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eleanorfenyxwrites · 1 year

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Soldier, Poet, King

Part 13

[Beginning] [Previous]

[AO3] [Masterpost]

Time for Jin Guangyao's POV, and it's even longer than Nie Mingjue's so I'm very glad that y'all voted to split this current portion into three separate chapters lol.

Warning for Jin Guangyao having a Not Great Time (flashbacks, PTSD, etc.) related to his trauma from Jin Guangshan using him for Kaiju bait as well as a brief mention of the way he was abused by the Wen family when he worked for them in Tokyo.

--//--

Jin Guangyao wakes with a start, sitting upright and climbing out from between his partners in a tightly controlled rush without thinking about it, only realizing why a few seconds into stumbling into his trousers.

Nie Mingjue is even faster than him — he’d come back to their quarters late last night after a visit to research and so he’d just fallen asleep in his trousers and undershirt like he used to do more regularly, which means that he’s up and out the door into the pulsing red lights in the hallway while Jin Guangyao (and Lan Xichen behind him) are still hurrying to dress.

“JIN ONE, LET’S GO!” he barks in the direction of the room Jin Guangyao’s brother and cousin share. Jin Guangyao shares a glance with Lan Xichen before they hurry to join their partner out in the hallway, the doors along the corridor clanging open under the wailing sirens in an uneven cacophony as the pilots and the technicians further down the hall finish their own preparations nearly in tandem.

The technicians all run past them, a flurry of hurried jostling and the pounding of boots up the corridor, but the pilots cluster there in the hall, all bright-eyed, if a little confused. Jin Guangyao doesn’t blame them — the countdown clocks scattered throughout the ‘dome report they still have weeks to go before their next attack. But just because Mo Xuanyu’s predictions are frighteningly accurate doesn’t mean they’re incontrovertible fact, and they all know the unpredictability of their opponents too well to be truly shocked.

Jin Zixuan is the first into the hallway, already suited up in his stupid gold and mother-of-pearl getup, but it’s Jiang Yanli at his side, not Jin Zixun. Jin Guangyao feels a faint tickle of something a bit too nebulous to name ‘dread’, though it’s close.

The sirens, their purpose served, shut off abruptly between one wail and the next.

“Where is he?” Nie Mingjue snaps at his normal (still loud) volume.

“I haven’t seen him in over 24 hours, Chifeng-zun, I don’t know,” Jin Zixuan reports steadily enough despite how pale he looks in the lights that are still dropped down to flashing red. Jin Guangyao makes some quick calculations and grips Nie Mingjue’s forearm so tightly his knuckles ache.

“No one else can go,” he says and he’s relieved his voice stays steady as well. “Lotus Spider and Jade Dragon are both stripped down for weapons upgrades, Golden Thunder and Immortal Mountain are docked for maintenance repairs. It has to be Sparks.”

There’s only one way that Sparks Amidst Snow can make the drop, and before his partner has even opened his mouth to give the order Jiang Yanli is turning to dart down the hallway quick as a minnow to the room she shares with Wen Qing.

“Wait! You can’t send jie out like this! Hey–!”

Jin Guangyao ignores Jiang Wanyin — as does Nie Mingjue, who simply turns to begin striding down the hallway. Jin Guangyao falls in at his partner’s left, Lan Xichen at Nie Mingjue’s right, and the remaining pilots, save Jin Zixuan, hurry to fall in behind them, their little group eerily silent as they hurry through the boiling shatterdome up to the comms tower.

“A-Su, go find Xuanyu,” Nie Mingjue orders when they reach the branching hub that leads down to the basements. “Bring him up to comms, I want him in the tower for all drops from now on. Wuxian, Wangji – go give the orders to evacuate the harbor neighborhoods and supervise it. I want everyone who can to take shelter in the nearest bunkers they can access.”

Qin Su, Wei Wuxian, and Lan Wangji peel off to their assigned tasks without missing a beat. Jin Guangyao has to jog to keep up with Nie Mingjue’s loping stride.

They’re nearly there when the lights drop blue, the siren resumes its wailing, and then they’re all breaking into a dead run, instinct guiding them to react to the emergency warning despite the fact that there’s nothing they can do except wait for Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli to drop.

“Chifeng-zun!” Jiang Wanyin shouts over the whooping alarm. “Jiejie isn’t a combat pilot!! You can’t send her out without backup!”

Jin Guangyao skids to a stop just in time to slam his hand down on the button for the lift up to communications as his partner rounds on Jiang Wanyin with an ugly snarl twisting his face.

“Then you make yourself useful and attempt to find Jin Zixun and another goddamn Jaeger within the next five minutes, but I have an invasion to get under control!”

“Nie Mingjue!!” Jiang Wanyin practically screams, spittle flying, and Jin Guangyao has to admire his balls of steel at least — just because Nie Mingjue is functional that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily well, especially not when there’s no doubt that he knows what they all do; the crux of the matter on both sides is that this will be a suicide mission, and they have to run it anyway. Jin Guangyao knows that it’s not a decision Nie Mingjue is making lightly, but it’s the reality they have to live with. It’s one of the nightmares that keeps his partner up at night, tormenting himself with what-ifs and should-haves, but he’s a good commander. He’ll do whatever it takes.

Even a suicide run.

Before it can become a murder as well, though, Lan Xichen steps between Nie Mingjue and Jiang Wanyin to bodily force Jiang Wanyin to stand down while Jin Guangyao ushers Nie Mingjue into the lift.

“She’ll be alright,” Luo Qingyang attempts to comfort as they all clamber into the lift after them. “She’s stronger than she looks-“

“I know that!” Jiang Wanyin snaps. Jin Guangyao stays silent and steady at Nie Mingjue’s side, fingertips gently pressed to the inside of his wrist at his side to monitor his partner’s pulse and make sure he isn’t about to pass out from the unexpected stress. “I’m her co-pilot! Me! No one knows what she’s capable of better than I do, and this will kill her!!”

“Jiang Yanli is a world-class pilot,” Jin Guangyao says, his well-trained voice devoid of every emotion roiling through him. “She is aware, as we all are, that every day could bring death, and she chooses to remain a pilot. It’s a sacrifice we are all willing to make.”

“What do you know?” Jiang Wanyin turns to sneer at him, his eyes so wide the whites are visible all the way around. Jin Guangyao can’t really fault him, no matter how irritating this outburst is. “You’ve never even stepped foot out of a ‘dome during a battle, you have no idea what it’s like to face these things head-on —“

Jin Guangyao is too slow to stop Nie Mingjue punching Jiang Wanyin square in the nose so quickly his hand is a blur. Jiang Wanyin crumples to the floor like a sack of rice with a heavy thunk. It speaks volumes about their emotional states that neither Lan Xichen nor Luo Qingyang pass comment, instead merely lifting Jiang Wanyin’s unconscious form between them to carry him into the comms tower when the doors to the lift open again.

“Sparks?” Nie Mingjue barks at Nie Zonghui, mercifully already in his seat and frantically getting the Drift systems up and running. Jin Guangyao flings himself into his own seat to begin his half of the work monitoring the incoming Kaiju, reading miles of data as it pings in from their sensors out in the ocean to give him any information at all that will help them win.

“They just arrived, strapping in now,” Nie Zonghui reports, terse and businesslike.

“Kaiju?”

“It’s stealthy,” Jin Guangyao bites out, still scanning every piece of data that’s coming in with ever-increasing urgency. “I can’t get a read on it, but it’s fast. Not as fast as the last one maybe, but very close to it.”

Nie Mingjue just grunts his acknowledgement and turns to lean over Nie Zonghui so he can press the switch to talk to the pilots, announcing their Drift initiation and giving them their orders once the connection establishes and stabilizes. The orders are quite simple, nothing more than, “Keep it from landing, kill it as quickly as you can,” but Jin Guangyao knows that that’s much easier said than done.

Sparks Amidst Snow drops and they make a beeline straight for the open bay doors, disappearing into the night with the thundering boom of tens of thousands of gallons of displaced water, audible even all the way up in the tower. Inside the communications room, there’s grim silence once again as they watch the glowing dot that marks the Jaeger cross the radar at a quick clip that Jin Guangyao isn’t entirely sure will be quick enough. Not through any fault of Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli’s — they’re in a top of the line Jaeger that’s been further enhanced to be one of the absolute best in the world — but simply because it would seem the Kaiju have learned, yet again, how to best them.

“Cat 5,” Jin Guangyao yelps the moment his scanning attention catches on all the right data points. “Ge—“

“Nothing changes,” Nie Mingjue tells him through a deadly sort of calm, so different from his urgency on the way here. “They’ll get there, or they won’t. They’ll kill it, or they won’t. Our hands are tied.”

That’s remarkably bleak for Nie Mingjue but Jin Guangyao doesn’t have the time to glance at the others in the room to see how they’re taking it. The Kaiju is closing in fast, skimming along the shoreline like it knows it needs to come to the port to do the most damage — which he doesn’t doubt that it does. Thanks to Xue Yang’s experiments, Jin Guangyao has no doubt that the Kaijus they face from now on will be remarkably clever about their attacks in addition to being brutally strong. It’s nigh impossible to tuck that thought away where it can’t hurt anything rather than letting it convince him that they’re fighting a war they’ve already lost, but with a mental wrench he manages it.

Even if it’s a losing battle, a losing war, they still have no choice but to fight it.

“20 miles out, northward, speeding quickly along the shoreline,” Jin Guangyao reports directly to Sparks, clipped and businesslike. The camera feed ‘copters catch up with them just as they swing more directly north, adjusting to the collision coordinates Jin Guangyao is typing as quickly as he can into their navigation system to ping it up on their Jaeger’s map display. “My guess is the goal is to make landfall and cause as much destruction as possible here in Shanghai or else it would have already landed along the way.”

“They’re strategizing,” Jiang Yanli notes, her voice as calm and soft as ever. “Strategies can always be countered.”

“We still don’t know how they think after all this time,” Nie Mingjue leans in to say. “They won’t strategize the way we would.”

“They will likely employ the information that Xue Yang has given them,” she replies, blithe as ever. “And there are only so many ways to reach their goal anyway. Don’t worry, Chifeng-zun, it’ll be alright.”

“Jiang Yanli is a masterful strategist,” Lan Xichen murmurs. “We’ve sent out the best team capable of stopping it, Mingjue.”

Jin Guangyao keeps his certainty that it will still not be enough very firmly behind his teeth.

“Closing in,” he informs Sparks instead. “It’s evading the sensors so I can’t get a good read on its physiology, but you are facing the first ever Category 5 Kaiju. Be careful.”

“I’m here! Why is Jiang-xiong passed out on the floor?”

“Come here, A-Yu,” Jin Guangyao calls his brother away from investigating Jiang Wanyin’s prone form, bloody nose, and blackening eyes. “Category 5.” Those two words are enough to snap Mo Xuanyu out of his lighthearted curiosity and beckon him straight over to the bank of monitors, his expression tight. He sneaks a hand over the back of Jin Guangyao’s chair to clutch at the shoulder of his jumpsuit in a vice grip.

“Is that Zixuan-ge?” he whispers when he spots the flashes of gold in the spotlight beam from the helicopter.

“And Jiang Yanli. Yes.”

The lights in the ‘dome flicker up to their usual sallow yellow abruptly, the emergency alarm switching off now that it’s done its duty. A hush of bated breath and the fear of fish trapped in a barrel suffuses the room as they all turn to watch the video feed when the glowing radar dot that is Sparks Amidst Snow is fully overlapped with the collision coordinates Jin Guangyao had given them.

The battle begins where they can’t see it. A heave of black water and the sun-bright flash of a nuclear charge are their first indication that contact has been made. Mo Xuanyu’s hand tightens further in the thick canvas of JIn Guangyao’s uniform.

When the Kaiju stands up out of the water, Jin Guangyao wonders if souls are real, as he’s pretty sure his has just left his body. The Kaiju towers over Sparks Amidst Snow, the bottom of its long-pincered face easily clearing the peak of the Jaeger’s helmet with an entire torso-length to spare. It’s broad as a building, a wall of black and blue and phosphorescent green in the dancing, jittering beam of the helicopter spotlight. Jin Guangyao counts at least four appendages that could be very loosely qualified as arms before the lamp stops its wandering to focus on one of the Kaiju’s iridescent violet eyes the size of a house, irritating it into screeching so loudly the camera shakes. Jin Guangyao is relieved they can’t actually hear it.

“Qingyang,” Nie Mingjue rasps.

“Sir?”

“Evacuate the ‘dome. I want everyone who doesn’t have to help with this battle down in the basement bunkers. Now.”

Jin Guangyao knows that Luo Qingyang most likely wants to be there in the tower with them where she can at least see what’s happening to her childhood best friend, but she leaves without a word of complaint. She takes Qin Su with her, it sounds like, and the remaining handful of them in the tower drop into a loaded silence again as the fight continues.

It takes roughly three rounds of earth-shaking blows traded back and forth before Jiang Yanli’s voice returns. “It’s pulling its attacks, Chifeng-zun. A Kaiju this size should not be this weak with its offense, I think it’s trying to keep us busy.”

“Tokyo’s reporting the attack,” Nie Zonghui suddenly pipes up at his right. Jin Guangyao tears his eyes away from the battle on the monitor to look at Nie Zonghui’s screen instead, where he’s got news coverage from Tokyo pulled up and muted, subtitles flying as the reporter speaks. “It hit there like Xuanyu predicted the next one would, but it broke off to head for us with no warning.” The playback switches from a reporter down in the evacuated streets to the footage of the fight itself, and sure enough there’s the Kaiju they’re currently dealing with towering even further over Wen Xu and Wen Chao’s mach 4 Eternal Sun than it is over Sparks Amidst Snow.

For the first time since his realization downstairs, Jin Guangyao starts to hope that this won’t be a suicide mission after all. If the Kaiju was already locked into a fight with Eternal Sun and gave them the slip, there’s no way two pilots as egotistical and proud as the Wen brothers will allow it to actually escape them. Their seabed sensors only go out so far, but now that they obviously know exactly where the Kaiju is he returns to monitoring the output from the fringes of their territory practically obsessively, hunting for the signs that will mean there’s something the size of another Jaeger entering their waters.

Backup from the Wen is in every way an absolute last resort, but they don’t exactly have the luxury of being picky at the moment, and there’s no way the Manila ‘dome will be able to get one of their pilots up here in time to help. It’s Tokyo, or it’s nobody.

From the corner, weak and fuzzy, Jiang Wanyin mumbles, “Jiejie?”

Jin Guangyao has no attention to spare for the continuation of Jiang Wanyin’s breakdown, but considering his own brother is out there too he can’t exactly fault the man for being so distraught. He’s trying very hard not to think about it.

“Jiang Wanyin, if you can keep control of yourself you may stay,” Nie Mingjue tells him with no room for argument. “If you’re going to continue questioning my leadership and disrespecting my partner then I will have you forcibly removed and shoved into a bunker with the rest of the ‘dome.”

Sparks Amidst Snow collapses like the world’s largest sack of potatoes into the water and the Kaiju pounces on it, battering it down beneath the waves for a heartstopping moment where all they can see is churning black water capped with foam, erratically lit by the helicopter spot.

“I’ll stay,” Jiang Wanyin whispers, agonized. “I…I have to know.”

The Kaiju erupts from beneath the waves again in a spray of water and bright blood as high as a skyscraper, a gaping hole punched straight through its hide the source of the acid-blue gore. Sparks Amidst Snow emerges a moment later, nuclear core in its chest still glowing from its latest discharge as Jin Zixuan engages the blasters attached to both forearms and sends another round of charges straight at the Kaiju’s face. It’s brutal and inelegant, but effective nonetheless as the Kaiju rears back and collapses down into the water with another shriek that they can’t hear but that must rattle the world for miles.

“A-Li is right, it’s pulling blows,” Jin Zixuan pants into the comms, sounding exhausted already. Mo Xuanyu’s free hand finds Jin Guangyao’s other shoulder as they both lean in, and Zonghui, thoughtful as ever, gets rid of the news from Tokyo to instead pull up the camera feed from inside the Jaeger for the two of them to see. Jiang Wanyin crowds in close as well, even though all that there is to see of their siblings is the light reflecting off the faceguards of their helmets and the obscuring bulk of their Jaeger armor, softly gleaming gold and violet nearly identical in the low light of the cockpit.

“Is A-Yu there?” Jin Zixuan asks next as he begins to go through the motions of charging up his next blaster round in the guns mounted on Sparks’ greaves, Jiang Yanli mirroring him automatically through their Drift. Jin Guangyao doesn’t quite understand how having a non-combat pilot works in a twosome with a combat pilot, but if it works for them then he doesn’t really need to know, at least not mid-battle.

“I’m here, Zixuan-ge!”

“Any idea what it might be waiting for? Reinforcements? Anything??”

“Reinforcements aren’t a thing, ge — the Breach closes behind each Kaiju that comes through, and it’s never opened back up quickly enough to allow a second one out so soon after the first.”

“Well it’s doing something! It feels like it’s..toying with us—“

“A-Xuan!!”

“FUCK!!!”

Jin Guangyao jumps at the sudden tension snapping through both of their voices and scrambles to figure out what it is that startled them so badly, but there’s nothing strange on the sensors, no sign of the Wens yet —

“Zonghui!” Nie Mingjue snaps, “Alert all areas of the city to evacuate into the bunkers immediately. It’s coming.”

Jin Guangyao’s entire body goes cold, understanding dawning. It was waiting for them to drop their guard. To pause. To get tired, as all humans do.

And then, against the aggressive patterns of all Kaiju before it, it left.

Sparks Amidst Snow races at top speed in the wake of the Kaiju. Jin Guangyao keeps anxiously watching the signals for any sign of the Wens giving chase even as his fingers fly over his keyboard, tapping out a furious request for help to be broadcast to every single shatterdome this side of the Pacific. It doesn’t matter anymore if they get here in time or not — if the Kaiju levels Shanghai it won’t stop there, and the others should at least be on alert if nothing else. Someone will have to stop it, even if they can’t.

He barely registers the sound of Zonghui giving the order into the military emergency channel to get the entire city to hunker down.

This deep in the ‘dome the warning sirens out in the city are a quiet, high-pitched whine, soft as a fly buzzing in the corner. He can imagine the panic on the streets, the mad rush to get to safety. The bunkers will hold everyone in Shanghai and then some, they were designed well, but that only works if everyone is where they’re expected to be.

And people so rarely are.

It’s the middle of the night. The pleasure districts will be stuffed full. The business districts, bare. The residential districts will be slow to respond as the inhabitants are roused from sleep and frightened into action.

There will be neighborhoods with half-empty shelters. There will be bunkers so full they physically cannot cram another body into them. There will be children separated from their parents, and partners terrified that they’ll never see each other again as they’re swept away from each other on the street, the panicking crowd dragging them in their current like leaves caught in a diverging stream.

Jin Guangyao cannot panic, he has no time or space to panic, but it grabs him by the throat anyway. It stills his fingers on the keys. His vision dims.

He could be on the street.

He could be laying in the rubble of a battlefield, unable to get up on his own, left to die while the fight rages on around him.

He could die.

The people he loves could die.

Nie Mingjue’s voice echoes from the bottom of a well when he calls a terse, “Xichen.”

Jin Guangyao’s final, faint tether to his surroundings disappears with his brother’s hands leaving his shoulders. His next exhale scrapes his throat raw.

There’s a flash of gold in front of his eyes and he’s staring up at Golden Thunder, her pilots unaware that he’s there, vulnerable, hurt, crying out for sympathy, for rescue, as he’s left behind to die.

“Shhhh A-Yao, it’s me. We’re here.”

“What’s going on with him?!”

Lan Xichen’s voice, soft but urgent, immediately followed by Jiang Wanyin’s sharp bark (that’s absolutely worse than his bite) is enough to drag him clawing back towards reality. The chalky scent of crumbled concrete and the acrid tang of ocean brine and Kaiju blood is replaced with the stale nothingness of the ‘dome’s filtered air on his next rattling inhale. His hands aren’t scrabbling on shredded metal and broken glass, they’re clutched tightly in Lan Xichen’s strong grip and his partner is rubbing slow, firm circles into the undersides of his wrists right over his hammering pulse.

“Father used Yao-ge as Kaiju bait once,” Mo Xuanyu mumbles. Jin Guangyao can’t even find it in himself to care that his most hated secret is out. Lan Xichen is scared, he can see it in his eyes, and it drags Jin Guangyao another precious inch closer to him, away from the edge of crumbling back into the past he can never fully escape. “He snapped his ankle and left Yao-ge right in the path of a Cat 3, as an experiment.”

Jin Guangyao hears Jiang Wanyin say…well, something, anyway. His ears are ringing too much to catch whatever it is he breathes, and quite frankly he doesn’t really care what Jiang Wanyin thinks of him in the end. He can see Lan Xichen’s lips moving as well but he can’t hear him either, much though he wishes he could. His chest is too tight. It feels like every muscle in his body is clenched, attempting to curl in on himself but unable to do so.

The ringing in his ears grows louder and Lan Xichen must see something in his face because a blink of an eye later he’s shifted a bit to the side and Jin Guangyao is getting sick into the wastebin his partner is holding for him.

“Yu-didi, I don’t believe your recounting it is helping A-Yao stop reliving it.”

“Fuck, right, sorry. Sorry Yao-ge!”

“Pull it together, A-Yao,” Nie Mingjue says, quiet and rough and right in his ear, his familiar, heavy grip tight around the straining back of his neck. “I need you.”

Jin Guangyao squeezes his eyes shut and forces his breathing to even out — easier to do once Lan Xichen takes the bin away again and replaces it with himself, letting Jin Guangyao rest his head on his shoulder and breathe as he tries to do what Nie Mingjue needs. If he can’t do it for himself, or even for Lan Xichen, he can do it for Nie Mingjue.

“We have landfall,” Zonghui says. Jin Guangyao doesn’t even have time to shiver before Nie Mingjue is hauling him up from his chair, shoving the chair aside, and yanking Jin Guangyao to his chest to wrap his arms around him so tightly he can hardly breathe.

It tucks all the raw, bleeding parts of him back into the shape of his skin and he gasps as much as he can, hands clawing at his partner’s arms to ground himself as he’s finally wrenched fully back to the present. Sirens are blaring again, the distinctive, irregular, bass whooping that means the Kaiju has reached the shore. He opens his eyes to force them onto the helicopter’s feed again in time to see Sparks Amidst Snow come barrelling out of the water to collide with their foe at top speed, destroying a skyscraper and the cluster of lower buildings around it in one fell swoop.

“The harbor is empty,” Lan Xichen says like a mantra, calm even as he has to raise his voice over the sirens. “Wangji and Wuxian evacuated there first, right when Sparks deployed. They had time. Buildings can be replaced, and we’ll recover from this.”

Jin Guangyao’s heart pounds in his throat and he can’t let go of Nie Mingjue’s arms for fear of losing his way again in this moment when it’s vital, crucial, that he doesn’t. But he can watch his monitor from here; he can stare at lines of data, his familiar, bloodless job that can help him make sense of such a messy universe, and he can do everything in his power to ignore what’s happening in the city to keep watch for what will (hopefully) be the turning point of this battle.

For long minutes, there’s nothing but silence from every person in the room as the whooping siren makes itself background noise, as the lights drop to deep blue to make the ‘dome less of a visible target from the outside, as Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli stop talking even to each other in order to focus entirely on the fight at hand. Jin Guangyao watches his monitor and breathes in time with the pings from each seabed sensor, their dispersing signals guides for each inhale.

Exhale.

He breathes.

The fight rages on.

Until —

:Incoming long-range message:

The cool, feminine AI cuts through the tension and the sirens that shut off in the comms tower alone to allow the message to be heard.

:Tokyo Wen Jaeger Eternal Sun requests flight clearance: the AI recites, the message punctuated by the signal from the sensors that Jin Guangyao has been looking for. There, from the northwesternmost point of their territory — a Jaeger entering Shanghai’s waters at top speed.

Nie Zonghui turns to their own long-range radio and leans in to say, crisp and clear as a mountain river, “Granted.”

The door to the comms tower clangs open and Jin Guangyao jerks in Nie Mingjue’s arms that tighten around him with his own tension.

“ ‘Dome’s empty, all in the bunkers,” Luo Qingyang reports as she and Qin Su step forward to crowd with the rest of them around the monitors. Nie Zonghui switches the camera feed to the interior of Sparks again and only then do the pair let out twin shaky sighs of relief.

“The Wen brothers are incoming, they’ll be here in minutes,” Lan Xichen informs them, calm despite it all. “And Sparks has so far managed to keep the Kaiju within the business district near the harbor — it’s most likely to be empty.”

“It’s the best we can hope for,” Qin Su replies. “They’re doing well.”

“Xuan-ge’s getting tired,” Luo Qingyang whispers. Jin Guangyao doesn’t allow himself to look at the monitor showing Sparks’ internal cam.

“Don’t worry about Zixuan.”

A beat of silence follows Jiang Wanyin’s terse statement.

Naturally, it’s Nie Mingjue who breaks it. “Explain.”

“It’s because of jie. She can’t be putting much of her energy into this fight yet, just enough to support him so that he doesn’t tear himself to shreds. They’re unevenly matched, that’s why he’s tiring out. That’ll change soon.”

“Your Drift!” Mo Xuanyu suddenly pipes up. Jin Guangyao had nearly forgotten he was here, but no, he’s there holding hands with Qin Su (their knuckles are white they’re clutching each other so hard; Jin Guangyao is privately, guiltily relieved that he doesn’t need to soothe his siblings and can instead continue to be comforted himself.)

“Sorry — your drift with your siblings I mean. I was studying it. The reason there has to be all three of you –”

“It has to balance,” Jiang Wanyin cuts in, sharp as a knife. “We’re all too strong for each other in different ways, but if all three of us are there it’s like…it’s like a game of rock paper scissors. We hold each other in check. Jie’s not fit for combat because she can’t commit the standard amount of energy from the start, she has to build up to it. It’s too much for most individual pilots to frontload and they burn out before she can support them, but if there are two pilots to share the load first before she’s needed, or if a single pilot is abnormally good at carrying all the weight of his Drifts because he’s been doing it this whole time without even realizing it…”

Jin Guangyao blinks at that and wonders abruptly if he’s been missing something..horribly wrong with the way his brother and his cousin Drift. He hadn’t ever thought to look into it too deeply (and it’s not like Jin Zixun would welcome his prying into their stats anyway), but if that’s the case, if Jin Zixuan is used to bearing the brunt of all of their fights and he hasn’t even breathed a word of complaint..

“So what’s going to happen when he wears out? Why don’t we have to worry about it?” Nie Mingjue bites, getting to the heart of the matter as they watch another skyscraper crash into uncountable billions of shards of glass, twisted steel raining down to the street as Sparks yanks a massive I-beam support free from the scaffolding to swing at the Kaiju like a baseball bat to the head.

“Jie can’t start out a drop like a standard pilot, but once she’s ready she’s like…she’s like a supernova. She’ll burn straight through him, but before they burn out they’ll be the strongest pilots in the world.”

She’s a furnace, Jin Guangyao thinks a little giddily, stress somehow managing to dredge up some ridiculous notion he once picked up from the trashy Wuxia romance novels he used to steal from Meng Shi when she was busy working. He wisely keeps the thought to himself as they all collectively process what they’re likely about to witness — it still changes nothing. This was a suicide mission from the moment it began, why should it matter that it still is, only instead of dying in the clumsy, mundane way of exhaustion and overwhelm they’ll instead go out in a blaze of glory? The result is miserable either way.

Jin Guangyao startles again at a sudden crackle of static, loud enough that he’d be tempted to clap his hands over his ears were he not still locked up in Nie Mingjue’s arms.

:Shanghai?:

“Nie Zonghui, Shanghai Shatterdome. Eternal Sun?”

:Yeah it’s us. Where is it? What’s happening?:

Jin Guangyao breathes slowly, silently in through his nose and out through his mouth. It’s Wen Xu on the comms, which means they can at least hope for a relatively civil conversation, but that voice still haunts his dreams. He’s heard that voice deliver impossible cruelty with barely a shift in inflection, bland and blithe as if talking about the weather. He’s done horrible things that Wen Xu ordered him to do, speaking on behalf of his father. He’s writhed in agony when Wen Xu ordered him to be tortured for failing to deliver on an impossible promise on at least six separate occasions before Jin Guangyao grew too high in Wen Ruohan’s favor to be so debased.

They need the Wen brothers for this, he knows that, and it’s a miracle that they’ve come in time to be of use. But he’d very much like to curl into a ball and never emerge again so long as they’re within speaking distance of Shanghai.

“Landfall in the harbor, Sparks Amidst Snow is currently keeping it contained to the business district but I don’t know how much longer it’ll stay put,” Nie Zonghui reports, blind to everything but his need to carry them all through this hellish night. At least someone here isn’t moments away from shattering into a thousand pieces. “Just fly straight in, you can’t really miss it.”

:It’s fucking huge, yeah: Wen Xu snorts. :Don’t worry, we’ll mop it up for you:

“Generous of them,” Nie Mingjue mutters mutinously in his ear, shocking Jin Guangyao into finally letting out that hysterical little giggle trapped in his chest. He buries his face in his hands and shakes apart, half-laughing half-sobbing in a way that he wishes could be cathartic.

“A-Yao,” Lan Xichen murmurs with a hand stroking through his hair. “It’s alright, shh.”

Jin Guangyao waves him off and squirms out of Nie Mingjue’s arms to return to his seat, manic giggles still escaping him in bursts as he finally clicks away from the long-range sensor software to instead see if there’s anything they can get from the short-range on the Kaiju’s biometrics now that they’re not also trying to track its position.

“Uh oh,” Mo Xuanyu whispers. “Yao-ge’s losing it.”

Jin Guangyao giggles again when Qin Su reaches up to smack the back of Mo Xuanyu’s head.

A tentative hope is creeping like sunlight through their pocket of artificial gloom. Sparks will be getting a second wind any minute now, if Jiang Wanyin is to be believed. The Wens will be arriving even quicker at the rate they’re running. The Kaiju, having made landfall, seems content to follow all previous patterns now and go for a pummeling offensive, barely a defensive maneuver or escape tactic to be seen.

They can do this. They can fight like this.

Jin Guangyao doesn’t buy it for a fucking second, but the palpable relief in the room is nice while it lasts.

“Yao-didi?” Jin Zixuan pants into their comms, sounding absolutely ragged. It sobers Jin Guangyao up quickly, his horribly giggling dying down in the sudden swoop of realizing that this may still be the last chance he ever gets to talk to the brother he’s had a…complicated relationship with for so long, but that he still loves for what he is. What they can be.

“I’m here, Xuan-ge.”

“Did they get the pleasure district evacuated? Can you see?”

Jin Guangyao hurries to check the sensors — a delicate task when the kaiju’s signature is everywhere, overwhelming the delicate machinery and filling it with floods of data that muddle the signatures of anything smaller than a five story building.

Thankfully, the bunkers are big enough to register as their own independent signature when they’re full, and as Jin Guangyao seeks them out he finds each one full to capacity, burning bright with the lives of so many of Shanghai’s citizens.

“The bunkers in the pleasure district are full,” he says, because that’s the truth. He doesn’t know if the streets are fully evacuated, but he knows that the bunkers are full. He breathes through another brief flash of stragglers barred entry from safety scrambling for any cover they can find — he doesn’t know if that’s true, and if he torments himself with imagining it then he can’t perform his role here, which does more harm than good.

