed it. Jude was oblivious in his fervent need to get the words out, to explain, to apologise, to tell you how thankful he was.

You thought his gratitude was misplaced. He would have realised what to do in that situation anyway; he’d said something similar had already happened before, even if it hadn’t been as severe. He knew he had to drink if he took substances that could lead to overheating—you just happened to repeat it to him at a convenient time.

But just as you prepared to reply, the words died on your tongue.

You realised you could use his gratitude and guilt.

“Jude,” you said, breaking the rhythm of his laboured, frantic breaths. “If you really are okay, how—how would you feel about getting even with Sid for treating you like that?”

He stopped breathing for a second, confused. “W-what do you mean?”

Your gaze shifted to Minjun, whose initial surprise quickly melted into a realisation that lit up his features. He nodded enthusiastically.

“I have this idea,” you continued, returning your attention to Jude, who remained anchored against the back wall of the room, resembling a child caught drawing on the walls with a permanent marker. “But I would need you to stay in London a bit longer. Just a day or two. Could you do that?”

“That would be fair, I think,” Minjun added hastily. Jude hadn’t even processed your request yet. “It’s the least you can do after she practically saved your life—which she really didn’t have to do. I mean, you stole her bag.”

“I—but Sid asked me to do that!” Jude protested, panicked once more. He looked at you, his brows knit in an expression of profound desperation. He genuinely felt indebted to you, and he was dying to make it right. “I wouldn’t—I didn’t want to. You’ve never done anything wrong to me.”

“Well, exactly,” Minjun continued before you could respond. He could tell that Jude’s abnormally energetic apologies troubled you. “You kind of owe her, you know?”

Jude knew. You could tell he knew because he began to rub his hands together faster, his fingers restless, agitated as they ran over his calloused skin. He looked frightened. He looked like half of a person.

You felt the first threads of remorse coil around your mind for taking advantage of him in a state like this.

“Well, I—I—o-of course, I guess,” Jude acquiesced, though his compliance seemed strained—much like the rest of his actions, really. He needed to lie in bed for a week or two. “W-what would I have to do?”

You turned back to Minjun, who appeared to be waiting for you to give Jude any command whatsoever. Jude, in turn, appeared willing to comply with any command.

It occurred to you that perhaps Jude’s obedience to Sid did not stem from a specific attachment to him. Perhaps Jude had simply chosen to surrender his free will, and now he gravitated towards anyone who could make decisions on his behalf—as long as he could justify it to himself: a decades-long friendship with Sid, or a perceived debt he owed you.

Jude—as Minjun had suggested before—just didn’t know any better. And it was so easy, so very simple for him to just let someone else take the reins. To float down the stream instead of fighting it.

“Just keep spending time with Sid like you used to, okay?” you instructed. “Act as if nothing happened between you, like everything’s alright. Yeah? And we’ll be in touch with you.”

“Yeah,” Jude replied slowly. It took him a few seconds to grasp what had been said to him. You wondered if he’d always been this way, or if this was a lingering effect of all that he had to endure in the past twenty-four hours. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“That’s great,” you said. And then, because he continued to look smaller than his shadow, you added, “I, um—I understand you’re not a fan of hospitals, but how do you feel about pharmacies? They have a great selection of supplements I think you should try.”

You handed Minjun your handbag and he watched, in bewilderment, as you led Jude out of the room. You gave Jude step-by-step instructions—in excruciating detail that Minjun thought Jude did not deserve—about what to say at the pharmacy, which vitamins to seek, what nutritional products to consider, how to drink water, what fruit to buy on the way back to the hotel, and what to tell Sid if he asked questions about any of this.

Jude wrote it all down on his phone—a process that consumed an additional twenty minutes outside the venue—before he finally thanked you, apologised another dozen times, and walked away, leaning against the side of the building for support.

When you rejoined Minjun, you felt like you had just finished teaching six kindergarten classes.

“He’s gone,” you announced, sinking into the only armchair in the cramped room. Your foot came to rest on the handle of a discarded broom. You still weren’t sure what the purpose of this room was.

“Why’d you do all that for him?” Minjun asked, handing you your bag and leaning against the wall.

“Because I don’t want Rated Riot’s opening act to be Jude dropping dead,” you retorted. “He’s severely malnourished. Does he even eat when he—anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with his nervous system, he was shaking the whole time he was here. I don’t—I’m not Sid. I can’t stand to talk to someone half-dead without trying to do something.”

“Yeah,” Minjun said, still a little amazed at your lack of hesitation when you walked Jude outside. Jude had certainly never been as terrible as Sid, but he was still Sid’s closest friend. Yet, you were eager to help him feel better, when even Minjun had given up. “You’re not Sid. That’s what got us to this point. But you, um—you still didn’t have to go to such lengths for Jude. He… he’s always had withdrawal issues. He’s going to take something as soon as he goes back to the hotel, and he’ll probably be fine again.”

You exhaled. Probably was a very heavy word to carry on your shoulders everywhere you went.

“Yeah, but at least now my conscience won’t keep me up at night,” you said, stretching your arms over your head. “Besides, we’re kind of using him, so we obviously need him alive.”

“True…” Minjun faltered, his eyes shifting to the only minuscule window in the room and squinting. He could not see anything beyond the thick glass, obscured by rain residue. “It, uh—it’s great that Jude can be our man on the inside. I’m glad he realised what a fucking bag of shit Sid is. But, honestly, I’m not sure we can trust him if we send him straight back to that hotel. He might have a change of heart.”

“I know,” you admitted. Even if Jude felt indebted to you and demonstrated that by returning Maggie’s phone, his gratitude could prove temporary. Sid had an exceptional talent for coaxing good people into bad deeds. “That’s why I’m not telling Jude anything else we’re going to do.”

Minjun turned back to look at you, intrigued. “And what is it that we’re going to do?”

“I need to do some research first,” you said, your thoughts speeding a hundred miles per minute. “Did Sid reach out to you at any point over these past few days?”

“No.”

“Alright, so it’s just Jungkook, then.” You leaned forward, considering this. “I-I don’t get it, to be honest. I mean, I get that Sid is the spawn of the devil, but really, why is he—why does he care so much? Because this isn’t some prank. He’s digging up old videos, posting pictures that could have serious consequences for us, and he’s—he made Jude hang around the club to steal my fucking bag. That’s so stupid and over-the-top that I’m not even—I mean, does he really have nothing better to do?”

Minjun did not seem to share your confusion, and your shoulders slumped in disappointment. Clearly, Minjun did not think this was out of character for Sid at all.

“Well, yeah, he doesn’t have anything else going on,” Minjun said. “He doesn’t have a job. He has money and twenty-four hours in a day. Might as well torment people. Besides, he feels wronged. He won that bet he had with Jungkook, but—”

“No, I get that,” you interrupted, your gaze drifting to the same window that Minjun had attempted to look through before. “He’s always done this. But it makes no sense to me. Fucking with people just because he thinks they’re not miserable enough. That has to be some sort of a latent inferiority complex, this need he has to prove to everyone that he’s better than them. But I don’t—he’s going to have to take his insecurities elsewhere. He’ll have to fuck off. We’ll leave him no other choice.”

When you did not succeed in seeing past the thick fog over the glass, you turned back to Minjun again. He was grinning, for some reason, his bright smile standing out against the sombre atmosphere in the room.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing.” He chuckled, excitement twirling in his eyes. “I’m glad you and Jungkook are back together.”

You looked away, pensive.

“Come on,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “Let’s go defeat evil. I’ll help with your research.”

Minjun ended up providing fantastic assistance, and by the time the two of you had exhausted all the keywords in your Google search, you had a rough outline of what you’d do with Sid. You and Minjun both agreed that you needed Jungkook’s input, so the three of you would need to meet sometime later to finalise your strategy and set it into motion.

In the meantime, you had to find your friends, return Maggie’s phone, and update them on everything that had happened since you’d last seen them.

When you entered Rated Riot’s dressing room, the walls were pulsating with the beat of an old Arctic Monkeys song, blaring unapologetically from Yoongi’s Bluetooth speaker. You had thought you felt completely drained from this day, but the sight of everyone celebrating as they always did—as if it were the final show of the tour, the venue filled with their laughter, the floor wet from their spilt drinks—lifted your mood and your energy levels immeasurably.

Maggie was the first to catch your eye in the crowd of people. As soon as you returned her phone, a tipsy Yoongi interjected affectionately, “you find everyone’s lost eletornicks!”—which was almost an actual word, so you figured he still had room for more alcohol. He drifted away before you could say anything else, moving his shoulders to the rhythm of “Snap Out Of It” and joining Hoseok by the drinks table.

Luna noticed the slight commotion and approached you. As soon as you finished telling the girls what happened to your handbag, she broke into a surprisingly graceful, but very, very drunken performance of flailing her limbs and singing, “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” while Taehyung watched her from the doorway with unmistakable fondness. He had genuinely never looked more in love.

Then Maggie caught you off guard by wrapping her arms around you—as if you’d crossed Middle Earth and battled Smeagol for her phone—and you realised how safe, happy, and comfortable you felt here. It was such a stark contrast to the unease you had felt in Jude’s presence that you found yourself laughing, your chest feather-light.

Someone behind you suddenly cleared their throat—with such force that it sounded like they coughed up half of a lung—and Maggie pulled back, allowing you both to turn around.

Jungkook looked like he had been waiting for you to notice him for a while. Your friend snickered and hugged you once more before taking an intentionally ostentatious step back and bowing.

“She’s all yours if she wishes,” Maggie proclaimed to Jungkook, who turned to you, his eyebrows raised.

You nodded. “She wishes.”

Chuckling, he pulled you close. He was still high from the concert and just as lively and animated as everyone else in the room. The second he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face in your neck, he refused to let go, finding that only fair since you had ended up missing his show tonight.

You realised, while fighting for breath in his suffocating grip, that the two of you did not look strange or inappropriate to anyone who noticed you, despite standing almost in the middle of the room, wrapped around each other. You expected to feel anxious about the public display, and were surprised to feel comforted instead.

No one cared.

Unbeknownst to you, the bet backstage had ended, and now that everyone here knew that you and Jungkook were back together, they were no longer invested. They won their money—or lost, in a few cases—and moved on to make bets about whether Taehyung, who was too prideful to sing without his bass, would start singing along to Luna’s playlist on Yoongi’s phone.

No one cared.

Surrendering to Jungkook’s touch, you abandoned your other plans and relocated with him to the far corner of the room, separated from most of the dangerous festivities—Seokjin and Hoseok had bumped foreheads while dancing just as you walked past them—by a heavy rack of clothes.

Jungkook lied down on the couch with his head on your lap, recounting how he had accidentally turned off his microphone in the middle of his break during the encore and had to yell his speech at the audience because he couldn’t turn it back on.

“I’m glad your throat is alright,” you remarked. The warmth of your touch and the lightness of your tone filled him with something that tasted like honey on his tongue. “The rest of the guys also sound like they just got off the tallest ride at the amusement park.”

Jungkook’s laughter was soft, laced with a lingering echo of the concert that still reverberated in his mind amidst the lively chatter and the music in the dressing room.

“After the show,” he said with an unusual gravity in his tone, juxtaposed against the serenity in his eyes while you ran your fingers through his hair, “someone asked Yoongi and me about our new music. They asked if the picture on Sid’s account was a leaked album cover. We said yes. So, that—that’s confirmed now.”

Your hand stilled, and Jungkook lifted his head. He did not like the emotion he saw in your eyes when he looked at you and he felt melancholy, all of a sudden, for the moment you’d just shared. He wished he hadn’t said anything.

“Oh,” you replied. “That’s good.”

But it didn’t feel good. He couldn’t shake the memory of the way you’d looked after the band had unanimously decided to use the picture as the cover art for their next single. It seemed like the fact that everyone knew about your relationship was physically weighing on you.

He hadn’t said anything to you earlier, not wanting to exacerbate your anxiety, but he couldn’t keep this to himself now.

You’d promised each other communication.

“I—uh,” he sat up properly and you felt an odd ache inside when his head was no longer resting in your lap, “I know you’re not comfortable with us using the picture for that, um—for that particular purpose. And—and I get that. I just, uh—I just wanted to ask if y—if the actual problem here is that others know about us.”

The look on his face was an echo of your conversation last night. It threw you off balance, this statement, not even an actual question, and you were all the more aware of the loud beating in your chest and in your head. The music drowned out any chance of others overhearing your conversation, but it also muffled your thoughts.

You took a deep breath, so you could explain everything.

“No,” you said. Then once more, to make sure he heard you, “no. That’s not it. I don’t want—my problem is that we barely had one day together, you know? I would have liked some time alone with you before it all exploded. But Sid posted that picture, and now—now everyone in this room knows we’re definitely together. I mean, they already suspected it, since we’re not as discreet as I liked to think. But, uh, still. I am learning to be okay with others knowing, though. And I want you despite that. Despite others. Despite everything. I want to be with you. I just wanted to reveal our relationship to the public in our own time. Not Sid’s.”

Jungkook was not sure if you said anything else after I want you, because he certainly had not heard a word.

Frankly, he didn’t care about any public pictures. He wouldn’t have cared if a hurricane swept through the place, tearing down buildings and leaving debris that spelled out your names in the shape of a heart. But he knew you cared.

And yet—I want you despite everything.

He was crazy. Positively mad. A raving lunatic, really. He wondered if there was any medicine to subdue his symptoms because he did not think this was good for his health.

“Okay,” he said, looking down to get his feelings and his thoughts together. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re good,” you said. “It was—a lot of things happened today, and I was—I feel like I’m losing my head a little bit. But you and I are not—we’re not one of the things I’m confused about.”

He gave you a concerned look as he settled back on the couch. “What happened?”

You took a breath and recounted the story about Maggie’s missing phone, Luna’s observation—manifestation, almost—and Jude’s visit, which sparked the idea to include him in your plan to retaliate against Sid.

Jungkook spent a minute nodding, rubbing his chin, and moving his eyebrows up and down and sideways.

“Okay, that—that’s a lot of—and, uh—” He leaned forward, feeling a bit like the two of you had lived through an entire decade in one day. He could not summarise it all in one word. “What’s your plan?”

You took another breath. You and Minjun had checked and double-checked everything, so you were sure you had this part of your research right. The challenge of your plan came from the parts that couldn’t be researched in advance—the parts where you needed Jungkook.

“Did you know,” you started, “that the penalty for methamphetamine possession in the UK is up to seven years in prison? Apparently, it’s a class A drug.”

Furrowing his brows, Jungkook gave a slight nod of his head. “Uh… okay.”

“Right. Well, see,” you were sitting on the very edge of the couch, restless suddenly, “Jude mentioned tripping on ecstasy and speed that night I saw him at the club. And now, while returning Maggie’s phone, he mentioned Sid casually giving him a bag of meth. Just there, in his hotel room.”

“Mmhm, he—wait.” Jungkook straightened. “W-what are you saying?”

Someone jostled the rack of clothes next to your couch, causing a few hangers to clatter to the floor. You heard an excited shriek, followed by laughter, as two pairs of hands scrambled to pick up the clothes and hang them back in place.

You lowered your voice and moved closer to Jungkook on the couch. “You know what I’m saying.”

“I’m—”

“If a penalty exceeds twelve months,” you continued, “a person may be deported. That also sounds alright.”

Jungkook paused to listen to the sounds inside the room: the clothes rack had now been pushed back, shielding you from the rest of the room again, but limiting his view. He could hear Taehyung singing along to “Do I Wanna Know?” by the drinks table while Luna and Maggie waved the flashlights on their phones dreamily for extra ambience in the dimly lit room. He could also see, most unusually, the way Hoseok and Jimin seemed to be exchanging money right behind the two girls.

Jungkook leaned in even closer to you.

“You want to deport Sid?” he asked. You could feel his warm breath on your cheek when he spoke. “A-and lock him up?”

“Actually, I want to wring his neck and use his head to scare off pigeons,” you said. “But that would result in me getting locked up, and I really don’t have time for that right now.”

You watched the corners of Jungkook’s lips twitch as he tried to suppress a smile.

“No?” he teased, unable to resist. “I might like that. Think about all the street cred I’d get with a jailbird girlfriend.”

You snorted. “Yeah? Two one-hour visits every four weeks sound hot to you?”

“Hmm.” He pursed his lips. “No. You have a point, that won’t do it. I need you with me. Should we—should we tell Minjun about this plan, then?”

“Minjun knows. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow, okay? But I—I promise we’re going to teach Sid a fucking lesson,” you said. “And then I’m going to tell the label we’re together, and all will be right in the world for fucking once.”

Jungkook didn’t think he’d ever wanted to kiss you more than he did right then. The air around you felt static, and the bodies behind the clothes rack did not feel particularly corporeal. The side of his chest was pressed against yours and he could feel your heartbeat speed up when his gaze flickered to your lips.

“You know, you can be really evil sometimes,” he remarked, chuckling when you raised your eyebrows. “I love it. Count me in. Sid won’t know what fucking hit him, and I want to be there to see it. Not going to lie, though, it does sound like Operation: Escape from Londo—”

“No.”