“Good,” Jin Zixuan groans — and Sparks drops to its knees like a puppet with its strings cut. “I just…I need a minute, I’m sorry-”

Jin Guangyao’s heart is in his throat and Lan Xichen has to bodily pull the others away from the monitors as they try to crowd closer with ragged cries of dismay and fear, boxing Nie Zonghui in too tightly.

“It’s alright,” Lan Xichen soothes them all equally, hands patting shoulders in between restraining them. “He’s alive, he’s okay, it’s just what Wanyin said would happen. They’re still in the Drift, he’s only tired.”

Jin Guangyao watches helplessly as the Kaiju bellows a fresh cry and rushes past the sudden drop in defenses to head deeper into the city.

There’s no way he can realistically feel the impact of its passage here within the ‘dome and 20-odd stories up in the air as they are, but the mind is a funny thing. The floor seems to shudder under his boots in time with the Kaiju’s loping stride through the city, and the vertigo he always gets when he’s down in the streets creeps in, making his head spin as he tries to keep getting a read on the Kaiju. Is it nearly dead? Is it only getting started? He doesn’t know, but if he can find out maybe he can help. Maybe he won’t feel so horrifically useless.

“Oh god.” It’s Luo Qingyang this time, her voice so flat the exclamation barely counts as one. “It’s them.”

It’s who?! Jin Guangyao wants to demand, but considering the Wen brothers still haven’t arrived (any second now, he repeats like a mantra) there are only a handful of people who could elicit that reaction.

“I haven’t seen him in over 24 hours, Chifeng-zun,” Jin Zixuan had said.

“Make it hurt,” he had told Xue Yang. “Make sure he knows who’s behind you telling you to pull the trigger.”

Jin Guangyao tears his gaze away from his data to look at the camera feed only to find it’s been hijacked — it takes a long moment for the offset, grainy CCTV feed to make sense to his scattered mind, but when it does he feels his blood run cold.

There, in the wind and the rain ripping through Shanghai, stands Xiao Xingchen in glowing white. Song Lan in deep black, little more than a pale moon face in the gloom. Between them, sagging with exhaustion and with blood clearly running from both nostrils, is Xue Yang grinning wickedly straight up at the camera, wild-eyed and sharp around the edges despite the fact that he’s only standing thanks to the support of his companions gripping his arms.

Behind them, in the rubble of the street, two barely-identifiable figures attempt to crawl for cover.

Jin Guangyao can tell even through the horrible camera quality that their legs are not at all at the right angles to allow them to get very far.

Xue Yang blows a kiss at the camera before he allows the others to haul him away, but rather than escaping for cover between the buildings they hurry straight down the wide, empty street, the wind whipping their hair and traditional-looking robes in a flurry of movement that has Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan turning to look over their shoulders in tandem, cybernetic eyes glowing pinpoints of light in their faces as they crane their necks up - up - up.

“It’s following Xue Yang,” Jin Guangyao whispers with horrified understanding. “It’s his..his Kaiju Drift. He’s connected to them permanently. They’re tracking him.”

“He’s guiding it inland,” Jiang Wanyin says.

“No,” Mo Xuanyu corrects, softly horrified. “He’s using it as a weapon.”

Jin Guangyao rises to his feet without conscious thought, and Lan Xichen doesn’t attempt to stop him as he approaches the monitor until he’s close enough to see each individual grainy pixel in the footage. Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang have disappeared out of the frame, but all that means is that there, perfectly captured in the center of it, lie Jin Guangshan and Jin Zixun, twin crumpled heaps in the street outside the brightly-lit facade of the brothel they frequent the most.

Directly in the path of the Kaiju currently barreling through Shanghai unchecked.

His nose is nearly touching the screen when the Kaiju swings into frame and crushes both of them underfoot as casually as he might step on a crumb.

Qin Su screams, hastily muffled in her hand. Mo Xuanyu chokes on a gasp. Jiang Wanyin shouts an inarticulate swear, Luo Qingyang adds her own mess to his in the bin, Lan Xichen grabs him by both shoulders and squeezes hard enough to bruise.

Nie Mingjue plants both his fists on the desk to close his eyes and breathe.

Jin Guangyao processes all of this through the numbing cushion of shock protecting him from losing his mind entirely.

The screen cuts black for a second before their helicopter feed is allowed through the transmission again, as if it wasn’t already clear enough that they’d been meant to see every second of that. Jin Guangyao steps back from the monitor to sit at his desk again and mechanically return to his task.

The fight is still on. The Kaiju is still out there, running rampant and following Xue Yang wherever the others have taken him. If they’ve escaped then it’s likely the Kaiju will as well, and no matter what else has happened there are still civilians to protect.

Jin Guangyao’s hands shake as he types fresh coordinates into the mapping system for Sparks and conveys the same to the short-range radio to deliver to Eternal Sun.

“What happened?!” Jin Zixuan begs through the comms. “Is everyone alright?”

No one seems to have the strength to answer him.

The rest of the battle and its aftermath goes like this:

Eternal Sun sweeps in and drags the Kaiju back towards the harbor kicking and shrieking to pay for its crimes.

Jin Zixuan pushes through his exhaustion to return to the fight when it’s dropped right at his feet.

Jiang Yanli, acting as a reserve of near-boundless energy needed for the final push, screams herself hoarse as she and Jin Zixuan push themselves beyond the limits of what any pilot should ever experience in their Jaeger to deliver the killing blow.

They will never be able to drop again, but will forever be the first pilots to successfully kill a Category 5 Kaiju.

The moment Jin Guangyao confirms the death of the Kaiju, Nie Zonghui yanks them out of their Drift and sends their Jaeger into emergency shutdown to be retrieved later.

Eternal Sun will claim the spoils of the kill, but agree to allow Sparks the glory.

Jin Guangshan and his nephew are dead in the street, and their bodies aren’t able to be cleared away before the news broadcasters catch wind of it and begin plastering the news on every screen in Shanghai.

Jin Guangyao, the moment his duties are done and everyone else’s survival is assured, faints and doesn’t wake for two full days.

#the untamed fanfic #3zun #Pacific Rim AU #background/implied xuanli #background/implied songxuexiao #Jin Guangyao #Nie Mingjue #Lan Xichen #Jin Zixuan #Jiang Yanli #I really don't want to tag everyone who's there since it's most of the ensemble lol #also read a bunch of the fic for funsies last night and this morning and I have two main thoughts:#This fic is a lot better than I give it credit for whenever I'm in the middle of writing it #and I make people 'bark' a lot in this lol #But like. They're in a military setting! It's tense! Orders are barked! what else am I supposed to use?? 😂😅

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army-of-bee-assassins · 2 years

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today was orientation for my grad program, and then there was a party at a professor's house this evening for all the slp students (1st and 2nd years) and it all went pretty well tbh!! i was worried it would be overwhelming and i'd stand in a corner on my phone talking to no one like i usually do in social gatherings but i actually managed to talk to people and they were mostly pretty cool!

#i am crediting this on two things: me being older than a lot of the (sometimes visibly nervous) other students #and also i think me being visibly transmasc in a very female-dominated environment made me stand out (in a good way)#some people recognized me from zoom class and were like 'yoo joyce what's up' even tho we hadn't really talked in zoom class before #so that was nice #i also think now that i'm dressing in men's clothing and actually liking my appearance that probably didn't hurt with the confidence either #anyway i think i'm sticking out but i like it lol i think it's gonna get me friends and also make me more noticeable for professors #bc i need connections with professors if i want a ga-ship #also there is one clinical supervisor who does gender-affirming voice therapy and i'm big👀#hello yes i would like to work with you pls #here is that grad school tag #OH also one of the second years invited me to a new dnd group this sunday so that's exciting too #we'll see if it goes anywhere but they seem cool

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femmeroi · 8 months

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I think if VRAINS got another season it would be all about Yusaku and Ai getting back together while they both learn how to calm down and maybe even enjoy things. I think it would also be about Ryoken having one big nasty fever inducing vision having mental breakdown with no one around to help

#God I think about post cannon VRAINS so much (Duel Links isn't real and can't hurt me here)#Yusaku Ai holding hands in a Zuwijo-esque shoujo flower field- fade to black- fade in to Ryoukens dirty and destroyed room #just a warning I'm talkin bout parent death and suicide in the tags below #People give Ryoken too much credit- he was raised with the will to kill himself for the sake of destroying the Ignis and he watched his dad #actually kill himself so that Ryoken can destroy the Ignis- he isn't going to unlearn “Kill Ignis Now” without a lot of his blood spilling #I think it should go farther- Ryoken should kill his father with his own two hands since that bitch is haunting him as metadata #Just know I am also so very delusional about Ai and Yusaku post VRAINS- they're a whole telenovela together I can't even get into it rn

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sunnami · 3 months

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❝time will tell.❞

[credits to the original artist of the photo!! can't seem to find their @ anywhere. title is taken from jane austen's persuasion, as was the first part.]

summary. ❝you are loved. and harry thinks there is no better description that that.❞

pairing/s. poly!mauraders x reader. (james potter x reader, sirius black x reader, lily evans x reader, and remus lupin x reader.)

word count. 9.5k.

tags. reader is referred to mum, with she/her pronouns[!], canon-typical violence [!], canon-typical deaths mentioned[!], very brief marauders as soldiers of the order[!], creepy old men being creepy[!], child abuse[!], pureblood arranged marriages, a minor character expresses wanting to die[!], Depressed and Traumatized Slytherins, the capital is important[!], themes of misogyny [!], teen boys fuck around and find out there are consequences to their actions, THERE IS ACTUALLY A LOT OF FLUFF, I PROMISE YOU, angst, children lose their baby teeth up until the age of twelve!! google said so!! not proofread we die like dobby the free elf

note. damn, i cried, you cried, we all crode. tbh, the first part was only intended as a oneshot, sdfkhdf, but when i re-read it, i thought that i could have expanded on more details,, so now here we are!! i love it more than the first part ueueue. thank you all so so so much for the kind comments :((( please please enjoy the second part to this installment!! part one

HARRY JAMES POTTER was only a few months old when you died at the hands of Voldemort — or as strangers have told him every time they ravaged his personal space and ogled at his scar. They said it was a quick death, better than what had happened to Alice and Frank Longbottom. But that was all they’ve ever said about your death. Unfortunate; caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, entirely different from the pedestal James and Lily have been put on by the wizarding society.

At first, Harry had wondered if it was due to your blood relations, being the daughter of a renowned Death-Eater, heiress to the fortune of a pureblood House. Harry can’t even count the amount of conspiracy theories he’s read or heard to his face that it must have been you who betrayed James and Lily, and not Sirius Black.

Even Hermione’s shared to him a theory that your death was faked to surrender your loyalty completely to Voldemort — of course, Hermione was eleven at the time, head full of books and her favorite theories, and Harry’s already forgiven her. But there’s a part of him that despises the way he’s never known the full truth about his parents, just bits of information dangled in front of him like bait for people [read: the Dursleys] to get him to do what they want, to act like the way they want. Until Remus and Sirius, you were a stranger to him, really.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

IT IS RATHER UNFORTUNATE that Madam Pince has already taken her position as the unbearable librarian at this point in time. The woman gives Harry and you a pointed look as you slam the large book onto one of the tables — to Harry’s surprise, you glare right back at her. You’re awfully flushed, however, blushing cheeks betraying the fire in your eyes; it must have been from when Remus escorted the two of you to the library; he had tried to brush your hand with his pinky, to which you had responded with a startled hiss — Remus only smiled and chuckled at you, and Harry swears he’d like to forget that entire interaction because he saw literal stars in Remus’s eyes.

Jumping back in time and potentially causing chaos? Fun.

Meeting your parents? Definitely fun, in the strangest of ways.

But watching them pine and fall for each other? Not so fun.

Nonetheless, he hesitantly takes the seat across yours and watches you flip through the pages until you land on a chapter with the large, bold letters: THE CURIOUS CASE OF ELOISE MINTUMBLE — Time-Travel and Its Many Dangers. He meets your gaze with a sheepish grin, mustering a look of innocence; except the puppy dog eyes only worked when he was nine — you are not amused.

You slide the book towards him, scarily resembling Molly Weasley when she’s miffed with the twins. “You are aware, right, that just by existing here you’ve changed the future? Your future? And, that’s not even the worst thing that could happen.”

Harry sulks. “Yes, mum.” He prefers not to think about it, actually, it makes his head hurt.

“Don’t call me that in public!” You whisper heatedly, looking over your shoulder to check if anyone had heard him — to your luck, the library was empty, save for a Hufflepuff that was passed out on top of his books. “The less people that know about this, the better. It’s bad enough we told Potter about you. Do you even know what you’re going to do?”

“Considering I was thrown here against my will, no.” Harry shrugs. “And to be honest, I was just going to obliviate the people who asked too many questions.”

You reach over to smack his head, scowling.

“Ow! That hurt!” Harry rubs the sore spot as he grumbles petulantly. “This is technically child abuse, did you know that?”

You roll your eyes. “Do you at least have a plan to get home?”

“Of course I do,” Harry retorts with a scoff, “Her name is Hermione Granger.”

“Hopeless.” You groan exasperatedly. “Absolutely hopeless.”

Harry only grins in response. For a brief moment, he forgets about the present — his reality where the skies are bleak and home is where he knows the feeling of loss more than the warmth of his own parents’ embrace. He lets himself forget, and pretends he isn’t the Boy Who Lived. Just some random boy who’s pestering his mother — even if she likes to deny the inevitability of being romanced by the Marauders, (except for Wormtail because Harry would eat troll slime before he ever lets that happen.)

“Right then,” You say after your tangent — which Harry tuned out when he hears the words, be responsible. “If I’m going to help you get back home—”

Harry’s heart drops to his stomach; as selfishly as it sounds, he didn’t want to go home just yet — not to where people just took and took from him. He’s exhausted. Still, he puts up a front of being excited to be returned to his timeline. It’s for the greater good, of course, because his existence — present or past — is always somehow a threat to the wizarding society.

“—you need to answer this one question for me.” Your voice drops lower as you stare at him intently, lips pressed firmly.

Harry nods slowly. “As long as it’s within reason, yeah.”

You inhale sharply. “Do I outlive Dolores Umbridge?”

The wince escapes Harry before he can even stop it.

That’s all the answer you need, apparently. Your mouth hangs open in disbelief, eyes nearly bulging out of your head as you slam your hands down onto the table surface, shrieking.

“That slimy bitch!”

Needless to say, the two of you are kicked out of the library.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1970; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

YOU ARE ELEVEN when your father introduces you to Ferguson, commonly known as Fergus, Bulstrode. He smiles at you with a leer, eyes hungrily dipping to the neckline of your dress. You grit your teeth as you hold out your hand for him to take — you almost shudder at the feel of his lips on your cheek. You eagerly take a step back away from him, hoping your father won’t notice the way you shy from Ferguson’s touch. You’re not dull, you fully understand the implications of this introduction and the way Ferguson is complaining to you about his third wife’s passing — as if you were the solution to his loneliness. Bile rises to your throat, and you shove it down with a forced laugh at your father’s jokes about Mudbloods. From across the room, Allegra Greengrass stares at you in sympathy, and you send her a glare — you do not need anyone’s pity.

The corset your mother laced on too tight is suffocating you; this whole Yule extravaganza made for elitist purebloods is suffocating you; and yet, you smile and greet every red-lipped witch your mother introduces you to. For hours, you pretend, and you pretend. By the time the guests have left, you wonder if you have any more of yourself to give.

You manage to convince your mother to let you slip away for the night. Without missing a beat, you rush outside and into the garden labyrinth, lest old Ferguson snatches you up for a dance and let his gaze wander elsewhere. For the first time since the sun had set, your aching feet finally find some relief. You drop onto the edge of the stone fountain as you toss your heels to the side. You begin working your fingers through your hair, ripping the glittery ribbons from your head. It’s not until you’re unclasping your necklace that you realize you are crying. Tears fall from your eyes, and they sink deep into the fabric of your dress.

You barely hold back your sobs. Your chest heaves as you hiccup; your vision goes blurry as your fingers grow numb. There’s nothing you can do but cry.

You’ve used up all your smiles for tonight.

But then, the sadness turns into resentment and then turns into indignation. Harshly, you wipe the tears from your eyes as you rip a violent scream from your throat.

You sink to the ground, perfectly polished nails digging into the soil as you gather patches of grass and tear them from the roots. You throw a handful of mud at the marble statues. You grab another fistful of mud, scream, then bash your head against the garden floor. You let out another cry, whimpering as you curl into yourself; shivering as a gust of wind brushes against your skin. Surprisingly enough, this is the most human you’ve ever felt. This is the most you have ever felt — period.

When hiccups regress into soft sniffles, you lay on your back, watching the stars float above. As the last of your tears slide down your cheek, you lift a shaky hand to trace the constellation in the sky. It’s not a familiar one to you, but then—

“That’s Sirius.”

You sit upright in a snap, wiping away the wetness from your eyes as you muster a mean glare at the newcomer.

Sirius Black.

“Oh, none of that,” He tells you when you move to stand. There’s barely any emotion on his face and it irks you that you can’t figure out what he’s planning. What you don’t expect is for him to sit beside you, thereby ruining his expensively tailored suit.

“You’ll get creases,” You scold him instinctively, nose scrunched — but your voice is hoarse; too tired to put up any pretences. “Your mother will be cross with you.”

Sirius scoffs, laying his head on the dirt, making sure to smear his sleeves with grass stains. “Walburga can go fall in a ditch and die for all I care.”

You gasp. “That’s horrible!”

Sirius gives you a look. “You don’t believe that.”

You really don’t, but you don’t have the courage to admit it either.

After a few moments of silence, Sirius asks, raising a brow, “So who was that?”

“Who was who?” You stare at him with knitted brows, toying with your fingers. You still can’t wrap your head around how weird this is — sitting with Sirius Black in the middle of your mother’s hedge maze, your once bright blue dress now sullied at the ruffles, eyes bloodshot and your hair a frizzy mess. (Sirius thinks you look cute, though; especially with your missing front tooth that peeks out every time you talk to him.)

“Bald guy, older than Merlin himself.” Sirius makes a face. “Looks like a troll. Smells like one, too.”

A giggle flutters past your lips, and your hands fly to your mouth. You really shouldn’t be bad-mouthing your guests, but Sirius was right — Ferguson really did act like an ugly troll. You sigh, letting your arms fall to your side. “My betrothed.”

Sirius nods in understanding. “My mother tried to set me up with my own cousin once.”

You grimace. “Which cousin?”

He sits on his knees to face you, and with a very solemn face, he says, “Bellatrix.”

This time, you laugh freely, throwing your head back as Sirius pouts at your amusement. “O-Oh, that’s golden.”

“No, it’s not,” says Sirius, lips twitching as he watches you snort like a pig through your giggles. “It’s horrible. A literal nightmare. You should feel awful for me.” He pokes your stomach, and it just makes you laugh harder, eyes disappearing into your smile. “Oi. I said feel awful, not take the piss out of me.”

“S-Sorry.” You wheeze, batting away his hand pulling at your cheek. “I just can’t imagine Bellatrix in a white wedding dress and saying her vows to you.”

“That’s disgusting.” Sirius gags. “You’re horrible, I hope you know that.”

When you finally calm down and Sirius tickles your bare feet until you cry in surrender, the two of you lay on the grass as he points out each constellation to you. Later, he fishes a small box of sugar mice from his pocket and offers it to you, opening one for himself. “Here’s to shitty parents and the one day we get to decide our own future.”

You bump your squeaky candy mice against his. “Cheers, Black.”

“Will you go to Hogwarts next year?” He asks you once he’s bitten off the tail of his mice.

You nod.

Sirius shifts on his side, holding his pinky out to you. “We’ll be friends when school starts?”

Again, you nod, wrapping your pinky around his. “Friends.”

The next September comes, Sirius finds a compartment and one James Potter in it. You sit with Allegra Greengrass and Endora Lestrange on the way to Hogwarts. You are sorted into Slytherin, and Sirius finds freedom and a home in Gryffindor. You play the role created just for you; you lift your nose at those beneath you, adorn yourself in custom-made silk clothing, and carry yourself with the etiquette of a pure-blooded lady. Perfect grades, perfect hair, perfect clothes, always picture perfect.

You pretend that Allegra doesn’t throw up in the evenings from the fear of getting married to a man twice her age. You pretend that you don’t notice Endora sleep-walking and begging for her mother to save her from her father. You pretend that under your blankets, in the Slytherin dungeon, you are safe.

You pretend that it doesn’t hurt when Sirius looks at you in disappointment when you shove a Hufflepuff student to the ground for getting a higher score than you in Charms.

They call you an ice-princess behind your back, and you overhear some of the fifth-years calling you foul words as well, and no one steps in to stop them; there’s no defending a Slytherin, after all. But you are keeping your head above treacherous waters, and you suppose that is all that matters.)

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

“SO ACCORDING TO THIS, Eloise was stuck in 1402 for five days until she was retrieved to the present, which means we only have four days left to figure out a way for you to get back home.”

Harry sinks into his chair, arms crossed over his chest. The two of you had found an empty classroom to discuss your plans away from inquisitive ears. “What’s the rush?” It’s unfair, he’d only just met you, and now he’s losing time with you.

You sigh. “Harry, Eloise Mintumble spent five days in the past and when she came back, her body aged five centuries, and she died in St. Mungos. It’s not just about altering the whole timeline, you could actually die.”

When you are met only with silence, you close the book, frowning. “Harry? What’s wrong?”

Harry swallows the lump in his throat, looking out the window to avoid your gaze. “What do you know about the Mirror of Erised?”

Your head tilts in confusion. “That it shows our heart’s deepest desire.”

“Yeah,” says Harry, nodding. “I was eleven when I found it.”

“Oh, Harry. . .”

It’s almost pathetic how quickly his eyes water. “Did you know, before today, I hadn’t known at all what your voice sounded like?”

You stay quiet, and Harry sucks in a shaky breath.

“When I looked into the mirror, I saw my parents—all of you. There I was, in the middle. You were behind me—happy.” Harry swipes a tear from his eye. “I wanted to stay in that room, stare at that mirror forever.”

“It’s—”

“Dangerous, I know.” He laughs bitterly. “Just like finally being able to meet you all here.”

“Harry, you aren’t supposed to be here in the first place,” You say quietly, eyes drooping sadly.

“I know that!” He exclaims desperately. “But is it so selfish to just want some time? I don’t want an illusion, I want the real thing. A real family. Why can’t I have that? Bloody Malfoy gets everything he wants, and what do I have?”

“Your friends,” You tell him firmly. “Your friends who must be worried sick that you’re gone and must be going great lengths to bring you back.”

“I know.” Harry wilts. He’s got Remus at home, too, who probably needs him more than ever after Sirius’s death. “I know. But can’t I just have this one thing?”

You purse your lips for a moment, brows furrowed in thought. Then, you break the silence with: “Do you want to hear a story?”

“What?” Harry croaks, peering at you through wet lashes.

Shrugging, you say, “Stories to remember us by. I’ve got six years worth of stories and then some. I know it’s not much, and you’ve probably heard some of these already from the others in the future, but it’s better than nothing, right?” You lean against the back of your chair, glancing at the wall clock before grinning at Harry. “We’ve got time to spare, anyway.”

Harry manages a smile, setting down his glasses before rubbing his stinging eyes with the handkerchief you offer him. He figures this is what Remus means when you’re the gentlest creature he’s ever known — just not gentle in what the world expects you to be.

“What do you say, Harry? I give you tidbits of the past, and you tell me if you know anything about the next Triwizard champion, so I can place my bets in advance.”

Harry snickers. “Not a chance, mum.”

“Worth a try.” And the smile you give him is nearly blinding.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1977; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND what it is about Gryffindors and their hobby of invading others’ personal space.

A year into dating and James likes to shove his head under your shirt, claiming he loves the sound of your heartbeat — but you know really what he wants to nestle his head in between. The amount of cashmere blouses he’s ruined is absurd! Sirius has a hobby of tracing runes on the plane of your stomach. Lily prefers it when you sit in front of her, just within reach where she can wrap her arms around you and rest her head on your shoulder. Remus tends to lag behind the group when he notices you walking slower due to your leg flaring up. He kisses the side of your head and promises to chase the pain away — sappy poetic that he is. And in the moments where all five of you are together, tucked under a wide alcove, you can best believe there is no escaping what they like to call, a cuddle pile. Limbs are tangled, kisses are shared, and confessions of love are whispered.

Before them, you hadn’t really known the different ways to love and be loved.

Onto the pressing matters at hand, you discover that the brazen show of affection extends to their parents as well. Particularly, the Potters. After a year, you finally caved into James’s requests for you to spend the holidays at their manor, since the others have already made a space for themselves there, and James had said it would be an honor for you to feel at home with his parents, too. Honestly, you spoil them too much — one look into his bright, wide eyes and you gave in. James didn’t even care that you brought two luggages for clothes alone; he lifted each bag with delight and with ease.

(Remus had the audacity to laugh when he caught you and Sirius staring at James’s flexed muscles, mouth wide open.

“As I have said, Remus Lupin, I do not drool!”

“Sure, dove, whatever you say.”)

But now, you really aren’t so sure of your decision.

“Oh, she’s beautiful, Jamie!” Euphemia encases you in a bear hug the moment you step inside the manor. You’re engulfed in the scent of cinnamon and burnt sugar. You stiffen as she cradles your face in between her palms, smiling ever so fondly at you, cooing about how precious you look, much like a mother would — and how your mother never did. You wonder if this is what you’ve been missing all along — the thought stabs you right in the heart. “Please excuse the mess, dear, we haven’t had the chance to clean up yet, Monty and I are excited to try the recipe Lily owled to us the other day, you see.”

“I-It’s okay,” You rasp, struggling to hold back the tears.

“Oh, what a darling you are!” Euphemia smiles and ushers you further inside. “Come, come. The others are right upstairs. You must be tired from the train ride. It is so lovely to finally meet you. Make yourself at home, dear heart — James Fleamont Potter! Give your mama a kiss this instant! Don’t think introducing your girlfriend will distract me from the fact you didn’t owl me letters for two months straight!”

James whines as he hides behind you. “Mum, I’m seventeen, stop embarrassing me.”

Euphemia scoffs, hands snapping to her hips. “You’re going to be my baby boy forever, now come here.”

With a shy smile, you step away to surrender James to his mother — you don’t understand which part of this is embarrassing; you wish for a mum who’d welcome you home like that, with unconditional love and kind eyes. James squawks and calls you a traitor, just before his mum attacks him with loud, exaggerated kisses to his cheek, leaving lipstick stains all over his face. You hide a laugh behind your palm, ignoring the way your heart pangs at the sight of their unrestrained smiles. Euphemia lets her son go after a few more seconds, cackling at the masterpiece she’s created on a grumbling James, who’s rubbing his skin to erase his mother’s affections. She hugs you once more before setting you off, telling you to meet Fleamont after you’ve unpacked.

Just as you reach the foot of the stairs, you hear a girlish squeal, then the sound of rapid footfall against each wooden step. Lily greets the two of you by jumping off the last step and wrapping each arm around yours and James’s neck. “Welcome home, Jamie!” She captures his lips with her own before doing the same to you, cupping your cheek lovingly, “So happy you made it, princess! How was the ride here?”

You were never a fan of traveling by Floo; it made you nauseous after, and left you with a pounding headache for hours. Without hesitation, the others offered to accompany you on the train, but you insisted they Floo ahead to Godric’s Hollow — it took a lot of convincing, but they finally agreed, (they’re not the only ones spoiled; they couldn’t refuse you, too.) With the exception of James, who wanted to be there when you saw his home for the first time. You nearly cried when you saw how well-loved their manor was; rose shrubs dipped in snow, Sirius’s motorcycle parked outside, a mailbox with poorly painted shapes, the fences covered in Christmas lights, and the amount of shoes by the door. From outside, you could hear the laughter and warm conversations.

“It was fine,” You say in a daze.

Lily sees right through you — and frowns sadly. “You alright?”

Were you?

You catch sight of the moving photographs of James and you finally reach your breaking point. There’s a swell in your throat that you can’t seem to push down. There’s a photo of James, Lily, Remus and Sirius; James is in his Quidditch jersey, raising the Golden Snitch high up in the air, Remus is twirling Lily, his arms around her waist, and Sirius is holding up a charmed banner that says: Gryffindor Rules! Slytherin Sucks! Except For My Darling Angel Love Of My Life Most Beautiful And Gorgeous Perfect Brilliant Girlfriend!

There are hints of life all around the manor. Remus’s textbooks and scarf are laid by the coffee table. Lily’s O.W.L. marks are framed on the wall, along with Dumbledore’s letters to James and Lily awarding them the position of Head Girl and Head Boy, as well as McGonagall’s previous letter to Remus that came with his Prefect badge years ago. There’s a spot dedicated to Peter, filled with a photograph of him awkwardly holding his Herbology test, one that he scored a hundred and twelve percent on. It’s a wall dedicated to them, you realize.

Then, you find it.

Right there, up above James’s spot, and beside Sirius’s display of beyond perfect Transfiguration exam marks, and a picture of him and Remus kissing each side of your face.

It’s a space on that wall just for you.

James follows your gaze and rubs the back of his head, ears tinged with a shade of deep pink. “Mum left a space when I first told her about you. I-It’s yours, you can put anything you want there.”

“I can’t,” You whisper, lips quivering as your heart cracks into a million pieces. It’s too much.

James blinks. “Can’t? It’s yours, I promise. Mum won’t mind. You can even hang your dumb Montrose Magpies poster and I won’t tear it down — Marauders’ honor. I can help you if you want. I-I’m not good as decorating as Lily, but I paid attention to your boring explanation of color theory and I know that you hate this shade of—”

“James, I can’t do this.”

That’s all you say before you run out of the door.

(And you’re absolutely delusional if you think James won’t follow you out that door and into the brewing snowstorm.)

You hear James call out to you, but you opt to ignore him and clutch your winter coat tighter around your body, shivering in the blowing wind, trudging through the deep snow through your heeled boots — designer couldn’t help you now even if you tried. You sniff, the salty taste of your tears dripping to your lips, chest tightening with a foreign kind of pain, and the frost nipping at your fingers. You give up after a few minutes, falling to the ground with an anguished cry, hand clutching the front of your chest as you struggle to breathe.

James reaches you in a matter of minutes, draping his jacket over you, barely flinching as the cold welts his bare skin. Frantically, he wipes the tears from your eyes, a pained expression on his face as he sees you cry helplessly. “Come on, dove, it’s not safe out here. Let’s go back home, yeah? I’m sorry for upsetting you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, dove, please don’t cry, it’s killing me to s–see you like this.” Tears fall from his eyes, and he begins stuttering from the cold, but you can’t go back to the manor. “What did I do? Please tell me so I can fix it. I love you—I’m sorry.”

You bat his chest. “G–Go home, Jamie. I’ll just take the train back to the castle.”

“What?” He shakes his head, grabbing onto your hands. “Y–You can’t. Not in this weather. You’ll get sick if you try to walk back to the station.”

You withdraw from his hold as you back away from James, slipping into the ice-cold mask you know so well.

James rises in an instant, reaching for you. “No, no, no, no, no. You don’t get to do that. Not now. Not with me. Please, just come home and I-I’ll fix it.”

“Goodbye, James,” You tell him firmly, clenching your jaw as you look him straight in the eyes.

He grimaces. “That won’t work on me, princess, and you know it. Don’t push me away—please.”

“Go home, James!” You yell bitterly, pivoting on your heel as you march through the thick inches of snow, hearing Remus and Lily’s voice grow louder in the distance. “Just go!”

He grits his teeth, nails digging deep into the palms of his hand. “You’re a coward if you walk away from here—from us—right now!” James shouts through chattering teeth and stray tears. “And I hate cowards more than anything!”

You don’t look back.

(Later that night, James stares blankly at the fireplace, tossing twigs now and then. He’s all out of tears. Remus crosses his legs as he sits beside James and offers him a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

“Don’t want one,” He mutters, words coarse from earlier, head turning away from Remus’s gift. “Just want her.”

Remus sets the beverage on the ground before pulling James’s head down to his chest, gently wiping the tears from his eyes as he wraps the blanket around both of them. He presses a soft kiss to James’s hair.

“I said I hated her,” James says weakly. “I don’t—I never will. I just hate that she’s out there spending Christmas all alone. She could be here—with us. I hate not knowing that she’s safe, or that she thinks I don’t love her anymore—that’s a bloody lie, Moony. I adore her. If anything, I don’t deserve her.”

James finds out that he does have more tears left in him. “I miss her. Bring her back, Rem, please.”

“You’ll cry yourself sick, love.” Remus wipes each tear away. “Let’s go to bed, yeah? Mornings do have a way of bringing miracles to us.” Because after a night of excruciating pain under the moon’s command, he wakes up to sunlight, and there you all are — smiling down at him like he is deserving of love; and maybe Remus can’t fault you for running away.

You’d kiss him gently and tell him how proud you are of him for coming back to you.

Remus only hopes you come back to them, too.)

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

“AND THAT, dear Harry, is how I humiliated Lucius Malfoy in fifth-year.” Your eyes gleam wickedly as you rest your arms on the school desk. “If he ever bothers you in your time, just mention my name—oh, I wish I could see the look on his face when he realizes I’m haunting him from my grave. Tell him, okay?”

Harry nods excitedly. “Definitely.”

“Got anymore stories?” He asks.

You cackle menacingly. “Boy, do I ever. Let me tell you about the one time Beckett McLaggen took me out on a date to Madam Puddifoot’s!”

Harry grimaces. “Do I even want to hear about this?”

“Oh, pish-posh.” You dismiss him with a wave. “You do, this story is hilarious. Now that I look back on it, Sirius was quite cross with him for the rest of the day—how strange. I wonder why.”

Harry stares at you in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

“I most certainly am not, Harry Potter.”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1974; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

AN EAR-PIERCING scream wakes you up in the middle of the night. You snatch your wand from under your pillow, heart thudding against your chest in fear — last year, the Prewett twins decided it was funny to break into the girls’ quarters at midnight; you get a month worth of detention for hitting Gideon with the Expulso curse and suspension from class for two weeks, while the twins get away with a slap on the wrist and have the time of their lives spreading rumors of you being a Death-Eater.

Endora shoots up to her feet as well, staring at you in panic — then the girl screams again, and you realize it’s Allegra.

You sigh in relief, lowering your wand before saying to Endora, “I-It’s alright. I’ll handle it.”

“Are you sure?” Endora asks timidly, gnawing at her lip and wincing when Allegra wails once more.

“Certain,” You respond, yawning.

As Endora climbs back into her bed, you slip into Allegra’s side, holding her head to your chest, brushing your fingers through her hair and untangling the knots. Like most of the Greengrass women, she was of ethereal beauty — silky blonde hair, smooth and fair skin, deep blue eyes that enchant wizards and witches alike. But her cheeks have gone sallow from exhaustion, eyes devoid of any emotion, and her skin now sunken into her bones.

“I don’t want to marry him—I can’t! He’s old enough to be my father!” Allegra sobs violently, desperate for anyone to hear her, but no one really ever hears their cries from the dungeon. “They said they’d wait until I graduated—they promised! I’m supposed to marry him this summer!”

Your heart breaks for your friend — there’s nothing you can do but hold her until she’s cried every bit of her soul out.

“I hate them,” Allegra whispers to you; she had been shedding tears for hours, trembling in your arms until morning finally came.

“I know,” You say defeatedly.

“I wish I was dead,” She replies lifelessly. “He can’t marry a dead bride.”

“Don’t say that,” You beg as you hug her tight; afraid to lose her to the world that has worn her down. “Please.”

Allegra sinks into her pillows, and you follow in suit, hesitantly laying your head beside hers. She stares at the ceiling dully. “The world is so, so cruel to us daughters sometimes. And it’ll be cruel to our daughters, and their daughters. When will it end?”

“I don’t know,” You say honestly.

Allegra hums, neither disappointed nor surprised, and turns away to lay on her side. “Pansy,” She mumbles.

“What?”

“If we lived in a better world and I married for love, I’d want to name my daughter Pansy — like the flower.”

(Later that day, you are given detention for beating Evan Rosier to a pulp. He makes a joke about dirty blood, and you snap — you are tired of laughing and pandering to the arrogant men in your life. This is the first time you publicly defy your parents, and it felt good — more than good, it was liberating. It’s like breathing fresh air for the first time. Then, you earn a second detention for storming up to the Gryffindor common room and punching Fabian Prewett in the face — because fourth-year boys had no business sneaking into the girls’ dorm in the middle of the night for some stupid prank — and you threaten him by pointing the tip of your wand deep into his neck, demanding they apologize to you, Allegra, and Endora.

You get what you want, naturally — as princesses do. You decide then that you’re going to create a world where girls like Allegra don’t cry anymore.)

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

HARRY TWINGES WHEN he hears the end of your fourth or fifth story of the afternoon — no wonder you had been so angered by his being in your room. “I-I’m sorry—”

“Yesterday was hardly your fault,” You interrupt him. “There’s no controlling where magic brings you, not in your case. You didn’t know, but now you know. I don’t hold it against them — anymore. Fifteen-year-old boys can be stupid, and at least they’ve learned from their mistakes. You should have seen your mother — erm, Lily — she looked like she was ready to kill them after finding out what they had done. Even Molly was cross with the twins, and you know how loyal Molly is to her family.”

Oh, Harry knows.

And Hermione knows it all too well.

“Others call us evil, conniving and cruel, Harry,” You tell him grimly, “But I will protect my own, no matter what I have to do.”

At that moment, Harry thinks he understands why some people come to fear Slytherin.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1978; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

“LOOK, LILY-PAD, the princess is drooling again.”

You open your eyes to glare at Sirius. “I don’t drool, idiot.”

Lily chortles as she presses a kiss to your shoulder. “Of course you don’t, princess.”

Currently, you’re lying on a shabby loveseat that is too small to hold the three of you; it’s the only furniture in the new cottage you call home, where Potter Manor was right across the street. (Euphemia was ecstatic to have you all nearby — the lovely woman was sprite for her age, but you notice the way she stops to sit and catch her breath, Sirius and James hovering over her attentively; you’re good at pretending, so you pretend that the Potters will be around forever.) Some rooms are dusty with cobwebs, walls unfinished, with the floors creak under your feet, and there’s no other place you’d rather call home.

You’re in between Sirius and Lily; your lips swollen from their kisses, cheeks flushed and the column of your throat graced with love marks. It’s the most beautiful set of jewelry you’ve ever worn, not even burmese rubies could compare. Lily’s hand rests under your jumper, Sirius’s thigh wedged between your own. While peace blankets the three of you, James and Remus have yet to come home from their task given by the Order.

“You need a haircut, my love,” You mumble drowsily, pulling at one of the dark ringlets — it’s gone past his shoulders now. He captures your hand and leaves a delicate kiss on your fingertips.

Lily buries her nose in your hair. “She’s right, Siri.”

“I’m always right.” You pout.

Sirius, love-sick fool that he is, smiles as he tilts your chin with his finger and ensnares you in a kiss that leaves you breathless. “Course you are — our girl’s bloody brilliant, isn’t she, Lily-pad?”

“Without a doubt.”

You roll your eyes at their antics, rolling around so that your back is pressed to Sirius’s chest — they’re not fooled, however; Lily sees the way your eyes flicker in amusement and the way your lips threaten to curve up into a smile. She traces the swell of your lips with her thumb, to the dip of your nose, and to the apples of your cheek. Sea-green eyes beam at you.

“I love you,” says Lily, committing every inch of you to her memory as she wears a melancholic smile. “I don’t know who told you that you don’t deserve to be loved, but they were wrong. You are so precious to us, dove, you don’t even know how much. This right here is real — and nothing could ever change that.”

As it turns out, you did have more smiles to give — only the happy ones; not the fake, courteous smiles that you had given to your mother’s friends in the past. You come to intertwine your hand with Lily’s, the one that had been resting on your cheek, tenderly wiping the tears that pooled within your eyes. Your heart could burst from your chest. They had a habit of wringing every emotion out of you; of making love feel real, not just a myth from a Muggle storybook. And you find, that you didn’t mind this particular habit of theirs. In the comforts of the place you call home, where you irrefutably belong, you are free to seek their arms and fall into their love, and the best part is where you get to love them right back.

How lucky you are.

“Let’s get married,” You blurt out, holding your breath, feeling Sirius’s hand on your waist stiffen.

“What?” Lily gasps breathlessly.

You smile up at Lily. “Let’s get married. All of us. I don’t care where, o–or about the rings, let’s just get married. With the war going on, we deserve s–something good.”

Lily sobs as she nods excitedly. “Yes. Oh my Gods—we’re getting married!”

Sirius stares at you in wonder. “Bloody hell, dove, give a guy some warning, would you?”

You grin. “Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes — forever.” Sirius dives in to kiss you senseless. “Couldn’t get rid of us now even if you tried.”

“I don’t think I’d want to, anyway.”

Right then, the rickety door slams open, and you hear the loves of your life calling out for the three of you. Followed by the heavy thud of Dragonhide boots plunking down onto the floor

“We’re home!” James announces in the entryway.

Lily wastes no time in shooting up from the sofa and welcoming them home with quite a unique greeting:

“We’re all getting married!”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

“That ring is an heirloom passed down to the children in our family,” You tell Harry, pointing to the band around his finger. “It’s meant to symbolize our loyalty and duty to our House. My mother said I would have earned it only when I became a wife to Ferguson Bulstrode.” You chuckle at Harry’s perturbed grimace. “No, I didn’t marry him — thankfully. After Allegra. . . I—I. . . I couldn’t bear it. If I was going to marry, it would be on my own terms, and it would be for love, nothing less. Then, if my child wanted it, I’d give them this ring. I want to leave behind a legacy that I created. When I was younger, I’d resigned to a fate that was forcefully carved by someone else’s hand.”

You shake your head. “I want to die being remembered by those who loved me. Otherwise, I was never truly alive.”

Harry won’t let that happen, he won’t ever let your name be forgotten. He’ll share of your kindness to his friends, of your bravery and loyalty. Hermione will love your fondness of Muggle musicals and how you stood up to Lily’s defense in a world that ostracized her for being different. He’ll remind Remus of your love for him, that he had brought you hope in times of despair. Harry is going to make sure the world knows you had been so full of life with endless love to give. You are going to be remembered in the way Voldemort never will.

“What do the words mean?” He stares at the writing: Tempus Edax Rerum.

You smile. “Time, devourer of all things.”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1978; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

“REMUS—THE MUGGLES ARE stuck in the telly again!”

Remus snickers as he takes the vacant space beside you on the loveseat, now sewn up with care and spattered with knitted quilts and throw pillows — still too small to carry three people but hasn’t given out yet, anyway. He takes Lily’s legs over his lap, swiftly stealing a kiss from your lips. “It’s a film, dove, they’re acting.”

You purse your lips. “They’re trapped inside, then?”

Lily snorts into her tub of chocolate fudge ice cream. “Not quite, princess, it’s recorded. Movies are like moving photographs — but they’re an hour long with sounds.”

“Oh.” You turn your attention back to the screen, back to the film Lily had been watching. You had to admit — the story of Sandy and Danny was an interesting one. “Lily-pad, she’s singing — again.”

Sirius hushes you from where he was cuddling James on the other couch. “She’s supposed to sing, dove, it’s a musical.”

“Well, yes,” You begin, and James groans into Sirius’s chest, “But they should just talk instead of singing all the time — Sandy’s got a lovely voice, though. I just don’t understand why Danny’s treating her like that! Truthfully, I don’t like any of Sandy’s new friends, other than Frenchy — she’s harmless. If I was Sandy I’d move on from Danny — but then again, that hair and those muscles, and his leather jacket! I can’t blame her.”

Sirius glowers at you. “You like his leather jacket?”

“His hair?” James exclaims in horror.

Remus chuckles as he tucks you in his side, kissing your temple. “If I were you, dove, I’d be quiet and just watch the film.”

“Oh, no, no.” Sirius barely glances at the television as he pauses the film and stands up to point an accusatory finger at you. “Since when were you into leather jackets? Do you think those are cool? Since when? Jamie, should I get one? Let’s unpack this, right now. And his muscles, really?”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head. “Play the film, Black, I want to see the end of their love story.”

“I’m telling Euphemia on you!”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1976; CURRENTLY, IN THE PAST.)

“—and then we realized that we accidentally locked Hermione in with the troll.” Harry’s arms flail about as he shares some of his adventures with you — it had only been fair. He felt like a young boy again, entering Hogwarts for the first time as he watched you listen to him intently, gasping at tale of the vanishing glass and scolding him when he says he and Ron had decided to go searching for Hermione, and by extension, the troll.

Your eyes grow wide. “A troll? In Hogwarts? They can’t have, not unless—”

“Someone let it in—I know!” Harry grins. “You’re not going to believe who let the troll in the castle.”

You snap your fingers, “Malfoy, the older one. I know that lump’s got something to do with this. Can’t have been Snape or Quirrell.”

“Just you wait.” Harry’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “—and so, Professor McGonagall finds us, and can you believe it? She awards us for dumb luck! Then. . .”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1979; ORIGINAL TIMELINE.)

IT HAD COME AS A surprise when you volunteered to join the Order of the Phoenix. You wanted to scoff at their shocked faces — was it so surprising that you wanted to protect your family? They let Severus Snape join their ranks, and you’re fairly certain that you’re a better fighter and survivalist than him — not the better liar, however, he can have that one. The week before, you and the others had an argument that lasted for the whole day. They did not want you in harm’s way, and you would rather die than stay at home, waiting idly for them to return, when you could be out there alongside them.

(“It’s not some game out there!” Remus runs through his hair in frustration — he had always been so careful to never raise his voice at you, but this one time, he needed you to back down. “Every time you step into a raid, there’s a possibility of you dying, don’t you understand that? And even if you survive — you’ll have blood on your hands, and it does not wash away no matter how many times you try, trust me, we know.”

“So what?” You throw your hands up in the air, equally aggravated. “I just stay here like some. . . some pet waiting for their owners to come home?”

“Yes!” Lily angrily replies. “That is the whole point of us joining the Order — so you get to live another day. So we all have a chance at this new world without a war. Let us protect you!”

You grind down on your jaw. “You have got another thing coming, if you think I’m not going to fight tooth and nail for my future.”

James slams a fist onto the kitchen counter. “There are horrors out there you can’t even imagine. I-It’s worse than we thought. It’s our every nightmare come to life.”

You raise your chin defiantly. “Then we face it together.”)

Each day, you survive, and each day the five of you return home — scarred and bruised, but safe within the arms of one another. When you collapse and crumble, it is only for the walls of your home to witness.

Now a month into autumn, you are on your first task without Sirius, James, Lily or even Remus. Instead, you are assigned by Dumbledore to Knockturn Alley along with Peter Pettigrew and Gideon Prewett. How strange time was, years ago you’d never associate with the proud Gryffindors, and now you had to trust them to guard your back. Everyone had to grow up quickly during war, even pranksters.

The alley was quiet — too quiet for your liking. You had been on alert since the moment you apparated into the area, wand at your ready. The back of your neck prickled with goosebumps as you kept an ear out for any sign of movement.

Peter shivers and you glance at him — he’s become far too skinny, constantly shrinking into himself out of fear. And while you want to comfort him, you keep your eyes up ahead. Still, there's a nagging feeling that you can’t quite make out. It’s different from all the other times you’ve been asked to search and rescue.

“Don’t you feel like there’s something wrong?” You ask Gideon, eyes snapping to the flock of crows flying overhead.

“Dunno, kid,” Gideon says, nudging your shoulder with pressed lips. “Everything about this is freaking me out. The place is too empty.”

“I get what you mean,” You reply, swallowing your own nervousness. Without waiting for the rest, you speed up your pace. “I’ll scout ahead, who knows what’s been here before us. I don’t want to risk any of our lives, so let’s be careful. Gideon, ward the area while I check for any cursed objects, last time you almost got your arm cut off by a newspaper of all things. And Peter, could you. . . Peter?”

When you turn to check behind you, it all happens so fast.

“Avada Kedavra!”

You scream as Gideon’s deathly pale body falls to the floor.

“No!”

You aren’t given a moment to rush to his side — someone digs their wand in the side of your neck, and you stiffen in their hold. It’s not until they hiss in your ear that you recognize the voice.

“Rosier.” You spit, biting down on your lip when he presses the tip of his wand further into your flesh.

“Stupid witch,” He taunts, eyes dilating with vengeance. “Where are your lovers now?”

“Jealous?” You claw at his arms, chest heaving up and down. “We don’t have room for one more, sorry.”

“Shut up!” He pushes you to the ground in blind rage, and that’s all the opening you need.

“Expulso!”

Each curse you send his way lands on his cloaked body, sending him staggering backwards. With ease, you deflect each spell he counters with. You’re winning, he is growing tired, and perhaps that is why you let your guard down.

“Accio wand!”

The magic fizzles out, and the spell dies on your lips. As you swivel your head to find out who’s stolen your wand, you expect to find another Death Eater — except it’s Peter. Just Peter Pettigrew, quivering in his boots with tears and snot dripping down his face, your wand in his free hand. You furrow your brows — it doesn’t make sense.

“Peter?” You call out.

“Crucio!”

The curse finds its home in your body — and it sinks deep into your flesh, grinding your bones until you slump to the ground, wriggling as you draw blood from your lips, refusing to let them hear an ounce of your pain. Blood trickles down your nose as you hear Evan Rosier dancing around you in glee. You know this curse well; the sound of your father condemning you gleefully echo in your head. You crawl over to Gideon — hand desperately reaching for his shirt.

“Crucio!” Rosier grabs you by the hair and howls with laughter. “Scream for me again—Crucio!”

It’s as though someone had begun to rip you in half. Your bones shift and crack with every uttered curse. The veins in your eyes have popped and through bloody vision, you see Peter cowering away from you.

“You—fucking—traitor,” You gurgle, throat welling up with blood that’s risen from your stomach. “They’ll—never—forgive you—never.”

“Crucio! Crucio! Crucio! Come on, witch — SCREAM! Look at her go, Pettigrew, crawling like some pathetic worm.”

You lay in your owl pool of blood, wearing a body that is marred and lacerated. But you see something in Gideon’s hand. I’m sorry, you want to tell him. I’ll get you home to Molly, you promise, please lend me your magic this once. With every last bit of your strength, just as Rosier directs another curse at you — one you know you won’t survive — you snatch the wand from Gideon’s hand and tear the last of your magic from your throat.

“Defodio!”

You wait with a bated breath as silence fills the alley; lucky to have remembered Professor Flitwick’s quick remark as to how the slight difference in pronouncing a charm could alter its effect. Rosier stands on shaky legs, a stream of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. You watch as he looks down to his chest, where a gaping hole now lies instead of where his ribcage and heart should be. As Gideon had done before him, Evan Rosier crashes to the ground.

That just leaves one more problem.

Peter scurries to your side the moment Rosier can hurt him no longer. “I-I’m sorry—I’m sorry. I had to. . . T–They killed my mum, they killed M–Mary, and t–they said I would die too if I d–didn’t do this. I’m sorry. Y–Your father was there, too. He said he would take you in, let you l–live if you joined us. W–We can live, t–there’s still a chance for us to survive.”

Your fingers are bent at unsightly angles, the remnants of the Torture Curse still flowing through your veins, but your face contorts in anger as you let your hand curl around his neck. He sobs louder, and though your grip is weakening — you make sure he looks into your eyes, that he feels your touch.

“I’d rather—die.” You say through gritted teeth, nails drawing blood from his grimy skin. “You’ll die too—you’ll feel my blood on your skin—everywhere you go, Peter.”

Peter shakes his head, now clumsily pushing his wand down to the center of your chest. “Y–You were the only o–one who d–didn’t laugh at me. N–Not like the others.”

“When they find out—you’re dead, Pettigrew.” You laugh darkly as more blood exits your body through your lips. “There’s nowhere you can hide—you’re a dead man.”

“P-Please die,” Peter cries out, each killing spell coming out as a garbled whisper. “Please die, s–so I can live. I c–can’t fight anymore, I’m tired.”

Your vision goes a hazy shade of white, Peter’s silhouette fading away to the familiar scenery of your cottage in Godric’s Hollow.

Oh.

Dying is less painful than you had expected it to be. It’s like coming home after a day’s work.

You just wanted to rest now.

The world caves in on you, and you barely hear Peter’s next words.

“Avada Kedavra.”

(It’s past midnight when Peter Pettigrew arrives at Grimmauld Place, where it’s been altered to host the members of the Order, Lily sobs in relief and gathers him in her arms.

You’ll feel my blood on your skin.

You’re a dead man.

Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re home safe — welcome home — thank the Gods you’re alive,” Lily blabbers through her tears, checking his face for any major injuries. “Merlin, what happened? There’s too much blood on you. It’s on your shirt and your face.”

“It’s not mine,” says Peter hoarsely.

Sirius’s gaze darkens, arms crossed over his jacket as he leaned against the wall. “Where is she?”

Lily nods, standing on her tiptoes to search for any sign of you. “Peter? I–Is she alright? Has something happened to her?”

Peter stays silent for a moment too long, and he finds himself slammed against the wall behind him, Sirius snarling in his face as he seizes the front of Peter’s soiled shirt. “Where the fuck is she, Pettigrew?”

Peter begins to weep. “I–It was an ambush. None of us saw it coming. Gideon r–ran. She was taking on two Death-Eaters at once and I–I was too far away.”

Lily collapses to the ground with a heart-wrenching scream.

Sirius growls as he drives his fist to the wall, inches away from Peter’s face. “Where is her body?”

“It was a disintegration spell.” With Severus Snape — brought to the Malfoy Manor to be made as an example of what happens to blood-traitors.

James pushes Sirius out of the way and grabs a hold of Peter, knocking his head against the concrete. “It should have been you—” James snaps at Peter. “If it came down to you or her—you should have saved her!”

“W-What?” Peter stammers, eyes wide. “She chose to save m–me.”

James sneers at him. “You should have just died.”)

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

(1996; CURRENTLY, IN THE PRESENT.)

ST. JEROME’S GRAVEYARD had exactly one visitor. Remus Lupin sits in between James and Lily’s graves, a bottle of firewhiskey in his hand — four empty at his side. He must be going crazy. There’s no funeral for Sirius as there’s no body to actually bury, Harry is presumed missing after an attack in Diagon Alley, and your name stares back at him mockingly. He tries not to dwell on your passing — there have been too many holes, too many details left unsaid; and he knows just the rat who has all the answers. Unfortunately, Wormtail won’t come out of whatever hole he’s crawled into. Either him, or Severus.

He sighs, rubbing the temples of his head to ease the growing pains.

You are the first to be buried of the five. Like Sirius, there had been no recovered body to lay to rest, but they asked for a compromise instead. Your name is engraved under Euphemia’s in her tombstone, and Remus figures it’s the fitting place to leave you be — with your mother, welcoming you home with open arms. He hopes you’re at peace, wherever you are. (Because, honestly, at this point, he might just fucking follow you.)

Remus takes another swig of his alcohol, laughing bitterly to himself. He glances at James’s headstone and raises his bottle to him. “Not even in death, huh?”

He downs the last of the drink, rising to his tremulous legs. Remus gathers the flower bouquets he had bought earlier this morning; lilies-of-the-valley for Lily, white carnations for Euphemia, forget-me-nots for you, and for James — Remus leaves a moving photograph of him and Sirius; it’s a snapshot taken by Lily during the wedding as James dips his head low to kiss Sirius. Remus thinks it’s a wonderful memory to remember them by.

“Take care of them for me, Jamie.”

And that is all the goodbyes Remus has the strength for.

end note. i think i was crying the whole time i was writing this part, LMAO. i should be able to wrap things up in the next one. important!! there is actually a scene i was hesitant to include, but i ended up writing anyway. it's the whole part where allegra greengrass breaks down, and it was difficult for me to decide because i knew the implications; that i had a strong underlying message in that part, and i don't want it to be misconstrued or anything. pls pls tell me if it comes off as offensive, i definitely don't want to hurt anyone. nevertheless, thank you again so so so much for reading!! if you spot a plot hole, no you didnt!! i hope the time-jumps weren't too confusing! again, thank you so so much for reading!!

#hp angst #hp fluff #hp imagine #hp x reader #james potter x reader #lily evans x reader #marauders angst #marauders fluff #marauders imagine #marauders x reader #sirius black x reader #poly!marauders x reader #poly!marauders fluff #remus lupin x reader #sunny's hp fics

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diordeer · 3 months

Text

౨ৎ HOW YOU GET THE GIRL PT.2

“remind me how it used to be, pictures in frames of kisses on cheeks… and say you want me” - taylor swift (smau)

contains: charlie bushnell x fem!reader (part 1 here)

description: i just watched an edward scissorhands ballet and its made me reminiscent of my dance days… why did angsty teen me quit!!

Liked by iamcharliebushnell, dior.n.goodjohn and others

yn.ln last little photo dump, with taylor stealing my phone and taking a selfie which is something i never thought would happen?!

tagged iamcharliebushnell, taylorswift

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user1 charlies been REAL quiet since the comment

↳ user2 I dont think its awkward between them bc otherwise she wouldnt be posting them together

dior.n.goodjohn imagine having THE TAYLOR SWIFT hijack ur phone

↳ yn.ln ikr like i mean she can keep it if she wants idm 🤷‍♀️

user3 me trying to figure out if the post is from the mv or behind the scenes

↳ user4 yeeah like it IS a scene but from a phone camera… and they r pretty close

user13 HE WANTS U FOR WORSE OR FOR BETTER!!!!

user5 well, she isnt fighting the dating allegations is she

↳ user6 why would she have to?

taylorswift 😘😘😘

user7 R THEY TOGETHER??!!

↳ user8 i dont think so, just rly close

user9 why is it the end of the photo dumps 😃

↳ user10 probs bc thats all the photos she has from it 🙄

user11 ok NOW get her cast on percy jackson

user12 they better be dating or im going to kms

Direct Messages:

You: Heyy charlie, what was that comment about that walker sent?

Charlie: Ohh did u see that?

You: Yeah sorryyyy!

Charlie: No dont be sorry, it was just walker yk? he goes on about random stuff to annoy people a bit

Yn: So.. its not true?

Charlie: I think it was just a joke 😄

Yn: Oh okayy! Sorry! Are we still on for the weekend then? Maybe we can chat ab it

Charlie: Of course!!!! … whats there to talk about tho?

Liked by taylorswift, iamcharliebushnell and others

yn.ln we in fact had A LOT to talk about

tagged iamcharliebushnell

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user5 why do i feel like we missed a chapter

dior.n.goodjohn if i had to sit through one more session of you two yearning for eachover i might have gone crazy

↳ user6 why can i envision this perfectly

user1 talk about, or kiss about?

↳ yn.ln WOWOWOW

user2 HE GOT THE GIRL!!

walker.scobell i take full credit for this

↳ user4 everyone say thank u to walker!

↳ user3 thank u walker 🙏

↳ iamcharliebushnell thank you walker

↳ yn.ln aint no way charlie, u were in so much denial about his comment its embarassing

↳ iamcharliebushnell 😣😣😣

leahsavajeffries FINALLY!!!

user7 OMGOMGOMG

taylorswift i feel like im a matchmaker rn

↳ yn.ln you are, and a very good one at that

user8 ON VALENTINES DAY TOO? SOMEONE GRAB ME A GUN RN

user9 jokes aside her hairband is super cute

↳ yn.ln its my prized possession, i will wear it any chance i get

Liked by taylorswift, dior.n.goodjohn and others

yn.ln omgomg, still in awe that our how you get the girl music video won an AWARD?! It was all u taylor boo 🩷🩷

tagged iamcharliebushnell, taylorswift

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user1 THE OUTFITS? THE HAIR? THEY ALL ATE SO HARD THERES NOT EVEN A KITCHEN ANYMORE

taylorswift all ME?! u ARE how u get the girl

↳ yn.ln STOP THIS MADNESS

↳ iamcharliebushnell what about mee?? 😣

↳ yn.ln oh! 😄 well ur a guy so…

↳ user3 me he heee

↳ user4 yns so real

sabrinacarpenter ahh congrats!! So well deserved!! 🎉🎉

user2 i cant believe this is real, yn, taylor, and charlie ?!?!

dior.n.goodjohn I WAS ROOTING FOR U!!

↳ iamcharliebushnell I WOULD HOPE SO?!

user5 charlie got the girl and got the award !

↳ user6 that was so cringey

user7 yn and taylor are my new fav duo

gracieabrams YESS!! WELL DONE 🥳🥳

taglist: @highfidelities @lostinhisworld @lizziesfirstwife @auttumnsayshi @silkenthusiasts @taygrls @kidkrowk @kanojous @niktwazny303 @m00ng4z3r

#charlie bushnell x reader #luke castellan x reader #percy jackon and the olympians #smau #social media au #aesthetic #charlie bushnell #in the know #x reader #taylor swift #how you get the girl

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jnnul · 7 months

Text

ric flair drip

a/n: oh my god. it's finished. i've finally written all of her. i genuinely don't know how to explain the relief i feel right now. it feels strange writing this after writing and healing myself through writing this. i hope that anyone in college who's feeling the way y/n or jaehyun did knows that you can and will grow from it. heartbreak is inevitable and so is growth. quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

word count: 20k

tags: college au!, frat boy!jaehyun x girlboss!y/n, honestly it just a dissertation about modern love and how people nowadays love each other, there's a lot of soul searching in this one, i poured my heart and soul into this please love her the way i do warnings: mentions of sex, underage drinking, and general college shenanigans! also explicit mentions of oral sex, uhhh foreplay and sex

HONESTLY, NOTHING ABOUT JUNG JAEHYUN IS REMOTELY APPEALING TO YOU. you hate the perfect boy act he puts on, you hate his need to impress everyone and everything, and you really fucking hated his dick.

because if it wasn't for his dick, which you were sure is just as perfect as the rest of his stupid self, you wouldn't be awake at inhumane hours, listening to your friend recount their sexcapades.

"oh my god, and then he did this thing with his tongue and i swear, i'm literally never going to be able to have oral again. he's fucking ruined me. i'm genuinely going to just make every guy i fuck put a jaehyun mask on from now onwards just to recreate it," sia yoo, unfortunately one of your best friends, quips dreamily. she yelps when roseanne park, your roommate and singular other voice of reason, throws a pillow at her.

"you sound like a fucking psycho. as in needs to be checked to a mental facility psycho. as in if i hadn't heard worse when you got with johnny suh, i'd be calling the cops right now psycho," roseanne says and easily ducks when sia winds up to throw the pillow back at her. fatima khan, sia's roommate and mother friend extraordinaire, pouts sympathetically with sia as the two of them turn to you as if you would fall on their side.