You thought you could feel his laughter resonating in your chest.

“Can we do that, though?” he whispered after a moment. “Can we—you know? Deal with Sid? In-between dealing with the label?”

You nodded. You were determined to find your happy ending and, watching the faint lights reflected in Jungkook’s eyes, you thought you could already see it, waiting for you in the distance.

“If we handle Sid,” you said quietly, “we can handle anything.”

Jungkook liked the sound of that very much—almost as much as he liked the song playing in the background while he breathed in your scent, while he allowed it to engulf him, to drown his senses, to annihilate any sanity he had left.

However, he was aware that for a long time before this moment, he had been making all the wrong choices while dreaming of the right outcomes. It would take some time for him to adjust to the fact that he lived a different life now—a life where you were by his side, and his reality was suddenly significantly better than his dreams. He would need to hear you tell him that it was going to be okay just a few more times.

“And if the label says that no, we can’t, actually?” he asked, his tone hushed.

He was very close and you could no longer look at him without your vision clouding. Your head spun so much that your thoughts felt tipsy. You lowered your gaze to his chest, avoiding the sight of him biting his lip.

“I’ll just leave, then,” you replied.

Jungkook pulled back suddenly. “You—but—no.”

You were breathless and slightly disoriented when you raised your head. The room was very dark, and he was very far away.

“We—we’re staying together regardless,” you said, distracted.

He still looked wounded.

“But that’s not fair to you,” he argued.

You shook your head and sighed. The Arctic Monkeys song on the speakers faded, changing to Rated Riot’s “Cursed,” and the room erupted into cheers as if the band members themselves had stood up to perform the song. You shivered under Jungkook’s gaze.

“That—it doesn’t matter,” you said. “I already told you before. If that’s the only way we can work, I don’t mind leaving the company. I’ll miss everyone, but I’m—we’d stay in touch anyway, I’m sure.”

Jungkook was torn. He wanted to tell you not to go—cast a spell or a curse, whichever worked—but his song played in the background, and you were trying very hard to keep a straight face on the couch next to him. It felt like a spell had already been cast.

He didn’t want you to leave, and in this moment, he felt convinced that you never would. You were not meant to.

“At least fight back,” he said, “if these fucking lawyers have a problem with us being together.”

A smile finally broke through your restraints.

“I will,” you promised. “You want me to punch someone? Knock out their teeth for good measure?”

He grinned, too. His black eye had already healed, save for a few stubborn cuts around his cheekbone. The altercation he’d had with Sid seemed a lifetime away—a lifetime that he was not sure belonged to him anymore.

“Please,” he said.

“Hmm.” You leaned in closer, brushing your fingers over the side of his neck. “I’ll see what I can do without joining Sid in prison.”

He felt the way his skin came to life, the way all of his cells leapt up and screeched, as soon as you touched him. He thought that perhaps he had contracted some sort of eye disease on top of his blatant insanity, too, because the dark room had brightened all of a sudden.

He knew he had gone right out of his mind, and he’d never felt better.

“I love you,” he whispered, and his nose touched yours when he said it.

“I love you,” you whispered back, and the happy ending that you had seen in his eyes felt no more than a breath away.

It approached you in silence, dimming the lights in the room, and in the building, and on this side of the world, so it could light the ones in your eyes and your chests.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jungkook whispered, the tips of his fingers tracing tenderly over your cheek. He felt it coming, too. “And I hope you stay.”

You closed your eyes. “I promise I’ll do everything to stay.”

Your lips finally touched his, and he discovered that you tasted exactly like the medicine he needed to halt his descent into madness, to calm the anxious beating of his heart, to clear his uncertain mind, and to dry the ink he’d used to engrave your name onto his soul.

chapter title credits: bad omens, “exit wounds”

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#jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook fanfiction #bts reactions #bts imagines #bts fanfiction #jungkook x you #bts au #jungkook au #bts x you #bts x reader #bts rockstar au #jungkook rockstar au #jungkook fanfic #bts fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fic #jeon jungkook x reader

[grey342]

Grovel

Phil Wenneck x reader

synopsis - You make Phil grovel after an argument

warnings - MDNI 18+ content, teasing Phil, slightly in public, P in V, no protection and Phil talking you through it (kinda).

authors note - Thank you guys for being so patient it means the world to me! I'm gonna try to post at least once a week but, school may get in the way of that fml. Thank you again for all the support and I hope you like this one. P.S- this was kinda rushed so apologies for that :)

please do not steal my work - belongs to @grey342

If looks could kill, I would've been dead as soon as I walked through the door.

There has been a bit of tension in the Wenneck household this week. Okay a lot of tension. It all started on Monday; Phil had to work late at the school again, which, of course, you had no problems with. However, the thing that bothered you was when he came home and revealed to you he was with that one colleague who has a massive crush on him.

Naturally being a grown adult, you communicated these concerns with Phil but, he claimed you were looking into things too much and he only has eyes for you. How cute.

So, you voiced these concerns to him yet again on Monday night. He claimed that you were being "dramatic" and "childish". Big mistake. You both started to go back and forth at each other until you ended the argument with the classic:

"you're sleeping on the couch tonight!"

Due to your stubbornness, the pair of you haven't spoken a word to each other since. It's now Friday night, the night you and your friends designated as the weekly get together.

You and Phil both agreed to act civil with each other but you weren't letting him get off that easy. You done your makeup exactly the way he likes, put on his favourite dress and, as the last kick in the teeth, put on his favourite matching set.

You had already everyone that you were going to run a little late due to work, so they all got started without you. You took an Uber to the bar and as soon as you stepped through the doors, you could feel his eyes burning into you.

You walk over to the table greet everyone and sit down next to him. The table began to converse with each other when you felt his breath on your neck.

"You think you're really funny don't ya?" He grunts.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." You respond, feining innocence.

"Oh you don't huh?" He retaliates slightly smirking. You shake your head slightly and join in on the conversation. He puts his hand on your thigh and grips it to gain your attention.

"I'm in the middle of a conversation sweetheart, don't be rude." You teased. He straightens himself and moves his hand higher. He slowly moves it higher and higher until he reaches underneath your dress.

You struggle to hide your smirk when you see him realise. He leans in his voice barely a whisper.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" You pull his hand out and place it on his lap.

"Control yourself Phillip, we're in public." You warn smirking as you notice the vein on his forehead, popping slightly. You love doing this to him. It's your favourite hobby; getting a rise out of Phil.

The dinner goes on and you've been teasing him non-stop, waiting for him to snap. It's when you hover your hand over his buldge and rub softly against it, he does.

"Okay so sorry to cut it short but we gotta go," he says standing and grabbing your hand, "Doug if you could call me tomorrow and give me our bill that would be great bye guys." They all mutter goodbyes as he drags you by the hand to the car.

He gets in and slams the door.

"What the fuck do you think your playing at? And don't even try to pull that innocent bullshit act. What is going on?" He exclaims.

"You know what's going on." You say avoiding his gaze. He scoffs.

"Are you seriously this pissed over her?"

"Yes, I am! And I know it's stupid but," you sigh, "I trust you with my entire life. But..I don't trust her and I know that's a ridiculous excuse but-" He takes your hand into his.

"Oh sweetheart, you should've told me this. If I knew you were this bothered by her I would've stopped talking to her months ago."

"Really?" You look into his eyes.

"Of course." He reassures.

"Now, don't think you're completely off the hook," you look at him confused, "oh honey, don;t tell me you thought you would get away with that little stunt you pulled at dinner." Your eyes widen in fear and excitement.

"Just wait until we get home."

Throughout the entire car ride, he seems freakishly calm. But as soon as you step foot into your apartment his hands are all over you as his mouth claims yours. You moan out of surprise and your hands immediately began to rake his back.

His hands reach your thighs, he lifts you up, your legs wrap around his waist, and carries you to the bedroom. He places you on the end of the bed and begins to strip down until he's in his underwear. You doing exactly the same. He stops dead in his tracks and his eyes scan you from top to bottom.

"Holy fuck baby." You go to take your bra off when he stops you.

"Leave it on." He demands and pushes you back onto the bed. Your mouths meet again in a wave of passion. His hands rubbing up and down on your thighs until he meets your core.

He begins to slightly rub over your clit through your panties making you moan in his mouth. He slowly picks up the pace but it's not enough to take you over the edge.

"Please.." You beg.

"Please what?" He taunts.

"Please let me cum." You breathe out.

"Oh I don't think you deserve that just yet." He pulls his fingers away and you whine at the loss of them. in the blink of an eye his boxers are off and he began pumping his dick. He pushes your panties over to the side and rubs his tip slowly over your slit. You moan at the sensation.

He pushes the tip in at an agonizing pace and you began to squirm out of impatience.

"What's wrong honey?" He teases.

"Please Phil.."

"Come on, you can do better than that."

"Please, please fuck me Phil."

"Atta girl." He says sliding all the way in. He gives you no mercy as he pounds into you, the headboard beginning to bang against the wall. He places his head in the crook of your neck, his grunts and whimpers vibrating against your neck.

"You think it's funny to tease me hm? Make you feel good?" He asks in between breaths. You whine, shaking your head.

"No, good. From now on 'm gonna prove to you everyday that you are ten times the woman she is." He moans and picks up the pace.

"She doesn't hold a torch to you baby, she never will." You moan loudly, feeling the pressure build in your lower stomach.

"Phil..?" Your breath quickens.

"Yes honey?"

"I'm gonna cum."

"Me too, hold on we'll do it together mkay?"

"Okay.." His hand moves down to rub you clit, you whimper in response.

"Ready," you nod your head rapidly, "cum baby, oh fuck, cum on my dick." The second he says that you let the pleasure consume you. You feel his cum shoot into you as he whimpers in your ear.

You place your hand on his head, slightly pulling on his hair. He looks at you with a playful smirk on his face.

"What?" You return the gesture.

"Round two?"

"Fuck off." You say chuckling. He leans forward claiming your lips. You smile into the kiss.

His head slumps on your chest and the pair of you let sleep take over.

#bradley cooper #bradley cooper x reader #phil wenneck #phil wenneck x reader #the hangover #x reader #smut #groveling

[just-jordie-things]

Gojo satoru and 23 prompt 🥺

prompt 23: exhausted parents kiss ___

for the most part, megumi and tsumiki were pretty well behaved kids. they were still kids, so ups and downs were bound to happen, but you don't think you've ever had a day where you've felt a real strain as a parent- well, makeshift parent- weigh on you.

until today.

poor megumi had women up with a stomach ache, likely due to the ridiculous meal satoru had called a dinner, and all day he'd kept himself hunched over, whether it was over the toilet, the small trash bin at his bedside, or all over the ktichen floor, which is what had alerted you this morning that something was wrong.

so all day you tended to him. rubbing his back when he puked his guts out, giving him a cool rag for his sticky hot forehead when he was done, feeding him saltines and pouring him ginger ale, and then of course, cleaning, recleaning, and cleaning again that little trashbin.

you hoped tomorrow he'd waking up feeling better. because he and you both were thoroughly wiped.

at least he'd gotten a tiny bit of sleep for the last thirty minutes, giving you time to collapse on the sofa and rest. you knew you should get up and prepare some soup, even if he wouldn't have an appetite for the rest of the night, at least you could have the leftovers for tomorrow. but fatigue overcame you, and the couch cushions seemed to get cozier and cozier, trapping you against their comfort as you began to drift off to sleep. ___

when you woke up, your eyes felt heavy and your mind had been a little hazy, not quite fully conscious as soon as you were disturbed from your rest.

but once you got your bearings and realized you'd passed out in the living room, you shot upwards, throwing the blanket off of your lap as you stirred to life.

did you fall asleep with that blanket?

you dragged your hands over your face before smacking your cheeks gently to help bring you back to life as you got up from the couch, moving quickly to check on megumi. you felt awful for falling asleep, and hoped it hadn't been too long.

but before you could make it to his room, you heard a commotion in the kitchen, and made a sharp u-turn to check on that first.

with his back to you, satoru was carefully pouring a pot of soup into a large tupperware container. he was still in his uniform, with his blindfold hanging around his neck. you wondered when he had gotten home.

"satoru?" you rub your eyes as you make your way over to him. he sent you a soft smile "you made soup? did 'gumi eat? how is he?"

you berate him quietly with your questions as he watches the soup pour into the container, careful not to splash a drop on the counter.

"i brought him some," he hums, placing the empty pot on the counter before closing up the tupperware. "he threw up into the bowl, so, i don't think he'll be hungry anytime soon"

jeez that kid did nothing but puke all day.

you sighed in discontent, rubbing a hand over your weary face. you just hoped that this would pass overnight, and he could have an easy day tomorrow to get his energy back up. he must've been so worn out.

"when did you get home?" you ask.

"not too long ago"

"you should've woken me up. i could've handled all this"

satoru chuckles, leaning over to place a small kiss at the crown of your head.

"you handled it all day," he reminded you. "looked like you needed a nap"

you nod, shutting your eyes as you leaned forward to rest your head on his shoulder, your arms loosely wrapping around his hips. he returns your embrace, pulling you closer and rubbing your back in calming circles that had you wanting to fall asleep again, right here, standing in the kitchen. you're certain he would let you if you voiced this desire.

"thank you," you mumble into his neck. "for making the soup. and taking care of megumi while i was asleep"

"course," he replies, "we're a team, yeah?"

you giggle into his neck, reminded of your time spent together at jujutsu tech where he'd assured you of the same thing countless times on countless assignments.

"yeah," you agree, lifting your head and tilting it up to meet his eyes.

he looked tired, likely from his long day that had also turned into a long night, battling curses and sick children alike. you raised your hand to skim your fingers over his jaw.

"happy you're home now, love" you muse sleepily.

he smiles back at you, leaning down to affectionately nuzzle his nose against yours.

"me too" he murmurs back, before closing the rest of the distance between you to press a sweet kiss to your lips.

he tastes like chicken noodle soup, a stark contrast to the way he usually tastes like vanilla and sugar. the realization that he'd taste tested the soup until he deemed it perfect made you smile.

when you pull away you let out a small sigh, finally feeling a little bit of comfort at the end of your long day. you bask in each other's comfort for a little while longer.

until you hear the familiar sound of retching coming from down the hall.

you groan, already pulling away to go tend to megumi once more, only for satoru to slide past you, assuring you he could handle it, and that you should head to bed for the evening.

you take turns for the rest of the night, getting up every few hours to make sure megumi was sleeping soundly. it was a long night for all of you, but it was much easier to take care of when your counterpart was there to help. ___

a/n: i love dad!gojo sm rn is it obvious xoxo ~ jordie

#gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #satoru brainrot #satoru gojo #gojo #satoru #satoru x reader #gojo x reader #satoru gojo x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader fluff #jjk x reader fluff #gojo satoru x reader fluff #gojo satoru fluff #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff

[sashaisready]

Chapter Eight - She said stop

Bucky Barnes Mob AU x Femme Reader

You're hard at work in Pepper's Bakery when notorious mob boss James 'Bucky' Barnes darkens your doorway one typical afternoon, and life is never the same again.

Warnings: Drinking, some noncon kissing/groping with minor character

18+ - see Masterlist for full list of warnings

Chapter 9

Series Masterlist

It had been three weeks since the phone call and Bucky had not been back to the bakery since. Neither had any of his men.

You knew you should be relieved. You had been uncomfortable having such close association with a mob boss and being on the periphery of his world, you couldn't get used to being followed or having watchful eyes accompany you everywhere you went. You weren't confident schmoozing in high end restaurants or being someone's arm candy. This was a clean break, it was over.

But...you missed him. You didn't want to admit it to yourself, but you did. You missed looking up as he came in and finding his smile in the doorway. You missed the way he looked at you, gazing at you intently as you spoke to him. You missed the fluttering in your stomach when he joked with you, the jolt of electricity when you passed his card back and your hands grazed. You missed his shocking blue eyes, the way a single glance from them made you feel like a deer in headlights.

You had thought about texting him. But what would you say exactly?

Hey! I know I rejected you but can you come back to the bakery and flirt with me? 🙂

Hi! I'm sorry I said no to the date – I'm a big coward and I'm scared you'll think I'm unsophisticated and boring (and maybe slightly scared of your job? Idk) xx

I know you hate me and I get it but can you just come to my apartment for a few hours and lie on top of me?

You sighed as you adjusted the cake stands and began to wipe down the counter.

"That's it" Wanda snapped.

"What?" you asked.

"You. You haven't stopped moping and sighing since that call. And as you're not going to call him, we are going out tonight. No arguments" she said sternly.

You scoffed. "Out where? I'm not in the mood Wa-"

"I just said, no arguments" she interrupted, folding her arms. "You're going to put on a tiny dress and we're going to get drunk and dance and maybe hook you up with a hottie. This place is closed tomorrow for Pepper to do her audit so we don't need to get up for work - no excuses".

You roll your eyes, knowing full well she'll wear you down eventually so you might as well give in now and save yourself the bother.

"Fine..." you huff. "But you're buying the first round..."