"sia, baby, honey, love and light of my life - i'm really sorry but i'm with rosie on this one," you say and sia puts on the most theatrical frown you she possibly could before she cocks her head curiously.

"rosie's got a reason for judging jaehyun since she doesn't even like men all that much. what's your excuse, y/n? you like men, judging by the way you were getting railed to next week by that freshie park seonghwa. you've never gotten dicked down by jaehyun."

you're half-tempted so tell sia that it's not fucking weird that you got with seonghwa, considering the fact that you're only a sophomore yourself but you're even more tempted to remind her that even though you were no stranger to a good time, you never recount your stories.

in fact, the only reason why the other three (well, you suppose rosie would know regardless given that you literally live with her) know about your sex life is because you choose to tell them whenever you felt like it. and usually, it was more than three days after the encounter.

you loved your friends, you really did - and sia was notorious for getting into one night stand rehash sessions at ungodly hours, so this was nothing new - but for some reason, every time jaehyun's name came up in the conversation, your skin would prickle with irritation.

maybe it was the fact that every single person around you seemed to be infatuated with him. or the fact that he was just so effortlessly good at capturing the attention of everyone in the room, no matter where he was.

or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that you knew that if you looked too closely into the deep end, you'd fall right in with no life jacket. and jaehyun was an endless ocean.

+++

maybe you had given jaehyun too much credit, you lament. maybe jung jaehyun's as deep as a fucking kiddie pool. you know you're wrong because you were in the same english literature class and the man had been published because the professor liked his prose so much, she had submitted it to a literary journal.

and they had accepted it.

but as you stare at him across the lecture hall, burning holes into the poor guy's skull, you sure think he's stupid. because there was no way in fresh hell that jung jaehyun was in an introduction to east asia class. as a south korean.

people begin settling into their seats as you mull over the possibility that jaehyun had fucked so much, his brain had fallen out through his dick. from the stories of his more than above average size, it was definitely not out of the realm of possibility.

just as you're send a very judgmental text to fatima, who was supposed to be taking the class with you but had had to switch last minute when one of her major required classes opened up, jaehyun gets out of his seat to stand at the front of the room, next to the professor.

you realize belatedly that the people jaehyun had been so animatedly speaking to were none other than bambam and ten - two people who most definitely were in this class. and of course, they had chosen this class over all the others because oh my god, jung jaehyun is the uta for this class.

in hindsight, it makes sense, given that jaehyun is a east asian studies minor and a stellar fucking student. but it doesn't make the text you were about to send fatima any less humiliating as you realize your attempts to undermine his character were desperately failing. you try to backtrack on your phone, deleting the winding paragraph you were about to send her when your thumb slips, accidentally sending a half written message.

you: jaehyun is fucking

you're sure the statement will be true within the next couple hours (the jung bed at the nct frat never seemed to stay empty for too long - and that was just from orientation week last week) but it felt almost blasphemous that you would send a text so crude to your friend when you insisted that you couldn't stand his guts.

or what lay between them, really.

three gray dots appear on your screen as you half-heartedly listen to your professor drone on about how he went to china, became a changed man, and now taught about the wonders of east asia and its exoticism. his name was paul but the class could refer to him by his 'enlightened name' - lao ma. even jaehyun rolls his eyes behind the professor's back as all of the asian kids in the classroom begin to eye each other warily.

if this class wasn't so easy, you're sure the population would've shrunk to a quarter its size based on the weirdness of the professor on its own. or maybe not, if it meant that people got to stare at jaehyun's gorgeous face for an hour and a half every monday morning.

mommy tima 🤍: honey, i think whatever sia's got going is contagious. mommy tima 🤍: aren't you the one who hates him? mommy tima 🤍: he really lives in your mind rent free, huh.

you scoff under your breath as you type furiously, vaguely registering that you definitely need to check the syllabus for this class later because you have not been listening to a word the professor has said this whole time.

you: first sia's got cooties or a raging std that's what she's got going you: second he's my fucking uta you: as in i am going to be forced to see his face for an entire semester mommy tima 🤍: drop the class then, babe. you: can't this is too good for my gpa & the prof's a freak you: it's a gpa cushion and a circus in one go

you tuck your phone away when you see that jaehyun is coming up the aisle on your side with a packet while the professor is on the other aisle on the other side with the same packet to hand out. jaehyun probably wouldn't care that you had your phone out during lecture (syllabus week was just an excuse for college kids to get drunk during school days anyway) but it was the principle of the thing.

"here you go - oh, it's stuck together," jaehyun says as he stops at where you're sitting. his tongue slips out as he thumbs at the packet to give you one instead of three and suddenly, your treacherous brain takes you back to sia's rambling the night before.

and then he did this thing with his tongue...

you're shaken back to reality when you realize that you're staring at a blank wall, with a pink packet in front of you, and jaehyun has already reached the back of the classroom.

fuck. shit. bitch.

jaehyun had seen you stare at his stupidly handsome face and then some. he was your ta. oh my god, what if he docked points on some test because he thought you were the creepy stalker type.

damn you, sia yoo, you curse in your head.

+++

"damn you, sia yoo!" you yell over the blaring music that's so loud, you can feel the vibrations in your skull. there absolutely no reason you should be caught dead in a frat on the friday of syllabus week but sia had made it her mission to make sure you had a going out rate of at least 80% this school year, given that you were prone to trying to skip out on weekends out last year.

not that you didn't like going out - you actually really liked going out with your friends. you just took a little more inertia to get to the energy levels of actually going on.

sia just nods at you lazily as she bounces to the beat of another shitty remix of 'what you came for' by calvin harris and rihanna. you never understood why frats always found the worst remixes of classic party bangers but anything flew after you had enough alcohol in your system so the music would recede to the depths of your mind in a couple cups of whatever the fuck this drink was.

especially since you were a full sunshine drunk; whenever you were drunk, you became the life of the party and would always be found in the center of the room, regardless of the music. sia was a flirty drunk and you really couldn't remember the last time sia actually spent the entire weekend in her own bed. props to her stamina, honestly.

rosie was a mix of you and sia in that she would become so much more bubbly but the second she found someone she wanted to spend the night with, she went after them with no hesitation.

fatima usually played the role of sober mommy when you all went out. although she was never one to miss out on a good time, when she did get drunk, she much preferred it to be within the confines of the four walls that she shared with her roommate and the people she trusted the most - you, rosie, and sia.

which is why when rosie abandons you for her on again, off again fuck buddy (miyeon cho) and her fuck buddy (yugyeom kim), you're not surprised at all.

"that's going to be an interesting story in the morning," you say, nodding to where rosie, miyeon, and yugyeom are all heading upstairs together. fatima nudges you to look at sia, where she's pressed up against none other than johnny suh (or the love of her life, prior to jaehyun, apparently).

"that's going to be an interesting story in the afternoon," fatima counters. you turn to her with furrowed eyebrows, as if to question the timing. "i don't think i've ever heard of a girl leaving johnny's bed before 3 o'clock the next afternoon."

your jaw hangs in shock as you watch your friend wrap her arms around the tall man's neck, whispering something into his ear when he bends down to kiss her collarbone.

"are all of the nct boys secretly porn stars or something? how can they all be that good in bed?" you gape, waving at sia when she turns around to wink at you and fatima as her and johnny are bustling out of the door, undoubtedly to the nct frat house.

"they test us as part of rushing," says a low, velvety voice behind you. a hot rush of shame runs up your spine for two reasons: a) you were able to recognize jung jaehyun just from his voice and b) he heard you gossiping about his frat brothers' sexual prowess.

you exchange a look with fatima before whipping around to meet jaehyun eye to eye. he's wearing a plain black t-shirt and lightwash distressed jeans but he might as well be wearing designer trash bags for all you care. what you do care about, unfortunately, is the almost slutty way his v-neck dips to show off the beginnings of the planes of his chest.

you feel no better than a victorian man and it takes fatima a poorly concealed cough to break you out of your thoughts. fuck, you'd done it again. you really needed to stop getting caught up in jung jaehyun's pretty face. and body. and that stupid smile.

"haha. very funny. sounds like something straight out of a cheesy porno sponsored by viagra or something," you say, rolling your eyes. smooth. very smooth. normally, you like to think that you're proficient in the witty banter department but something about this boy made you almost feel dumb about your comebacks.

jaehyun cocks an eyebrow, and you're distinctly made aware that even with platform sneakers on, jaehyun is a good head taller than you when you have to look upwards to notice the motion. "you seem to be well versed, y/n. you make it a habit to stay up to date?"

you flush at the thinly veiled euphemism at your x-rated movie watching habits before clearing your throat. "i'm more of a fan of practical study, really. i am a scientist, after all."

you're aware that fatima has slipped away from you to talk to another friend, park jeonghwa, and also the fact that you are slowly beginning your descent into drunkenness but you can't seem to bring yourself to find the caution in it all. it's just jaehyun, after all.

jaehyun hums, bringing the solo cup in his hand to his lips to take a swig. "you're a biomedical engineering major, aren't you?"

you balk at that. "wait, wait. you know my name and my major?"

jaehyun nods slowly, seemingly stumbling for a moment before he gains his self-confidence once more. "you don't know mine?"

"you're literally my ta. i know you're an east asian studies minor and your name because you told the class," you say, recovering quickly. it was a really good thing you were a quick thinker because you were lying through your teeth.

you knew jaehyun's name, minor, and even major (computer science) because of his notorious reputation, not because he was your ta. but the last thing you wanted was to give him the satisfaction of asserting his popularity on campus.

"anyway. what was that you were saying about 'practical study'?" jaehyun's eyes twinkle in the dim lighting of the cramped basement you were in and you had a feeling that if you were any more inebriated, you'd be diving headfirst into jung jaehyun's bed as long as he looked at you like that.

but fortunately (unfortunately?) you're sober enough to make mostly intelligent decisions - which just means that you're not going to jump headfirst. maybe feet first but not headfirst.

"wouldn't you like to know," you sing-song, leaning into jaehyun's body enough to smell the mix of woody pine, fresh water, and vodka that seems to emanate from him. jaehyun watches you as you lean over him to grab another solo cup from the assortment that some lower ranked frat brother had been forced into bartending.

you down the entire drink in two swigs, patting away the stray stream of alcohol that had dripped down onto your chest. you don't notice the way jaehyun's eyes follow your hand down its descent to your chest. but you finally feel like your element, and in a moment of sheer idiocy and liquid courage, you enter the growing throng of bodies behind you, beckoning jaehyun to follow you.

you're not 100% sure what you want from him, honestly. you want to have a good time, and you're sure you'll have one with or without him. but something about the way jaehyun follows you like a puppy into the mess of people makes you feel like a zap of electricity has hit your body.

and if you're being completely honest with yourself (as you usually only are with ethanol in your system), you really didn't hate jaehyun. you had no qualms with him as a person, even if you hated the consequences that came with a night with him.

it's when you're in the middle of the crowd, with jaehyun looking at you with those hooded eyes and hands tucked into his pockets when you realize what you want from jaehyun jung.

you want him to desire you the way that his mere presence makes people desire him.

so you do what you do best and just let go. it's ric flair drip by metro boomin that's playing - a song that's definitely not the one to get down to. but the bass fills you up in a way that never hits the same outside of a sweaty frat basement so you can't even bring yourself to care.

"i'm tryna fuck you and your bestie," you sing along with the near hundred people surrounding you. jaehyun is still looking at you with an eyebrow sitting higher and an appraising expression; something that somehow manages to get under your skin.

in a moment of passion, you manage to hook your fingers into one of jaehyun's belt loops, pulling him closer to you. you're aware that you've painted yourself to be jaehyun's next conquest if the way that the girls next to you look upset means anything, but you couldn't care less.

especially when you're this close to the bane of your existence. the song switches to something a little more what you need (under the influence by chris brown) and you look up at jaehyun through your lashes and in that moment, jaehyun knows what you're offering him through your gaze.

a challenge.

+++

jaehyun never really meant to take on the role of nct's resident whore. in fact, jaehyun had been planning on doing the exact opposite when he came to college.

although it was unbelievable now, jaehyun jung had originally just been a very strange, nerdy, and sweet boy. he never got up to much trouble, kept to himself most of the time, and was known for...nothing, really. he was sweet and bubbly but he wasn't exactly running with the popular crowd.

in fact, jaehyun was kinda forgotten all throughout his schooling. it was easy to forget about jaehyun, as though he were some visage in a dream that everyone shared.

it hurt.

so when jaehyun finally hit his growth spurt in senior year, started going to the gym, and his voice no longer cracked every other sentence, he felt like a whole new person. like he was finally the main character in his own life.

it felt so fucking good to look at the same girls who had smiled at him pitifully and have them melting under a single wink. the summer between high school and college had been wild, with more stories than jaehyun could really even care to keep track of.

but when college began, jaehyun was fully intending to return to flying under the radar with his new upgrade in personality, appearance, and wardrobe. with a face like his, however, doing so was about as easy as trying to pass professor yoon's intro to bio class - nearly impossible.

slowly but surely, jaehyun morphed back into the personality he had adopted that summer and surprisingly, it wasn't as foreign as he thought. he was still a good student and wasn't a stranger to having to skip out on hanging out with his friends to study.

but having a new girl in his bed every other day? that was definitely new. a new revelation, but a welcome one nonetheless.

and in that, jaehyun was used to people using all sorts of tactics to get with him. playing hard to get, with coy smiles and flirtatious winks. or the bold ones, who told him straight up that they wanted to spend the night with him. even the downright horrifying ones who tried to pretend like they were blackout drunk in hopes that that would 'attract' him. spoiler alert? it didn't.

jaehyun originally thought you were of the 'hard to get' caliber. the type of girl to say that she wasn't like other girls and that's why he should get with her instead. so initially, when he approached you at the party after seeing you in his class, he was mentally preparing himself for the whole pick me speech.

but it was something about the way you looked at him.

it was like two halves of your mind were battling against each other. on one hand, you looked like you wanted to fax jaehyun straight into the fiery pits of hell with high speed shipping. on the other, it also seemed like you wanted nothing more than to ride him until the sun came up. mixed with a little bit of curiosity, confusion, and downright anger with yourself for all the emotions, you looked like the perfect cocktail of firebrand that jaehyun couldn't help but become intrigued by.

so when you were laughingly talking to your best friend (jaehyun's frat brother kun was half in love with fatima, which meant that jaehyun was more than well acquainted with her) about him and frat brothers, he took it to be the opportunity he needed.

and when you're looking at him like this, daring him to make a move, almost as if to make your mind fall one way or another about drawing a conclusion on him, what is jaehyun to do but to make good on the challenge you've offered?

he watches you for a moment more, trying to commit the memory of what you look like when you're this carefree and happy, before taking the micro-step it takes to get so close he can smell the citrus and apple cider that you seem to always smell like.

"i promise you i can fuck you better than johnny," jaehyun says, a corner of his lips tilted up as your eyes flutter the closer he draws.

"johnny's your 'bestie'?" you say, and jaehyun can tell that the last threads of your resolve are starting to snap by the way that your hand is now pressed against his chest.

"that's what you're curious about right now? the dynamics of the nct frat brothers?" jaehyun asks but he knows that this back and forth is exactly you need right now; the time to decide if you can take the plunge. or if jaehyun's worth your time tonight.

"as i mentioned, i'm a scientist," you say, and even as your voice stays stable, your fingers seem to leave burning trails against jaehyun's skin as they dip and feed into crevices of jaehyun's body that he didn't even know existed.

"hmm," jaehyun manages to eke out when your fingers lace into his hair. he's not sure how you manage to find every single sensitive spot he has but he's fairly impressed by the way you catch his breath hitching as you work your other hand up as well.

"hmm? cat got your tongue, jaehyun?" you say, making sure that jaehyun looks straight into your eyes as you lean impossibly closer. "you know that sia's with johnny right now, right? girls talk - especially with your best friends. which means that if you can't make good on your promise, i will find out."

jaehyun feels like he's sweating like a pig but thankfully, you don't notice, too busy making him sweat. he clears his throat once, and then twice to make sure that his voice doesn't give out.

"that right?" he says, and you roll your eyes, letting go of him and stepping back. you seem to appraise him for a moment (and jaehyun is unnaturally nervous about what you will decide) before grabbing his hand and leading him to the door. you only pause to flag down fatima, who takes one look at your intertwined hands, and waves the two of you away.

jaehyun blushes like a schoolgirl at the way fatima flashes him a catty smile.

"i swear to god, jaehyun, if you're all talk and no game - or if you're gonna sit still and look pretty the whole time - i will literally blue ball you. i don't do pillow princes," you throw over your shoulder as the two of you make your way to the nct frat. jaehyun knows for a fact that the nct frat will not be a quiet place tonight by the number of dresses and pants he sees in the foyer and leading the way up the stairs.

he says nothing, even as you're quite nearly storming up the stairs with a certain level of urgency, almost as though if you were to slow down and think about just exactly what you're doing, you'd turn around and leave right now.

jaehyun definitely can't let that happen.

so the second that he gets you into his bedroom (he had to rock, paper, scissors with doyoung to get the room tonight), he shuts the door and locks it behind him. he turns around to see you looking between the two beds, as if trying to guess which one was jaehyun's.

he mentally pats himself on the back when he sees the fresh sheets on the bed. reaching where you stand in less than a stride, jaehyun turns you so that you're facing his bed, and you squirm to turn to meet his eyes even as his hands are on your waist.

"what is with your hands?" you ask harshly and jaehyun blinks as he looks down.

"what do you mean? they're on your waist," jaehyun says softly, and once again, he's hit with a wave of citrus and apple cider. you simper at him, grabbing his wrist and moving it incriminatingly downwards.

"what am i? a virgin? put them somewhere useful." you whisper the last part and it's as though jaehyun has just woken up.

"you know," jaehyun begins, sliding his other hand downwards to sit comfortably on the curve of your ass. "if i didn't know any better, i'd think you were trying to rile me up. i wonder..."

he doesn't finish his thought, instead pulling you close so that your hips are pressed against his. he can hear the gasp that you're desperately trying to conceal, coughing uselessly to the side. a devilish smirk grows on jaehyun's lips and for the first time in a long time, you're sure you're going to be up all night.

+++

you were, in fact, trying to rile him up. you had heard all the rumors about jaehyun and johnny, about how one night with them was like one night in heaven. hell, you'd had first hand accounts from sia yoo about exactly what it's like to be in bed with either of them - multiple times.

so when jaehyun had fronted with such a cautious attitude when he realized what you wanted, you were almost offended. if you wanted to take control and fuck a man's brains out, you could do that with anyone. why would you fight against your own mind this much to get with him?

but seonghwa park. changkyun im. even kun qian, before you discovered he was head over heels for fatima. jung jaehyun.

these were all people who put you in your place. the way you wanted to be. it just seemed as though jaehyun might've needed a little more persuasion to get there.

so yes, you were riling him up. was that such a crime?

by the way jaehyun's looking at you right now, his breath hot and heavy on your neck and his eyes dark with a feeling that you can't describe but resonates with you on a deeper, more primal level.

"you know, after you got with kun, he wouldn't shut up about it for a week," jaehyun says, pressing kisses down your neck, pausing when he reaches your breastbone. he eyes your corset top with a discerning eye before reaching behind you to pull the lace strings that were precariously holding your top for a week.

"yeah?" you ask, threading your fingers through jaehyun's thick hair as he makes quick work of your top, leaving it pooled on the floor as his lips find your chest as though he couldn't be physically parted from it.

"yeah. even after he met fatima, he said that you were the best he's ever had - that's a big reputation to live up to when you're in nct," jaehyun says, his voice breathy and deep as he walks you backwards so that the back of your knees hit the frame of his bed.

"hmm. what can i say? i know what i want and what i want is usually lots of fun," you say, letting jaehyun unzip your jeans, pulling them down and kicking them off when jaehyun moves too slowly.

"i know. god, after knowing that you and kun were going at it, i swear everyone was jerking off in their room for an hour. even winwin wanted to go for you today. you're an unpredictable woman; no one knows where and when you're going to show up to one of the parties so everyone has to take their chances when they get them," jaehyun says, tugging his shirt off and throwing it somewhere behind him carelessly.

you nearly melt when you see jaehyun's uncovered top, eyeing each and every hard ridge of his body, reaching out to touch him. his chest is almost soothingly warm as your fingers memorize each and every aspect of the planes of his chest, almost worried that they might disappear if you let go.

jaehyun looks at you amusingly as he lets your fingers dance across his body, focusing on tugging your panties off to discard them where he's sure he's going to have to search for them later on.

you pout when you see the difference in clothing but jaehyun just gently pushes you backwards so that your back is against his bed, leaving your pussy exposed in away that makes you feel absolutely mortified. you move to gain some level of privacy back but jaehyun is too fast, gripping onto your thighs incriminatingly as he raises an eyebrow.

"don't think that i'm soft just because i'm being nice to you now, pretty girl. i know you don't like to listen but don't hide from me. i will not let you have any fun if you try to hide from me," jaehyun says, his voice dropping a full octave. you suppress the shiver that runs through your body (and that simultaneously delights jaehyun) as you nod softly.

he seems satisfied by the way your body melts and rewards you for your submission by licking a wet strip up your pussy, one hand snaking up to touch your nipple while the other one keeps your thighs open.

jaehyun is slow at first, exploring each and every hidden crevice of your body but as he feels you get wetter and wetter, he can't seem to stay soft for too long. he continues to press his lips against yours but the moment you try to grind your hips against his lips, he pulls away, his tongue darting out to taste your essence on him.

you almost whine at the loss of his hot mouth on your pussy, and you're embarrassed to realize that in front of jaehyun jung, you are no better than your best friend in falling in love with the way he moves.

"you're not going to cum from my tongue, baby," jaehyun says, practically ripping the belt out from where it was caging his jeans. "especially when i know that your pussy is magic."

"you say that, jaehyun, but you're being so fucking soft. if i didn't know any better, i'd think you're in love with me," you snort, trying to catch your breath. jaehyun freezes from where his boxers are hanging so low on his hips, you can see the muscles in his pelvis tense angrily as he looks at you dangerously.

"my fucking bad for making sure you're wet enough to take me," jaehyun whispers, pulling close to you. his eyes turn even darker than usual and a small spark of excitement ignites in your chest when you realize that you've finally reached it - jaehyun's breaking point.

"sounds like you're scared, jaehyun. you know what? you know why kun was so good? because he wasn't scared. he wasn't scared to fuck me like he was trying to break the bed," you retort, and saying kun's name is when jaehyun finally snaps. he tears his boxers off as he pushes you so that you're further up on his bed.

"y/n, i'm not fucking joking around. if you want me to stop, say it now. just say the word, and i'll pretend like this never happened. because i swear to every god in existence, if you let me, i'll ruin every other man for you," jaehyun says and his knuckles turn white from how hard his clenching his fingers to keep himself from pouncing. the thought is almost cute if you weren't desperate to be fucked into next week.

"if i wanted you to stop, i wouldn't have said kun's name, would i?"

that's all it takes. no sooner do the words leave your mouth, jaehyun's on top of you, every inch of his body fighting to claim yours. he's not sure what it is about being with a bratty girl but every time a girl tries to challenge him, jaehyun can feel his excitement grow as his mind runs wild with ways to prove you wrong.

and with a girl as beautiful and sexy as you? he was going to have the time of his life.

time of his life he does.

+++

when jaehyun wakes up, he's almost happy. almost because he has bruises on his hips from how hard he had pounded into you, a litter of hickeys across his chest, and freshly washed hair from when you had enticed him into taking a shower with you.

inevitably, it led to another hour in the shower that jaehyun had spent having his soul sucked out from his dick, eating you out under the shower, and seeing you cum twice just from his tongue.

if only he had woken up with you still in his bed, jaehyun would've actually been happy.

realistically, jaehyun had no clue what he was expecting. after taking a shower, it had taken you a total of five minutes to fall asleep in his arms, wearing nothing but jaehyun's oversized t-shirt and your panties.

there was no pillowtalk, no heart to hearts, nothing. no discussions of having whatever happened last night happening again. no trying to get to know each other better.

not that you had ever been obligated to do so. if anything, jaehyun was far more obligated to do so, after practically declaring that he had wanted to get with you since last semester - which he had been completely serious about.

but with his reputation, regardless of what he had said last night, jaehyun's almost 100% sure that you would've disappeared by the morning.

he's so caught up in his thoughts that he almost misses the bright pink post-it note on his neatly folded shirt on his desk in the corner of the room.

9.5/10. if you see sia, tell her she was right about your tongue. see you in intro to east asia on monday.

jaehyun's half disappointed and half happy. disappointed because you'd never left your number or anything and happy because at least he knew that you weren't going to completely avoid him whenever you ran into each other next.

he shakes his head as he folds the post-it note and throws it in the trash can next to his desk.

jaehyun jung may not have started college with the intention of becoming the resident fuckboy but he still had a reputation to maintain. he had fucked countless women over his time at sm university and he had no intention of falling for any of them.

he was not about to get soft-hearted or soft-dicked by a girl he was with once.

even if she was really good in bed. like really really good. like good enough to make him think about the other boys she's been with and if they'd made you feel as good as he did.

fuck. her. which jaehyun had already done. which meant that he needed to move onto the next step of the day before his head exploded with all of the implications flying around in his mind about their relation to each other (nonexistent) and if you were thinking about him like he was thinking of you (you weren't).

he pads out of his room, passing doyoung on the way out, who claps him on the back and says, "you finally got with y/n?" jaehyun doesn't know how doyoung knows but it strikes him that neither of you are very subtle people and you had caused quite the scene leaving with him last night.

similar reactions are offered to him by everyone he passes. he's not really sure how many of the boys you've been with but jaehyun can feel his street cred go up by at least a decameter with the way some of these pledges are looking at him.

in fact, everyone is looking at him with a new look of respect in their eyes until he reaches the kitchen, where yoo sia and johnny are sitting, practically eye-fucking.

jaehyun was very used to seeing johnny's friends in the kitchen the next day, neither of them ready to really say goodbye each other yet but for some reason, knowing that sia was your best friend and seeing her with johnny sets jaehyun's stomach into a series of knots that he was sure he was going to have to unravel when he had his head on straight.

"she already left?" sia says, finally breaking her stare from johnny's. jaehyun shrugs, digging around the fridge to see if they had any coffee. they didn't (none that wasn't expired anyway) so he has to settle for a caprisun.

"she had somewhere to be," jaehyun says. he wants to ask sia if it's normal for you to leave that early. it can't be if sia seems surprised that you'd left before the clock struck ten. what did that mean? what does that say about jaehyun? oh god. what if you hated it. what if you hated it so much that you didn't want to spend a second longer with jaehyun.

he cringes as he locks eyes with another shiny eyed pledge (jaehyun thinks his name is jungwoo) and tries to shake his head to clear any and all thoughts of you. he was pussydrunk. that was the only explanation. he just needed to dick down someone else and then he would get over whatever little infatuation thing he had going on.

"really? hmm..." sia says finally. jaehyun turns to see her looking right at him and suddenly, he's transported back to the previous weekend, when sia had been wrapped up in his sheets.

+++

"why did you start fucking around like this?" sia had asked, her chest still heaving from their previous illicit activities as she wraps herself tighter in jaehyun's sheets. jaehyun pauses for a moment as he catches his breath, pulling on his boxers as he thinks. he throws the shirt that sia's grabbing at, still not sure how to piece together his thoughts.

or why he wants to tell sia the truth. maybe it's because no one's ever asked about it before, but jaehyun feels strangely vulnerable as sia watches as he clambers back into his bed, her expression pensive and uncharacteristically wise.

"i don't know," jaehyun says honestly, laying over the covers as he feels his face grow hotter under sia's unrelenting stare. "i think it's because i wanted to know what it felt like. to know what it felt like to be wanted for a night instead of just being in the sidelines as the guy with the potential. just the guy that people brought along as the friend of the hot guys that kept him around."

sia doesn't say anything, instead turning so that she was lying on her back. jaehyun turns to look at her, to see if he could decipher some level of understanding from her silence. really, he knows that he should feel embarrassed about confessing his insecurities to a girl that he's hooked up with two or three times but he can't bring himself to for some reason.

maybe it's because he knows that she wouldn't say anything about it to anyone. or because he knows that she's head over heels for johnny, whether she'd admit it or not. or maybe it's just because for the first time, someone had asked something about jaehyun just to get to know him as a person, rather than trying to get him in their bed.

not that he really minded that - it just made him feel like it was all a lot more transactional than he was used to. he had been a romantic once upon a time. when you grew up with the nickname of 'valentine boy', it would have been stranger if he didn't have some sense of romance.

but jaehyun's penchant for romance disappeared almost just as soon as he realized that no one else was yearning for a pure type of love like he was.

and yet, it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. turns out that jaehyun's a very adaptable man. if he wouldn't find love in this decade, then perhaps it would be lust that he would have to settle for.

"then again," he begins, gaze darting over to where sia had slipped on his t-shirt as she tiredly begins to settle down in his bed once more. "isn't that what everyone is doing nowadays? looking for a warm body for the night, instead of a genuine connection?"

sia snorts at that, turning so that she was facing jaehyun now. "don't tell me that you're one of the boomer types. the ones who always go around peacocking about how they were born in the wrong generation and that they're one of the 'good guys'. i might actually leave right now if you are."

"no, no i'm not. well. maybe a little bit. but i don't know why that's so bad to be honest," jaehyun acquiesces finally. sia rolls her eyes, but even she goes quiet for a moment. once again, jaehyun's reminded that this is sia yoo - a girl who routinely wakes up in someone else's sheets every saturday (although it was johnny's more often than not) and as sexist as it was, someone who carried a reputation for it. even jaehyun was surprised to find that she was such a deep conversationalist.

of course, he mentally berates himself soon after but he can't help the thought. for him, sia was just the girl he would get with a couple times. a good time. the fact that that's the only role she fulfilled in his mind made him feel disgusting inside out as he waits for her response, vowing that he would work to change his mindset. or maybe just change personalities altogether. ick.

"you know one of my best friends? y/n? the one who got with kun before he decided to go clean for fatima?" sia says with a careful tone. jaehyun nods, not trusting that he wouldn't say something dumb after his sudden realization of his flawed thinking.

"this is something she always says but it's honestly pretty simple: love is however you want to define it. humans spend so much trying to find labels and definitions for things that just might not have or need them. for such an advanced species, we spend so much time concerned about how to put a feeling into a box or how to classify a thought instead of rejoicing in the fact that we had such a beautiful feeling in the first place."

"for people in this generation, the old school love is hard to find because they've got so many other types of love that weren't allowed back when old school love was big. it's a different type of freedom to love someone on the weekends but never to fall in love with them. maybe we're just romanticizing hookup culture but who's to say that we can't? maybe we're all more romantic than we want to admit. maybe when we fall into the sheets with someone we barely know, we're looking for a fragment of love to satiate our heart in ways we didn't know it needed."

jaehyun doesn't know what to say to that so he just pulls her closer to him and she lets him, throwing her leg over his as they fall asleep, closer to each other than they had ever been.

+++

you're not sure what had compelled you to leave so quickly that morning. you usually like to get the boys who sleep with to at least cook you breakfast before you left (for compensation of being terrible in bed, if the situation so called for it) but for some reason, every instinct in your body had pulled you to leave.

you had waken up at nearly 5 in the morning, a mere two and a half hours after the two of you had fallen asleep, gathered your clothes, and were about to leave when you turn to look at jaehyun, still snoring away peacefully, his arm crossing his body to rest on the empty space next to him that you had occupied previously.

you had a feeling that you're going to lament leaving this early after psychoanalyzing why you were leaving so early later in the day but for now, if your gut was telling you to leave, you were going to heed the precautions.

but even as you're about to leave, you find yourself turning to jaehyun's desk, sparse but somehow still a little messy as you rummage for a post-it note and a pen to write with. you grin to yourself when you find yourself successful (and endearing somehow that jaehyun has bright pink post-it notes).

you pass a brother on the way out (undoubtedly a freshman who had received the short stick of the duties tonight) but you wave him off when he offers to walk you home. dangerous? most definitely. but you really needed the time and space to yourself and the short, almost ten minute walk back to your apartment would offer some enlightenment.

spoiler alert: it didn't. no matter how hard you wracked your brain to come up with some version of a logical explanation, you realized that there was just simply no way to do so.

and something about that frustrated you. you knew it wasn't a big deal. jaehyun was just a hook-up. a one night stand. and yet...something wasn't fitting right in your mind. so you start to think in the only way you know how, collecting all of the pieces of information you did have.

a) you just had sex - mind-blowing sex with jaehyun. he was everything you expected and more when it came to a sexual partner. b) you didn't develop feelings for him. sex comes fifth on the list of things you subconsciously (or now consciously, since you've spoken it into existence) have when looking for a potential boyfriend. first comes personality, then intelligence, then ambition, then looks, and then sex. you didn't even have a conversation long enough to figure out if jaehyun had more than three brain cells to piece together. c) jaehyun jung had confessed that he had wanted to get with you since last semester. did he mean with you-r body or with you?

you shake your head as if to physically shake the irrational thoughts in your mind out and press your id against the scanner at the entrance of your apartment building, rubbing your fingers against your temples as you get into the elevator to reach your apartment.

unlocking the door to your (empty) apartment, you decide to shelf the thoughts for some time when your head wasn't pounding and collapse on your bed, thanking the lords you'd had the sense to take a shower at jaehyun's.

and the last thing you remember is the smell of jaehyun's shampoo in your hair as you drift into blissful, dreamless sleep.

+++

you're not surprised to feel a weight on your bed when you wake up the next morning. you blearily open your eyes to make out sia's general figure, rosie and fatima undoubtedly chatting quietly in the kitchen.

you vaguely piece together something about fatima having kun over but him sleeping on the couch and you try to push down the guilt that creeps up into your brain as you realize that you had left fatima alone at the party. a party where all of you knew a lot of people (and the outcome was just as everyone had thought it would be) but the principle of the matter stung nonetheless.

you push aside the thought - along with the idea that you should probably apologize to fatima when the cottony feeling in your mouth started to subside - in favor of looking at sia, who is strangely quiet as she watches you gather yourself. for her boisterous personality, sia yoo could see through anyone to the extent of theorized telepathy so you don't even bother trying to hide anything from her.

although, it really is hard to take her seriously when she's got hickey's littered across her neck. well. you suppose you don't look much better at the moment.

"you left before 10 o'clock," sia says simply. you don't pretend to not understand what she means as you nod, pushing yourself up on your bed as fatima and rosie also enter, rosie handing you a glass of water.

"i know," you say softly. "but i want to hear about everyone else's nights right now. i just don't know that i'm in the right headspace to think about why i left so early - i'm not even sure i know why i left so early."

sia says nothing for a moment, watching your face, almost as if she were trying to read your very essence. but she relents, reaching out to hold your hand briefly before completely switching up, speaking animatedly about her very adventurous night, leaving you to simmer in your thoughts.

had sia always been this smart? probably. who's to say that she wasn't, after all?

turns out that sia and johnny were actually going to go on a date on wednesday, after realizing that their chemistry extended further out of the bedroom than either of them had expected. sia was through the roof, obviously, given that she had been thirsting over johnny (although more in a sexual sense than anything else) for so long.

rosie, miyeon, and yugyeom also worked a lot better than any of them had thought so you were sure that you were going to lose your roommate to the other '97 liners more often for the foreseeable future.

fatima was the only one who had a pg night, with kun coming over to her apartment and just chilling together the whole night, eventually having him sleep over since he was too tired to walk back to the apartment that he lived out (it was on the other side of campus, given that he moved out of the nct house pretty late into the semester last year).

"speaking of kun, when are you guys gonna make it official? i mean after this year, you guys are going to only have one year together before you guys graduate," you say, bunching your comforter before letting go. it felt weird saying that. especially in regards to your friends. theoretically, you had all the time in the world together.

but all the time in the world wasn't enough when it came to these girls.

fatima sighs before getting up, wringing her hands together as she thinks. "i don't know. i mean kun's graduating a year early so i really only have this year left. i - i know how much he likes me. i know that he wants to do this right way. go the whole nine yards."

"but...?" rosie says, elongating the syllables as you and sia look at her patiently. fatima shakes her head, getting up to walk around the room, six paces enough to take her from one side of your room to the other.

"i just don't know. kun's great and honestly, i really think that's the one. or at least one of the ones for me. but i just don't know if my parents would be okay with it. i mean my parents are great! they give me so much freedom and honestly, i'm really thankful that my parents allowed me to find religious and spiritual freedom on my own, without ever trying to shove it down my throat."

"but at the same time...how can i betray their trust in me by dating someone who is so far from my religion? like. kun is a great guy but he's not muslim. and sure, i don't follow a lot of the stricter things in islam but i - i have god in my heart. and i don't know that god would want me to start a family that doesn't follow islam. especially since i can see that in my future with kun and kun - i don't know that i could ask kun to convert to another religion for me."

the room is silent for a little bit after fatima finishes, with her collapsing in your bed next to you. rosie and sia exchange a look with each other, and then you, as they both decide to leave the room, leaving you to console fatima.

you were always the most philosophical one out of the bunch anyway.

"look, fatima, i can't pretend to know what it's like to have that kind of mental burden and i really can't understand what it's like to think about the future and be concerned about the impact on the world you might create. i read about something the other day though - did you know that kun means 'manifesting' or 'believing' in arabic?" fatima looks at you with disbelief written all over her face, shaking her head.

"how did you know that?" she asks and you just shrug, nodding at the 'islam for dummies' book you had bought in hopes of understanding a little bit more about one of your closest friend's religion.

"that's not the point. but fatima, you are the single kindest, most beautiful person i know. and i have faith that you will choose what's right for you, not what's right for the people around you because you know better than everyone that the only person who can judge you is god. and no one - no one - on this earth has the right to take that peace away from you."

fatima is silent before wrapping you in her arms, the soft material of her hoodie comforting you and lulling you back into a sleep that's dreamless and calm.

+++

jaehyun doesn't know what to expect when he walks into intro to east asia on monday. should he say hi? wave? start a conversation? should he acknowledge that he spent the better part of his weekend wondering if he would lose his fuckboy status if someone realized just how down bad he was for you?

probably anything but the last one was a good idea.

jaehyun was not in a good state of mind. he was a hot 19 year old man with a near perfect gpa (a whopping 3.98 only because he got a singular a-), a not so terrible set of dimples, and a killer body. and yet he was walking around like how he had been prior to his enlightening summer.

it's almost freeing but also humiliating to think that one night in bed was enough to make him start an entire philosophy but that was where jaehyun was at so who was he to question anything, really?

in fact, jaehyun is so caught up in what he would name his new branch of philosophy (loserism, with a lot of inspiration from zeno) that he doesn't even realize that you've already walked past him and taken your seat.

third row, first seat. you're putting your bag down next to your chair, pulling out your laptop, tossing your hair over your shoulder when it falls in your face. jaehyun tears his eyes away, knowing that this was not a good look for him.

if jaehyun really wanted to pursue you, which he was sure was where all of his jumbled emotions were eventually going to lead him anyway, he knew for a fact that you weren't going to be interested in having to take the lead. especially if jaehyun wasn't even sure that you were interested in the possibility.

but that's a struggle for another day. what was it that stephanie laurens said? that all women want sometimes is a little old-fashioned loving?

that was, in fact, the opposite of what sia had said you were really into but jaehyun had a sneaking suspicion that you wouldn't mind handing the reigns over in the decision making process portion of a relationship, or the courtship, if your time together this weekend alluded to anything.

jaehyun almost misses the beginning of the lecture, where professor ma (no one actually calls him that besides himself) was going into some of his favorite places to stay during his time in china. and while missing any portion of professor ma's lecture was of no crime, he also almost misses the way that you're looking straight at him, faking a yawn when jaehyun finally locks eyes with you.

professor ma was known for giving stellar recommendation letters (which was why johnny had coerced jaehyun into ta'ing for his class in the first place) but he was such a pain in the ass.

jaehyun has to keep from laughing out loud when he sees your exaggerated gestures to show how boring you were finding the professor's lecture to be, pulling himself together in time for him to finally be able to take a seat in the back of the classroom, professor ma having asked him to take attendance for the some two hundred students in the classroom. by hand.

he almost drops the piece of paper that you slide into his hand, subtly slipping it into the pocket of his basketball shorts as makes his way up the flight of stairs to the tenth row, dropping his backpack on the floor next to him, in a rush to open the delicate piece of paper in his hands.

there's only three words on the piece of paper and a series of dashes and yet jaehyun knows that this is all he needs. this is all the signal he needs to know that he wasn't imagining the chemistry or the tension between the two of you. and fuck what anyone said about his 'reputation'; it was jaehyun's turn - the old jaehyun's turn - to get the chance to experience the relationship he had always been dreaming of.

he rereads the little piece of paper before smiling and tucking it into his pocket again.

earn the rest. 9__-___-____.

+++

johnny suh is getting whiplash from his best friend's actions.

one day, he's asking sia yoo if her best friend usually leaves her one night stands by the time they wake up. then he's throwing said one night stand's notes into the trash can before leaving for some frat meeting or another.

the next day, he's carrying another note from the same one night stand he can't seem to get out of his head.

jaehyun doesn't tell johnny anything. he really doesn't need to at this point. johnny suh is a senior in college and he's pretty much seen it all. he's also the vice president of a frat - which means that even if he didn't have all the experience that he did just because of his seniority, he definitely seen it because of the sheer number of stupid decisions frat brothers will find themselves making when they think they're going to either a) get drunk b) get high c) get their dick wet.

johnny knows it's all in good fun (fun that he's definitely not opposed to) but jaehyun's always been a little bit of an enigma when it came to all of it. he was good at the drinking and alright at the getting high and absolutely fan-fucking-tastic at the getting his dick wet.

it was the goddamn dimples. everyone always fell for the dimples.

and sure, while jaehyun had had crushes before (johnny could read his little like no other), they'd always been fueled by the hormonal rush of adrenaline and testosterone pumping through his veins. in fact, johnny's not sure that jaehyun had had a proper crush on anyone at college after getting fucked over in high school, where johnny had also gone to with jaehyun.

not that johnny had really known jaehyun. he was quieter and kept to himself more then. didn't really hang out in the same crowd as johnny.

he knows that's not necessarily true. johnny had, truthfully, just completely overlooked jaehyun. like a lot of girls had until jaehyun had finally started to grow into his features.

but johnny knows jaehyun now and he also knows that if jaehyun had never met gianna lee, jaehyun wouldn't have ever dove headfirst into the deep end of shitfuckery and sleeping around with every breathing body in sight.

cliché story of course. college boy becomes a fuckboy after having his heart broken by a girl in high school. johnny's almost 100% positive that sia's shoved at least two or three novels like those in johnny's face, with the same exact plot.

but what is life but a series of clichés after all. and honestly, did it even matter? it was real. it happened to jaehyun. that was all. end of story.

so johnny doesn't even say a word when he sees the post-it note in jaehyun's trash can. he's silent as he watches sia and jaehyun talk and jaehyun fall into a period of overthinking (and jaehyun knows he's overthinking too because johnny can see him shake his head even as he continues to stare at the 'people' tab of intro to east asia).

and johnny finally decides to break his silence when he sees jaehyun with a new post-it note, although this time it was a much more tame blue post-it, and a pensive look.

jaehyun slips it to johnny to read as they're sitting at the local starbucks, with johnny filling out some paperwork for the job he was signed on for as soon as the school year ended and jaehyun studying for the organic chemistry exam he had coming up the next week.

he doesn't say anything when he passes the note but johnny can see him sideye-ing him to catch his reaction and it's all he can do to keep from letting a little smile slip through.

he hands the piece of paper back, watching as jaehyun immediately stuffs it into his backpack, and for some reason, he's really not sure what to say. if sia were here, she would know exactly what to say, and how to say it. she had a way of saying things that were a little too straightforward to feel good but also obviously coming from a generally good place.

it was one of the reasons why johnny had thought it would be a good idea to make it official with her. sia yoo was nothing like what johnny had thought - and the thought simultaneously frightens him and comforts him.

"you plan on asking her out on a date?" johnny says lightly, sliding his laptop over to pretend to look at his phone casually. in actuality, he's typing furiously to sia (one of the few people that johnny trusted or consulted when it came to advice giving) about what was happening.

johnny is not very surprised when sia's gray bubble appears, disappears, and then appears again only to say, "yeah, i know."

he waits for a more elaborate response. or even a more sia-like response but the more that he talks to her, the more johnny is learning that sia is more unpredictable than she really seems to be.

and sia yoo seems to be completely out of the box.

johnny shakes his head, as if to physically get rid of the thoughts of her from his head, unsure why he was thinking of her when he was supposed to be helping out one of his boys.

"yeah. i think so? i don't know. i mean we had a good time and we definitely have chemistry. but we literally just had one night in bed and that's it." jaehyun furrows his eyebrows as he realizes that's not just it. "well, there is the fact that kun was walking around singing her praises. and i know that fatima wouldn't be friends with kun or y/n if she wasn't sure they're both good people. not to mention the fact that i've always thought she's kinda hot. but it's always been superficial. even us spending the night together was really nothing more than finding each other hot or trying to figure out if the talk around town was real or not."

johnny takes a sip of his americano as he lets jaehyun's words sink into his own mind. jaehyun rests his heads on his arms crossed in front of him and johnny knows exactly the set of thoughts that's running through jaehyun's mind because they were the same as johnny's when he had decided to ask sia out on a date.

is it worth it? is it worth possibly getting my heart strung up on someone again just to face the possibility of breaking it again?

so johnny offers the only advice that he really has.

"talk to roseanne. girls' fiercest protectors are their friends and something tells me that talking to her will make you fall on one side or the other."

+++

the next time that jaehyun sees roseanne is a complete coincidence. he really only meant to say hi to one of his homies, yugyeom, on the way out of the library and hadn't expected to run into roseanne or miyeon at all. especially not a singular day after johnny had suggested that he seek her out in the first place.

he watches as yugyeom thumbs the rip in miyeon's jeans as he continues to talk to jaehyun about something jeongguk had done the previous weekend. and then he sees miyeon press a kiss to roseanne's cheek as she gets up to fill up her water bottle.

jaehyun didn't think he would understand that dynamic at all but whatever floated their boat. who was he to judge? he had watched the barbie movie and was still having a crisis about his masculinity and was actively searching out his one night stand's (were you still just his one night stand?) roommate and best friend to fix it. to be fair, he didn't really fully understand the barbie movie, to the chagrin of doyoung's girlfriend nairobi but that was besides the point.

yeah. jaehyun was really in no position to speak. wow he had a lot of things to work on internally. the more he talked to the women in his life, the more he was realizing this. again. not the point.

roseanne takes one look at his face and then exchanges a look with miyeon and then yugyeom before standing up and walking towards the exit, looking at jaehyun questioningly when she realizes that jaehyun hasn't moved an inch. jaehyun hurriedly bids yugyeom and miyeon goodbye as he rushes after her.

the two of them linger outside of the library and roseanne just raises an eyebrow as she appraises jaehyun. and for some reason, jaehyun stands up straighter, and she just sighs, a small smile playing on her lips.

"let me guess. 'who makes people work for their number? what is this? sprinkle sprinkle type of stuff?' or maybe 'this is kinda cringey, isn't it?' or just a sweet and simple 'what the actual fuck?'" roseanne says nonchalantly, listing out each possible question jaehyun could have come to ask.

"would it make me a bad man if i said yes to all of the above?" jaehyun asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. roseanne shrugs, crossing her arms across her chest.

"not really. i don't think so at least. it's a fair set of questions that even i asked her the first time a guy came up to me asking who the fuck my roommate thought she was," roseanne says. she takes sees the look of confusion on jaehyun's face as she continues, "you're definitely not the first person to ask me that but you are of a selective few. y/n usually doesn't let people get this far in the first place. and secondly, she doesn't really tell us much about people she's interested in until much later."

"she's a strange person, if i'm being honest with you. there's just something about her that makes her so captivating and invisible at the same time. she'll capture the attention of everyone in the room but if you talk to her, she'll make you feel like her best friend. she seems like an open book, and an even more open friend. and you feel so close to her within a conversation and then you end the conversation, you realize that even as she spoke, she revealed nothing about herself."

"i'm her best friend and i could tell you very confidently that i didn't know a single thing about her truly until recently. it made me frustrated at first. like i was a shitty friend or something. but the closer to her i got, the more i realized that she's always been a great friend but no one's been a great friend to her. she's very selective with the people she associates with - not just people she lets herself be seen with but people she confides in."

"this whole thing is a defense mechanism. she'd be caught dead before she'd ever admit it but she just hasn't been loved in the way that she's loved and now she's more guarded for it. i'll tell you this jaehyun, but if you want to give up, do it now. she says she's just going to give you her number if you earn it but once you get all 10 digits, know that she's gonna give you her heart."

"it seems like i'm violating girl code by telling you all this but like i said, even if you were to ask y/n, she would say the same thing. not in so many words but still. like i said. she's an open book and a closed heart. she knows you're gonna ask me and so she only tells me something that she would be okay with you hearing."

jaehyun, who had been listening quietly and patiently the whole time, cuts in with a quiet voice. "isn't it exhausting to live like that?"

roseanne looks at him strangely, as though she was truly seeing him for the first time. jaehyun doesn't know if he's offended or relieved that she'd done what he'd done to sia - made assumptions based on his appearance. he lands on neutral. it's human nature, to try and make proper guesses about who's gonna act like what.

the ancient art of preventing heartbreak, jaehyun supposes.

"maybe. i don't think so though. it's gotta be a different level of relief knowing that no one's gonna talk shit about you because a) no one knows you well enough to do that or b) because you're so careful with who you trust that you know they'd never betray you or even c) they can only talk about what you put out into the world. it's why censorship is so effective. people can only talk about what they know. there's few people who will ignore what they see to find what they can't see tangibly."

"are all of y/n's friends secretly poets or something? why the hell are you guys all speaking cryptically like you're all freemasons or some shit like that. i can't tell if i find it cringey or cool," jaehyun says, cocking his head.

roseanne lets out a real, full bellied laugh at that, clutching her stomach as chuckles escape her. jaehyun's not sure what he's said that's so funny but he knows for a fact that she's not laughing with him, but at him.

"why is it cringey, jaehyun? why would it be cool? it's just what it is. we're just girls. you'll see us at the party next weekend, drinking our weight in alcohol. we'll have the conversations about makeup and dresses and having fun and our future and our past. there's nothing like freemasonry, i promise. it's just so amusing to see men get alarmed by the thoughts that girls have been wrestling with since they've been twelve. the duality of man, i guess," roseanne says finally, once she's caught her breath.

jaehyun doesn't know how to respond to that so he elects to save the remaining tatters of his dignity by just not responding at all. if there's one thing he's learned about you, it's that you surround yourself by women who are not hesitant about putting him in his place. and he's oddly thankful for it.

"i have one last question. well, two last questions, actually," jaehyun says when he sees roseanne turning around to head back inside, still wiping the tears from her eyes from laughing too hard.

roseanne turns, a knowing glint in her eyes even before jaehyun asks his question.

"how many guys have talked to you? and what's the highest number anyone's ever gotten to?"

roseanne is silent and just as the silence begins to turn awkward, she promptly turns on her heel and begins to walk away. she opens the door to the library before she seemingly changes her mind and looks back at jaehyun.

"two guys have talked to me. you're gonna have to ask fatima about the second question though. and jaehyun? the next number is 6."

96_-___-____.

+++

jaehyun finds fatima not soon after his conversation with roseanne. he's sitting in the nct house, watching johnny pace back and forth in his room, trying to figure out if what he was wearing was too casual for a date to a bowling alley.

it was way too formal, in jaehyun's opinion. but he was just going to wait for johnny to finish panicking (even if he would never admit that he was, in fact, panicking) to figure that out on his own. seriously though, who wore a button down and slacks to a bowling alley?

then again, he was going on a date with sia yoo so really, anything was fairplay when it came to that girl. she was a whirlwind of literally everything that could possibly go into a human being. she was a maximalist to the fullest, seizing every opportunity she could to make good memories, pressing forward with a sense of perfect clarity and sobriety that most people would be scared of.

the type of girl who was the main character of any story that she would feature in. sia was the type of person that people who trip and fall over themselves trying to have a good time with that she practically promised. she walked around with fairy dust in her fingers and a strange sense of wisdom that felt like she could read you like a book within a singular meeting with her.

jaehyun knows that she's the most intimidating out of all of the girls. out of you, roseanne, fatima, and sia, she was hands down the most frightening because even though she could read everyone else, no one could really read her.

then there was roseanne. she was the wet dream of every girl alive - the reason why straight girls lamented that they were straight and still falling a little bit in love with her. she was hot, flirtatious to the extent of making everyone wonder what they were when she gave them even a split second of attention, and so incredibly full of life. it doesn't surprise jaehyun that she had become exclusive with miyeon and yugyeom. for some reason, he feels like she just wouldn't have been able to settle for liking one person at once.

she was a little too much for just one person to be able to handle. she was like the human personification of a leather jacket wearing, motorcycle driving, woody cologne smelling wattpad trope. jaehyun understands her appeal all too well.

and then there was fatima. she was kind, sweet, kept to herself, and always offered a helping hand to those around her. jaehyun understood why kun had fallen so hard for her within two minutes of meeting her. she had an air about her that made you feel like she was someone who truly cared about you, even if you didn't know her and she didn't know you all that well. she was the type of girl who was always forgotten in the novels about warriors and princesses. the girl who was often reduced to nothing more than the main character's best friend.

until you met a girl like her in real life. fatima was still a little forgotten, and jaehyun knew that. guys often overlooked her in favor of her 'hotter' or 'wilder' friends, which is admittedly what jaehyun had thought at first. but she was just so genuine and clearheaded. she protected her peace in a way that was so unusual for young, college-going students. not to say that sia, roseanne, or you weren't genuine or anything like that. but fatima was the type of girl that jaehyun knew was perfect for kun. the girl that he could go home and know that no matter what he had done in his past, she would love him all the same.

and there was you. smart, strangely private, and a series of contradictions housed within one heart. jaehyun wracks his brain, trying to gather everything that he knew about you and yet, he comes up empty.

frustratingly empty.

jaehyun vaguely registers the fact that johnny has finally changed and is getting ready to go. he knows that he should say something about how johnny should just be himself and that sia liking him is completely up to her, regardless of what johnny were to do. but when he locks eyes with johnny, he realizes that johnny already knows.

so jaehyun just claps him on the back as he heads back to his room, his mind spinning as he tries to think of everything that he knows about you. and he draws a blank every fucking time.

he knows superficial things about you. maybe it's because he doesn't know you like he knows your friends. he hasn't talked to you as much as he's talked to them. but how does he not know you? he's been wanting to get with you for so long. he wanted more than just your body. he wanted your charm and your appeal.

was it just your body? is that all it was? is that all jaehyun wanted? somehow, jaehyun doesn't want to believe that. he doesn't want that for himself. logically, he knows that gianna's impact on his life shouldn't be extending this far. he knows that he shouldn't want or have to fight himself this hard but you're not making it much easier for him.

when was the last time jaehyun wanted to get to know such an enigma of a girl? gianna lee. and he wants nothing to do with a girl like that ever again.

and yet, here he is. falling into the same trap all over again.

jaehyun's so caught up in his own thoughts, feeling himself starting to spiral when he bumps in fatima and kun, who are equally caught up in a conversation with each other.

"oh, my bad," jaehyun mumbles, ready for fatima to brush past him but she doesn't, looking at jaehyun and then kun.

"hey man, we're headed back to my place. why don't you come back with us?" kun offers, and jaehyun just nods blankly, as he starts to follow them out of the nct house. kun stops at the entrance where he picks up a textbook from yuta, who had been borrowing it for the last week, before the three of them make their way out.

"how are you, jaehyun?" fatima asks with a sweet smile as they pile into kun's car. somehow, jaehyun doesn't want to give her a generic, insincere answer.

"i'm...okay. i'm just okay. confused but okay," jaehyun says and fatima seems alright with this answer. kun pulls out of the 'driveway' of the frat house, exchanging in a quiet conversation with fatima about what they were planning on eating for the night, leaving jaehyun to simmer in his thoughts.

gianna lee. there was a name that he thought about almost every day and never all at the same time. the girl who had made him and broke him. the girl that jaehyun had trusted with his heart and made him regret ever doing that.

the girl who had been the first love of his life.

+++

gianna was a year younger than him. smart, so incredibly sweet, and yet someone that no one could confidently say that they knew. she was the type of girl who could slip under the radar as easily as her friends seemed to always stay on top of.

she ran in the same circle as jaehyun had in senior year, right when jaehyun was beginning to blossom into the man that he was today. she had always been kind to him, if not a little withdrawn, even when he was a skinny boy with proportions that absolutely did not seem to match each other.

jaehyun didn't even know her well enough for her to break his heart, honestly. jaehyun had liked her even before having a proper conversation with her. he knew how left out she felt in her own body. even though he couldn't imagine a more gorgeous girl, he knew that she didn't feel that way about herself.

he knew that she always compared herself to her friends. her well-accomplished, 'main character' best friends who were the talk of the school. and her. no matter how intelligent or kind or put together she was, no one really looked at her the way that jaehyun did. she knew it.

even jaehyun couldn't place why he liked her so much. maybe it was the fact that he was somehow comforted that a girl with so much beauty could feel the same way as him. maybe it was the fact that she had always held the same smile for him, regardless of what he looked like. or maybe it was even the fact that one time, she had held his hand as she pulled him across the street, running to catch up with their friends who had already crossed.

jaehyun just remembers looking at her dyed cherry red hair falling into her eyes as she laughs, pulling him forward to where the rest of their friends were standing. and as he breathes in the smoke in the air and the raspberry scent of her perfume, he just knows that he really, truly likes gianna lee.

gianna lee doesn't like him the way that he likes her. he knows that. logically, jaehyun knows that his feelings are truly unfounded. he really has no reason to like gianna the way that he does. and yet, there's a part of him that holds onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll turn around with those big eyes and upturned lips and say that she likes him the way that he likes her.

so he continues to look at her first when he makes the friend group laugh. he always slips her a napkin when he's getting one for himself when they're out getting milkshakes. he offers to help her with apush when she's stressing about a test the next week.

the closer he gets to her, the more jaehyun realizes that really, she was nothing like the image of her he had conjured in his head. she was every bit sweet as he had thought but she was argumentative, competitive, and all too obsessed with perfection. she always needed to be right in an argument, always had to win, and always had to make sure that she looked flawless doing so.

jaehyun doesn't realize it, of course. he's so obsessed with his glazed over façade of her that he just continues to let her win the arguments even when he knows that she's wrong. and she lets him wrap his arms around her when she gets an 89% on her test.

he lets her walk all over him and she lets him act on his feelings.

it was a toxic, parasitic relationship that neither of them were truly happy in. when gianna asked him out, jaehyun hadn't felt like fireworks were going off in his stomach. he felt like he had won a prize at a marathon. like he'd won a medal.

gianna wasn't a medal. she was a flawed, beautiful human being - every bit gorgeous and horrible as jaehyun and every other human being was. but jaehyun had won, hadn't he?

he hadn't. and it took so long for him to realize that by the time he'd realized that gianna had really only taken to him out of pity, he was so far in his own head that he didn't know how to leave her.

eventually, the summer before college rolled around and gianna had taken it upon herself to do the nasty deed of breaking up with him. it had been an amicable split, as far as their friends were concerned.

but none of them had ever truly either of their friends. so what did they know?

what did they know about gianna finding comfort in her ex's arms? what did they know about her grades slipping at the end of the school year? what did they know about her having to excuse herself at a meeting for her internship to sob in the bathroom as she realized the true fallacy in the way she had acted? what did they know about the way she had to reconstruct herself bottom up? nothing.

what did they know about jaehyun spending every other night with a different girl, trying to ease the ache in his heart? what did they know about the obscene number of hours at the gym, not sure how to combat the sudden numbness after girl after girl? what did they know about the fact that jaehyun could not physically stand the smell of raspberries anymore? absolutely nothing.

no one knew anything until jaehyun had finally come to college. it was once he joined the frat and met guys who were so alike and different from him at the same time that he finally opened up about gianna.

only to doyoung, kun, and johnny but people nonetheless. everyone had gone through something similar - while for some it happened at college or back home, they all knew the pain. some of them were more in the fault than others but pain is pain and a paper cut bleeds the same red as a gunshot wound.

which is why when kun sits him down on the couch and fatima hands him a cup of iced tea to save them all from the sweltering heat as august makes a last stand against september's winds, jaehyun spills everything.

gianna. his past. his insecurities. everything. he knows he shouldn't. logically, fatima had nothing stopping her from going and telling everything that jaehyun had told her to you, but for some reason, jaehyun thinks that she won't.

she doesn't.

+++

fatima knows that jaehyun was going to talk to her about something like this. it seemed that all of the nct boys came with some level of trauma like this. she wasn't sure what it was about every single boy she had met in college (although, granted, they were either her friends' conquests or kun's friends - a very interesting group of very intertwined boys) having their hearts getting ripped to shreds. sometimes it was of their own volition but they all seemed to be some level of hurt either way.

so when jaehyun spills his heart out on kun's carpeted floors, she's ready with a well-rehearsed speech. he's one of six boys she'd already had this same exact conversation with (kun has a bad habit of picking up strays) but when he looks at her with such raw anguish in his eyes, she falters.

she looks to kun, who's looking at her with the same question that she knows jaehyun is asking.

"how do you know when to choose between your head and your heart? because my heart is so fucking scared of getting attached to someone again. but my head knows that i can't push everyone away because i'm scared."

fatima is quiet, searching for the right words. she's about to say something when kun speaks up, looking determinedly at fatima.

"you learn to choose you. instead of choosing between your head and your heart, just choose yourself. at the end of the day, you and y/n are good people who aren't trying to hurt each other. you're both trying not to get hurt. and honestly, maybe you'll realize that you both are better off as friends along the way. maybe you just realize that you don't want to be with someone right now. or maybe you find someone who makes you feel like you're safe and loved when you're around them, whether you're in love with them or not." fatima looks at kun with a soft smile, reaching out to hold his hand gently.

"you have to choose yourself, jaehyun. trust me. the more you start thinking about what is best for the people around you instead of thinking for yourself, you'll look back fifteen, twenty years down the road and see everyone but yourself in your life. don't do something because gianna and how she made you feel. don't let your past define your future," fatima says, and jaehyun can feel the tears prick his eyes. he blinks determinedly, trying to make them disappear but when kun sits on one side of him and fatima on the other, he starts losing his battle against his emotions, finally letting himself mourn the innocence he had once had.

he buries his head into fatima's shoulder and for some reason, he feels as though kun and fatima would be amazing parents. because jaehyun doesn't remember the last time that he had felt this safe in an embrace.