"Good" she sang triumphantly. "Let's get you cheered up..."

*

Later that evening you strolled into a nightclub at Wanda's side. You liked dancing but clubbing wasn't really your scene, still - it felt good to be out and getting your mind off things. You were wearing a blue dress, one of your favourites. Not too revealing but it highlighted your best features and you felt good in it. You wore heels, they were a decent height – but still comfortable and not the ridiculous type you couldn't walk in. Wanda had styled your hair and you'd both gone to town on her impressive make-up collection, carefully accentuating your eyes and lips. You both drew a few admiring stares from men as you strolled in which caused Wanda to shoot you a wink.

You hadn't been here before, it was somewhere Wanda had heard about. It was busy – but not too packed. The atmosphere was lively and buzzing, a mixture of people dancing and splayed over the seating areas enjoying their drinks. There were a lot of handsome guys here, none quite as handsome as Bucky (you couldn't help but think), but still easy on the eye.

There was a VIP section in the far corner, roped off and protected by a couple of burly bouncers. You couldn't see much due to the angle of the seating (you supposed privacy was a VIP perk) but a throng of beautiful girls dressed up to the nines were being ushered inside.

"Drink?" Wanda shouted over the music as she gestured with her hand to her mouth.

You whipped back around to face her, nodding enthusiastically as she drags you over to the bar.

Wanda ordered two fruity cocktails, handing you one as she pulls out her purse to pay. You push her bag away from the bar.

"I'll get these" you said firmly, retrieving one of the hundreds from your own purse.

"I have built myself up something of a nest egg recently..." you wink.

Wanda laughs and takes her drink as you hand the money over to the bartender.

"Can you break this okay? Sorry..."

Working with cash yourself you know it can be a pain when someone gives you a large bill.

"No problem..." he laughs as he takes it from your hand.

You sip your drink eagerly as you lock eyes with him. You suddenly feel a flash of recognition, but can't place him. He had dark hair and glasses, and seemed to look back at you with the same hazy recollection as he handed over your change. Was he a customer? Maybe.

You were just about to ask if he ever went into the bakery when Wanda hurriedly pulled you to the dancefloor. The mystery man was suddenly forgotten as you followed her, stuffing the bills back into your purse.

Unnoticed by you, the barman watched as you disappeared into the crowd and hummed thoughtfully, then craned his neck to peer over at the VIP area.

Wanda was right, this was just what you needed. You were letting loose on the dancefloor, the alcohol sweeping away all of your inhibitions as you moved to the music with your best friend. Your mind began to clear and soon enough you weren't thinking of anything, no Bucky, no work, nothing. Only the song that was playing and the freedom that you felt in that moment.

You and Wanda took turns going to the bar over the next few hours, bringing back all manner of elaborate cocktails and shots as you slowly began to feel intoxicated. All on Bucky's dollar, of course. You weren't a lightweight by any means by hadn't drank like this in a long time. The bartender you recognised had been replaced with another, and you'd already forgotten his face as you enjoyed your night.

After some more dancing Wanda mouthed that she needed the bathroom and you nodded, asking if she wanted company. Just as you asked her - a cute blond guy appeared next to you, grinning and dancing close. He had a sweet smile, very all-American and clean cut. You smiled back at him.

Wanda's eyes flitted between you and the blond, then grinned and shook her head at you – implying she was fine to go by herself. She gave you a knowing look and shot off to the Ladies, leaving you alone with him.

The music was loud so he leaned over and spoke into your ear.

"You wanna dance?" he asked.

You turned to face him and nodded enthusiastically, he smiled and took your hand – and the two of you moved to the music for a few songs. Occasionally he gave you a little spin or dipped you, which made you giggle. His hand felt nice in yours and you allowed yourself to get swept up in the warmth of him, powered by the booze in your veins.

"I'm John, by the way. John Walker." he said into your ear.

You smiled, leaning to him and telling him your name.

"I think you're very pretty" he shouted over the music, just as the end of the song dropped out, meaning his voice carried loudly across the dancefloor. A few fellow clubbers turned to look at him, and you cackled as he hid his face in mock embarrassment.

"Thank-you" you replied bashfully.

"Can I get you a drink?" he asked.

You nodded – but then realised you hadn't seen Wanda in a while. You surveyed the room for her as John went ahead of you to the bar.

You soon saw her curled up on a sofa with Vis, who must've shown up at some point while you were dancing. They were making out heavily as usual and you rolled your eyes, smiling. Wanda caught your eye and grinned at you, pointing at John and giving you a thumbs up. You rolled your eyes again, miming 'get a room' as Vis saw you and gave you a wave.

You chuckled at your friends' antics as you got to the bar. John had ordered you a gin and tonic and moved it in front of you as he paid. You furrowed your brows slightly, he hadn't asked what you wanted and you didn't really like gin much. You weren't a big fan of people making decisions for you without checking. Still, you didn't want to be rude so accepted it – giving him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, you were a bit tipsy and wanted to go with the flow.

John smiled at you as you sipped the drink. You smiled back, feeling a bit shy and unsure of what to say. The evening's beverages had gone to your head a bit, making you feel a bit unsteady on your feet.

"I meant what I said" he shouted over the music, leaning into you. His breath was hot on your ear and you realised he was slurring slightly. "You're really pretty".

You blush, smiling up at him. "Thanks, that's sweet of you".

Without warning he pins you against the wall of the club, shoving his tongue into your mouth and harshly groping your breast with his hand. The kiss is rough and sloppy, he tastes like stale beer. He misses your mouth initially so you end up with his saliva spotted across your cheek.

You gasp and roughly push him off of you.

"Hey! Stop, John!" you shout angrily, wiping your mouth and adjusting your bra where he had felt you up.

He rolls his eyes and moves in again. You move your head to face him and glare daggers at him.

"I said stop". 

He scoffs. "C'mon don't play hard to get, honey. You've been rubbing up against me on the dancefloor and you let me buy you a drink. We both want this".

Your jaw clenches as you feel your rage simmering.

"We were just dancing, I didn't sign a contract to do anything else. And I don't even like gin" you scold.

He laughs mockingly at you. "All girls like gin..."

You raise your shoulders in disbelief. The worst part was you had thought he was cute and probably would've made out with him eventually. But not like this. And not now he's behaved this way.

You roll your eyes and go to move away from him but he pushes your shoulder hard against the wall and tries to continue the kiss. You hit him, hard. The back of your hand strikes his cheek with a loud 'thwack!'. The sound rings out even over the loud music and he cries out, staring at you in disbelief.

"I said stop..." you repeat defiantly.

His eyes harden, he glares at you with fury and his face contorts into an ugly grimace. You feel your breath hitch as he bares his teeth.

"You little..."

But he halts as a gloved hand comes down hard on his shoulder and yanks him away. John is suddenly jerked backwards.

"She said stop..." warns a low voice.

"Who the fuck asked you-" John yells as he turns to face whoever dared touch him.

Both yours and John's faces fall as you realise who it is, but for slightly different reasons.

Bucky. 

#mob bucky barnes #mob bucky x reader #bucky barnes #mob bucky au #mob bucky x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #james bucky barnes #sweet and sour fic

[tetsustation]

[ BREAKING THE ICE — PART I ]

pairing :: eren yeager x f!reader

synopsis :: eren’s partner is out on injury, or so you’ve heard from across the ice. it’s a shame, considering the fact that they were an award winning pair. for that reason alone, you’re not entirely sure how to react when you’re recruited as her replacement. eren does, however—and the emotion is anything but positive.

word count :: 3.4k

genre :: modern!au, figure skating!au, kind of e2l, kind of hurt/comfort

warnings :: swearing

notes :: i've been working on this for like two years now on and off so i'm posting the first half—there's more than this but I just want to gauge if this is something you guys are actually interested in. no better time than the present!

Where do you belong? That phrase has never been anything but foolish rhetoric to you, and at its core, easy to answer—no where, because no match is made in heaven, no shoe has ever been crafted for your foot, and your fate is nowhere near predetermined. That being said, the closest place you could rule as such is on the cool, shaved ice. 

Although right now, you wish to be anywhere but. Colliding with the sleet in a rather dramatic manner, you watch your useless limbs as you glide backwards—giving into gravity until your figure makes a full stop. Perhaps it’s time to throw in the towel after all, you flop onto your back and let the condensation soak your sweater.

“What do you think you're doing?” The exhaustion drips from his tongue, and yet he refuses to drop.

“Napping,” You remark sarcastically—clearly conscious. From a distance, you can hear the scratch of his skates as he glides over.

When coming to a stop, he makes a point of pivoting his feet to send loose snow directly into your face. Sputtering, you sit up—albeit, struggling slightly due to the lack of grip. He’s staring down at you, gloved hand on his hip, he strangely resembles your mother whenever she scolds you for something utterly ridiculous. 

Frankly, you have no interest in speaking first, and he catches onto that fact. He releases a sigh that holds the weight of a day's work, before looking around the empty rink, and back down to you. 

“Is this your way of telling me you're giving up?” 

You scoff, “The rink closes in forty minutes, Eren.” Gesturing to the red, ten foot clock behind him, masked as a scoreboard, “I think this matter might be beyond us.” 

And he rolls his eyes at you, the same way that makes your jaw crick uncomfortably. The green looks dull under the fluorescents, but piercing, nonetheless. Sinking to the floor with a steady knee, he leans into you, and as a result you lean back half-heartedly, “As soon the rink opens tomorrow, we’re trying again.”

You go to speak, retort that overworking yourselves would do no good, but as he skates away, he turns around and consequently halts your hesitant tongue, “No excuses!” With that, he’s gone. Hopping off the ice and into the locker rooms.

Flopping back down, you letting the chill soothe your aching calves, you wonder how persistent he’s going to be. Mentally, you curse Jean for convincing you to do this, but then again—if anyone’s going to push you to do your best it's him (and as reluctant as you are to admit it, so is Eren). 

A weak groan slips your lips as you use the energy you have left to curve your spine into an upwards position. In front of you, your legs are spread apart as you stretch—but it only sends the shooting pain back up to your hamstrings. These bruises might not ever go away, but a bath might make them feel better—or so you hope.

Mikasa Ackerman broke her ankle a week and a half ago, two weeks from tomorrow. When you heard the news while tying the laces on your skates, you scoffed, “Poor Eren—there goes their qualifier.” It was a little apathetic, you can admit that much now, yet the world loves to play its cruel hand with you because soon enough your own partner had offered you up as bait in her place.

“—She’s great, really! Adaptable and flexible.” Jean argued, pushing you forward by the shoulders to a miffed Eren, “The two of us aren’t going to make it this year, not with our fiasco of a choreographer—but you two, together? I can see the headlines already, man. Trust me.” A piece of meat up for auction, was the only way you could describe how you felt.

“Jean, quit it.” You turned your head to the side, and whispered through gritted teeth (as if Eren wasn’t right there, and couldn’t clearly hear the words as they left your mouth). 

“No. If you win with him it’ll be good coverage for the both of us.” Meanwhile, the man staring you down looked more disinterested by the second, most likely not interested in taking a fresh Senior skater in to replace his partner, two months before qualifiers. Honestly, you weren’t too sure why Jean tried so hard in the first place, it was a matter for your managers and sponsors. 

Still, he didn’t let up, “If you win this with her, you and Mikasa can take the win to the finals,” you wondered if he fact-checked that, most likely not. “A couple did it in the ‘80s, if you have a viable reason there's a loophole to switch partners between the competitions, so long as the male partner remains consistent.” He explained, rather adamantly. 

Eren nodded, not entirely convinced—yet, he didn’t not turn it down completely. Candidly, you weren’t sure which outcome you preferred. Yes, it would be a great opportunity, but then again, you weren’t entirely sure you could reach the bar set high by the skating enigma of Mikasa Ackerman. Eren’s death glare told you, you couldn’t—but Jean’s shook your shoulders so vigorously your vision got cloudy. 

“I’ll think about it,” Is all Eren said, and he did. 

The next day, Eren took you on as his partner, for the sole reason that he hates losing, especially after putting so much work into this program. Still, he vaguely insults your talent in comparison to his usual partner, which erupts a fire underneath your skating skirt. 

As the days pass, Eren only expects more of you, and you can’t blame him. It’s going well, but not as well as it would’ve gone with Mikasa. His coach notices, and so does the choreographer—still you don’t let up, not that he lets you, anyways. 

The connection that Eren and Mikasa have is almost telepathic. In all the times that you’ve watched them practice in your shared rink, not once have you heard them speak to each other on the ice. They communicate through eye contact, the occasional nod of a pointed chin—any verbal communication they do is reserved for behind closed doors.

Suspicion is what it arouses in you, but their scores are near perfect in the eyes of all the judges in the province, so there is no grounds to protrude on their methods. Yet, you never expect to take her place, to be forced to cooperate with the King of angry glances, meant to speak a thousand words. 

That’s why this is so difficult for you, or at least, that’s the conclusion you’ve come to. Mikasa has come to watch you practice, made notes on your technique and passed a sheet of crumpled note-paper to you after your daily practice, but not enough to make a dent in the supposedly flawless instruction of his—now your—coach. 

It’s difficult, and frankly, you miss the days where people just said what they meant. Jean was never like this, you can’t help but think. However, this isn’t Jean, and in a way you're happy it isn’t. An irritating challenge is a challenge nonetheless, and you’ll be damned if Eren Yeager blames his lost ticket to finals on you.

Especially after the number of bruises you’ve acquired, from all the times he’s dropped you.

Deep down, you believe there is a reason why Jean put you up for this program (aside from Mikasa’s obvious injury). Despite Eren’s reserved nature of fending for himself in the rink, the set was for the most part, separated. A collection moves that we're paralleled, adjacent to one another, instead of moves that lie in the hands of both.

That is, except for three instances within the seven minutes in which the classical hymn plays. These are virtually unavoidable. While you can perfect your own moves alone, and mirror Eren’s stature down to a ‘T,’ there’s only so much you can do for yourself when he’s lifting you up with a single hand, palm nearly shaking against his own. 

It’s not that you don’t trust Eren—although, it's kind of a stretch to say that you do—the problem at hand is that he doesn’t trust you, because you're not Mikasa and you can’t hold your own against the stiffness of his locked elbows. Or at least, you’ve explained that much to Jean and Sasha on the benches outside of the rink, while adjusting your shoes with vigor. 

“It’s gonna be a process to adjust to each other.” Your former partner reasons, stretching out the blades of his shoulders, “The jumps are going to take a while, I don’t suggest pushing it—or you’ll seriously get hurt.” 

His vague allude to Mikasa doesn’t slip your mind, but you give Eren the benefit of the doubt, there’s no way he actually would wish malice upon his partner of over a decade. You, however, are unfamiliar to him, he’s not used to your agility, and you're not used to his rigidity. There’s a frozen sea separating your techniques, but Jean is right, adjustment is everything.

“You should talk to him,” Sasha suggests, standing against the glass and watching Niccolo practice his triple axel for the umph time, “If he’s too stiff, of course you’re going to fall.” A hiss slips from her lips as the blonde in the rink misses his landing, wiping out not-so-gracefully. 

A yank of the wrist and the sound of strained laces is music to your ears, “I feel like everything I tell him goes in one ear and out the other.” You adjust, “He’s convinced his way is the only way, he’ll listen to me but the second it seems unnatural to him he shifts back to what he’s used to.” 

Standing up, you grunt, “When is he going to learn I’m not Mikasa?” It’s a bitter fallacy on your lips, but aggressive nonetheless. It could even pass as a growl, if you listen closely. However, when you hear the door open and close, and watch Eren walk past the bench you're standing in front of with a stoic expression—you hope it’s meek and unintelligible through the glass doors. 

Behind him is Eren’s coach—your coach—you stand a little straighter. Levi Ackerman is small, and not very menacing from afar, but he has the bite of a bark and the skills of a lion. In your core, you fear him, but out of respect more than anything else. The coach you and Jean shared was much nicer, but then again, you and him weren’t up for finals, now were you? 

“Stretch out, and on the ice in twenty.” He snaps a pointer finger to the rink where Niccolo is currently stepping out defeatedly, “We’re doing the lifts again today.” 

The bruise on your hip from yesterday aches at the mention, but alas, your work is cut out for you. Jeans sends a half hearted condolence your way, already marking up how much ice you’ll need for your bath tonight to soothe the pain. Stepping onto the ice is anything but unfamiliar, but today it feels distant—somehow, the momentary skate to Eren feels grueling as he waits for you with crossed arms.

“Play the track!” Levi yells elsewhere, where someone is waiting from the booth above the rink, “I want to see how much ground you covered without me.” 

The melody is crisp, and echoes through the rink with a boom. Sometimes you can’t help but like a bat in a cave, this climate isn’t welcoming to the typical person—but you’ve become adept at it after so many years that you can navigate it like the back of your hand. The ice is where you live and breathe, fly to the best of your capability against the push of gravity. It’s freedom, but at what cost? 

Eren nods you off, to which you follow him in a series of turns, he glides and you mimic, the two of you look as if you're attached by an invisible string that strains each time the direction of your skates change. The ice comes up in flakes of snow, and they sting your nasal cavity as you take a deep breath in, readying yourself for the upcoming lift.  