"and jaehyun? the furthest anyone has ever gotten is five numbers. you're at three. it's your call from here. do what you want, not what you think you need to do." fatima taps his shoulder gently and lets him cry for as long as he needs to.

963-___-____.

+++

jaehyun gets the next number from you. after his conversation with fatima, he's sure that if he wants to go any further than this, he needed to talk to you first.

it's strange. he's earning your number but it feels like jaehyun's somehow earning himself back. and when he finds you again, he knows that you can tell.

even johnny could tell. when he had come back from his (successful) date with sia, the first thing he had said was, "wow. you look so...light."

jaehyun hadn't said anything but 'thank you' but it was enough.

johnny had just smiled at him and recounted the date, stating that he was going to ask her to go on another date this saturday night. jaehyun doesn't mention the fact that nct is throwing that night because johnny already knows.

and honestly, sia is a junior and johnny is a senior. they've been to their fair share of parties. one party being missed wouldn't be life changing for them. but skipping a party as the vice president of a frat and a girl who was sought after as a sweetheart for six frats meant something nonetheless.

he hadn't expected that they were to get that serious that quickly but it was a refreshing change. even fatima and kun were starting about talking about talking to fatima's parents to get their blessing for their relationship. her dilemma was no secret and it seemed that the conversation between the three of them had served to help them through their own issues as well.

there was just something in the air, jaehyun had supposed. august turned to september in the week that jaehyun had wrestled with himself, eventually leading to seeking you out.

it had been at the nct party, actually. you were standing with some of your acquaintances, all of your friends having dispersed to do what they were going to do. jaehyun had been on the other side of the room, convincing bambam that it was most definitely not a good idea to try and pursue soyeon jeon if he wanted to make sure that he woke up with all his limbs intact the next morning.

you had met his eye, raising an eyebrow before continuing your conversation, all thoughts of him seemingly out of your mind. jaehyun looks between bambam (who has gone from trying to get with soyeon to jumping into the pool) (that pool had not been cleaned in a full six months) and you. he just finds jungwoo, one of the pledges, and hands him a very drunk bambam.

"do not let him do anything dumb. i'm counting on you pledge," jaehyun called out over his shoulder as he weaves through people to get to you.

"jaehyun! hey! long time no see," hailey whitfield says, throwing herself in jaehyun's arms. jaehyun looks at you, where you're staring straight at where hailey's body ends and his arms begin. jaehyun tries to push her off of him. once upon a time, jaehyun would've been behind happy about getting with her again - she was so good with her mouth. but now, he has no intentions of giving you the wrong impression.

at least until he has a proper conversation with you so that you knew where he stood with you. and where you stood with him.

"hey hailey, sorry i've gotta get to my friend," he says, not even looking at her as he pushes off of her, resuming his threading through the crowd to where you're standing. you look at him, unimpressed, but jaehyun knows you well enough to know that three numbers are enough to make you feel a certain way if jaehyun was fooling around with other girls.

which he hasn't been. not a single night. jaehyun jung's bed has been empty for an entire two weeks, something that doyoung and nairobi have been taking full advantage of.

even some of jaehyun's friends had started asking if he was having problems or something but he had brushed them off. he definitely wasn't having problems, if hailey whitfield was any indication. but he felt like it would be doing you dirty if he had someone in his bed while he was talking to your friends about you.

so he hadn't.

he knows you know. he knows that you know he's talked to sia, roseanne, and fatima. he'd figured that you'd find out either through them or just by him. he can tell by the look in your eyes that you've read him thoroughly.

so he really doesn't feel bad about pulling you away from your friends, taking you upstairs to his room. finally, doyoung had promised that they would go back to nairobi's place on the condition that jaehyun made sure that no one would try to fuck on his bed. he promised, knowing that the only person who'd be coming up here would be him. he needed to talk to you tonight. if he knew anything it was that.

but once you're sitting on his bed, watching him pace back and forward, he's lost everything he's been wanting to say. where does he even start? with gianna? with the questions he has for you? with the number? where does he begin?

jaehyun looks at you, where you're watching him with a small smile on your face and suddenly, it doesn't matter where he begins. you'll listen to it all. he knows that much.

"why do you want me to work for your number?" jaehyun asks. you look at him curiously, tilting your head as you piece together an answer.

"are you sure you don't know the answer to that question?" you say, folding your legs so that you're sitting criss cross on the navy covers.

"i do. but i want to hear it from you, y/n. you know what all your friends say about you? that they didn't properly know you until a full year of friendship with you. but they said that you never lie. so i want you to tell me," jaehyun says, chest heaving by the end of his ramble. his eyes turn soft as he watches you become more and more solemn and he steps forward, sitting down on his desk chair and swiveling it over so that he was sitting directly across from you.

you pause for a moment, searching for the words before saying anything. "i've never been in a relationship before. so i don't have the trauma that could come from something like that. but i know what it's like to lose your heart to someone. and i know that it hurts. i want to be loved in the way that i never thought i could be. so the number thing is just an excuse for me to get to the point where i won't feel guilty about liking someone."

you shrug, smiling but not allowing the smile to reach your eyes. "it's a good way to make sure that the guy knows what he's getting into either way."

jaehyun nods at that. he knew that much. it feels different hearing it from you though. when you're the one saying it, jaehyun knows that it's real. raw. not coming from people trying to protect you because they know that you're far too soft to truly come at him guns blazing.

somehow, he likes it. he likes that you're much softer than you seem. that you're a lot more vulnerable than you come off as. and for some reason, jaehyun hopes that you never perfect the art of becoming standoffish.

"hmm. you've never been in a relationship before?" jaehyun says finally and you nod, shrugging once more. a shadow of bittersweet nostalgia crosses your face before you're back to your soft smile and guarded yet curious eyes.

"nope. part of it was on me; i've got high standards, if you can't tell. and the other part was that i've always wanted someone who fascinates me. of course, i wasn't all that appealing to men because i spent so much time trying to beat them at the only thing they were good at - ego-boosting themselves but they weren't interesting. none of them were people i really wanted to get to know," you say, unfolding your legs.

jaehyun likes the fact that the tips of your toes are the only part of your feet that touch the ground from how far back you're sitting on the bed. in an act of boldness, jaehyun moves forward to sit next to you, right where you're sitting. his feet are flat on the floor, he realizes.

he doesn't know why he's noticing things like this but he is and something about that frustrates him, frightens him, and tugs at his heartstrings altogether.

"you're heartbroken, aren't you? boys like you always seem to be a little hurt," you say, tossing the words into the air like rose petals. they're recklessly thrown but they're somehow beautiful in the way that blackened roses are always beautiful.

"yeah. i was. i think i will always mourn who i was before that. i was so naïve. but i'm not him anymore. and i think i'm realizing that i'm actually okay with that." jaehyun says the words just as carelessly as you do but once they're out in the open, he realizes that he's being completely honest. he turns to you with a strange look though.

"boys like me?"

you smile and nod at him. "boys like you."

you stand up, walking to where jaehyun has a corkboard with a shitload of scraps and photos from the past two years. you don't mention the fact that none of the memories that he has on the board date from before senior year. you don't need to.

"boys like you who've never been loved completely. boys who think that they need to listen to what the world says about how they should be acting or thinking. boys who are hopeless romantics but what would the world say if they knew that these boys just wanted a little bit of love? what would they say if they were looking for warmth in an empty and cold bed?"

jaehyun hates that you're right. it's the college boy tragedy. condemned to never be able to completely heal from one bad experience and then always breaking hearts to collect enough pieces to build themselves a new one.

he didn't want to end like that. even if it wasn't with you, he was ready to grow past it. he didn't want to end as a heartbreaker.

"boys like me...and you like a boy like me?" jaehyun asks. he doesn't know why he does. this is the first proper conversation you've had with him when both of you are decidedly sober. you want to deflect the question but if he's being honest, that's a sign for you to be just as honest.

"i don't know. from what my friends say, and what i know about you as a person in class, i know you mean well. and honestly, i've always just been the type of person to like someone past things like the books they read or the way they dress," you say, still looking at the memories jaehyun's pieced together over the years on this board. "i feel something around you. and i don't know you well enough to know that i like you as someone more than a friend but i'd like to at least have the chance to get that far."

that's all jaehyun needs. he gets another number that night.

+++

jaehyun waits for you outside of intro to east asia, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waits for you to make it out of the classroom. you're the last one to leave, knowing that technically, you and jaehyun weren't allowed to see each other while he was your ta.

jaehyun had never really pegged you as someone with so much respect for the rules but you had argued that it was mostly about the principle.

he'd learned a lot about you that last weekend. you and him had stayed up all night, talking about nothing and everything under the sun until the sun itself rose, eventually falling asleep in a tangled mess of limbs and conversations.

he learned that while you didn't like the rules, you often followed them as long as they followed your own moral code. that you would die for your friends and that had landed you in many bad friendships when people would use that to their advantage before you'd met your friends in college. he learned that you were super close with your family, and that they were quite literally the best friends that you could always rely on.

and he learned that you wanted to see him again. on a date. sometime soon. so with no real way of communicating with you outside of social media (and he somehow felt like sliding into your dm's was corny and somewhat of a copout), here he was. waiting outside of the classroom like he was ripped straight from a 1950's romance movie. he even had the letterman jacket on to boot.

"oh my god, you scared me," you say, pressing a hand to your chest as you quite nearly bump into jaehyun. he smiles, readjusting his backpack on his shoulders as the two of you start walking.

"you knew i was waiting for you outside, didn't you?" he says, pushing the side door open to walk towards the parking lot, where he's convinced kun to let him borrow his car for the day.

"yeah but i didn't think you would be literally outside the door," you murmur, checking your phone to see the rest of your day's schedule. you had purposefully blocked off three hours of your schedule to hang out with jaehyun, which you were sure to regret later on when your organic chemistry class kicked your ass. but that was a later issue.

"well, i couldn't text you where i was so i figured i'd wait in plain sight," jaehyun retorts, opening the passenger door for you without a word. huh. that was the first time a man has ever done that for you. and jaehyun did it as though it were second nature - like it was a given.

you don't know why something so small means so much to you but you're alright with it. you're alright with just appreciating it.

"that's fair," you say. another number's on the tip of your tongue as you watch him get into the driver's seat but jaehyun beats you to the punch.

"don't give me a number. not yet," jaehyun says. "not that i don't want one. but i just...me waiting outside your classroom or opening your door isn't enough for a number. even if i don't get all ten, you've got to up your standards."

you don't know what to say to that so you don't say anything, turning on the music and letting the melody of chemtrails under the country club by lana del ray fill the rainy september afternoon sky.

+++

when jaehyun pulls up to a run down diner, you're pleasantly surprised. although you're not much of a sucker for romantic places, the fact that jaehyun is somehow makes you happy. it makes you happy that he still sees the beauty in places like these. and when you look over at him, dimples threatening to show as he breathes in the air of misty fog and the smell of milkshakes and burgers, you're so tempted to kiss him.

so you lean over, looking at him with a twinkle in your eyes once jaehyun has parked.

"can i kiss you?" you ask, mere inches from his lips. jaehyun just looks at you, and from this close, you realize just how beautiful his eyes are. they're dark, darker than anyone else's that you know. and yet, it feels like you could fall in and never regret it.

"please."

it's all you need. and it's all he needs because as soon as word slips from his lips, he's pressing forward, his lips against yours. he's soft, you register vaguely. nothing like last time. nothing like how he'd kissed you like he could think of nothing but absolutely ruining you.

jaehyun is soft. like the feeling of slipping a cold hand into someone's warm jacket pocket. he kisses you like he's scared of ruining you. ruining this. and you're absolutely addicted to the feeling.

the feeling of knowing that he could just claim you instead of trying his best to claim your heart. no matter how fucked up it was that you were even thinking that someone could 'claim' you. he wasn't like that and you could work with that.

he pulls away from you, eyes still closed as he sits against the drivers seat, his head against the headrest. you watch him, a silly and childish smile on your face - although you're not really sure why it's there in the first place. but who are you to knock anything?

there aren't many words to exchange as the two of you make your way into the diner. jaehyun had opened your car door again. this time, you just offer him your hand and you're strangely alright with just how safe you feel with his hand locked in yours.

the diner seems as though time has frozen still here.

and everything about the date seems the same. it feels as though time has frozen still - almost as though the two of you are in a little bubble with no one but each other. it's a feeling you haven't experienced in a while. a feeling you don't think you've ever had because of a boy.

it feels...almost scarily comfortable. it doesn't feel as though there are fireworks exploding for every word that jaehyun says. but it does feel as though that there's a hot mug of cocoa that's been handed to you on a cold winter night. and that feeling, the feeling of warmth spreading through every corner of your body, is the feeling that you know is good for you.

so you listen to him, watch him speak animatedly about basketball or a book he read, chin resting in your palm as you find yourself falling deeper and deeper.

jaehyun gets two numbers that day.

+++

it doesn't take much longer for jaehyun to get the rest of the numbers. soon enough, you're more than happy just to spend time with him the way that you spend time with your friends. you feel as though you've made a good friend out of someone you'd thought that you wouldn't even be able to get along with.

"you know, when i first met you, even before i knew you, i really didn't like you," you say, taking a sip out of your latte. the seasons have changed, fall giving way to winter. the november air bites your skin every time someone opens the door to the tiny café the two of you were sitting in.

jaehyun smiles, nodding as he leans back in his chair. "i know. i could tell by the look in your eyes."

"the look in my eyes?"

"yeah. the one that said that you wanted to get to know me. to figure out my deal even if you didn't necessarily want to find out for sure. kind of like you wanted to be the one that said 'aha!' at the end of a movie, even though you weren't sure of the ending at all."

you look at jaehyun for a moment before laughing, shaking your head as you laugh. "you're even starting to talk like me now."

jaehyun pauses before he nods, smiling with you. "yeah, i know. you've rubbed off on me in a lot of ways."

"i've improved your music taste, that's for sure," you snort, taking another sip out of your latte. "i still can't believe you didn't like ric flair drip when we met."

"it's not that i didn't like it and it's still not that i like it now. but i guess i just have a good memory associated with it now so it's growing on me," jaehyun says. your eyebrows furrow as you try to recollect what good memory he could possibly be referring to.

"oh my god. the night that we met! i was trying to get in your pants with ric flair drip," you say incredulously, shivering when someone opens and closes the door once more. jaehyun hands you his hoodie, leaving his arm extended silently when you protest.

you don't know why you still bother trying to protest with him when you knew you were going to lose. you put the sweater on as jaehyun starts talking, letting the scent of clean water and pine trees swaddle you softly.

"honestly, i think i was more than you that night," jaehyun says, as he looks at you with an incriminating twinkle in his eyes. "that was around the time that even taeyong said that he wanted to see if kun's vivid descriptions were true or not. and i wasn't about to let him get the opportunity to get to you before i did. i don't know why. i felt almost protective over you. but not in a good way. in the type of way where i wanted to show you how good i could make you feel - more than anyone could even begin to think of making you feel."

the previously cold café begins to become a lot hotter than you were feeling before, clearing your throat as you try to let the moment pass.

"how did we even get here?" you say, fanning yourself delicately. the move only serves to work against you when you fan yourself so that the scent of his cologne on his hoodie only gets stronger in your mind.

jaehyun leans back, letting you switch the conversation. he'd bring it up to you later in the night, anyway. besides, for someone who puts on such a strong front, it's honestly a little fun to see you squirm at the slightest implications from jaehyun.

"but, uh, jaehyun. i've been meaning to ask you something for a while," you begin, fidgeting with the wrapper of the straw in front of you. jaehyun tilts his head as if to question what you have to say as he waits patiently.

"what are we?"

now jaehyun is truly confused. was the past month of going on dates not clear enough? jaehyun wasn't going on dates with anyone else. oh my god. were you going on dates with other men? is that why you're asking.

"i thought we were dating?" jaehyun says, phrasing his sentence more like a question than a statement. "i mean i'm not talking to anyone else and i kinda assumed that since i'd gotten all ten numbers, neither were you."

you hum, unable to stop the silly smile on your face.

"good. that's just what i was thinking too."

+++

honestly, everything about jaehyun jung is appealing to you. from the way that he engulfs you in a hug when you're up late studying. or the way that he convinces you that you have a virus on your laptop just so that he could spend more time with you 'fixing' your laptop for you. or the way that he sits with you and your friends, patiently listening and offering advice wherever he can (or honestly, is just allowed to speak).

you're so glad to see him like this. as your boyfriend of four and a half months (you hadn't let him make it official until he was no longer your ta), you've seen him grow in ways that you'd never thought. jaehyun was every inch the stupid, naïve fuckboy you'd thought him to be in the beginning. and he was also every inch the hopeless romantic with a little too much love to give for a scarred heart.

so you heal together. you help each other when you quite literally can't handle the pain and together, you grow. he's more confident. not just in the way that he looks - but the way that he speaks around people. the way that he educates himself. the way that he communicates how he feels.

and he helps you everyday. he shows you what it feels like to be loved the way you love others. he shows you that you are worth the princess treatment. and most importantly for you, he loves the people around you the way you love the people around you.

kun and fatima find their happy ending. fatima had spoken to her parents and while they took some time to warm up to kun, his soft demeanor and the way that he loved fatima so completely and sincerely eventually won them over. fatima even met kun's parents with equal success, although kun's mother kept asking when fatima and kun would get married.

(their wedding was already in the works by both fatima's mother and kun's mother. you were beyond elated to go to both the traditional muslim ceremony and the traditional chinese ceremonies.)

johnny and sia ended up going out on a couple more dates before realizing that they probably just weren't meant to be a couple. they loved each other as friends and were probably always going to hold a special place in each other's lives but it just wouldn't be as each other's significant others. johnny was already starting to retreat from the frat boy lifestyle after meeting a girl at the library one day. and sia had finally met someone who could handle her crazy personality with a sweet smile, bringing her back down to reality whenever she went a little...too lively. you're looking forward to meeting him over summer, where the four of you and your friends were going on a vacation together.

roseanne, yugyeom, and miyeon still haven't put a label on their relationship. but you've caught roseanne falling asleep in yugyeom's arms more than once (one too many times than rosie cares to admit) so you figure that it's a good thing that they've all found each other. as unconventional as their relationship might be, they all mesh together so well that you can't even find it in yourself to question it. all's fair in love and war.

jaehyun and you frequent the diner as a favorite date night spot to visit, although you're upset to hear that they're remodeling the entire establishment for favor of a new, more 'modern' atmosphere. although how modern a diner could get was a little bit of a strange notion. but as people change, so do the winds.

and when you walk into the diner the next semester, hand in hand with jaehyun, you're a little comforted to see that diner is now a speakeasy (in true 1970s fashion) with three words written in blinding rhinestones against the velvet background. of course.

ric flair drip.

#jnnul #nct fic #jaehyun fic #jaehyun fluff #nct fluff #jaehyun smut #nct smut #nct 127 fic #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 angst #jaehyun angst #nct angst #nct x reader #jaehyun x reader #nct 127 x reader #jaehyun imagines #nct imagines

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owliellder · 7 months

Text

Two's A Crowd

College Bully! Leon Kennedy x fem! Reader

MDNI 18+

(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5)

Description: College is proving to be a lot harder than you imagined. You cannot fail this math class. So when you've tried everything else, a well-known student is recommended to you by your professor for tutoring lessons, not really leaving you with much of a choice but to work with him.

Warnings: Not proofread, No Use of Y/N, Dub-Con, Unprotected Sex, Bullying, Yelling, Cursing

Tags: College AU, Bully! Leon, Shy! Reader, both are in their early 20's, Leon is Rude AF in the beginning, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Fingering, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Tags to be Added

Author's Note: Yay!! New multi-chapter fic in honor of 800 followers!!

I'm a sucker for tropes and mean Leon is one I can't keep out of my head. If you're not good at math then this is the fic for you! (also don't mind me slipping some Sky lore in here...)

Cross-posted onto AO3

Chapter 1

Growing up, college had always been a big dream of yours, leaving you fantasizing day in and out about all the possibilities that would open up, along with actually getting to live through the renowned “college experience”.

In reality, college was a lot harder than you were expecting. Your parents had told you to jump right into it after high school, fearing taking a gap year would ruin your good streak. The stress was starting to get to you and it was only a semester into your freshman year. All the tests, projects, and general studying really wore down on your mental health, not to mention you were failing the one math class you had.

You couldn’t tell your parents, no, they’d probably have a heart attack, especially since that math class was a prerequisite to another class that you needed to take. They were already worried enough that you hadn’t picked a major yet, so who knows how they’d take the news that you were failing right off the bat.

It was hard enough that you were feeling homesick. This was the first time you’d ever been this far away from home, studying at a university when you would’ve been perfectly content going to a community college closer to home. Your roommate was nice, but the two of you weren’t growing any closer than mere acquaintances, so it always felt awkward to just exist in your own dorm room.

Your eating habits worsened with the lack of any real food within five miles of campus. Sure there were a couple fast food chains on the campus itself, but they closed incredibly early. By the time you finished studying, which was around six in the evening, it had already closed. Not to mention that when they were open, the lines were comically long. University food was out of the question after you got violently ill from their “chicken nuggets”, so you were left with the little money your parents provided once a week to order takeout or make quick trips to the store to buy a frozen meal. Only one, since the mini fridge in your dorm was almost always occupied by your roommates stuff.

Everything was so exhausting and you were way out of your comfort zone having to use the community bathrooms for all your hygienic routines. Walking in always made you feel like you were interrupting a meeting in the president’s oval office with how many nasty looks you were given when all you were trying to do was brush your teeth.

The first thing you saw whenever you opened up Canvas was a massive F staring you down from the little box that comprised the majority of your math assignments and tests, making you feel less than worthless. This one semester alone helped you understand why so many people dropped out, this was hard.

By now you’d already gone to your math professor multiple times asking for redos or extra credit work. He was probably sick of seeing you since you showed up after almost every single assignment’s grades were submitted.

“Heeeyyy, Mr. Lebovic..” You said after knocking your knuckle against his open door to grab his attention. “Listen, about that last quiz, I-”

He cut you off with a wave of his hand before gesturing towards one of the chairs sitting in front of his desk. You hurried to sit down, watching nervously as he slowly pulled his eyes off his computer and onto you. “I get it, you don’t need to explain yourself.” His relaxed tone and faint smile was enough to ease your nerves a bit, letting your shoulders slump with a sigh. “You’ve been trying really hard, I can easily recognize that.”

You nodded eagerly, licking your dry lips as you opened your mouth to speak, only to be cut off again. “I’ve been looking into studying options that might help you. Resources are scarce for this material, but I think I finally have a tutor to help you out.”

A wave of relief washed over you at the mention of tutor. Maybe you wouldn’t have to face the wrath of your parent’s disappointment after all! “Oh.. o-okay…” you stuttered, eyebrows furrowing as you silently beckoned him to continue.

“I teach another math class, it’s higher level, but I have a student in there that’s just taken up tutoring the material you’re learning.” Your professor seemed just as happy as you were about the opportunity. “His name is Leon Kennedy, he’s got one of the study rooms in the library from three to five in the afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

It took you a second to process everything Mr. Lebovic was telling you before you scrambled to pull out a sticky note and a pen to write all the information down on. You heard the older man chuckle softly, looking over at him when he held out a small piece of paper to you. “I wrote it down already for you, don’t worry.” You wished you could’ve thanked him tenfold, but his office hours were closed for the day now, so you said a quick goodbye and hurried back to your dorm, holding onto the piece of paper like a lifeline.

Contrary to what your math professor thinks, you knew the name “Leon Kennedy”. You had a couple friends that you hung out with occasionally out in the grass in front of the science building and they’d brought him up before. The few vague bits of info that you’d heard weren’t flattering, painting this Leon in quite a bad light; the stereotypical jock in a frat flying by on a full-ride scholarship. However, he was your saving grace now and you needed to develop more of an unbiased opinion of him if he was going to help you raise your grade from an F.

“Yeesh, sorry I’m not better at math or I would’ve helped you.” One of your friends, Sky, spoke up as they read the piece of paper your professor gave you yesterday from over your shoulder. “Even if you were better at math, I still wouldn’t trust you.” Ella, your other friend, laughed out.

“Ha ha, yeah, Sky failed math four times. Big whoop.” Sky waved their hands dramatically before walking over to sit down next to Ella in the dead grass. “Seriously though, you’re better off taking a failing grade and dealing with your parents. Kennedy is the devil incarnate.”

“The devil incarnate sounds easier to put up with than my parents, so I’ll take my chances..” You grumbled, taking a seat on a medium-sized rock close to the pair. “Maybe he’s turning a new leaf? Deciding to tutor?”

Sky crossed her arms and rolled her eyes which made Ella elbow them in the side before giving you a sympathetic smile. “Maybe so, but please just be careful. I don’t want you having to put up with some jackass that has an ego bigger than Texas.”

You nodded with a slight frown, moving your foot side to side lazily to push the grass blades around. You didn’t even think to consider the repercussions of studying with some random junior. “I’m sure it’ll be alright. Besides, just tell Sky and I if he’s giving you any trouble. I know damn well no man likes to put up with two women yelling in his face.” Sky nodded and pointed to Ella for added dramatics. “Yeah, and I bite. My top six teeth are porcelain so that shit hurts. Trust me.”

Your friends never failed to make you laugh, a slight resolve in a pool full of worries, you suppose. “Don’t worry, you guys’ll be the first to know if Leon is mean.”

“Good. Now, when’re you gonna go see the guy?” Sky rested their arms on their knees before looking up at you. “Uh.. in a couple hours I guess. I already made the appointment.” Your response seemed to surprise both of your friends, giving them a confused look in response to their shocked ones. “Is that.. Is that not a good time?”

“No no, just.. I thought you would’ve maybe taken a little longer to go and see him.” Ella shrugged, reaching a hand up to scratch behind their neck. “Proud of you, taking the initiative like that.” She then looked at her phone before pulling herself off the ground with a small groan. “I got class in a couple minutes. Good luck with the frat boy.”

She patted your shoulder as she walked off towards the larger building on campus, leaving you and Sky alone for the rest of the time. Part of you wished both of your friends could walk you to the library when the time came, but having Sky was enough. “So.. Leon’s bad bad?” You needed a bit more clarification on the guy you were going to spend one-on-one time with, something to calm you down after running through countless scenarios in your head.

“He’s not all bad, 'least I don't think. I’ve exchanged a few ‘hello’s’ and ‘excuse me’s’ with him here and there since we apparently frequent the same building.” Sky scooted over to the rock you were sitting on, placing the back of their head on your legs. A couple brown leaves blew over from a nearby tree which they grabbed and crunched with their hand. “I haven’t personally experienced any bad happenings around him, but he is part of a pretty notoriously rowdy frat, so you have to promise me that you’ll only study with him on campus and never go to that frat house or any frat house in general, alright?”

Sky pointed up at you, poking the underside of your chin which made you laugh again and swat their hand away. “As much as I rave about wanting to have the stereotypical college experience, going to a frat house was never part of my daydreaming.”

“Good. Keep it that way.” They switched their fingers to give you a quick thumbs up before letting their arm flop down into their lap, eyes closing with a sigh. “Anyways, besides all that, wanna go get some food? I don’t have another class today and you’ve got about an hour and a half to spare, so actually you have no choice. Get up.”

You stood up with a shake of your head once Sky pushed off of your legs who stood up as well with a small stretch. “Don’t burn me at the stake, but I kinda want grocery store sushi. I’m feeling lucky.”

“Please don’t.” You sighed, pocketing the piece of paper before beginning to follow behind Sky as they started to walk across the grass.

After the two of you shared a sandwich from some random shop not too far off campus, Sky walked with you up to the library, stopping just before the front desk. They agreed to not wander in with you under the condition that you’ll go to their dorm straight after to discuss details.

To say you were nervous was an understatement. Most of what you heard about this guy meant he was bad news, though you really didn’t have much of a choice when it came to seeing him. Like your math professor said, there weren’t a lot of options when it came to studying the material you were learning. Sure you had the internet and other students in the class, but you preferred the idea of a tutor since you’d already exhausted yourself trying to follow along with various youtube videos. You needed the in-person teaching, it just stuck better in your head that way.

Slowly starting to walk, you made your way over to the study rooms lining the back of the library. The rooms seemed pretty private with the only window being on the door, which had glass nearly top to bottom. Thankfully the rooms were numbered and Leon had texted you which room to go to when you made the appointment with him, you had no idea what he looked like and you didn’t want to look like a creep eyeballing people through the door until you hopefully found the right person.

Standing off to the side, you could see the number you were looking for sitting above the door, taking a brief moment to collect yourself and hype yourself up to talk to someone who didn’t have the greatest reputation. Set aside everything you’ve heard and just hope for the best..

You took in a deep breath as you strode over to the door, glancing inside through the window before knocking to let him know you were there. The table was angled off more to the left so you didn’t immediately see him until he leaned over the table to see who had knocked. Confidence left you as soon as you made eye contact with Leon due to the groan you could hear through the door. It took you a couple seconds, but you eventually managed to get your body to work with you, hand turning the handle to let yourself in.

“-the last thing I need..” You caught the end of his little rant to himself as you opened the door. The saying “fake it ‘till you make it” is harder than it sounds since your entire body decided to betray you, deciding that shrinking in was the best move. Quietly, you shuffled over to sit across from him at the table, placing your backpack in your lap in some weird way to provide comfort in this situation.

“You weren’t supposed to show up.” Leon grumbled, sitting far back in the tilted chair as his feet lifted the front end of the chair slightly. His arms were crossed and he was giving you probably the nastiest look you’ve ever seen, next to your parents, of course. All you did was sit there giving him a blank stare. It was obvious what he’d said, yet the sheer forwardness of that snide comment had you more than confused. “What?-”

“You weren’t supposed to show up.” Apparently he felt the need to repeat himself with some added bite, barely letting you get a word in. “No one ever shows up to these shitty tutor- whatever the fucks.”

Wow. Okay. “Uh..” You didn’t even know what to say to that. It completely caught you off guard. You’d run through countless ways this interaction would go in your head, but this wasn’t one of those ways. The two of you sat in a very tense silence with Leon just glaring at you from across the table, continuing to rock back and forth in the chair.

Without uncrossing his arms, Leon lifted a hand and waved it around slightly while shaking his head. “Are you actually still gonna sit here orrr…?” The sound of his voice finally snapped you out of shock, causing you to shoot your gaze down to your backpack, fumbling with its partially broken zipper. “I-.. Mr. Lebovic recommended you..?”

You pulled out a few of your failed assignments from your bag before setting them down on the table with shaky hands, keeping your eyes glued to the papers to avoid that burning stare the man in front of you has. “I need-.. I need help..?”

“Do you?” Leon let the chair fall forward, his sarcastic tone starting to make your whole body tremble. “You don’t sound like you do.” He snatched one of your assignments from the table and held it up, pursing his lips as he studied the various red marks made on it closely. You chose to not respond to that, letting your hands rest on top of your backpack so you had something to squeeze.

He turned the page around, the sound of the paper wobbling the only thing you could hear right after the sound of the central heat blowing through the vent in the room. Suddenly, Leon started chuckling to himself, shaking his head incredulously as he flipped the paper back and forth a couple times before letting it fall back to the table. “This is terrible!” His laugh grew louder as he tilted his body to the side to pull out his phone, taking a picture of the assignments you’d put on the table.

How on earth were you supposed to react to that other than just sitting quietly? He was actually making fun of you right to your face. Hell, he might as well point and laugh if he’s going to be this brasen.

The most you could muster up was a quiet yet high-pitched “... huh?” in response to him. This whole ordeal was spiraling a little too fast for you to keep up with. You were expecting to put up with some grown man with a bratty attitude or even just a very uninterested, not all there jock with how Leon’s been described to you, not blatant bullying.

“Huh?” He mocked, taking one last look at his phone while loudly sucking on his teeth before pocketing it again. “Anyways, this is actually sad. How are you managing to fuck simple math up like this?” He roughly grabbed all the papers on the table and stacked them before partially tossing them back at you, some slipping onto the floor. “You’re too far gone, even I can’t fix that.”

You let out a gasp when the papers were tossed at your face, scrambling to catch some of them. Pushing the chair back, you leaned over to grab the few that fell on the floor, desperately holding back tears. “Please, you don’t understand.” You pleaded, voice cracking as you tried your best not to start crying in front of him. “I-I need to pass this class. I’m passing everything else, I just can’t keep up with this one!” You were speed-talking to try and argue your case, sitting back up with the small pile of papers that you struggled to stack properly.

Leon started rocking back in his chair again, arms back across his chest as he watched you with squinted eyes. The corners of his lips soon turned up into a smirk, taking in your sorry state before rolling his eyes with a dramatic groan. “Alright, alright, stop whining, jesus..” He cleared his throat, letting his head fall over the back of the chair. “I’ll help you only because I feel bad for you.” It’s not like he was going to admit that he was being forced to be a tutor, no one needs leverage over him like that

You couldn’t help but give a small smile despite his implication. It was a start. “And I’m not gonna do it today, either.” Well, the sooner the better, but still, it’s a start.

He then stood up from the chair, fixing his jacket with a sigh. “If you show up even a minute late on Friday, I’m not helping” and before you even had a chance to reply, he walked out of the room, the door shutting with a slam which made you flinch. Luckily, you were a very punctual person when it came to this kind of stuff. This was important, so if you had to show up early, so be it. You hurriedly shoved your assignments back into your backpack, not even fully zipping it up before rushing out of the study room, back through the library, and to the dorms.

“He said that?!” Sky yelled, quickly wiping their hand over their mouth to quiet themself once you shushed them. “I don’t really feel comfortable with you going to another ‘study session’ with that guy if he’s just gonna bully you.”

“I wouldn’t call it bullying-”

“He was bullying you.”

“OKAY! So what if he was?!” You fell back onto Sky’s bed with a sigh, arms splayed out with your legs dangling off the side. “I can handle it. As long as I get my grade up, who cares?”

Sky sat down next to you on their bed, giving you a sad look as you sat yourself up with your elbows. “I care. So does Ella. You shouldn’t put up with that just for a grade. I’m sure if you explain to your professor and-”

“And what? Tell him that I’m a grown woman getting bullied over something I should know by now?” You sat yourself up fully now, leaning forward to place your elbows on your thighs as your head rested in your hands. “It’s only until finals are over and we’re already halfway through October. Maybe I won’t even need that much time, maybe I’m just missing one simple… math move and it’ll get the gears in my brain moving again.”

You tilted your head to the side to look at Sky, head now resting only in your right hand as you took in their annoyed look. “Trust me. I can handle this.”

“If you say so.” They ran their fingers through her hair before looking away from you, directing their attention forward to stare off at nothing. “Just remember that I bite and I’m not afraid to use my fake chompers on that no good-”

“I don’t wanna think about escalations right now, but thank you.” You chuckled, playfully nudging Sky with your free hand before moving it back to hold your head up with the other. Though you were trying to convince Sky on this, you were mostly just trying to convince yourself that you could handle this. Handle Leon and his.. alluring charm..

Only until finals, maybe even sooner.

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writeyouin · 2 months

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Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) X Fem-Reader - Sinless Sinners - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Stories and Dolls

A/N – Okay, so I just quit my job and I’m freefalling right now. Time to channel my anxiety into fanfiction. Also, this chapter is darker so I’m raising the rating to M.

Warnings – MENTIONS OF RAPE, S/A, ABUSE, KIDNAPPING, AND TORTURE.

Rating – M

TAG-LIST: @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @sseleniaa @randomgurl2326 @22carolina08 @astrxwitch @yu-87 @clover-1767 @lil-bexie @thesimpybitch @reverse-soe @koirb @usernameunavailable2 @lavenderkita @kannakanan @mcueveryday @amarokofficial @mbruben-stein @tyrythewolf @lasagna-501 @bizzardvark @firefirefeline @kaylanotkk @missme-07 @memontica @angelsdemonsmonsters @tj4shy

MALE VERSION HERE

GN VERSION HERE

Lucifer had to admit, he was getting used to you. He enjoyed making breakfast a show in the morning, entertaining you with his parlour tricks and general showmanship. You were like a child, easily amused by flashing lights or some sleight of hand.

And of a night, he also found your company less than objectionable, whether you were reading a book in the library with Spick and Span curled up at your feet, in front of a roaring fire (you had conjured them medallions with their names on them, so as to tell them apart), or those nights when you came back from visiting the hotel and regaled him with the tales of its inhabitants. Lucifer was starting to like Angel Dust, even if he didn’t believe the porn star actually had a chance at redemption. Nifty also seemed entertaining, Husk could be a source of wisdom and comfort in equal measure, and Alastair… Well, he was there too, taking up too much of your attention.

Yet, despite his newfound almost-friendship with you, he couldn’t help thinking about what you had said on your first night in the manor.

‘You don’t even know why I’m down here, and you don’t want to know, right? ‘Cos all of us filthy Sinners must be the same.’

You were right. He didn’t know why you were there, and that was driving him crazy. He wanted to like you. Truly, he did. But how could he like you when he didn’t know your sin? People got sent to Hell for a reason! They wasted their free will. They sold drugs to kids, murdered people, trafficked victims, tricked and swindled others. For all Lucifer knew, you were there for drowning puppies.

The thought made him deeply uncomfortable.

Okay. He would ask you about it. No big deal. People probably talked about why they went to Hell a lot right? That was a normal conversation for Sinners, probably…

Lucifer wasn’t entirely wrong in thinking that. However, nearly all Sinners lied about what they went to Hell for, making it even more brutal or horrifying to try and earn some extra credit among their fellow Demons. Someone who had killed one person would claim to have been a serial killer. A low-life drug dealer would paint themselves as a mafioso with a drug empire, and arsonists… They didn’t have to lie much, as fires tended to spread quickly and they generally were as psychotic as they claimed to be.

It was all basic self-preservation in Hell. Be the toughest person there, so nobody could find new ways to hurt you. Kill or be killed (figuratively, since Demons couldn’t technically kill other Demons), sink or swim, do unto others before they did unto you.

Right. When Lucifer next saw you, he would ask.

“Hey Lucifer,” You said upon returning to the manor from the Hotel, “You doing okay?”

Lucifer froze. He hadn’t expected to see you so soon. Fuck.

“Hey bitch,” Lucifer greeted, feeling entirely awkward, yet trying to feign confidence.

“Uh… Back at ya,” You reciprocated confusedly.

“Sooooo,” Lucifer started, steepling his fingers together, and holding them to his mouth, his brow knitting together worriedly, “I have a question for you.”

“Oh.” You were surprised by Lucifer’s admission. While the two of you generally made conversation, he didn’t tend to ask too much. Besides, in the preface of announcing his question, it seemed that he was likely to ask you something personal.

You waved your hand casually, indicating that he was free to ask away.

“How- Uh how was everything at the Hotel? Is my little girl doing okay?”

As you smiled and fell into a description of how Charlie was doing and her general excitement about her meeting with Heaven, Lucifer cursed himself. He knew that what he wanted to ask was important, but it was just so personal. Well, at least he was happy to hear about his daughter. There were also some other colourful stories included in your conversation.

Finally, you wrapped up the conversation, effectively ending it when you casually said, “Anyway, I’m going to get ready for bed. I’m real tired, you know?”

Lucifer didn’t say much as you left, he was still pondering whether you might be a puppy killer or relative and accomplice to that Jeffrey Dahmer fellow, or something equally disturbing. If not… Why were you there?

Having gotten ready for bed, you sighed, letting the day’s events wash over you, lifting a weight off your shoulders. You were tired, but the day had been a good productive one. Moreover, it was nice to end the day by standing out on the balcony, overlooking the rest of Hell.

There was a time when you had died, during which you stood atop a building in the main streets watching all the fights, looting, and maiming, and you were horrified. Then, you met Charlie, and she had been so wonderfully pure, good, and non-judgemental that you had to agree with her. Hell could be a home to you, and all the other Sinners who lived there, and Sinners could always change for the better.

While you held onto the balcony railing, leaning over it, and staring at the red horizon, Lucifer approached your open door at the entrance of your room, knocking despite the open invitation to come in.

You turned and smiled at him, your smile putting him at ease.

“Come in,” You offered.

He did so, crossing the large room and taking quick mental notes of the changes you had made. They were minor, but they spoke of your personality. You had lit scented candles, brightening the room – the official scent name was Tapioca Tit-play.

Subconsciously, Lucifer worked his magic to remove the off-smell that he had placed there; it was redundant when your candles covered it, and he didn’t mind your company so much anymore.

He also observed several other items. There was a photograph of everyone at the Hotel, though you had drawn Alastor on the end in crayon since he didn’t love to be captured in photographs (he could bear it unlike being filmed, but he didn’t care much for it.)

Wrapped around your bedposts were nightlights to keep out the dark. On your bed, you had a teddy of one of Sir Pentious’ egg-bois, a gift from him. Husk had gifted you with a bottle of his best Whiskey, though it remained unopened on the nightstand. There was a cockroach/daisy hybrid necklace wrapped around a book. The candles were from Angel Dust. Beneath your pillow was a dagger, gifted by Vaggie, for your protection. Alastor had given you a collection of books from the store in Cannibal Town, including several that were rumoured to have been stolen from Heaven’s library, though nobody was certain where that rumour started or if it was even true, though there were no copies of the books anywhere else in Hell.

Although Lucifer had no way of knowing these items were all presents from your friends at the Hazbin Hotel, he could tell that you cared deeply for the odd assortment by their placement on the two bedside tables; they had been positioned with care, and were well looked after.

Then, his eye caught the rubber duck, slightly hidden behind the picture frame. He remembered making that one. As a hellhound imitation, it was meant to teleport to whoever needed it most inside the Manor, offering protection should they come under attack. Naturally, he and his family didn’t need such protection, but he had been experimenting with what powers he might imbue unto yet another duck.

He decided not to mention it as he joined you on the balcony, looking you over in your pyjamas.

You also spared him a glance, noting that he seemed more relaxed. Although he was still in his usual attire, he had removed his top-hat-crown and his overcoat, revealing the waistcoat and shirt beneath; the sleeves were rolled up, giving him a more casual appearance.

“Hell’s skies are beautiful, aren’t they,” You stated, returning your gaze to the horizon.

Lucifer looked up, but all he saw was Heaven, the home that didn’t want him.

“(Y/N),” He started, forcing himself to look down, so he wouldn’t have to stare at the painfully beautiful golden glow above.

“Hm?”

“How did you end up here?”

Your grip tightened on the railing drawing Lucifer’s gaze to the whites of your knuckles.

Your whole body became tense and you answered with a ragged breath, “I died.”

“Yes but-” Lucifer was about to lead into the question of your sins, but you spoke up again, seemingly misunderstanding the question as you continued, tears forming at the corners of your eyes.

“I was- I was murdered.”

Lucifer could have explained that the cause of your death wasn’t what he had been driving at, but now he was darkly fascinated. If you were the same kind-hearted, warm person in life, why would anyone wish to bring about your death?

He remained silent as you began recounting the manner in which you had been killed.

“I had a friend,” You started slowly, taking steady breaths between each part of the story that followed as if it would make it any easier. “I mean- I- I thought he was my friend. I loved him. He knew that. He counted on it.”

“I thought that he travelled for work. That’s what he told me. It’s why he was always coming and going. But no… He was just looking for more people like me. He found people. Made us fall for him. Then he- he took me out on a date. Blindfolded me. Said it was a surprise. I- I trusted him, but the blindfold just made it easier for him to- He knocked me out.”

You subconsciously touched the back of your head, remembering the blow that had come with no warning.

Lucifer turned to you, one hand holding onto the railing, the other planted firmly at his side.

“Did he-” He started to ask.

You shook your head. “It wasn’t rape. It was worse.”

You shivered, waiting until you were certain you weren’t going to vomit. Then you continued, your skin ashy.

“I woke up in a- It was like a cinderblock cell, but it had been sort of decorated to look like a fancy suite?”

You recalled the room. It was damp, and the floor was cheaply produced concrete, given away by the amount of air bubbles which had never been levelled and now pocked the surface, like a teenager with bad acne. The cinderblock walls were easy to see, though some talented artist had been paid to paint it with the likeness of the Ritz hotel or somewhere equally fancy. While that had made it look better, it was still clearly a cinderblock wall; then again, you can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

You had been handcuffed to a chair in the centre of the room. Your clothes had been taken, and you had been dressed in a skimpy shortened tuxedo, with a fitted vest instead of a jacket. You remembered screaming till your voice was raw. You screamed so much that you ended up spitting flecks of blood, but nobody came to save you.

“I- I was tied up,” You said simply, downplaying the memory to Lucifer, more for your own sake than his, though he could see the pain behind your eyes.

Lucifer didn’t interrupt your story, but his anger was growing. Behind him his tail lashed furiously, his eyes became flaming red, and his fangs became sharper. You hadn’t noticed, you were lost in memory, and you had yet to look his way since beginning your story.

You sighed, thinking of the torture, humiliation, and suffering which followed, all at the hands of one man. It wasn’t your captor. It was who he had sold you to.

“It- I was- They were making snuff films. I don’t know how many people died there before or after me but- I was sold to an American. He- He liked to cut things. It was a while before- I don’t know if I bled out, or if my heart stopped, maybe both?”

For the first time, your skin changed colour, turning from your regular human shade to a pale seaweed-green. Against the colourful backdrop, Lucifer could see your now blinding white glowing scars. Upon your death they remained hidden, completely invisible, but now you were distressed… You seemingly did have something of a Demonic appearance after all.

You were a ragdoll.

There wasn’t a part of your body that hadn’t been cut, or originally sliced off, only to be repaired in death. In all likelihood, your real body was probably burned, buried, or dissolved in acid. In Hell, your scars were the stitches that held your body together. Lucifer now understood your human appearance since like a real ragdoll, you were good at playing dress-up. He bet that if you explored your abilities, you would have been able to look like anyone, a skin-changer, but you had adopted your appearance in life; it was likely an accident caused by the trauma of your memories.

“(Y/N),” Lucifer said through gritted teeth. He wanted to be comforting, but he was already thinking of all the ways he would punish your killer and any accomplice he may have had. There were worse things than Death in hell; he would torture those bastards for eternity, and then when he finally grew bored, he would end them with angelic weaponry, wiping their souls from existence, leaving no trace of such monsters.

You didn’t turn to face your King, who was now in his full Demonic form, his rage at its peak.

“Just go,” You murmured despondently, staring over the balcony, and down to the ground. A long drop and a short stop… It was a shame it wouldn’t kill you; at least the pain would end if you died.

“But-” Lucifer reached you to put a hand on your shoulder, his wings almost curling around you as if to envelop you.

“I- I would like to be alone. Please.”

Lucifer hesitantly withdrew his hand, “I’m sorry.”

That was all he said before walking away, leaving you alone.

You wished that you could have been left to wallow, but your phone soon buzzed and you opted to check it in case it was an emergency.

Retrieving it from the bed, you found a message from Charlie.

“EMERGENCY. ANGEL DUST. RELAPSE. GET OVER HERE. PLEASE!”

Damn it! If Charlie was texting you for this, it meant that Husk was either the cause or he wasn’t around to be the solution. Moreover, while Charlie would want to assist her friend, she was likely the last person Angel Dust wanted to see; sometimes, though she was well-intentioned, she just didn’t understand such issues or she could be a bit much.

Still stuck in your ragdoll body, you ran back to the balcony and vaulted over the edge. It wasn’t a smooth landing, and it hurt a lot. Anyone else would have broken their bones, but when you were like this, there wasn’t anything else that could be broken. Everything had already been torn off you. Ignoring the pain, you ran until you found a taxi. You took it to the Hotel.

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intoxicated-chan · 3 months

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𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲, 𝐘𝐨𝐮❜𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐞

Summary ➳ Ever since Daryl and Merle joined you and the rest of the survivors, Shane believed that the brothers were no good and warned you to stay away. But you never had good hearing.

(A/n) ➳ This is gonna have multiple parts, I’m not a fan having multiple dividers used as time-skips. Take care of yourselves!!

Word Count ➳ 2.1k (There ain’t a lot of smut but I’ll make it up to you guys in the next part!)

Content Warnings ➳ Female Reader, mentions of death/killing, swearing, mentions of masturbation/masturbation (M), oral (F), cunilingus, fingering, pet names (baby), overstimulation…

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 (Coming soon!!)

You often found your mind wandering ever since the outbreak, you struggled to believe what was happening was real. You tried to think positively and hoped that in the end, you would wake up from the nightmare. But there was no nightmare since there was no dream. The outbreak indeed happened and the world is in fucking shambles.

Even during the panic, you found it unbelievable, you refused to believe. It took your brother bruising your arm to drag you into the truck. And when Lori and Carl were put into the truck, Shane told you his belief of his friend’s demise. Another thing that you refused to believe and luckily, you didn’t change your view.

Shane stretched his arms as he stepped out of the tent, a groan leaving his lips. But he wasn’t the only one awake so early, you were as well.

You were folding the group’s clothes, but you were also looking at the tags of the men’s shirts the group had taken. You were ripping the sleeves off of those you deemed the right ones.

“What are you doin’?” Shane asked you, lifting an eyebrow as you ripped another sleeve. He had a good guess of who those were for.

“Daryl’s shirts are coated in sweat an’ dirt. There are holes in ‘em.” You replied, a harmless smile on your face. Shane knew that you were trying to do something good for him. “He needs new ones.”

Shane kneeled, taking your wrist to stop you. “Don’t you think he can do that himself?”

“But he’s out huntin’.” You pulled your wrist back.

“If he can make time for huntin’, he can make his shirts himself.” Shane snatched the rest of the shirts and pushed them to the side. “What are you doin’ up anyways?”

Your eyes looked away from his, fidgeting with the tag of Daryl’s shirt. Your dreams were plagued by nightmares, you wouldn’t go into detail, and you were happy that you forgot most of it.

Shane could see it in your eyes, he rubbed your back. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna get our home back.”

“Would we?” You mumbled, rolling your eyes.

“What was that?” Shane demanded to know. He grabbed your shoulders. “Say it again.”

“It’s gone, Shane. We have no home, there’s nothin’ to go back to.”

“Don’t you ever think like that.” Shane snapped. His voice was low yet gruff, showing how serious and angry he was. “We’re goin’ to get home. Understand?”

You looked away once more, nodding. Your ears caught the sound of Daryl panting, arguing with his brother to wake up and help him.

Shane moved his hands from your shoulder to brush back your hair. “Go back to your tent, get some rest.” Patting your back and taking the sleeveless shirts, his voice returning to normal. “And keep away from them. I shouldn’t have to remind you, again.”

You heard Shane speaking with Daryl, handing or shoving the shirts to his arms in trade for some of the game he caught. You also heard Shane taking credit for the work done for Daryl.

“I did ‘em. You smell like shit.” Shane was starting to piss you off. First telling you to keep away from people you were going to have to work with and then taking credit for work you did…

It was most likely midnight. You and Shane were the only ones sitting by the dying campfire. Georgia may be hot during the day but could be cold during the night.

Shane glanced around, he was cautious, making sure it was just the two of you. He wrapped his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close. “Stay away from them. I shouldn’t be repeatin’ myself and I don’t like to.”

You knew Shane could be an asshole at times but deep down, he meant well. But it was harder to believe him each time when he wouldn’t give you a reason.

“All I am askin’ is an explanation.” You begged Shane. “Give me a reason.”

“Do I really need to explain myself?” Shane loudly sighed when you nodded immediately. “They are suspicious. I know we need every hand we can get but when it comes to them, to Merle. It’s obvious that they are plannin’ somethin’, somethin’ bad.”

“What does that have to do with Daryl? Or me?”

Shane was getting annoyed by your constant questions. He ran his fingers through his hair, nearly pulling them out. “Let me ask you this. Do you think Daryl will go out of his way to save you?”

“What if-”

“No ifs ands or buts. Answer it.” Shane said sternly, he didn’t need your response since your silence was your answer. “Daryl is only lookin’ out for his brother, he ain’t gonna be saving your dumbass unless you got somethin’ for him or Merle.”

“Don’t say that about him. Daryl is just misunderstood.”

A harsh laugh left his lips. “Jesus (Y/n), why are you tryin’? You are unbearably naive. Always having soft spots, like that damn dog. Watch, Daryl is gonna bring you down to his shit level, and when he does, I ain’t gonna be there to help your pathetic ass. You’re gonna be risking your life for people who don’t give a damn about yours.”

Tears stung your eyes, hurt by your brother’s words. And Shane could see it. “You’re my sister, the only family I have left. I won’t have you taken away from me because of them.”

You felt like a fish out of water, the way your mouth was opening and closing. It took you a good minute before you could finally speak. “The world has gone to shit Shane. We need each other to survive, we can’t be divided.”

“(Y/n)-”

“You gotta get rid of your black and white thinkin’. Find common ground with them, not draw a line in the dirt and spit on it.”

You pushed his arm off and stomped off, you must’ve looked like a child.

“(Y/n).” He called out to you, watching you walk off.

You sat on a random rock once. You knew your path back to camp, you remained close by, in case of an emergency.

You wiped your eyes, frustrated. You took deep breaths, running your hands up and down your thighs to stop you from completely sobbing.

“The hell you doin’ out ‘ere?” You flinched, snapping your head around just to see Daryl with a string of rabbits over his shoulder.

“I could say the same.” You grumbled, turning your head back around. “Why you huntin’ out so late?”

“None of yer damn business.” He countered rather harshly. “You gonna answer?”

You were ready to rant but Daryl was a man of few words, and he preferred it if people got to the point instead of wasting his time. “Shane and I fought. He’s a fuckin’ asshole.”

“...Wan’ me to kill ‘im?” He asked, loading his crossbow and hearing a click.

A faint smile crossed your face, holding in the snicker you had coming. “I thank you for your offer. But I’ll be alright. He’s probably stressed.”

“What’ver you say.” Daryl turned around and walked away, just in time for Shane to appear. He didn’t bother giving Shane a second look.

“Still havin’ a hard time deciding if I’m real or not?” Rick asked, taking the water you handed him.

“No, I made up my mind when Shane told me. I knew your stubborn ass would come out sooner or later.” You laughed as well as Rick. You laid your head on his shoulder, sitting by the dead campfire with him.

Comfortable silence overcame you both, but Rick had questions. Especially when he hadn’t seen you and Shane speak, even when he returned.

“Shane… What happened?”

“Shane… He doesn’t think that the brothers are good.” You replied. “I understand where he’s comin’ from but Daryl’s different.”

“Talk to him often?”

“Not really.”

Rick sighed. “You’re too kind, one day that will come back an’ haunt you.”

Rick left the conversation at that, leaving you with your thoughts. You were stuck. You couldn’t focus and you didn’t want to be around your brother.

You joined Daryl despite his protest and annoyance. He allowed you to follow, even more when he learned that never shot a gun before when the topic of weapons came up.

“Don’t be lookin’ tense.” Daryl commented, his hand coming to your wrist. “Yer holdin’ it too tight, relax yer damn grip.”

You mumbled an apology, doing your best to take his advice. But after a couple of minutes of remaining tense, Daryl took away the gun. “That’s it, what’s on yer mind?”

“E’cuse me?”

“I ain’t gonna risk our food on you unable to shoot a damn gun.” You rolled your eyes. “Yer shit brother?”

You grumbled, cursing Shane under your breath. “I rather not think about it.”

“Yer gonna have to find a way to deal with yer shit if you ain’t gonna talk.”

“Like what? Takin’ care of myself?”

Daryl shrugged. “Probably.”

“What am I supposed to do here? Not much to take care of myself with.” You motioned to the trees that surrounded the two of you.

“Perfect place to jerk one out though. Quick and easy-”

“E’cuse me?” You repeated, a little louder this time.

“How many times you gonna say e’cuse me?” He horribly mimicked your voice. “The way ya lookin’ at me shows that you hadn’t done it.”

“I have.” You huffed but Daryl lifted his eyebrow. “I-It’s just- it’s difficult. I can’t do it when I know people are around or gonna be lookin’ for me. I don’t wanna be embarrassed.”

“Haven’t ya learned to do it quickly?”

“No… But are you willin’ to help?”

Daryl gave you a confused look. “Thought yer brother didn’t want you ‘round me? Would ya think he’d approve of this? Me touchin’ ya?”

“Who gives a damn what he thinks? He can’t decide what I want.”

He placed his crossbow against a tree and crossed his arms. “Ya gonna give somethin’ in return?” You nodded hastily. “Then take yer damn pants off.”

Your fingers pulled on his sandy blonde hair, taking gasps of air as you felt his tongue lapping all of your juices. How long has it been? An hour or two? How many orgasms have you had? You weren’t even going to try and count them all.

He kept a tight hold on your hips, he pulled you back whenever you pulled away. He had you laid against the dirt, feeling the pebbles and sticks poking at your back and head stopped bothering you when all you could think about was clouded.

Daryl remained between your legs, your thighs clenching around his head, the wetness covering the lower half of his face. His tongue danced around your folds and clit.

Daryl shifted his position, he kneeled, giving him a perfect view of your flushed body. A layer of sweat across your open skin, an arm thrown over your eyes and your other hand was no longer pulling at his hair but gripping a patch of patch.

He dipped one finger into your cunt, feeling you squeeze around him, making him add another. He slid his fingers in and out, fucking you quickly.

His other hand reached to unbuckle his belt, unzipping his fly and freeing himself. He jerked himself off using precum as a kind of lubricate. Each stroke of his cock was matched by the pace he was fingering you.

Above the wet sounds of your cunt, he could hear the soft moans leaving your mouth. His breathing fell into an unsteady pace alongside an occasional groan from the back of his throat.

Both of his arms were burning, moving faster than to what he was normally used to. A painful shiver ran through him, he was coming.

Another painful bolt. There was a hint of pleasure, but there was a different feeling. “H-Hold on-” Your back arched off the ground, a gasp cutting you off. “I think-”

He curled his fingers and repeatedly hit your g-spot. “C’mom baby, c’mom baby.” He repeated under his breath, twisting his fingers and scissored them inside of you.

You swore loudly, feeling the sudden release, squirting all over Daryl’s hand and pants. Daryl tossed his head back, leating out a strained fuck though his teeth. You felt his hot cum spill over your cunt, your arm moved away from your face and looked at Dary through your hazed eyes.

Daryl gave a couple of more pumps, stopping both of his hands. You gasped when his fingers pulled out, you could see the mess you made. “I didn’t mean-”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it.” Daryl chuckled, bringing his fingers to his lips, licking off the remaining juices on them. “Feelin’ better?”

You nodded, panting. “Very.”

“Good, ‘cause you still owe me.”

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rheya28 · 5 months

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Lucio's Market [Restaurant, Grocery, Teaching Kitchen] ♥ The Sims 4: Speed Build // CC

Lucio's Market is where culinary passion meets community connection! Nestled in the heart of Anchorpoint Wharf, this venue seamlessly blends a fully stocked grocery store, a dynamic teaching kitchen, and a cozy restaurant—all under one roof. [Lot Can be set as a restaurant, generic, or retail]

Market In Lucio's Market, you'll discover a curated selection of fresh, locally sourced ingredients, handpicked for their quality and flavor. Kitchen Step into our state-of-the-art teaching kitchen, where cooking enthusiasts of all skill levels can embark on a culinary journey led by our expert chefs. Restaurant After a satisfying cooking class, savor the fruits of your labor in our inviting restaurant area. Our chefs take the spotlight, crafting a menu that showcases the artistry of local ingredients.

Note:

♥This lot has been semi play-tested. ♥To make the Grocery part of the build functional, you can turn this into a retail lot. There are also grocery mods available such as SS realistic cooking mod and the Bulk Grocery Mod. Please keep in mind that I did not follow any requirements for these two mods as the grocery part of the build was made simply for aesthetics and storytelling. You are welcome to make adjustments! [I will be building a much bigger grocery store in the future, which im hoping will be more functional] ♥We do not have a teaching kitchen venue option in the sims 4, however, the gameplay can be achieve with some imagination! You can turn this into a generic lot and simply have your sims cook/bake together on different stoves simultaneously (I suggest making a club and setting preferences!). Also I've added a chef's station in the kitchen where you can hire a chef who can act as the "teacher". (Warning: considering there are plenty of appliances in this kitchen, a fire or two will most likely happen lmao) ♥Lastly if you want this lot to function as a restaurant, simply change the venue lot type in build mode. I would recommend downloading LittleMsSam's lock mod to lock the testing kitchen's door. This will prevent customers from using the kitchen appliances!

♥ Please make sure to turn bb.moveobjects on! ♥ Please DO NOT reupload or claim as your own. ♥ Feel free to tag me if you are using it, I love seeing my build in other peoples save file ♥ Feel free to edit/tweak my builds, but please make sure to credit me as the original creator! ♥ Thank you to all CC Creators ♥ Please let me know if there's any problem with the build!

♥ SPEED BUILD VIDEO 00:00 Beginning 00:02 Intro 01:25 Speed Build 16:38 Photos

♥ Sim Featured in video Courtney Ajak & Tiara Robinson by @aashwarr Emi Grey by @jaxplaysthesims

♥ LOT DETAILS Lot Name: Lucio's Market Lot type: Restaurant + Generic lot + Can be retail Lot size: 30x20 Location: Archorpoint Wharf, San Sequioa

♥ MODS: TOOL MOD by TwistedMexi

♥ CC LIST: Note: I reuse a lot of the same cc in all my builds, specifically cc's from felixandre, HeyHarrie, tuds, and Pierisim so if you're interested in downloading past, present, future build from me i suggest getting all their cc sets to make life a little easier! other creators include Sooky, Charlypancakes, Sixam, Thecluttercat, Myshunosun, awingedllama, peacemaker.