Levi is standing against the rink, his skates perpendicular to sustain balance, and his arms crossed in premeditated judgment. You’re painfully aware of the fact that he doesn’t expect much from either of you, the condescension of your ‘adjustment phase’ still at the forefront of your mind. Still, he’s there to guide you, you keep going.

“Start crouching! Give him room for the lift!” 

A good eye is what Levi has, he can tell you’re milliseconds out of sync, and that's all it takes to send you belly up to the unforgiving ice. Crouching, you make a straight line to Eren—his eyes don’t give you the confidence you need to latch onto his palms and lift yourself, but it’s too late to stop. 

Grasping his palm flat in yours, fingers outstretched and face one another, your grip and jump—to which Eren lifts you over his shoulder. The only thing holding you up is the grip on his hand, and he’s barely paying any attention to it, already attempting to move away from the spot in which you hopped from.

It becomes increasingly difficult to keep your legs still, as he moves quickly across the ice—you can feel your forearms shake slightly, and that's all it takes to come tumbling down. 

Eren barely has enough time to recapture your hand, before you slip behind him and onto the ice with what might as well be a splat. The blades of your skates clang, and you can feel a multitude of eyes stare down your splayed figure. Only taking a moment to take back your stolen breath, you sit up and brush off. 

Never is Eren entirely apathetic, as he skates over and leans down to your eye level, where you're just barely holding yourself up by the frozen heel of your hands, “Are you alright?” His eyes flick downward, falling on your hip, “Same spot as yesterday,” he looks up again, “Does it hurt?”

No shit, you think, ‘Course it hurts.

The nature of his question is polite, but you can tell by the way his hand is twitching that it wasn’t an invitation to rest—instead, he’s eager for you to get back up, refusing to be stopped by something as measly as a fall. Nodding, you grab his hand and hoist yourself back up. 

“My bad,” Is all you shout to the room. 

“Good.” Levi affirms, “Let’s keep moving.” 

The empathy that Eren shows you the first couple of times you fall dissipates as the day goes on. With each flop on ice, he becomes more irritated—clearly frustrated with evident roadblock you’ve seem to have placed in his otherwise ‘perfect program.’ When stepping off the rink, he doesn’t give you a goodbye. 

It’s grueling on you, honestly it is. To come in everyday and take his attitude along with Levi’s insistence on perfection. Perfection goes both ways, you believe, and Eren is hardly upholding his end of that promise. The only comfort you find on the rink is Levi, though he can only do so much for you, and you’re not sure if his mild surges of pity are endearing or degrading. 

Frankly, you can’t remember the last time you had this many bruises, up down the sides of your legs and alone the cranes of your pelvic bone. The locker room is the last place you want to be, although for the first time in a while you find yourself smiling upon entering,

“Long time no see.” 

Jean is propped against the lockers, Niccolo is next to him motioning about this and that while holding up a blunt skate. “You’re one to talk!” 

 You watch him stand up straight, striding towards you, but is cut off by Sasha who is closer by just a couple feet—having been seated on the bench untying skates of her own. She’s quick to come hug you, nearly knocking you off your feet, but it’s the last tumble you're worried about taking today and quickly reciprocate her affections. 

Once your autonomy was returned to you, you walked over the bench and threw a leg over the other end so that you were straddled—a stretch that always made you feel comfortable enough to sit for long periods of time. It all felt too familiar—the red plastic beneath you, and the friendship you seem to have neglected over the past couple of weeks—while training with Eren, he became your life, and the rest faded to fuzz and scratched ice. 

They smiled down at you like you were the face of the hour, an enigma, it wasn’t praise but from the people who established you at this rink—you couldn't help but feel some sense of gratitude as they spared you their silent approval.

“So,” Jean started, “How is training with Yeager?” 

The smile you wore dissipated to crumbs of false pride when you recalled just how awful you truly felt—how demeaned you felt beside Eren who stood tall despite his own shortcomings. And you hated how noticeable it all was, how your momentary joy fleeted and the exhaustion in your shoulders hit you like the initial fall, your shoulders slouching as you looked anywhere other than directly into their eyes. 

“Awful,” was all you said, “It’s awful.” 

Ever distasteful towards the awkwardness of competition Niccolo cleared the air with a clap, “That’s Yeager for you, he’s a real stiff one.” 

“You're telling me, he’s got a real stick up his ass. Just—shoup—right up there.” To which Jean had accompanied with a rather lewd hand gesture. 

This was news to you—yes, you had heard tales of Eren being a diva to some extent, but he was practically a god amongst others at this rink and in all the competition magazines. Him and Mikasa owned the region’s senior competition stats, it was impossible that sleazy locker room talk was enough to dethrone him of that.

Sasha, always blunt in her sentiments, places a hand on your own, “He’s nothing but a name without Mikasa, don’t take it to heart—do your best.”

Jean picks it up, “We recommended you for a reason, you’re the best of us without all the unnecessary press.” 

“Plus you challenge Yeager,” Niccolo chimes, “No one challenge’s Yeager.” 

“No one challenges him because he’s a fucking prick,” Jean couldn’t seem to help but blurt. 

His eyes swell like saucers when the locker room door hits the opposite wall with a slam, and none other than the subject-of-conversation himself briskly walks past you and Sasha, only to open his own locker with another slam. The room falls painfully silent, and Jean opens his mouth to speak only to subsequently close it—as rectifying the situation is really beyond him at this point.

Eren manhandles his duffle bag, slinging it over his shoulder. When he closes the locker he looks around the room, scanning for the eye contact that no one will make with him. He huffs, and mumbles something that vaguely resembles a bitter affirmation that you were indeed discussing him. Knowing the walls and the echo of the place better than anyone, it was unlikely he missed the comment that brought the conversation to a halt. He stormed out in the same fashion in which he came, and you were all left to your devices. 

Niccolo kicked Jean for his ignorance, to which he took with nothing more than a grimace. Sasha turned to you again, the color had faded from your face, and she didn’t quite have the words to console you, so she only said, “At least it wasn’t you.”

Though, it might have well been. Jean was your partner before you were Eren’s, just like he was bonded to Mikasa in such an all consuming way, something similar could be said about you and Jean. Thus, his sentiments were yours and vice versa. 

Yes, you missed your friends dearly, and for a moment it did feel nice to joke with them. Although, you knew that the consequences of such were only going to make practice that much more difficult for you tomorrow. Grabbing your belongings half heartedly, you said your salutations. The smile that sat on your face didn’t quite come back for the rest of the night.

[ TO BE CONTINUED ]

✿ TETSUSTATION — 2023; do not repost, translate, share without permission, or recycle my writing & layouts. this blog does not hesitate to hardblock in that instance!

#attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #eren yeager #eren jaeger #eren aot #eren yeager x y/n #eren jeager x reader #fandom.aot #aot x reader #mikasa ackerman #jean kirstein #sasha braus #niccolo aot #jean kirstein x reader #written.aot

[kingdomvel]

Maybe also hands under your lovers clothing for the fire alarm soulmate AU? Please and thank you!

Hiya! Fist of all about the other ask two things: 1. not late at all! I was even going to rereblog it again tomorrow bc i'll have some free time then, I'm just happy you sent an ask at all and 2. I'm still thinkint the castle one over bc i don't know when i want it to happen.... it may take a little bit

N E ways, enjoy this thing i wrote while waiting for class to start and please excuse any mistakes

“Fancy seeing you here” a voice says, a voice Anakin knows well. He doesn’t look up from his feet, his legs stretched out in front of him as he leans on the back of a bench in front of the building. He opens his legs, and a new pair of feet step between them. “I think I recognize you, you must be my new roommate. Just a tip, when you have to come out because of the fire alarm, you take a jacket with you. Specially when it’s winter.”

Anakin looks up, his eyes immediately locking on the ones of the man in front of him, his lover, his husband. His soulmate.

“Sorry,” Anakin says, “I only speak with strangers if they are holding a sandwich.”

“Ah, I’ll keep that in mind for the next time.” Obi-Wan answers while nodding. “Will you remember the jacket?”

Anakin had remembered the jacket. But just before he opened the door he had seen that Obi-Wan was due to return from work in the next 5 minutes and had decided to leave it home.

“I don’t know, I think I may need someone to push the lesson into me.” Anakin says, Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows, an amused twink in his eyes. Anakin wants to kiss him. “But I am wearing jeans this time.”

“I can see that.” Obi-Wan says.

“And if I wear my jacket I have no excuse to do this.”

Before Obi-Wan can react or think about his words, Anakin reaches out and tugs his shirt out of his pants and, while Obi-Wan is distracted looking around at the people around them to check if anyone is paying attention to them, Anakin snakes his hands under the piece of clothing.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply and looks down at him, and Anakin knows it’s not only because of the touch of his cold hands against his heated skin, but because Anakin moves one of his hands immediately to his side, the exact place where he knows the soulmark is. Touching it sends an electrifying sensation through both of their bodies, a sensation that has been deeply explored with hands and lips and more, in a heated or lazy way under bedsheets, absentmindedly on cafés and cabs.

Obi-Wan’s hands move to hold Anakin’s, and for a second Anakin thinks that he will pull them away, too cold for Obi-Wan’s tolerance but he pushes them further against his body before he runs them up Anakin’s arms.

Anakin leans forward to rest his chin against Obi-Wan’s chest and look up to him, and Obi-Wan wraps his jacket around the both of them as best as he can while Anakin draws patterns against his skin, against his soulmark. There is a small smile on Obi-Wan’s lips when he looks down at Anakin.

They must look ridiculous.

Anakin doesn’t care.

Obi-Wan looks around again before his eyes settle back on Anakin.

Anakin will never get tired of looking into them. The beautiful blue and grey or even green depending on the light. He is so in love it’s almost ridiculous. The man in front of him is his soulmate, and Anakin will never get tired of revelling on it. He loved Obi-Wan before he knew they were soulmates, when it only brought headaches, confusion and guilt. He loves him now, when it’s easy and warm and passionate and heated. And he will love him in the future, when the grey hairs on Obi-Wan’s temples expand, when his smile lines grow, when they start appearing on himself. He will love him then too, and that’s the thing Anakin is most sure about in his life.

“I think it may be some time before we can go back to our home, do you want to go get some coffee? Maybe an early dinner?”

“I’m not wearing a jacket.” Anakin mumbles as best as he can with his jaw still against Obi-Wan’s chest.

“And is mine suddenly not enough?” Obi-Wan asks.

Anakin moves his hands so he can properly grab Obi-Wan’s sides, still under his shirt. He ruined Obi-Wan’s proper tucked-in-shirt look but he doesn’t care, and Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to care either. He could stay here, with his fingers against Obi-Wan’s skin and wrapped by him forever, but it will probably start being uncomfortable soon.

“You pay.” Anakin says as he finally pulls away.

“Whatever you say, my dear.”

#neighbours au #writing stuff #ask game #please i love them #if it wasnt clear out home is a SINGULAR home #this is like a month or a couple months after they get together and they are already sharing obi-wan's flat #thank you for the ask!!!!!

[yoonzinhoe]

pretty u ; vernon x reader

DETAILS theme: kilig, confession, fluff....just so much fluff,,,, au: college students, upperclassman!vernon, sophomore!reader ___

"Let's go out tonight?"

You shot your roommate a 'really?' look. "In the middle of the week before the week of exams, really?"

"I seriously want you to say that sentence and hear yourself again," she retaliated, rolling her eyes. "You're always in here lately,” she groaned, “you need a life!"

You shook your head, turning your head back to you readings. Your roommate, Kim always had it easy, being smart and all, even if she crammed the night before the test she'd probably still end up on top, or she wouldn't, well, either top or second top.

Regardless, it'd be better not to lose 3rd place, so—

Clack.

Your thoughts where interrupted by a faint tap coming from your university dorm window.  Kim put her eyeliner pen down, sending a look over to the window and then to you, which you responded to with a shrug and a dismissive wave.

Her shoulders fell with a short sigh, walking towards the window. You noticed her eyes widen and a smile slowly form on her face as she tilted her head towards you as if she knew a secret.

"Dude, what?" You deadpanned.

Putting a hand on her mouth and the other on her hip, she replied teasingly, "Oh my God, you're gonna love this."

With yet another eyeroll you finally got off your desk, shutting your readings close and walking towards Kim. "Are you kidding me right now? I have like a paper due tomorrow and org work to finish and oh my God you're not even listeni—" you felt her fingertips on your chin as she groaned and forced your gaze out the window and down to the pavement, where a trio of upperclassmen in your department stood playfully gazing  back— two of them on bicycles and one without.

You recognized the one without a bike first— Lee Chan, a blockmate of yours. Chan was known to many as ‘Dino’ so as not to confuse him with another Lee Chan in your grade. He always seemed to be surrounded by upperclassmen (they’re friends maybe?) and you remembered feeling sorry for him most of the time because he was probably being bullied for lunch money or homework answers or some other ridiculous crap. He was nice and friendly, though.

Boo Seungkwan made circles around him, poking him in the ribs occasionally to piss him off. Seungkwan was popular for his event hosting skills. Oftentimes he was selected to conduct culminating activities, but he was more oftenly requested to sing.

When Seungkwan finally got out of the way you met eyes with Choi Hansol.

Vernon.

An upperclassman of yours who was often seen reading in the library either dead alone or with 12 other people messing around him. There was no in between.

Vernon was always kind to you— you knew each other from the Literature Club and the English Society Organization along with Hong Joshua. There were multiple occasions wherein Vernon would come to your dorm or approach you at lunch to notify you of what you missed during the meetings you'd skip due to org overload, and even more occasions where he'd just recommend a good book.

It was funny. Anyone who had ever talked to Vernon could always confirm that he wasn't a talker. He wasn't necessarily antisocial but he was just a little more quiet when he wasn't with his friends. However your encounters with Vernon were always different, though, and you could complain about how he could talk your ear off if he really wanted to.

If you didn’t enjoy his chatterbox self, at least.

He waved at you, gesturing for you to come downstairs, and you smiled.

Kim smiled, turning her head, quirking a brow, and scoffing teasingly, "Oh my God??"

"Shut up Kim," you retaliated, clipping your hair up and putting on your university hoodie. You grabbed some tinted sunscreen and lipbalm to apply on the way down.

"I'm in literal tears you like him so much," Kim cackled, racing you to the door to milk the moment.

"Shut up actually!" you yelled back, swiping your phone off the dining table of your dorm. You turned to Kim, "I'll be back in a bit,"

"Take your time," she chortled with a shrug and surrendering hands,.

As the door shut behind you you couldn't stop the smile building up on your face any longer, looking forward to maybe another book recommendation or something-- to be honest, you felt kind of happy to see him out of the blue. Running down the stairs, you spread a drop of the sunscreen on your face before lightly patting to lock it in, hurriedly smoothing the lipbalm over your lips. 

You made sure to quickly check your reflection in the mirrored glass surface before you opened up the door, only to be greeted by Vernon's sweet smile, he looked up shyly, "Hi."

"Hi, what's up?" you replied nonchalantly and totally not out of breath at all. You noticed Dino snicker behind him before Seungkwan pushed him away, hitting him with the palm of his hand ("Ah! Ah! Hyung what the hell?!" he'd yell, "We talked about this earlier?? Literally go! Go, go already!").

Vernon glanced at them and then you, gesturing to go somewhere. "Come with me to the playground?"

You smiled, eyebrows raised and a shiver down your spine, “In this cold? How do I know you aren’t going to kill me or something.”

"I think you know what I have to lose if I did that." He chuckled before swinging a leg over his bike, "Hop on," 

You looked away, embarrassed, before seating yourself behind him on his bike. "Hold onto me," he said, not even daring to look at you. You snaked your arms around his torso and you felt him tense up. "All good?"

"Yeah." You smiled, “let’s go.”

When you got to the park, you headed over to the swings-- the afternoon was cold and the sun was only setting, the golden rays feeling refreshing on your face. 'Maybe I should go out tonight, what's the harm?' you thought to yourself, the weather was so nice anyway. 

You noticed Vernon walking over to you with coffee milk in one hand and redbean bao in the other. Two of each. "What's this?" you tilted your head as he offered one pair to you.

He crouched down in front of you. "Kim told me you've been busy with school lately." he said, eyes meeting yours.

"Yeah, week before the week of exams, you know," you replied, taking a bite out of the bao. Still hot. You blew some of the air out your mouth to cool down, "Can't study too hard."

Vernon stood up, looking towards the sunlight. You watched his hair dance with the breeze-- his face painted with a golden yellow shimmer that made him mistakable for a painting. "Don't work too hard,” he said, crouching to meet your eyes as he halted your swinging.

Taken aback, you flinched. "What?" 

He looked down at you, and then away.

"You tend to overwork yourself often and you end up skipping meals. You should remember to look after yourself and take a break sometimes,"

"Is that what you're here for?" you laughed, "To remind me?"

The right edge of his lips curled slightly, “You just won’t let me be cute, huh?”

“Huh?”

"I have something to tell you," he sighed, cutting you off quickly. You could tell he was nervous.

"Yes?"

"I want to make sure you're safe and healthy. I want to remind you to take breaks and be there for you when you need help or anything at all. I want to treat you to breakfast, lunch, dinner, the movies," he paused to look up, like he was scared of the next few words, "I've never felt like this before-- so compelled to be close to someone like this." he maintained eye contact steadily, taking a breath.

"Don't take this the wrong way but I can't see anything but you," he held onto the tip of your chin, lifting it and causing you to look at him, "I just can't get enough,"

"I want to pick up all the pretty words and give them to you," he pulls you closer, "I promise myself every morning-- I promise I'll tell you what I've always wanted so say--", your eyes meet and he silently asks for permission. You grant it. "You're so pretty." he finishes and you feel him pull your chin towards his face before your lips are on his own.

#seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #Seventeen #vernon #fluff

[r1999-transcript]

The Story of Oliver 01 - The Prison of Fog

What lies beyond the exquisitely crafted cage of mist?

I can’t remember when it was that I began to hate the fog.

This city, forever shrouded in fog, prompts the overwrought comparison between Sisyphus’s endless struggle and our own. The fog that covers this absurdity and unsightliness is like a bell jar imprisoning a cricket. Beyond those invisible intangible borders lie the jeering faces of the gods. They drained every ounce of vitality from the cricket, dispatching the fog as their most faithful instrument. And so, the cricket turned its head to find this thick fog everywhere—up, down, left, right—all around. No escape in sight, no perceptible boundaries… Even its cry would be lost in the fog. That fog as viscous as snot flowing from a runny nose enveloped the cricket to the point where the poor wretch couldn’t even make a sound. It rubbed its wings in vain, attempting to make even the slightest noise, but the only thing that filled the air was the fog and its silent ridicule. To this day, no one has responded to its pleas. In this thick fog, there is only silence, the silence of death… That’s what it does, this fog—it invariably forces the individual to face the certainty of their own demise. Walking in this endless fog, with no end in sight, surrounded by a cage of untouchable wire, where even the most furious strikes have no means of finding their target. The only thing one is allowed to feel is extreme loneliness and that deathly still. We, walking through this dense fog for the sake of our so-called mission, might possibly be the most pitiable crickets of all. How long has it been since I last saw the sun?

Vertin: … Oliver Fog?

Oliver: Oh… Sorry, Miss Vertin. I lost myself for a moment there. What were we talking about just now?

Vertin: That we hoped that you would aid our cause two days from now. With the enemy well hidden within the fog; determining their location will be no easy feat. It looks like we’ll be counting on you and your arcane skill to succeed.

Oliver: The day after tomorrow… That’s a holiday, isn’t it?

Vertin: It is indeed.

Oliver: Before I offer you a response, Miss Vertin, allow me to ask you a question. Who was it that proposed I join you in this operation of yours?

> Vertin: It was Mr. Knight.

Oliver: And will he also be taking part?

Vertin: Mr. Knight will not be taking part in this operation, but he recommended you wholeheartedly.

Oliver: You do know that he’s egging me on by passing this work to me? It’s quite evident, Miss Vertin.

> Vertin: And what if I were to say I was the one that chose you, recommendations notwithstanding?

Oliver: Deception is not your strong suit. It’s entirely obvious that you’re covering for him. You know for a fact that I am not the kind to work on a day off, and based on your personality, which is to say; conciliatory in nature, you would never have proposed such a plan. So, then. The suit of armour put you up to this? Am I right?

Vertin: …..Perhaps. But why would you suspect him in the first place?

-

Oliver: Miss Vertin, I intend to direct a formal complaint towards Mr. Knight.

Vertin: …

Oliver: Allow me to come straight to the point, Miss Vertin. I would be more than willing to help you in any way, merely due to the goodwill we have fostered through the course of our acquaintance. However, my principles will not permit me to sacrifice my hard-earned time off merely for the convenience of others. I will provide you with any advice you may require, but my practical assistance is out of the question.

Vertin: So then, this your latest experiment in reformist rhetoric?

Oliver: Not at all. It’s a manner of prevarication that’s been in use since Chamberlain’s day.

Vertin: Look— I won’t try to force you, Oliver. I’m merely here to discuss the matter with you.

Oliver: Then I thank you for your understanding, Miss Vertin. If there’s nothing else I can help you with, I will take my leave. There’s work I’ve yet to finish todayz

Somewhere in the Suitcase

A Knight: What someone is about to recount to you is a sworn testimonial of a face-to-face run-in with a dark spirit, a blood-thirsty creature of undeath someone encountered as a chivalrous knight long, long ago.

Sotheby: Brilliant! I love this story— I mean, Miss Sotheby knows she’s definitely going to love this story!

A Knight: Someone came across a long-abandoned castle with a close friend while journeying the countryside one dark night.

Sonetto: Hm…

A Knight: …The forest around the castle was a mire shrouded in eerie mist, and someone was traipsing right through it, boots trampling on rotten leaves and kicking up the most vile, putrid stink of rancid soil mixed with the damp stench of decay. But our destination was not far off. We had almost reached the castle gate.

Eagle: …

A Knight: Suddenly, someone and that faithful friend spied a shadowy figure up ahead. He was slumped askew against a tree, seemingly unconscious. Back then, someone was still a simple-minded knight. Someone stepped forward and went heedlessly over to the side of the mysterious figure…

Crowd: …

Just as everyone leans in closer, listening ever more attentively to the knight’s story, another figure passes by.

Oliver: I can confirm that there are no problems with the work plan. Everything seems to be in order… The schedule is a little tight, but if we proceed accordingly, we can still finish all work on time today.

A Knight: Someone tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t budge an inch. Then, someone tapped him again… He suddenly lifted his head to reveal a ghastly, desiccated face with black holes where his eyes should’ve been!

Crowd: What?!

Sotheby: Miss Sotheby knows! It must’ve been the Chupacabra!

A Knight: If only the truth were so simple. As soon as we saw that living corpse, someone and someone’s good friend knew right away— In the depths of the castle lay a terrifying, treacherous, blood-curdling banshee!

Sotheby: An evil spirit? What a surprise! All the spirits Miss Sotheby has met have been most cordial to her! Though to be fair. I have never had the misfortune of meeting a thirsty one before.

Sonetto: That’s a good point… They might be a bit on the quirky side, but Poltergeist and Click are good souls.

Oliver: Excuse me please, some of us have work to do.

Sotheby: Oh, this way, please—from my side, over here. Mr. Fog, Mr. Knight was telling us about his past adventures just now. In fact, he was right in the middle of a very interesting story when you came in. Would you like to say a while and listen with us?

Oliver: I’ll pass on the ghost stories; I am very busy. However, I feel I must caution you, ladies.

Sonetto: Oh?

Oliver: There exist people in this world whose mouths are incapable of speaking the truth. Not only do they spin their yarns, boasting about what has never truly transpired, but they may even shirk their responsibilities and force minors to carry out their work for them.

A Knight: Someone doesn’t even have a mouth! Although someone has been wondering for some time now—how does someone even speak without anything with which to speak out of?

Sotheby: Through the magic of your arcane skill!

Vertin: … I knew this was going to happen.

Sonetto: Timekeeper? You came to visit, too? Did something happen to Mr. Fog today? He appears to be in quite a foul mood.

> Vertin: I don’t think he’s very happy about having to work outside of his schedule.

Crowd: I see…

#reverse 1999 #anecdotes #the story of oliver #1.4

[diana-bookfairchild]

@jilymicrofics May Day 30: Dawn

Lily Evans sat on the rooftop, looking at the sky, chin resting on her knees around which she’d wrapped her arms.

It was a comforting position. Self-soothing was something that Tuney would’ve sneered at, or called stupid, but Lily found it made an excellent emergency replacement for her mother’s hugs.

Dawn was rapidly approaching. Another new day, more slogging through lessons and eating and homework and pretending the world wasn’t going to hell around them.

She remembered the headlines she’d read recently – both in the Daily Prophet and in the muggle newspapers her mum sent her occasionally – detailing the gruesome killings and progress of the new Dark Lord’s rise to power.

She wasn’t too proud to admit that it scared her. She had her mum and Tuney and several cousins in the muggle world, and so many friends here in the wizarding world - blood-traitors and muggle borns alike – to worry about. Any of them made a good target for this organization, particularly due to their relation with Lily.

Lily, who was a sixth year muggle-born prefect who scored top marks in Potions, Charms and Ancient Runes and was in the Slug Club, as well as being friendly with and romantically pursued by several purebloods.

It wasn’t that she regretted doing as well as she could or being kind and amiable enough to have so many friends. It was just that. . . Attention wasn’t the best thing in the current climate.

Lily worried. She worried constantly.

“One sec, Padfoot, I’m nearly there—Evans?” A surprised voice made her turn quickly, drawing her wand. She was quick to the trigger these days. “Woah, easy there.”

“Potter,” she grumbled as she stowed her wand back. “You do realize curfew hasn’t been lifted yet?”

“I could say the same thing to you,” he pointed out, smirk not leaving his face. “Anyway. Sorry, Sirius, Mirror off.”

“I am a Prefect,” Lily wanted to draw herself up self-righteously, but felt too tired to do that, and instead just turned away. “Just – do whatever you want to. No need for anything on my behalf. You can call Black back.”

Potter raised an eyebrow, looking infuriatingly handsome. “Not like you to be so – resigned, Evans.”

“What would you know about what I’m like?” She snarked half-heartedly.

“Well, when you have a crush on someone, you tend to try your best to find out everything about them,” Potter laughed. “And I’m proud to say I did that very well with you. So I do know what you’re like.”

“Proud of all the wrong things, aren’t you,” Lily muttered, but she couldn’t help a small amused smile. “What’re you doing up here, then?”

“And there’s the interfering busybody we all know and love,” he said cheerfully.

Lily hated Potter. She hated how he made her like him despite being a bullying arse. She hated how his eyes gleamed when he won quidditch matches or their potions matches, how handsome he looked when he flew, how incredibly he led the quidditch team and his tutoring group, how easily he brought her laughter and happiness.

“Answer the bloody question, Potter,” was the response she settled on, hopefully not giving away the mixture of emotions she was feeling. “It’s nearly dawn.”

He gave a fake look of surprise. “So it is!”

Lily tapped her Prefect’s badge mock thoughtfully. “So how many points would you say being out after curfew is worth—”

“Fine, fine, I’ll tell you,” Potter said hurriedly. “Don’t take points, Ravenclaw’s close enough already. I’m scouting out the area for something we have planned for day after tomorrow.”

“The roof?” Lily raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t see how the Marauders could use this area. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

“Ah, Alice in Wonderland. What a ridiculous story,” he commented, grinning.

“How do you know about Alice in Wonderland?” She asked disbelievingly.

“I do take Muggle Studies, you know. Sides, Remus has a whole collection of books, and the rest of us like to nick the weird looking ones.”

“Alice in Wonderland is pretty weird,” she agreed, looking out at the sky, which was lightening to an orange golden from the blue.

“And a great inspiration, if I do say so myself,” Potter grinned cheekily, coming closer to her. She debated stepping back.

“So, what you’re planning for here has to do with Alice in Wonderland?” She asked.

“You’ll see. What’s Your Highness doing out here now anyway?”

She gave him a look, crossing her arms. “Thinking. Something you wouldn’t be able to understand.”

“Oof. Harsh, Evans.” But he was smiling. “What about?”

She wasn’t sure what compelled her to answer honestly, but looking at Potter, she did so anyway. “Newspapers. What’s going on out there.”

Potter’s grin dropped. “Ah.”

“Indeed.”

“It’s. . . Pretty bad, yeah.” Potter’s hands were behind his back as he looked on to the horizon, where dawn approached. “You saw the latest? Seven muggle families pillaged and murdered, and one witch dragged out of her house?”

Lily exhaled quietly. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Something struck her, and she spoke without thinking. “How can you think of silly schoolboy tricks when you know all that and know what it means, same as me? I certainly can’t.”

Potter was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if he was lost for words for once. “It’s because. . . Well, that’s me. That’s us. We need to find something to laugh about, something to do in the midst of. . . All of this. If we don’t, then, well. . . What are we fighting for?”

A brief silence, and then Lily replied: “That was profound, Potter. Especially for you.” She teased lightly, trying to ease the tension and not ruminate on how striking and compelling and resonating that answer was.

“Thanks, Evans.” He said dryly.

Find something to do, to laugh about.

She thought back to school, and more than the drudgery, the knowledge she was gaining, the fun she had with her friends. It was more than a waste of time.

She smiled suddenly. “No. Thank you, Potter.”

They stayed there for a while, watching dawn break.

#fanfiction #fanfic #harry potter #james potter #lily evans #lily evans potter #pre relationship #canon compliant #jily microfic #microfic

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

For Every Action, A Reaction - Chapter 3 - Action and Reaction

Pairing: Raven Scientist (Victoria Van Gale/The Raven Leader)

Summary: Taking a step back from our poetry nerds, this instalment focuses on academic research projects, less than legal shenanigans, and most importantly, two coworkers who are smart enough to be geniuses in their respective areas but apparently not enough to confess.

Over the span of two decades.

Seriously.

Somebody has to do something. Before all their students lose their minds.

Complete!

Notes: HAPPY HILDA S3 TEASER EVE!!!! Posting this today instead of Thursday as usual because I Do Not want to compete with the fandom's hype tomorrow kjsdkjsdfh

Thank you to everyone that read this! If all works according to plan, this won't be the last you'll see of the Carpe Diem verse :)

Read it on ao3: (Carpe Diem verse) (previous chapter) (this chapter)

She should have studied engineering. Everyone in her family had told her that. If you’re already going to submit yourself to STEMS bullshit, better to do it in a prestigious area, at least. But no, she just had to follow her “passion” for weather sciences. Now she couldn’t even plan a sabotage smoothly. Pathetic.

Of course, she knew her ways around electronics well enough; the lab was scattered with a couple of inventions of her own that aided her in one part of the project or another. But her gadgets were always either very simple, or related to the area of study she was actually an expert on. This, though? This was neither.

The devices would have to be able to induce malfunctioning on every single voice box that the poor, desperate students working for Ahlberg’s project had built, causing enough of a ruckus to at least force them all to stop their practical work and go back to the theory, or at best signal to whoever was responsible for deciding which projects got funding and which didn’t that that was a bad idea. The ‘causing a ruckus’ part was easy enough; what was currently keeping Victoria and her student up and in the lab past hours was the ‘not harm anyone in the process’ part, which either was much more difficult or just seemed like it due to Victoria’s much bigger affinity for bringing shit down.

“You think it’ll work this time?” Raven stepped back from the round device they were working on, made of many strips of metal fused together into the ball shape, eyeing it warily. The design was supposed to help it on the ‘self-destruct’ part, in order to avoid them getting caught, but none of them had made it so far on the test runs yet.

“Only one way to know.” Victoria answered, sounding tired. She was usually excited at the lab; no matter what ridiculous situations that University threw at her, she loved her job. That day had just been so damned long that she was feeling the urge to press a self-destruct button for herself.

And, just as she was going to press on the remote that was controlling their creation in order to test it once again, they heard a knock on the door.

“What the-” Victoria whispered, tensing up as the thought of them having been caught in the act immediately came to mind.

“Here.” She threw the remote to Raven, who only barely didn’t let it drop to the floor. “If it isn’t anyone we should worry about, carry on without me. We don’t have time to waste.”

He looked at the remote as if it might explode in his hand, none too happy about the idea of running the test himself (which was fair, seeing as many of the past attempts had exploded in his vicinity), but the professor had walked away to the door before he could protest.

Knowing her messy bun must look like it was falling apart and there was nothing she could do about it to cause a better impression on whoever was on the other side, Victoria opened the door. And imagine her surprise (and utter relief) when it wasn’t another professor, or someone from the board, or even a student of hers, but rather Kaisa’s girl.

“Johanna?” She glanced at Raven inside, letting him know with a look that it was safe to proceed, and then at the clock. The only reason why students came there was to ask her about her subject or about her assignments. If Johanna decided to quiz her on some artistic bullshit, Victoria was screwed.

The second explanation for her coming here that crossed the scientist’s mind was Kaisa needing help, which immediately shook her off of her exhaustion. But Kaisa would call her herself if she needed, wouldn’t she? Unless her situation was too dire to walk or talk, which was a terrifying thought, but Johanna would hardly be standing there, looking calm albeit embarrassed, if that were the case.

“Hi, goodnight, Victoria.” Johanna shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and why did Victoria get the feeling she was about to be roped into something ridiculous? “Sorry to bother you, it’s silly, but when you have some free time, could you maybe help me with something? It won’t take much of your time.”

“I… yeah, of course.” She only hoped they didn’t need couple’s therapy or anything of the sort, because really they had come to the wrong fucking person if that was the case. “Is this about Kaisa?”

Johanna confirmed her suspicion, luckily still acting coy enough that Kaisa definitely was in no danger, and Victoria offered to give her her number so they could text. There were sheets of paper on her desk, even if most of those were discarded ideas for her ploy that she truly shouldn’t give away to just anyone, but eventually she found an old shopping list she could jot her number down on.

“Professor Van Gale, this isn’t working!” Raven screeched, making Victoria wince when she looked in his direction. There was smoke coming from the device, which was not supposed to be happening, and he was covering his mouth and nose with his lab coat.

“Ugh, just hold it for a minute, I’m coming!” She rushed to give the girl the paper and the most polite ‘good night’ she could manage, before closing the door and rushing to fix whatever nonsense life had in store for her now.

…......

Raven had to hand it to her, the professor put her money where her mouth was at. He only wished her mouth wasn’t at places that left him wondering if she was insane.

Were she any other professor trying to come out on top of a situation, he was sure he would have been left alone to do the dirty work, forced to put himself on the line because he would have been threatened with the loss of his spot on her programme if he didn’t do what she wished. Van Gale wasn’t at all that type of person, though, and maybe that was why Raven put up with everything he did. Instead, she had insisted she could do it all on her own, and he had tagged along because someone responsible had to be present. He told himself it was out of loyalty, but truly it was equally likely that he had lost his mind after so long spending his afternoons in a small lab with her. Anyone would, really.

He had been left with lookout duty, given strict orders to signal her and disappear completely if someone came, lest someone see him and put him in trouble. Raven did his job minutely, keeping his eyes and ears attuned to any odd motions, trying hard not to think about how very easily the professor had picked the lock to the facility that hosted Erik Ahlberg’s project. In the dead of night, the campus eerily quiet and foggy, he felt like he could very well be in a graveyard.

He only hoped his reputation wouldn’t lie there to die that night.

Luckily, the only sounds he heard throughout the whole thing were those of Victoria skillfully attaching their creations to the voice boxes the project worked on, and after less than an hour, she walked back over to where he was and began locking the door again, always wearing a pair of gloves and her hair tied so as not to leave any traces.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, Raven.”

Never had a sentence coming out of his tutor’s mouth left him so relieved.

He tip toed back to his shared student apartment with the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end, still observing his surroundings as if he were on the lookout. Technically, anyone was allowed to walk around campus at two in the morning, but he still might receive questions if he was caught and he didn’t think he could convince anyone about midnight jogging when he was dressed like he was going to work.

Upon arriving home unseen, Raven breathed a sigh of relief, ready to head into his room and pretend none of that had ever happened. Until, that is, he realised that the lights in the common area were on, and whoever was there must have heard him arriving. He did trust the boys he lived with, but just so he didn’t jinx it, he had preferred to keep the whole sabotage thing between him and Van Gale, and he didn’t want to be raising any suspicions when he was now so close to coming out of this story unscathed. So after a beat, Raven dragged himself to the kitchen, figuring a glass of water would do him well, anyway.

“Bit late for you to be up, isn’t it?” Tontu’s voice greeted him from where he was sitting on the couch, knitting. Raven silently thanked the stars that it was him and not Alfred; mysterious as he was, Raven knew that Tontu wouldn’t give him too much grief about whatever lie he told.

“Yeah, I had trouble sleeping and decided to go get some fresh air.”

Just as predicted, Tondu didn’t question him, only muttered something about finding arts and crafts to be very soothing. And then he said something that almost made Raven spit out the water he was sipping on.

“I had been meaning to talk to you alone, anyway. I know something you might want to about the Ahlberg guy. I remember you telling me the project you work on needed some of the grants that go to him.”

Pretending he hadn’t nearly just choked, he attempted to put his most innocent face on as he turned his falsely naive smile to his flat mate.

“Oh, truly?” God, how he hated acting. “What would that be?”

“Well, I was talking to King.”

“King?”

“Yeah, one of the janitors.” Tontu kept knitting like that should have been common knowledge. “You know, Rat King, big guy, smile’s a bit crooked when you tell them ‘good morning’, knows everybody’s business.”

Raven did not, in fact, know. He had no clue why a janitor would be in on, in Tontu’s words, ‘everybody’s business’, much less why the hell he was called ‘Rat King’, but he was almost sure he remembered a tall man who did give him a lopsided smile when he greeted him on his way to work. He wondered exactly what kind of intel the man would have, and if his silence could be bought with anything Raven or Victoria owned if it was something incriminating to them.

“Okay.” He drew on the word longer than he needed to. “What did he tell you?”

Even though Tontu’s voluminous hair covered most of his face, Raven could see the excited smile underneath, which made him shiver, if he were being honest.

“You’re in luck. There is some dirt on him that might just be enough to deal with your problem.”

…......

It was a day. Not a particularly great day, or a wonderful day, or even a good day. But it sure was a fucking day, and Edmund was trying to be more grateful lately.

He was still working on it, okay?

Most of the other students who worked on the project had already been at their testing area on the edge of campus when he arrived, right where the University’s property ended and the forest began. They were doing a general test run today, finally getting all of their voice boxes to work in sync to see if they had the desired effect; small groups of engineers and physicists worked on their devices, each group with at least one Ecology student. This had been one of the only wins Professor Bloom had achieved when the project had been approved, that it would need to have a minimum amount of her students so they could, at least, make sure that the wildlife they were dealing with weren’t being hurt by their pathetic plans.

The Ecology students in the project were, for that reason, usually referred to as “Bloom’s spies” by the other ones who were there working with them. But it was much more of a fond nickname than a jab - even Ahblerg’s students could see that this project was useless at best. They were all only there because there were many openings and it paid well, and they all knew it.

Sure, there had to be one or two engineers there who were actually interested in the inner workings of the voice boxes they had been perfecting for so long, but no one there (other than Erik Ahlberg, who barely made the effort to even show up) actually believed that what they were doing was important. Troll bugs weren’t a threat to anyone, as anyone with more than two brain cells could attest to. Sure, they tend to chomp on leftovers if you leave them out unprotected, and if one ends up biting you it will hurt like a bitch for a couple of hours; but that was it. No poison, no diseases, no imbalance in the food chain caused by them, and they will leave you alone unless you go out of your way to get close to one. Troll bugs were much more afraid of humans than humans had any right to be of them, as was usually the case for beings no bigger then two inches, much to some people’s confusion.

What was worse, they were an endemic species on its way to becoming endangered. Their habitat already occupied a small area, with the campus and new roads being built directly inside it, it had only been getting harder for them to survive. Yet some people had the nerve to complain when they were living directly inside the land where that species had lived since they evolved into existence. And some people even had the nerve to lead a research project to find ways to scare those bugs away.

Edmund, as well as everyone who had worked there long enough, was sure that had Birgitta not managed to put her own students inside the project, Ahlberg would have aimed for killing them, ecosystem be damned.

He nodded grimly to Gerda as he walked by the desk her group was at, and she answered in kind, returning the “it sure is one fucking day” sentiment. So good to be this connected to your friends.

He arrived at his station and noticed that not even the engineer and physicist he worked with seemed happy to be there. Maybe they all knew that if they accidentally harmed the creatures with their invention, Edmund would not be happy with them.

Huh. How nice to be recognized as a bug avenger. That seemed like a reputation he could get behind.

Later than all of them, Professor Ahlberg eventually arrived and gave a speech that was drawn out for way longer than it needed to be. Something about being able to live with privacy and comfort without fearing for themselves. Edmund wasn’t really listening, he had quit paying attention when he realized that the sentence but they’re just fucking bugs would be the only thing he’d manage to think during the entire time he did so. At some point he stopped talking, and led them all to activate their voice boxes at the same time.

When they did so, a loud screeching came from the boxes, which Edmund imagined would be what it would sound like if bells could be out of tune. They all pressed their hands to their ears, having forgotten the possibility of needing ear plugs; the sound frequency was supposed to be unbearable only to the bugs, they were supposed to be just fine. But if this was their ‘just fine’, Edmund thought, than the bugs must be in complete agony.

He was about to shout at them to stop, and as he looked around he saw other fellow ‘spies’ looking like they were about to do the same, when something went very wrong. The screeching began to come into a halt, the pitch becoming lower and lower as smoke began to come from the voice boxes, one at a time. All tests were immediately terminated, though the smoke didn’t cease, and a loud metallic ‘pop’ came from each of the devices. Ahlberg looked at the smoking desks scattered around the campus’ edge with complete horror as engineers unscrewed the soundboxes’ diaphragm searching for the broken component, and finding it without having to look any further.

Inside each of the boxes, there were strips of metal, still smoking and hot, that could only have been part of the machinery but which none of the engineers could remember ever having been part of their system.

Well, Edmund thought as he walked away from their testing area, trying not to look too pleased. Maybe practicing gratefulness does bring good things along.

…......

Later that same day, he walked into his professor’s office with a smug smile that was the universal code for “I have come as bearer of hot gossip”. Bloom wasn’t in as much of a slump as she had those weeks before, but she still didn’t look or sound as cheerful as her former self. Edmund could only guess what had happened, but it was enough to make him feel a little guilty for it, and he’d been trying to make it up to her since then. He had a feeling that the news of Ahlberg’s project having to be backtracked at least several months before returning to full activity would lift her mood up.

It was really getting distressing to have to keep pretending to not see the constant stiffness of her face, or to not hear her sad sighs.

“Ask me how work went today, professor.” He said after they greeted each other, sitting down on his usual chair. Birgitta lifted her gaze from her laptop, where she’d been looking for his most recent copy of his thesis work, and lifted an eyebrow. They didn’t talk a lot about his job at the project, only when it was to complain about it, so seeing him mention it while seemingly in a good mood was understandably confusing. Not to mention, she had known the first official test was coming up soon, and had been seething about it alongside Edmund for a long while.

“Well, how did work go today?”

Edmund leaned forward a bit, compensating for his lower tone of voice.

“It was disastrous.” That alone was enough to visibly capture her interest. “We went to test the machinery all at once to finally see if it would have the desired effect, but something inside every single one of them exploded and the soundboxes stopped working completely! We will all have to go back to the first stage and plan the devices out from scratch. It’ll take forever, maybe by then the board will agree to give that funding to something a bit less useless, at least.”

Birgitta blinked, something about every last soundbox malfunctioning at the exact same time not sitting well with her. It was just too perfect. The main step towards getting those inventions to actually be put to use disrupting the ecosystem getting completely thwarted like that was too good to be true. It made her wonder if she’d hired some sort of hitman to do it during her sleep walking bouts at night. That sounded exactly like the sort of thing she’d do, especially asleep when her subconscious wasn’t being filtered by any annoying morals.

“That sounds… oddly coincidental, doesn’t it?” There was a smile tugging at her lips despite the suspicious situation, strengthened by the grin her own student was giving her. “What part of the machinery exploded?”

Edmund shrugged, which made Birgitta assume that he didn’t know since he wasn’t one of the students responsible for actually building it. The response, however, threw her off.

“That’s the best part. I don't know, but nobody knows either. The physics and engineering guys are probably still there, because no one recognizes the piece that triggered the system malfunctioning. It was in every single soundbox, yet no one remembers ever having installed it, or what it was supposed to do, or can spot it in the blueprints. I’m half convinced there were some, I don’t know, bug fairies or whatever that didn’t want this to work out. We lucked out so hard.”

But Birgitta didn’t really believe in luck. In karma, maybe - heaven knew how much Ahlberg had yet to receive from it - but not luck. Good things, she believed, came from the love we spread, the people we captivate, the messages we share.

And apparently, they also come from pea-brained scientists who wouldn’t be able to distinguish a terrible idea if it kicked their door open and hit them into next week.

Because it didn’t take hours of analysing this new information and deliberating for the truth to come to Birgitta. She knew what had happened as soon as Edmund had stopped talking. There was only one person in the entire campus who had both the reasons, the means, and the absolute fucking hubris to go and sabotage the largest ongoing research project the university had.

And she was going to have to explain herself.

…......

If there was any activity more depressing than correcting exams, Victoria was unaware of it. Every year, students came excited to learn about clouds and wind and humidity and whatnot. Every year, Victoria had to disappoint them by revealing that meteorology had more to do with physics and calculus than with the “wonder of mother nature” or whatever the hell those hippies who somehow always found themselves in her classrooms had been expecting. You try studying fluid on a constantly moving platform and see how fun it is.

Technically, she could have left that task to Raven, but after having submitted him to their… extra hours last night, she had thought he deserved a day off. She supposed she could have taken a day off too, since she had no classes to lecture that day and any student who wanted to talk to her could just send her an email, but what was she supposed to do? Just stay home? She wasn’t even sure she knew how to, or what the protocol for that even was. Hell, her students might even become worried something had happened to her if she didn’t show up at campus for the first time in… well, since she began working there, truth be told. Not like she had much else to occupy her time with, after all.

She was about to start correcting another (clearly begrudgingly answered) exam when an urgent knock sounded from the door behind her. Her heart leapt to her throat as her mind immediately reminded her that she was very much guilty for something that was very much a crime, and someone in that college had to be smart enough to figure it out. It was all a matter of how lucky she would be in regards of who was the said bearer of the brain cell.

Very lucky, it seemed.

“Victoria.” She would have recognized the voice anywhere, even if she could hardly remember ever having heard it sound that angry. “You better be kidding me right now, I swear-”

Victoria’s best option was, evidently, playing dead. Some small, childish part of her wanted to see how much angrier Birgitta would get if she pretended to be a programmed recording and said that there was no one at the lab and then just not speak any further, but she valued her life a bit more than that. Just a tad bit, but she did. But if anyone deserved to hear it from her, it was Birgitta. Had she never found out, Victoria wouldn’t be able to attest to her morality going so far as to make her confess, but she would feel the need to share it with the woman who had been her close friend for so long. Since she already clearly knew, however (Victoria couldn’t think of any other recent fuck-ups from her part. Birgitta had never answered her last messages but barging on her office weeks later was hardly going to be her way to do it), it would simply be stupid to play dumb. If she at least talked it through, she would have a shot at getting her to not denounce her.

So she got up, and opened the lab’s door to a very angry Birgitta Bloom, her arms crossed on her chest and her eyes glaring at her in a way that, if looks could kill, Victoria would be dead and buried by now.

“Uh, hello!” She attempted sounding normal, even though seeing her again made her heart ache and seeing her like this made her feel like the smart choice was to jump from the window and run from the hills. “Maybe we should have this conversation inside.”

“Maybe we should.” Birgitta agreed, voice icy as she walked through the door that Victoria held open for her without as much as a glance in her direction.

“What the hell.” She wasted no time in saying as soon as they were alone in the lab. “Are you for real? Single handedly putting a halt to the only overfunded project in this university? Have you lost your mind?”

“Well, it wasn’t-” Standing by the door at a safe distance from the fuming ecologist, Victoria was going to say it hadn’t been ‘single handed’, but then realised that it would be better to keep poor Raven’s name out of this. “That big of a deal. Just a little messing with their soundboxes, you see.”

Birgitta squinted in a way that let her know she’d seen right through the slip up. “You know what I mean. It was too big of a risk. People could have gotten hurt!”

“No, they wouldn’t!” Victoria protested, hoping it was Birgitta’s anger speaking and that she didn’t actually think so low of her. I mean, it’s not like she would never hurt people, but hey! Rude! “I promise, I tested it countless times. It was projected to cause malfunction on the devices and then self destroy, but nothing more! My gadgets were the size of a fist, there wouldn’t be much harm done even if it hadn’t been inside the boxes.”

Lifting an eyebrow and looking like she was trying to scan the scientist for lies, Birgitta drew out a “Really?” while she looked around for remnants of that project. There were none. She’d made sure to do away with them all first thing in the morning - which meant she’d taken it all home, burned what could be burned, torn what could be torn, and thrown it all in a ditch in the middle of who the fuck knows where. She hoped Birgitta never found that part out. She might get mad about the littering.

“Yes, really.” Victoria lowered her gaze, feeling uncomfortable with the conversation. She supposed she deserved it, but she really liked it better when Birgitta thought she was only ‘kooky’ mad and not ‘dangerous’ mad. In some ways, it was good she had found out, though. At least maybe she’d see Victoria was not the person she thought she liked and her senseless rejection wouldn’t pain her.

And like she’d heard her thoughts, Birgitta touched that exact matter.

“Does this have anything to do with what you told me?” Victoria looked around the lab, anything but stare at Birgitta’s face as she came to all the right conclusions. “With us not keeping in touch, with you needing to do the right thing…?”

What was more disgraceful, she wondered. That she’d really given that piss poor excuse to someone she loved, or that her actions were so insane that the excuse had begun to make sense.

“It does.” She admitted with a sigh, tugging at the hem of her lab coat. “Birgitta… I don’t expect you to listen to me. I certainly don’t expect you to forgive me. But since it’s out, I have to let you know. I hated that I needed to tell you that. I was looking forward so much to getting to know you in a new way, have been for years, but… the morning after we talked, I realised that if I got caught, and we were dating, people would take you for the head of the operation. Everyone knows you rightfully hate that project, the connection would simply be too easy to make, and then I’d drag you down alongside me without you having done anything wrong!”

Victoria hugged her torso. Her voice had grown louder in her agitation, reverberating against the lab’s walls and machinery, and she noticed it and toned it down. She couldn’t see Birgitta’s face, staring at her feet as she was, but at least the woman was silent and letting her speak. She could only hope that didn’t mean she now feared her. Victoria didn’t think she could survive that.

“I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t take a chance on you taking the fall. So I decided that cutting us off before we even started would hurt less. And here we are. At least I get to tell you all of this.”

Taking the scientist completely by surprise, Birgitta scoffed.

“Maybe you should have let me make that choice, don’t you think?” She asked when Victoria snapped her gaze up to meet hers. Rubbing at the bridge of her nose, Birgitta sighed, muttering a ‘God, I can’t believe this’ under her breath. “Have you ever talked to any of the students who work there, Victoria?”

Caught off guard yet again, Victoria squinted, wondering where she was going with this. “No?”

“Well, I have. And let me tell you, they all hate it. You and I can have our ethical concerns about it, but those kids hate it with the kind of burning passion you can only feel when you spend too long around Ahlberg. Right now, they are all realising that all of their devices went down, at the same time, because of a piece no one can remember having put it there. And what do you think they will do?”

Victoria was about to answer ‘look for the culprit’, her stomach dropping, when Birgitta answered herself.

“They won’t do anything. In fact, I think your work is done forever now, because those kids will probably decide that sabotage is a great idea and try it every time a general test is upcoming. They’ll keep vandalising Ahlberg’s project and getting the money that they need, and honestly, good for them. No one will find out, Victoria, because the only people close enough to actually see how clearly set up this was could not care less.”

Relief would have flooded her. It definitely should at this news that, hooray, she was probably not going to jail! But Birgitta was deflating now, looking more exasperated (and just slightly amused), and something she’d said made her feel even more confused than she was relieved.

“‘Good for them’, really? I thought you were mad, shouldn’t you not be endorsing this?”

“What? Oh-“ Birgitta hummed, realising what this must look like from Victoria’s point of view. “Oh, no, I’m not mad about the sabotage. Ahlberg’s had it coming. What I’m mad about is you pushing me away because of it, and not even caring to explain!”

“I didn’t want to involve you in all of this!”

“Didn’t you, or didn’t you trust me to agree with you?”

The question gave Victoria pause, and she tapped her fingers against one another nervously.

“You may have a point.”

And could she be blamed, really? When the entire world agreed that left was the way to go, Birgitta would follow right if she thought that it was the kind, the thoughtful, the correct thing to do. Why should she expect her to agree to something her own student could barely get behind?

“Maybe.” Birgitta sighed. “Maybe that should have been a reason for you to rethink your plan, not to cut me off entirely.”

Not that it would have been a problem, Birgitta thought to herself, at worst I would have gotten you in contact with some students working there so you could plan it better.

Victoria at least had the sense to look properly chastened (it wouldn’t have been too surprising if she hadn’t), and Birgitta was feeling like she had run out of steam. Being angry was truly tiring, specially at someone she held so dear, and the little ‘you’re right’ that the scientist gently uttered pierced through the rest of her discontent.

It was fine. They were fine. Neither of them had done something horrible, nor had Victoria realised that she’d be miserable dating her or anything of the sort. It was just one of Victoria’s usual shenanigans, albeit admittedly bolder than she’d seen her try before. They were going to be alright.

“Were those all the reasons why you went back on our date, or is there anything else?” She asked, testing the waters. When Victoria shook her head, Birgitta lifted an eyebrow as well as the corners of her lips. “Well, then, is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

“Oh!” Victoria looked at her, blushing. “Yes. I’m sorry. Is there any chance you could forgive me?”

“There is, in fact.” She smiled. For the moment being, Birgitta thought it better to not tell her she’d practically already forgiven it. It would do no good to give her the impression she could get away so easily with that sort of thing. “And is there any chance you’d like to rethink your statement about not going out with me?”

Victoria smiled at her like she was the only sun she would ever really care to study.

And unbeknownst to them, Victoria’s cellphone laid on her desk, awaiting for the moment she’d pick it up and read the messages her student had sent her.

………

Surprising a grand total of zero people, it seemed like the way in which Erik Ahblerg had managed to get all of that funding for his project was… less than legal. According to the information Raven had shared with them (and he refused to say where he’d gotten that from, only that it was a bizarrely trustworthy source), the professor had been bribing members of the research directory and the board of directors to push his agenda forward. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise; aside from money spent on materials and employing the students, it wasn’t an awfully expensive project, and yet it received many more grants than it needed, and now they knew where that spare cash went: into Ahlberg’s and his collaborators’ pockets.

They’d had to look into it, of course. Going to the higher authorities and saying she had gossip on a coworker wasn’t exactly going to lead her anywhere useful. But what Victoria did do, alongside Birgitta and other professors who resented that misuse of the university’s money, was request a thorough investigation of the destination given to those grants. What they ended up with was a long and scandalous list of people who Ahlberg was working in concert with, all of whom were then signed up for longer investigations into the source of their money and their actions in regards to their professional life.

Victoria hadn’t been the smallest bit surprised to see the Lyman sisters’ name on that list. She’d taken great pleasure, in fact, in watching the news of their participation in the corruption spread around campus, feeling like she was Karma itself; the very night the list had first been divulged, she’d called Kaisa and as soon as her friend picked up she hit her with a joyful “Guess what, nerd, I got your revenge for you!”

She knew some part of Kaisa had had to be pleased. No one willingly stuck around Victoria for that long unless they were a little bit fucked up as well.

None of that completely solved Victoria’s underlying issue, however. Sure, Ahlberg’s project was discontinued, and the grants were redistributed around other projects on campus, but hers was still vastly underfunded. It bothered her, of course, to know how far she could go and not be able to do it. But it didn’t make her grieve as much as she once would. Because now, for the first time in years, Victoria had something other than her job to live for.

She had strolls through the campus. She had late night phone calls. She had trips to the botanical garden and to the museums in Trolberg. She had movie nights. She had gentle touches and kisses that made her believe that the world was good, after all.

So maybe she didn’t have it all; no one really did, however much they would like to pretend otherwise, did they? But she had enough to overflow the gap that she’d failed to fill during all these years trying to stuff numbers and research and projects into it.

Victoria had enough to be happy. And now that she knew what that was like, she was never going to let that go.

#fic: feaar #verse: carpe diem #my fic #raven scientist #raven scientist ship #victoria van gale fanfic

[squirmydonnie]

CW: short mention of food portion

I'm going to the ROTC ball tomorrow.

I went the first time in 9th grade.

I didn't come with anybody at all. And I ate first. I wasn't sure if they had food or not. So I got a KFC bowl without cheese. Because when you actually think about it. There's no need for cheese in the bowl and frankly, I don't think it goes with it anyway.

I like cheese a lot. But. That's ridiculous.

When I got there I wasn't sure which door to go in. And i didn't know who to sit with. Recognized people from my school. And also cadets from other schools as well.

I sat with a few cadets from my school. Though I didn't really know them all that well.

One guy recognized me enough to know that I wasn't really going to be able to talk that much, and that what I would say probably wouldn't make much sense without further questioning. So he helped me out sporadically.

Not really right next to be or anything. But would ask further questions so I could actually answer.

It was much harder to talk then.

I do feel like I've gotten better. But I still will say things that don't make sense. And other times I will respond with noises rather then words if I don't know what I should say.

There was food there. So I got some of that.

It was like brownies and pizza rolls and stuff like that.

It was pretty easy to choose what you wanted.

There were fruit, vegetables, and stuff as well.

Then we did get to the actual dancing part. But after announcing king, queen, princess, and prince.

I didn't put my name on there for princess as I didn't believe anyone would vote for me.

I forgot that princess was a thing so I didn't do it this time either. I think people would vote for me, but I'm very doubtful that I'd win. That doesn't really make sense.

I danced some of the time. But I mostly just circled people. And then I would randomly decide to dance.

But I would not smile.

My mom wanted me to take a picture there. And I had been avoiding the photo booth. Due to he amount of people. I didn't feel like waiting in line and missing songs.

I liked seeing people dance. It was fun.

I didn't talk to anyone really.

I spoke to some of the instructors. And I talked to the computer lab teacher from my elementary school. I liked seeing her, but was bit confused as to why she was there.

I'm not quite sure what will be as different this year. But I have quite an idea.

NBB will be there. Since they decided to join. So will their boyfriend. Which means I will been around people I don't know for an extended amount of time.

I can't just run off or anything.

So I don't know what I'll do.

I know I will be made fun of. Because that is just want happens. I'm an easy enough target as is. So.

It not as if NBB has not been nicer to me. She has. She has been a lot nicer. Shes been nice.

But I still feel scared sometimes. Or freaked out.

Being around people for hours. Is something I'm not sure I can do.

They say they want me to go to waffle house after. Which doesn't sound bad.

But due to my new medicine. I'll need to figure out how much I'll be able to eat.

I don't like the dress I'm wearing either.

I found out about the military balls date very late. And my mom found a dress for me in her closet.

Many of the others I tried didn't fit. So that's the only one.

Its not the worst dress ever. But I don't want to wear it.

I just don't think it looks good on me.

I'd rather where this other thing. But its apparently not "ball attire". So my mom told me to just wear what already had.

The accessories are fine. It's just this dress.

#cheeseburgerboy #NBB

[ghostalservice]

Frenchie FuckFest!

Do YOU love Frenchie?

We do! That’s why we’re running Frenchie FuckFest, where a group of authors (including ME!) are all giving Frenchie a chance to shine. 

Featuring works by CartoonMayor, CobaltAugust, Demolitionwoman, Foxtails, Ghostalservice, Heartroots, Skrifores, Theveriest, and Wardrobespierre! 

See what’s been posted so far below the cut, and check back or subscribe to the series to see what’s still to come (spoiler: MANY more phenomenal fics)!

Day 1: A Cook and a Musician Walk Into a Kitchen by @bonesofyourheart Frenchie/Roach. 

Roach is always up very early in the morning prepping meals for the crew of the Revenge. Frenchie suffers from insomnia. Some mornings when Frenchie wakes up earlier than he'd like, he goes down to keep Roach company in the kitchen. This is the story of one such morning when Frenchie has morning wood and he and Roach hook up.

Day 2: Give the Sea Her Due by @demolitionwoman-blog. Frenchie/Buttons/The Sea?

Buttons is basking in the moonglow. Frenchie joins him.

Day 3: Mum's the word by CobaltAugust. Frenchie/Izzy

There was a passage near the rec room that led to a small room that had, until recently, been used for storage. It was now occupied by Izzy. Frenchie ducked into the passage to wait until dinner. He’d assumed Izzy would be with his captain, but when Frenchie approached the door to Izzy’s quarters he heard a faint noise – a grunting, groaning noise.

Day 4: Fuque Non by @ghostalservice (me!). Frenchie/Stede (sort of)

Frenchie's not sure what the Captain's deal is, but he's going to give it a go.

Day 5: Easy Come, Easy Go by @skrifores. Frenchie/Fang

Frenchie, held on the Revenge after the end of Season One, misses Wee John. He finds some comfort and support in Fang.

The point is, he thought he was prepared to lose more stuff. That’s life, innit? Easy come, easy go. Fall in love with Cara for a couple of nights til it turns out she has a husband - oops - have an on-off with the boatswain til he gets demons all up in his blood - it’s a bit shitty, but. Bit of a price for freedom, and a bit of a prize too. Never know how long you’re gonna keep stuff, but you get to have it. Could be dead tomorrow anyway, so.

Day 6: Oh Yah by @zombee. Frenchie/The Swede

The Swede has never had his dick sucked. Frenchie is intrigued.

Day 7: Afterparty by wardrobespierre. Frenchie/Lucius

Lucius's plans to get railed into oblivion have fallen through; Frenchie looks good in his posh outfit.

---

“Fuck’s sake - what do you want me to say?” Lucius was giggling now, giddy with the headiness of Frenchie’s proximity. He always smelled a little like cloves, for some inexplicable reason, and it had never been as appealing as it was right now.

“Say something ridiculous, like that you want to fuck me.”

Lucius stopped laughing. Frenchie’s eyes were full of heat, and his smile was wicked.

Day 8: Vibe Check by theveriest. Jim/Frenchie

The vibes on board the Revenge after Stede leaves are absolutely rancid. Frenchie is doing his best to help.

Day 9: Life’s a Trip by @skrifores . Frenchie/Ed

Stede has an interest in watching Ed hook-up with someone else; Frenchie is happy to oblige.

Day 10: like room people do by @ratchet​  Frenchie/Wee John

"I mean, fucking isn’t room exclusive. Pete and Lucius don’t have a room—hasn’t stopped them going at it every which where."

"But it’s something that you think might be…better? If you’ve got a room to do it in?"

Frenchie shifts and rolls over, squinting through the dark and trying to pull John into focus. He’s got an inkling what this is about, and he’s never been one to shy away from saying what needs to be said.

"You know you can just ask, babes."

or: we should just fuck (like room people do)

Day 11: Mess in the Mess by @demolitionwoman-blog​ Frenchie/Ivan

Ivan surprises Frenchie in the kitchen, and then Frenchie surprises him.

Day 12: Midnight Watch by me! @ghostalservice​ Frenchie/Black Pete

Frenchie and Pete aren't invited to Spanish Jackie's.

Pete slumps a bit and joins Frenchie by the railing, elbows on the polished wood. “I hate being on watch when we’re in port,” he admits. “Boring.”

Frenchie tucks the snuffbox back in his pocket and turns slightly, shifting until his body faces Pete’s. Boredom is a luxury, and one Pete doesn’t appreciate. He shrugs, stretching his body out as he leans on the railing. “Doesn’t have to be.”

Coming up next: A few more crew members!

#ofmd #frenchie #frenchiefuckfest #there are a few still to come that will KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF #this has been such a fun impromptu project #our flag means death #ofmd frenchie #ofmd fanfiction

[spinsterennui]

I was tagged by the lovely @archetypewriter ❤️❤️❤️ Thank you so much for thinking of me darling!!! Fair warning, though: you’ve asked *an English lit grad student* to answer questions in a written format. I hope you’ve learned your lesson lol. In my defense, I can’t help being verbose; it’s my nature!!! 😂😭

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better!!!

Last song: XTC “Respectable Street”

Last show: Burn Notice

Currently watching: I always have the tv on in the background bc it reduces anxiety for me, but I’m not necessarily watching; it’s like white noise. The shows I’m actually watching are: Burn Notice, trying to finally finish Lucifer (the second half of season 6), and I’m going to try to get to Lucky Hank either today or tomorrow, despite my having a severe issue with large beards due to traumatic childhood parent issues. I honestly can’t decide if it’s a good thing that Bob has such a terrible beard in this show or not 😭 Like the fact that he’s playing an English professor might have been too indulgent for me without the off-putting facial hair lol.

Currently reading: Unfortunately I don’t read much for pleasure at the moment. A lot of this has to do with being so behind in my dissertation, which causes me to feel like I shouldn’t/can’t read anything that isn’t research; consequently, I end up just not reading. That said, I have been reading bits of Bob’s book A Load of Hooey, which is hilarious and ridiculous but is also easy to pick up and put down because it has a lot of very short parts. Books closer to my research: Killer Apes, Naked Apes & Just Plain Nasty People: The Misuse and Abuse of Science in Political Discourse by professor emeritus of anthropology at St. Lawrence University Richard J. Perry (a history and critique of biological determinism that is written for a non-academic audience — I highly recommend it) and, a more theory-based text, The Age of Scientific Sexism: How Evolutionary Psychology Promotes Gender Profiling and Fans the Battle of the Sexes by feminist/queer theorist and Distinguished Professor of critical theory and gender/sexuality studies at University of Toronto Mari Ruti (also fantastic albeit a bit dated as it’s from 2015 — Ruti has a very interesting writing style, but this book can be challenging for someone unfamiliar with theory and/or reading heavily academic texts).

Current obsession: I mean all apologies for being interminably repetitious, but Burn Notice (as well as Jeffrey Donovan in Burn Notice because a) he’s an incredible actor and b) he is seriously fucking hot in this role). I’m actually rewatching (yes AGAIN), but mainly because I realized that I hadn’t really been paying attention to seasons 1-2 during the rewatch.

When Better Call Saul ended I wasn’t really ready to invest in a totally new show (except for a couple of shorter ones), because it left me a tad despondent I suppose. I’d watched it from day one, back in 2015, after we’d binged Breaking Bad. So I saw that Burn Notice was streaming and thought “low stakes rewatch” because even though I watched the whole series when it originally aired, it ended back in like 2013 I think, and I’d honestly forgotten how good it is. Despite its flaws, it is such an entertaining and satisfying show. It has an incredibly strong and unique female character, and the way Michael and Fiona’s relationship develops (or re-develops) is fun and frustrating and emotionally rewarding at once. They’re both deeply flawed, deeply traumatized characters who love each other more than they love themselves, and slowly they both grow to realize that they can bring out the good in each other while helping to mitigate the bad. They save other people, that’s the sort of formula of the show beyond the burned spy part, but they also save each other, in more ways than one.

I really love shows that, at their core, turn out to be about something more substantial than what appears on the surface, particularly if that something is love in some form. When a show surreptitiously sneaks in a message about love, that show tends to stick with me so much longer and affect me so much more deeply. Better Call Saul, The X-Files, The Americans (admittedly in a fucked up way), The Glory, Lucifer, Leverage (which reminds me that I still need to watch the new one), or even Bates Motel (or ​Buffy/Angel in some ways) all, to one extent or another, have an underlying narrative of love (not just romantic, although that’s a fave for me), as well as related themes of identity (and what it means — like both what you choose and what others assign to you and how that affects your ability to be a fulfilled human), trauma and the aftermath, and family (both blood and found). These themes are quite overt in some of the shows I mentioned and less so in others, but in my opinion the threads run through them all. However, in Burn Notice they each are incorporated into the story incredibly well, which is a big part of what makes the show so compelling for me.

Okay, essay over!!!!! All apologies 😫 Anyway here’s a photo of a special birdie friend on my mantle (the spots are blacked out for privacy bc they are photos of my nephews) ❤️

I’m not going to tag nine people but I am tagging @veyzus @yellowginghamdream @tahiri-veyla @darkskywishes (though I haven’t seen them in a while so I hope all is well) and @nissameta1782 (I always feel weird tagging unless I know someone pretty well, which is weird bc I love being tagged by people I’ve never talked to before lol . . . go figure). Please don’t feel pressured!!! Ignore if you want ❤️

#tagged #long post #bc i am long-winded #i love that birdie so much btw #also please know that i’ve been playing no man’s sky on ps5 #and doing some bird watching #but not much photography bc​ my new camera is kinda hard to learn #and i collect mugs #and enjoy baking #in case y’all think i only watch tv/movies and reblog old men on tumblr dot com #👀😳 #btw did anyone else ever watch that show touching evil the us version? #it has jeffrey donovan and vera farmiga #and i remember absolutely loving it but there was only one season?? #that’s basically why i started watching burn notice in the first place is that show #bc he was sooooo good in it #sad usa cancelled it so quickly #also why did i feel the need to use italics???? #we will never know

[uniarycode]

I am very behind, but it is still technically @digiweek here, and if I do nothing else for this year, I need to submit this.

Day two: prompt sports day/relationship

Izumi dashed down the hallway, breaking into the first unlocked door she could find.

Sports day had never been her scene, she was athletic enough, and would likely excel at a few of the track events, but organized sport, in general, did not appeal to her.  And doing so in front of all her classmates even less so.  A few boys took the opportunity to not so subtly eye up all the girls.

(She was convinced the girls’ uniforms were more sexualized than the boys.  Why should she haft to wear bloomers that didn’t even make it halfway down her thigh while the boys' shorts were knee length?)

Last year she had attempted kendo, simply because the equipment would shield her body from view, but for some reason, this school was full of wanna-be samurai who wouldn’t take it easy on her even if she promised to kiss them to let her win. (except maybe Zenjirou, but giving him even the hint of the wrong impression was not on her to-do list.)

But on this year’s list of events, amongst all the pickup sports games and heats of events, one classroom had been sequestered for ‘dancing’.  Which, in this case, meant last year’s edition of Dance-Dance Revolution.

Keep reading

Izumi wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.  She’d spent hours mastering the game at home, and if she was going to be forced into sports day in this ridiculous uniform, she might as well have fun.

It went better than she expected.  She knew she was good at the game, but she wasn’t expecting to win every match she was in.  When Izumi arrived, the ‘punk queen’ Ruki had already amassed a following of fans due to her successes, and Izumi took her down immediately.  She’d also handily spanked the applituber Astoria, who had successfully completed a challenge to beat the game blindfolded, on nothing but rhythm alone.

And then her undoing had been, as always, a cute boy.  A blond underclassman she’d never met before in a stupid hat that he somehow pulled off had bet 5000 yen against her phone number.  If she had been less high on her string of victories, or his face had been less stupidly handsome, she would have declined.  But in the heat of the moment, she accepted.

He was by far not the best dancer she’d gone up against.  But then, most of them had dedicated more breath to dancing and not to flirting with her in the middle of the song.

The compliment had been so unexpected, that it had caused her to trip up, literally, taking the nerd running the system down with her.   She’d landed on top of the poor redhead, his face between her thighs, which had only caused her to panic more. Slapping the unfortunately placed student before running out of the room.

Which lead her to now.

What exactly was she supposed to do after that?  There was no way the whole school wouldn’t know about it by tomorrow.  Her success at DDR coming back to haunt her, ensuring there were many observes who knew exactly who she was. 

She’d have to transfer, it was the only sensible solution

The door burst open behind her, revealing the person she least wished to see in the world.

She stared at the redhead, limping his way into the classroom before he noticed her presence.  When he did, his eyes darted away, and he froze all his actions.

“What are you doing here?” Izumi accused.

“I was getting some Ice for my ankle.” He pointed to the fridge.  Izumi had been so caught up in her distress that she hadn’t even realized she’d run into the home-ec classroom. 

She felt her eyes lower.  “Oh sorry,” she continued to search the floorboards for answers.  “Does it hurt?”

“I’ve had worse.” He said simply, resuming his limp to the fridge. “Taichi doesn’t know the definition of ‘gentle’.  At least it wasn’t my wrist.  I can still work this way.”

“You work?” Izumi asked.

He pulled a bag and filled it with ice cubes.  “I do freelance coding work.  Mostly subcontracting for American firms. Nothing too big.”

Nothing too big? Did he realize he was still a teenager?

“You were very good.” He offered. “I only play that game when I’m forced to.  Are you part of the dance club?”

She rolled her eyes. “What’s the point of being in dance club in a school with two idols.”

The dance club would be forever overshadowed by either of the idols doing an impromptu performance, that’s just the way life was.  All the normal boys would much rather shoot their impossible shot with an idol than give normal girls the time of day, except for the flirts and the lecherous ones.

And to make matters worse, both idols were super nice too, so she couldn’t even feel good about hating them.

“I’ve never seen someone being better at me as being a good excuse to quit what I enjoy doing.”

She shrugged. In truth, she likely would have joined the dance club, if she thought she could be friends with any of the current members.  But they were just not her type, and she didn’t want to have to put in the effort of building bridges just to have them get broken again.  “It's not that, it’s just…girl drama, understand?”

“Not at all.” He said “but it’s normally a good sign to change the conversation.  So why are you here?”

That…wasn’t a better conversation.  Why wouldn’t she want some privacy after publicly sitting on the face of a boy whose name she didn’t know?  And in these bottoms too, that could pass for underwear?

The bag of ice clattered to the ground, bringing Izumi’s attention to the boy she’d injured. He must have been in pain applying the ice and winced hard enough to drop the bag.

“Here let me.” She said, closing the distance and swiping the bag off the floor, applying it gently to his ankle.     She began to slowly press on the wound. 

They stayed like that for a while, simply absorbing each other's presence as she tended to him.

“Sorry.” He apologized abruptly. “I know I’m not much for conversation.  Mimi always says is that why I don’t have  a girlfriend.”

“I don’t mind,” Izumi said.  She wasn’t lying, while she didn’t hate catching up, it was nice to sometimes just sit with someone and enjoy yourselves.  It was almost certainly why most of her friends were boys.  Speaking of friends:

“Do you mean Mimi Tachikawa?  You’re friends with her?” it was hard for her to picture two more different people in her life than the rambunctious cheerleader and this subdued nerd.

Well, she could.  He didn’t dress to show it off, but this boy wasn’t as ugly as Mimi’s opposite ought to be.

“I know it seems weird, but we make it work.”  He said. “Once you’re friends with Mimi, she doesn’t let you go.  It can be exhausting, but it’s good to have someone who forces you into things, you know?”

“I guess.” She said.  She wasn’t sure she had anyone like that, maybe Takuya, but for the rest it was her forcing them if anything.  Which left no one to force her to join a club or go out when she was down.

He winced again, and she temporarily removed the ice. “Sorry, about everything.”

“Don’t be.  It was Takeru’s fault.  He gets overly excited when he sees a cute girl and as you may have guessed, doesn’t play fair.  At least now he owes me.”

“You know him too?”

The boy waved his hand.  “It’s complicated.”

The conversation lulled for a second. Izumi couldn’t help but lower her voice. “… you think I’m cute?”

Somehow the boy managed to choke on air.  Which only made Izumi want to press harder.  “oh my, are you even injured?  Maybe you just wanted an excuse to have a cute girl fawn over you.”

“wha no- I. I….”

Izumi erupted in laughter.  For someone who supposedly spent time with Mimi, this was too easy.

“Yes!”

She blinked. “What?”

 “Yes, I think you’re cute, ok?”

His face was red, his breathing heavy.  She’d never expected him to be so blunt. “Uhh, thanks?”

It hadn’t been said to make a pass on her, more of a statement of fact.  He thought she was cute.  He’d only said it because she’d been teasing him, and had somehow been putting up with him after she’d humiliated and injured him.   But for some reason, the admission had caused her heart to beat faster.

Sure, he wasn’t what she thought she was looking for in a boy.  He wasn’t athletic, his looks were questionable, but would be much better if someone taught him how to dress better.  And he was supposedly friends with Mimi, so he couldn’t be that introverted.  Plus he had a job.

It was crazy.  But her day was already crazy. “Well then, if I’m cute, do you want to kiss me?”

The blush on his face deepened. “I, well,  yes but.”

She let out a performative gasp. “Normally I would slap a boy for trying to kiss me.”

“I’m sorry, I-uh.”

She placed a finger to his lips, moving to straddle him. “but I slapped you earlier for no good reason, so I guess that means you get one for free, huh.”

She closed her eyes and hovered in front of him.  She waited there in silence for a few beats, heartbeat pounding in her ear.   Putting herself out there to be rejected by anyone made her nervous, but she knew this boy would not make the first move unless she goaded him into it.

Then, when she was almost about to pull back, she felt a pair of lips place a hesitant, chase kiss upon her own, lingering for a few seconds before withdrawing. 

It wouldn’t make the top ten hottest kisses of the school year, but it still set something off in her.  “Did you enjoy that?”

“I did.” He gasped, blinking very quickly.

“Then we should do it again.” This time she attacked him, peppering the stunned boy with a rapid barrage of pecks on his lips, cheeks, and neck.

“Wa-wait.” He said.

She stopped immediately, worried she might have gone too far.  “what’s wrong?” she asked, heart still thundering in her ears.

“Izumi.” He said.

“Yes?” she asked.

“My name,” he explained causing her eyes to go wide. “You said you didn’t know it.”

“Your name is Izumi too?”

“No, I mean yes, I mean.” He took a deep breath. “Koushiro Izumi.”

She rolled her eyes.  Who would start with their last name in a situation like this? He gave her a heart attack for nothing.  “Izumi Orimoto.”

They stared at each other for a solid minute.

“Does…does that make you wanna stop?” Koushiro asked, the quiver in his voice betraying both hope and fear.

She thought about it for a second.  If they got married, that would make her Izumi Izumi.

But then, they were in high school, this probably wouldn’t even last a year.

She bent her face back to his lips in answer.

#digiweek #digiweek2022 #koushiro izumi #izumi orimoto #koushiroxizumi #-_- #dont even have time to check the formatting matches day 1 #also deleted and reuploaded because didn't @ the first time #digimon

[musingsoflys]

A Vent, caregiver fatigue

Lately I've been feeling like I live in a care facility, and I'm the only employee. This is my primary job despite the fact that I'm the one with *the* job that pays the bills and requires me to put time into it, during regular business hours, I can't just do my work whenever. I wish I could. The patients are capable of minimal self care; one gets left out a lot b/c the other two need so much in-person attention, but that attention can't be shared with anyone else at the same time. Clingy. Last night I had to sit in my older child's room, so she could focus on her homework that was due in 2 hours. (3 assignments. It got done. Yay!) Every time I leave her room with an armload of dirty dishes and have to use my foot to pull her door closed behind me, I remember that scene in Disney's Cinderella when she does the same thing, only I'm human and tired of it. In the middle of that, my younger child needed to get things ready for school tomorrow but is apparently constantly on the verge of having a breakdown. The prospect of trying to plan anything for the next day nearly caused her to curl up into a ball like an armadillo. She is very behind on the majority of her schoolwork, and it's only getting worse, which, of course, only adds to the stress. Vicious circle. And my husband is lonely and getting depressed again. He and his therapist keep missing each other or having to reschedule. He finally called his endocrinologist for more T (he's been out for months) and an appointment. Guess when the next available appointment was? March. March 2023. Fortunately he doesn't have to wait that long for meds. Even just now, I'm supposed to be teleworking. I had just sat down to do this little dump when he called me from upstairs to go scratch his back b/c he's in so much pain that he can't sleep. No one knows why he has so much pain; it seems to be nerves. He's got strong pain relievers and has had multiple nerve ablating procedures. I think he should give a pain psychologist a shot. It would make sense to me that, over time, his nervous system has learned this pain behavior and needs to relearn that there's no need for all this pain. There's no life threat. His neck and shoulders are also ridiculously tight; regular, frequent massage and learning how to relax those muscles would be helpful, no doubt. And I'm trying to figure out my personal development/journey (faith, sexuality, re-finding myself, discovering me, discovering god). Lately I've been stagnant. It's so easy to get busy with ... anything: dishes, laundry, TV, Facebook & Instagram. I would like to get out of my church weeknight youth commitment, but the other leaders keep leaving (for extremely valid reasons), but I don't want to put the girls through a sudden complete leadership change. It's hard to keep my foot in the door that way while also feeling rather icky about church as a whole. We have a good congregation, and sometimes I miss it, and it feels awkward being there. Very liminal. That's the word, still, yes. Liminal, like a hallway, not in any of the rooms, not having a place, just hanging out in the hallway. And I'm 50 now. It's very weird. Especially as once again I'm around significantly younger peers (same grade/responsibility level). I'm glad I had my last boss who loved being in her 50s, was proud of it, but it's weird and challenging for me.

#CareGiverFatigue #Venting #BrainDump

[harveyhawkscripts]

[F4A] Courting a Reef Giant [Reef Giant Speaker] [Mini Script] [12 Days of Scriptmas]

AN: So this was an abandoned script idea, but I’m behind on Scriptmas due to unexpected circumstances. I should be back in the swing of things tomorrow. Maybe one day I’ll come back to this script and continue it; I do really like the concept. 

Google Doc

Usage:

- Okay for monetization

- Please credit me as Harvey Hawk :)

- Tweaks, improv, and pronoun changes are okay! Just please do not rewrite the script completely.

Synopsis: The speaker, Avira Aquamarine, is a reef giant and the eldest daughter of her late parents, Ona and Saulmen. She is heir to a great fortune and looking for a life partner. The listener, a human, wanders into her abode and instantly falls for her. And it just so happens that she’s holding a competition to see who is worthy to be her partner. 

Key:

[SFX and Action]

Break - Listener response

(...) Longer pause

(Voice instruction)

Word Count: 383

---

AVIRA

Welcome suitors. I am Avira Aquamarine, eldest daughter of Ona and Saulmen Aquamarine and heir to the Aquamarine fortune. You are here today because you have been given the opportunity of a lifetime – the opportunity to earn my hand in marriage. You will be put through a series of rigorous tests to assess your physical, mental, and emotional capabilities as a partner. During these challenges, you – hold on.

[Giant Footsteps]

You. Human. What are you doing among my suitors? How did you even get into my mansion?

You found a cave while diving, and it led here? So much for a hidden sanctuary. Regardless, this place is not for the likes of you. Be on your way, and I will forgive you for trespassing.

No? What do you mean no?

You… Wish to court me…?

[Laughs heartily]

Oh, for a small thing you are just too much, aren’t you? But enough jokes. Scuttle on, little one.

You can’t be serious. You think I can’t tell when someone is just after inheritance?

What do you mean “what inheritance?” Don’t you know anything about Reef Giants?

And why, pray tell, would you want to marry someone you know nothing about?

Love at first sight… Is that a sort of human phenomenon?

That sounds ridiculous. I don’t even know your name.

Well, I think I’ll just call you Sea Bunny.

Because you’re small and cute! So cute that I almost want to humor you. Almost.

Listen, Sea Bunny, don’t get me wrong. You’re charming. But you’re just a tiny thing – if you get underfoot, it’s all over for you. Besides, how do you plan to make yourself stand out among a group of mighty reef giants? And if you do manage to do that, how do you plan to provide for me?

And what job is that, Bunny?

A baker…?

(Interested) A baker. So, you make cakes and things then?

Yes, yes, bread too. But more importantly – you make sweets, right? Cupcakes, cookies, ooh! What about cream puffs?

Hmm… You know what? Consider it your lucky day. I’ll allow you the privilege of fighting for my hand.

Yes, really. But! Don’t think I’ll take it easy on you because you’re a human. The first challenge is the anchor toss. Hope you’re ready!

END

#script writing #asmr scripts #f4a #romantic #fantasy #12 days of scriptmas