Awingedllama: Blooming Room plants

Lilis Palace: folklore (only deco jars)

Severinka: Grocery Store pt 1 (cash desk, display island only), Grocery Store pt 2 (all), Grocery store pt 3 (Shopping cart and basket only), Grocery store pt 4 (all)

Around the sims 4: Bulk grocery

FelixAndre x Harrie: Baysic, Harluxe, Orjanic, Kichen

Bbygyal123: Abstract Prints

FelixAndre: Berlin pt 3, Chateau, Fayun , Kyoto , Florence , Grove, Shop the look, Soho

Charlypancakes: Chalk

Thecluttercat: Dandydiary pt 2, Helloo horse, Sunny Sundays

Harrie: Brownstone, Brutalist, Coastal, Klean, Kwatei, Octave, Spoons

LittleDica: Rise & Grind, Delicious kitchen

Myshunosun: Harbalist Kitchen

Peacemaker: Pointless Renovation

Pierisim: Auntie Vera, Coldbrew, David Apartment, Domaine Du clos, Mcm, Oak House, Winter Garden, Woodland Ranch

Max20: Poolside lounge pack (floor pattern only)

S-imagination: Cottage kitchen (Decorative bag with scoop only)

Sixam: Home Improvement, Hote Bedroom

Syboullette: Boulangerie (chalk board only)

Taurus Design: Lilith Chilling Area (sul sul sign only)

Tuds: Cross, IND, NCTR, SHKR

♥Tray File: x ♥Origin ID: Applez ♥Twitter: Rheya28__ ♥Tiktok: Rheya28__ ♥Patreon: Rheya28 ♥Youtube: Rheya28__

#ts4 #sims 4 #thesims4 #sims #thesims #showusyourbuilds #sims 4 cc #sims 4 builds #sims 4 screenshots #builds #simblr #the sims 4 build #build #rheya28

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seravphs · 10 months

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ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — TEEN DAD! GOJO SATORU x FEM READER

The Zenins want Megumi. Gojo isn’t having it.

wc — 1.7k

tags — one suggestive line after “those girls are better off without you” if you want to avoid it, set after 棠, part of teen dad gojoverse, in which you and Gojo raise Megumi together

Gojo’s been in the doghouse since last night. Not literally, obviously - though he might have preferred it if you were there with him, at least. He’d take anything over being kicked out of your shared bedroom and being forced to sleep on the couch.

If you had it your way, you’d prolong his punishment, but you can’t. Not when, as he told you last night, the Zenins are coming today to wrest Megumi from your custody.

Fat chance.

You’d die before you let that happen.

Gojo’s not too keen on either of those outcomes. For the first time in his life, he’s taking the pacifist’s route and talking it out, though you’re sure his version of talking involves more insults than most people’s.

He thought about simply having it out with the elders, but it’s not worth it. Not when he has a plan for the future of Jujutsu Society. Not when he has you, Megumi, and Tsumiki. He’s playing the long game. He can’t afford to screw it up now.

Being a family man really has ruined him.

Zenin Keiko is a tall woman with a severe black bob and the characteristic Zenin look of perpetual contempt. She’s Naoya’s cousin, alright.

“Twice-removed,” Gojo whispers to you. “Or illegitimate. Something like that, I can’t remember.”

“Shut up,” you whisper back out of the corner of your mouth. “She’s going to hear you.”

Welcoming a Zenin into your home feels like blasphemy, though you suppose Gojo is the closest thing Jujutsu society has to a god.

Gojo’s unimpressed by her, mostly because he feels like the Zenins are mocking him. It’s not like anyone can take him on, but to send someone who has no battle capabilities feels like an insult.

Keiko is an auxiliary manager with no cursed technique to speak of besides a weak barrier. It’s a wonder she has the nerve to speak to Gojo. The Zenins truly did not care about her if they sent her as the proxy to undermine your roles as the Fushiguro children’s guardians. In fact, you suspect that’s the precise reason she was chosen - because she’s expendable.

Keiko, to her credit, shows no sign of fear.

“I’d like to meet the children, Mr. Gojo. It’ll give me a good grasp of what the situation is.”

“Hell no,” Gojo outright laughs in her face. “I’m not letting a Zenin near my brats. Your-“

“Gojo.” You squeeze his knee. Cooperate.

“I’ll go get them,” he says begrudgingly.

The two of you sandwich the children between you on the couch. Tsumiki sits on Gojo’s left. Megumi sits on your right. That way, the two that are most likely to fight are separated. It’s a strategized united front.

“Megumi, do you like your guardians? Do you like staying here?”

Megumi looks at you. You smile at him encouragingly - and there Keiko goes, scribbling away in her notebook. She’s probably saying something about how Megumi is so scared of you he won’t answer the question unless you give him permission.

“Are you sure? Forgive me, but Gojo seems a little…immature for a parent.”

A direct attack right out of the gates. Gojo objects to this very accurate assessment of his character.

“He’s fine, I guess,” Megumi says. There’s more scribbling. You’re starting to hate the sound of pen on paper. “I like-“

He looks at you. There’s a tiny blush on his cheeks, just the faintest hint of red. More quietly, he says, “It’s fine, cause she takes care of us.”

Gojo stares at him, slack-jawed. “Are you kidding me? You are one ungrateful brat. Who found you? Who took you in?”

Tsumiki chimes in, “We like Gojo a lot too! He’s fun.”

Keiko ignores her completely, focusing on Megumi instead. Your distaste for her grows.

“Would you say that Gojo has an active role in taking care of you?”

“Why aren’t you asking Tsumiki anything?” Megumi interrupts. “Her opinion’s important too.”

Keiko gives him a strained smile. Gojo reaches behind Tsumiki on the couch to ruffle Megumi’s hair. He only tolerates this for five seconds before he shakes his head to get him off.

“He loves me,” Gojo says.

“I have Stockholm syndrome,” Megumi says. ‘Help,’ he mouthes.

“He’s joking,” Tsumiki says nervously.

You’ve given up on making them behave. It’s just not happening.

Keiko seems to have given up too. Rather than continue prodding Megumi, she turns to Gojo.

“How often are you home?”

“Basically every day,” Gojo lies. He does try his best, but it’s more like every other day. Such is the fate of the strongest sorcerer.

“Don’t want my baby all alone, poor little thing.”

He catches your look and cackles. “No, the other one. My other baby,” and the kiss he presses to your knuckles is so tender it melts your heart.

Keiko makes an uncomfortable expression. “Please try to stay focused, Mr. Gojo.”

Megumi gags loudly. Tsumiki pinches his arm to get him to shut up and he yelps. Keiko narrows her eyes and makes another note.

“I understand how Gojo might take responsibility for the children,” Keiko says, directing her attention to you, “but how did you come into the picture. Are you a girlfriend-“

“Wife,” Gojo interjects.

Keiko’s entire body does an approximation of what it would look if a human had a screenshot function.

“Aren’t you children?”

You don’t like Keiko at all, but you respect the balls it takes to talk to Gojo like that. All the Zenins seem to have that death wish of wanting to mouth off to the strongest. Maybe it’s a genetic thing.

Gojo shrugs. “If I’m old enough for the missions you send me on, I’m old enough to take care of kids, right? How hard can it be?”

You pinch his thigh. “Gojo.”

“What? It is easy. You just give them a bunch of lollipops and call it a day.”

Keiko’s writing is now background noise to you. “Are you still doing that? I told you-“

“It’s fine! All kids need sugar to grow. I had a sweet tooth when I was their age.”

“And that’s probably the reason why you still have one now! Except it’s rotting your teeth-“

“It’s not-“

“It is!”

“Don’t be so uptight!”

“How does it look if I’m always saying no to him and you’re always saying yes? It isn’t fair, Satoru. Parenting has to be a team effort.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you playing good cop, bad cop with him!”

“Have you gone insane? We went over this! He likes you more than me! There is no good cop, bad cop when he just takes your side every single time.”

“Excuse me,” Keiko says. She’s somehow managed to look a complex combination of perplexed, annoyed, and satisfied. “Please take care of your lovers’ tiffs outside of this interview. I will say that this doesn’t seem like an environment particularly conducive to raising children, however.”

“What do you know?” Gojo says rudely. “The only reason you’re even doing this interview is because I’m letting you.”

Normally, you would tell him off, but in front of the Zenins? You’re a united front. You place a hand on his forearm and look down your nose at the woman in front of you as best as you can when she’s taller than most people you meet.

“I think you’ve overstayed your welcome,” you say.

“You agreed to an interview,” she says.

“An interview, not an inquisition.”

“You can’t refuse a request from the elders without consequences,” she says, as patiently as she would speak to a child. It’s condescending.

“Are you threatening my wife?”

When you look to your side, Gojo’s face is shadowed. His eyes are storm dark and frightening. Keiko can’t hide her visceral reaction.

She forgets her coat on her way out, she’s in such a hurry to leave. Gojo takes it and disappears.

While he’s away, you let Megumi and Tsumiki return to their rooms. They’re muttering amongst themselves, but you don’t pry. Children need their space, too. You’ll talk to them about it later.

He’s back within a minute.

“What did you do with it?” You’re bracing yourself for the answer.

“I just sent a message,” he says, as cheerily as if nothing had happened. “Think we passed that?”

“Gojo, I think that’s the first test you’ve ever failed. Did you see the way she was writing during the last twenty minutes? And Megumi and Tsumiki! Every time they said something, she made a face!”

Gojo shrugs, still so certain of his place in the hierarchy. One day, the elders will get tired of him throwing his weight around like Jujutsu’s one and only tyrant, but not someday soon if they want to keep their heads.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m not going to make Megumi and Tsumiki act like repressed little puppet children just so that they can find some way to snipe them out from under us anyways. Who knows, maybe we’ll teach the Zenins a thing or two about healthy child raising. I hear they have two girls now. One of them has no cursed energy. Should we kidnap some more children?”

“Like you know anything about healthy parenting,” you snark. “Those girls are better off without you.”

“Does being mean to me get you off or something?”

“Do you want to find out?”

“I would love to,” he purrs, sliding a hand under your shirt just so slightly so his nails prick at your lower stomach. You grab his wrist.

“Sorry,” you say, your stomach churning at the joke gone wrong. “I can’t.”

He stops immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“I just- They want Megumi badly enough to go to the higher ups. I know what they do to their children. I can’t let him go there, Satoru. I can’t.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I can’t stop thinking about those girls.”

“Come here,” he says.

You lean closer to him. He lifts his arm so easily, without thinking. When you slide under it, you fit into him perfectly.

Now that you’re safely tucked under his arm, you feel sheltered from anything that could happen. “I don’t want to give the kids to the Zenins. They’re monsters. And they would make monsters out of them.”

“That’s only if they take them away,” Gojo says, his smile fanged and vicious.

“And if they do?”

“I hope they try.”

You trust him.

You know he’ll keep his word. If Gojo says Megumi and Tsumiki won’t be going to the Zenins as long as he’s alive, then they won’t be going at all.

#sera writes #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojou x reader #gojou satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader

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pigdemonart · 1 year

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Battle Subway Depot Agents (by pig-demon)

When I made designs for these guys last year I didn’t really think they needed colored references/master post, but since then I’ve drawn them a lot! Also people have added them to their fanfics and drawn fanart! So I figured it was time I made a post for easy ref. :]

These designs are obviously free to use, just give credit (and link me your work if you're comfortable, because it makes me happy to see!) All I request is to stay respectful to their pronouns and skin colors, ya knooow… 👍 note: The pokemon on their cards are all companions, not the ones they use on the Battle Subway. Except Jackie...the litwicks are just there to fill space/give them company.

More info under cut:

Edit: Important disclaimer:

These are again my designs/interpretations for the agents. Please don’t treat them as canon or as the only, quintessential designs for these literal background npcs. Many people have done takes on them before and after me, even back in 2010. It feels silly to ask, but due to past experience, I ask that you please DONT hunt down anyone that does a different take on the depot agents!! 👍

Tags:

I'm gonna start tagging them individually, but for now all Depot Agent comics and art on this blog are tagged under Depot Agents.

Height chart:

I’m not too strict about heights, so I don’t really care about actual measurements. Here’s an approximation of what I tend to visualize though:

Sexualities/Gender Identities: I don't have official labels for each and every agent because I like keeping things fluid for characters to develop these traits on their own. However, as a queer person, I enjoy designing characters who are also queer, therefore I can safely say none of these characters are straight. The ones who are set in stone are Ramses (gay man), Cloud (lesbian woman,) Jackie (non-binary.) Furze uses he/they pronouns but their gender is undetermined. I also welcome anyone giving the agents a different gender identity to suit them (as long as it's done respectfully.)

Notes about each agent...

Cameron:

- Cameron dyes parts of his hair blonde and keeps other parts in black. This is because he is a big fan of Elesa and her fashion choices. - Though there have been a few occasions to meet his idol, he is always way too nervous to approach her, feeling deep down that he'll mess up somehow. - He practices modeling poses in secret. He loves flourishes and flare, but is simply too insecure to put it on display. - Of his coworkers, he gets along the best with Furze. He's the easiest to talk to because Furze will do most of the talking. - Cameron is easily intimidated — even mean Pokémon can make him nervous. Though, his two worst fears are being left in a room alone with Jackie, and being left alone in a room with Isadore. - He takes advantage of his height to sometimes hide behind some of his coworkers. - Cameron is much better at Pokémon battles than he gives himself credit for. Emmet and Ingo were pleasantly surprised by this, since Cameron was promoted to fit a temporary role on the Battle Subway. They happily made him a permanent member when he proved himself capable. - His Dwebble (Pebby) is secretly very strong, and rushes to protect Cameron when it can. Cam sometimes thinks Pebby helps him feel more confident in himself too. - If he stumbled into any of his coworkers outside of work, he would simply explode of embarrassment. - He is the youngest child and only son of his family. He lives in his own apartment in Nimbasa.

Cloud:

- Cloud (like Ramses) knew the twins when they were very young. - She used to be an ace trainer in her youth, even going so far to compete in the Pokémon league. Winning and becoming the champ was the most important part of her journey, but something happened along the way that changed that outlook. - It seems with age, her competitiveness has mellowed out. However, she maintains an intense energy when battling. - Her favorite types are Psychic and Flying types. Swoobat (Sweetie) is her ace. - Her favorite hobby is baking, and she often bakes sweets for the crew. She knows all their favorite flavors by now! - She prioritizes keeping a friendly relationship with all her coworkers and thinks of them fondly. She considers Ramses family after all the years of working together! - She is a big fan of Brycen's movies and can recite the lines. - She lives with her wife in Anville. - Cloud loves doing maintenance work both at home and in Gear Station. She enjoys bringing her own tools and industrial flashlight.

Furze:

- Furze only has one volume setting (mid loud,) but he finds himself feeling right at home when talking to either one of the twins. - Furze has ADHD, and this is reflected in some of his habits, most visibly is his fidgeting when sitting still for too long. - He rides a bike to work every day. When he is late, Cloud clocks in for him so he doesn't get in trouble. - This is a kind of a guy that sits crouched gargoyle style on chairs. Only outside of work, of course. Bad posture could get him in trouble. - While working on the Battle Subway, there will be times Furze feels sorry for his opponents and offers to quietly let them pass anyways. This...has also gotten him in trouble. :[ - He went to the same elementary school as Isadore in Castelia. Though Isadore seems to have forgotten their short-lived acquaintance, Furze has not. This is part of the reason Furze claims they are in fact good friends!!! - Furze is the middle child of a big family. He lives with his mom and takes care of her, along with his many Darumakas and Darmanitan. All of his Pokemon have famous trains names. - He collects model trains. Naturally.

Isadore

- Isadore had plans to become the station master the moment he was hired as a depot agent, but alas... (sad trumpet sound.) - As a youth, he was more interested in science and engineering over Pokemon battles. He enjoys the strategizing aspect, at most. Not so much the competitiveness. - In addition, his Pokemon are all rescues and not used for battling. He's had his Watchog (Winston) since he was in his late teens. - His Electrode (Gregor) and Voltorb (Leonard) were rescued from the likes of Team Plasma. - Isadore admits he understands Pokemon better than humans. This has been apparent his whole life. - In spite of acting like a sitcom villain, Isadore cares about the management of Gear Station and the safety of the passengers to an incredible degree. He sees it as a personal life goal to assist in the management of Gear Station, as well as the success of the Battle Subway. - Though it pained him to become a subordinate to the twins, he begrudgingly accepts it for the greater good. - His almost militant efficiency certainly made up for his years of antagonizing the twins before they became the bosses. Ingo and Emmet understand this better than anyone. - Isadore keeps tabs on all of the staff members. So he very well knows all their birthdays and makes it a point to celebrate it. This is by no means a -happy- or -festive- event. It's just customary. - Like Furze, he was originally from Castelia, but now resides in Nimbasa. Isadore's only family is his mom and she lives in his childhood home with their Stoutland. - Isadore would have probably been voiced by every glasses guy ever J. Michael Tatum had he not already been cast as dear Emmet lmao

Jackie

- Jackie is a mystery and they like keeping it that way. When they talk, it's practically impossible to determine what is a lie or truth, especially if the subject is themselves or their background. - They love scaring Cameron the most and will ask to be paired with him whenever possible. They claim Cameron is their "favorite coworker," while Isadore is the least favorite. - It's plain to see why -- Jackie is the only one that doesn't passively tolerate Isadore's tirades. - Though my comics sometimes may allude to Jackie being a ghost/supernatural, this is not confirmed nor canon. I just personally enjoy toying with the concept. : ) That being said...

- Item #: SCP 7453

- Object Class: Euclid

- Special Containment Procedures: The ████ ██████ is ██████ within ████-██████. - Ingo and Emmet choose to not question anything about Jackie, since it's clear they're one of the more efficient workers. However it can be a safety concern... - Cloud and Ramses have worked with Jackie for a long time, though they've forgotten somehow. They believe Jackie is a new hire since they appear to be young. - Anyone trying to make sense of Jackie's employee records simply can't bring themselves to any conclusions. It's better to ignore the inconsistencies. - Jackie has never been seen to leave Gear Station. Jackie has never been seen in anything but their uniform. Jackie has never been confirmed to eat, drink or blink. Jackie knows your secrets. Jackie thinks it's... amusing.

Ramses

- Ramses sometimes misses having a full head of hair, but he thinks his signs of age make him look distinguished. (he is correct.) - Ramses is sort of the "mom friend," making sure everyone's concerns are heard, as well as trying to keep the peace whenever a conflict might arise. - If another coworker is feeling low, Ramses will try to cheer them up with a lighthearted joke or offer advice if they'd like it. - When the twins were promoted to bosses of the Battle Subway, Ramses cried because he felt so proud. - In most circumstances, he is a very simple and logical man. He is quick to find solutions and tries not to fret over the little stuff. It's not good for his heart after all. - His ace is his Pikachu (Musa,) though the mouse is more of a lap pet now. At home, he also has an Audino (Sara) and a Manectric (Nubi) who keep Ramses' husband company. His Klinklang (Moli) is the only one of his personal pokemon that accompany him to work nowadays. - Ramses considers Cloud family. They are best friends and love having family gatherings outside of work. They also gossip a lot, and don't mind when Jackie decides to join. - Ramses jokes about looking forward to retirement, but really doesn't want to leave until he is physically incapable of working anymore. Gear Station is like a second home to him.

In-Game Quotes

The most important reference of all are their in-game quotes, of course, so I'm adding it to the post. A lot of their personality traits can be extracted and interpreted from these few lines. And I personally love that about Pokemon NPCs -- there's a lot of room to explore and play with. Some appear very obvious. Cameron practically announces that he isn't ready for the battle that's about to ensue and seems genuinely surprised to win. Furze comes out the gate talking about the subject they actually care about, which is their job and their love for trains. The two of them are very easy to understand. Now, Ramses lines allude to a gentle and simple personality. He views himself with humility, and maybe even with a bit of humor comparing himself to a train and to his opponent to a station. If he loses he shows no signs of disappointment, he just accepts defeat with one last honest quip. It s also amusing to see the Depot Agents all use train metaphors to describe themselves since it falls in line with how Ingo and Emmet talk.

In comparison, Cloud does the same thing calling herself the terminal instead. Immediately, she is way more daring, though still keeping a sense of professionalism. To me, it's obvious she is competitive as she even admits she was expecting to win ("Ah...I didn't see it coming.") Jackie's lines are fun since it's up to interpretation if they are being literal or lying. It's almost like they are more interested in confusing/creeping out their opponent than actually beating them. To me, it gives off a mischievous vibe. Isadore's opener "There are only two roads in life." is a curious one because it almost feels like he is trying to be philosophical. Definitely a guy who views himself as an intellectual, regardless if that’s true or not. I like to think it's a saying he really believes in, and it applies to his life. The road he likes (long route) vs the road he hates (shortcut) -- fighting tooth and nail to become boss vs biting his tongue and accepting Ingo and Emmet as the Subway Masters.

Those are just my thoughts on how I write these characters. Please have fun playing with these lines too!

#depot agents #depot agents master post #my art #submas #submas adjacent ahaha #will probably edit as time goes on but who knows really #if you spot any typos no you dont kiss kiss #cameron #cloud #furze #isadore #jackie #ramses

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dreamcatchers-husband · 8 months

Text

Jitters

Male Reader X Fromis_9 Saerom

Length: 2600+ words

Tags: Roomates, Fuck buddies, Mommy kink, Creampie

A/N- Saerom has always caught my attention so I had to make her a fic. At least a quckie.

Do you ever get the jitters? Get nervous?

People get nervous for a lot of different reasons. Job interview? Getting on a roller coaster? Riding a plane?

For you, it was none of these. The cause of your nerves was two simple words. First date. When the girl said yes, you were beyond excited but the jitters came once you began to head home. Your shoulder hit several people as your eyes were stuck on your phone screen. After each apology, you continued the walk home, planning on what to do with your date.

Eventually, you arrived at your apartment complex and walked to the front door. Once you passed the door, your legs brought you over to the elevator where you waited for the metal cage. Your travel up the elevator was uneventful as your legs continued to tap up and down nervously.

With a ding, your eyes looked up and saw the number 14. Recognizing it as your floor, you stepped off and rushed to your door. Once your golden metal key entered the keyhole, you turned it counterclockwise and unlocked the door.

With your shoulder pushing it open, your feet moved forward and rushed towards your living room. Once there, your eyes began to search for a nice brown bookcase that lived in that part of your home. Once your eyes saw it, your mind took over as you pulled the doors open and found a large black safe that sat there.

Raising your hand, the various beeps from the safe echoed in your ear. Punching The code 0124 made the green light appear as well as a clicking sound. Pulling the safe open, you found a couple of stacks of money as well as a wallet. Grabbing your black leather wallet, you opened it and pulled out a green card.

With the card now in your possession. You fished out your personal wallet from your pants and put it in one of the slots. The brown from the wallet faded with time but you still loved how big it was as well as convenient compared to others. Just as your wallet went back into your pocket, the sound of a door caught your attention. With the door, footsteps followed that got closer and closer. Finally, a voice was heard as a figure appeared.

“Why the hell is there so much noise?”

“Sorry Saerom. I needed to get my other credit card.”

“You hate using that one. You always complain about the interest rate. Is something wrong? Do you need new tires? I told you those used one-“

“I don’t need new tires, Saerom. This is great news. She said YES!”

“Who said yes? The librarian if the book you had on hold was finally returned?”

“NO. She finally said yes. I can take the girl of my dreams on a date!”

As your hand closed the metal door to the safe, your body turned around and was met with the brown-haired woman. Her outfit immediately stuck out to you as your eyes went up and down her body. The black top cut short just above her midriff, giving you the slightest tease of her amazing abs. The navy green skirt didn't do any better at hiding her body. Despite being on the shorter side. Her legs looked long and soft. They were for sure soft. Of course, you would know with the amount of times they have been wrapped around your head.

“Oh, why are you dressed up Saerom?”

“Oh, I was just trying on some clothes for the next time we go out to get drinks. So you finally got a date with Hayoung huh?”

“Yes! It’s even today. Look, I need to go shower so I’ll talk to you later.”

Not waiting for a response, your legs pushed forward towards your room. Your hands moved faster than you thought ever possible, removing the clothing from your body. Guess just a plain shirt and joggers helped with this also. Normally your body would be covered by a bathrobe at this point, but all reason was gone in your mind. With nothing on, your legs ran across the hallway and pushed their way into the bathroom.

As you shut the door behind you, your arm then extended out and pulled the door to your glass shower. Turning the dial on the shower wall, the chrome wheel moved from the blue to the red section, changing the water temperature. After touching the water a few times with your fingers, your desired temperature finally arrived.

Hoping in, the warm water began to roll off your back as you closed the door. Stepping fully into the water, your face looked up towards the shower head, and let the water pour over the rest of your body. Reaching to the left; your hand grabbed the bar of soap sitting and lifted it. As your head began to move away from the water, your hand began to raise the soap to your body until a noise caught your attention.

Looking behind you, Saerom entered the shower with you. The smirk on her face was setting off all the alarms in your head.

“S-Saerom. What are you doing here? I need to…”

“Hey. It’s good for the environment to save water. Let’s shower quickly.”

Taking the bar of soap from your hand, the young woman began to run the white bar over her body. As the soap moved down from her arms, the bar began to lather over her toned abs and moved up. Saerom didn’t have the biggest breasts but she certainly had a pair you loved. In circular motions, the lather began to form around her perky mounds.

A small giggle left Saerom’s mouth as she pulled your head up. Making eye contact, your roommate gave you a wink and brought the soap to your chest. Just as she did on her chest, the young woman began to rub the soap in circular motions on your body. You were about to say something until your friend spun your body around. The same action as before continued on your back. The smooth touches were very relaxing, causing you to close your eyes and get stuck in thought.

The relaxing feeling continued until you felt a couple of nubs on your back. Saerom had her breasts on your back. As your eyes shot open, the young woman’s arm touched your abs and began to work its way down.

“S-Saerom. We shouldn’t.”

“Doyoon. You know Hayoung is a great friend of mine. She has a rule about the new guys she dates. No sex until 6 months of dating. This is me doing you a favor.”

Saerom’s delicate fingers finally reached your length, wrapping around it in one swoop. Your whole body jolted a bit from the sudden touch on your cock.

“Look here, sweetie. The throbbing from your cock lets me know you like this. Why don’t you fuck my pussy one last time? Just for old time's sake.”

“B-But Hayoung w-will be here in twenty minutes.”

“Then we better get started.”

The soap on both of your bodies had already washed off in that time. Dropping to her knees, Saerom turned you around once more and looked up at you. Your roommate's hand began to move up and down, getting you harder than before. Bringing her upper body closer, Saerom brought out her tongue and inched it closer and closer until it made contact with your tip.

A quick flick to your tip sent shivers down your spine, causing a small whimper to leave your mouth. Saerom took this as her sign to continue as her tongue moved down your shaft from the left then the right, Saerom’s tongue continued to get your cock wet all over.

Without any warning, Saerom then plunged her mouth on top of your tip and moved it down her throat. Your hands immediately took hold of your roommate's head and gripped onto her hair. All reason was gone as your hips began to move back and forth into Saerom’s mouth.

With each thrust into the young woman’s mouth, the more your body began to shake. Taking the lead, Your friend put her hands on your legs and began to shove your length down her throat. Normally your roommate wouldn’t get to deepthroating off the bat, but Saerom knew you had a time constraint.

Matching her movements, your hip would thrust your length into her throat as she pulled you in as deep as possible. After a couple of times, you decided to pull your cock out of her mouth and give her time to breathe. The sudden slap to your ass caught your attention and brought your vision back down. The scowl on Saerom’s face made you scared.

“Who said to stop fucking Mommy’s face? You will stop when I say you stop.”

The sudden warmth from Saerom’s mouth returned around your length. The constricting feeling around your rod was amazing as Your roommate vigorously moved her mouth up and down your shaft. Your hands were suddenly raised once more and brought to the side of Saerom’s head. The glare you got earlier returned. She wanted her face to be fucked.

Not wanting to disappoint your mommy, you began to thrust with your hip once more. Just like you were slamming into her pussy, your cock continued to get constricted around. As you continued this action, a small sound began to hit your ears. Sure, you were in a shower but this sound was different.

Looking down, your eyes noticed Saerom’s hand down on her pussy. The sounds were of her playing with herself. Saerom needed this just as badly as you did right now. Bringing your hips back, Saerom let go of your legs and brought one hand up to your length.

Your roommate's tongue returned to your tip and began to move in circular motions around it followed by some strokes from her hand. Standing back up, Saerom laid her back on the shower wall and signaled you to come closer. The air got heavy as you inched closer and closer to Saerom.

Finally, in front of her, the young woman wrapped her arms around your neck and pulled your head to her neck. Your instincts took over as you began to pepper her neck with small kisses and bites. As you moved further and further down, you felt Saerom’s finger around your cock again. Your cock head began to feel the sticky mess leaking from Saerom’s folds.

“Put that cock in Mommy one last time. Don’t keep me waiting.”

With a push, your tip began to plunge into Saerom’s cunt. The slick from the woman’s folds leaked onto the rest of your rod as you filled her. A gasp left Saerom’s mouth as you stood there for a few seconds. Pulling back, your strokes began to repeat little by little like you did with her mouth before.

The warm comforts of her pussy were removed from your mind as Saerom pulled your neck back from hers. A sudden slap to the face shocked you as Saerom tightened her hold on your neck.

“Stop being a pussy and fuck me. Or do you want your date to come here while you’re balls-deep in my cunt?

With those words of encouragement, you brought your hips back and shoved your length down her tunnel. With your hands holding her up, your cock began to shove your length down her cunt repeatedly. With each thrust, your speed increased until you were at a steady pace, in and out of Saerom.

The sound of grunts and moans was all that could be heard with the running water. Your constant pace was good, but not enough for your roommate. The young woman began to move her hips to match your own, filling her as best as possible. Your length could feel the construction around it as her walls tried to keep you inside her at all costs.

“T-That’s a good boy. You always have such an amazing cock for mommy. T-The perfect length, and girth. F-Fuck even the throbbing from your length is perfect. S-Stay here. Why don’t you just fuck Mommy’s pussy forever?”

The offer was tempting. Saerom’s pussy was something you had almost every day and it never disappointed. Still, you had to grow up one day and Hayoung was your chance at a real relationship.

“I-I’m sorry Mommy but Hayoung is almost here and I’m really close.”

“Tsk. Fine. Then you better make me cum one last time before you do.”

Knowing you had no other option, you began to speed up your waist and move faster than before. Moving one of your hands down to her folds your length pulled out of her snatch, exposing the little nub you were looking for. Now found, your fingers began to rub on your roommate's clit as your cock continued to piston in and out of her.

The circular motions from your fingers combined with your cock’s actions caused the moans from Saerom to increase. Your grunts began to match the sounds from Saerom as both your fingers and cock increased in pace.

“F-Fuck. You’re close sweetie, aren’t you? Me too. J-Just a bit more and you can empty those balls in my pussy.”

A slap to your ass motivated you to give it all you had left. All of your adrenaline shot throughout your body in that moment as you fucked Saerom as ferociously as humanly possible. Your hips could almost break at the rate you were shoving in and out of your roommate. A loud yell hit your ears as you felt a sudden pressure around your shaft. A rush of fluids hit your legs as Saerom began to jolt all over the place.

“F-FUCK!”

Saerom’s nails began to scratch your back as her climax was achieved. Saerom’s orgasm was the catalyst to achieve your own peak, causing you to yell as well. As your cock throbbed, ropes of semen left your tip and filled Saerom to the brim. As the twitches from your cock finished, the two of you were left panting for air.

With a laugh, you both stood up straight and grabbed the soap again. Your shower had to be a quick one as your date would be there soon, so after 3 minutes you both hopped out. Running towards your room, you quickly entered and noticed a nice outfit placed on the bed. Saerom must have set it out while you first showered.

Putting on the nice dress shirt and pants, you made your way to the living room and found Saerom relaxing on the couch. Your roommate was in pajamas yet it perfectly fit her curves, just like any other outfit. Standing up, the young woman walked over and began to fix a few things on your outfit.

“OK then. You look nice. Have fun. This is your last chance to just stay here with me though.”

“That sounds fun but this is what I want.”

With a knock at the door, Saerom pulled you closer and kissed you on the lips, one final time. Pulling back, the girl walked with you to the front door. Hayoung was familiar with your home so it was an easy meet-up place. As the door opened, you were met with the cutest girl you had ever seen, fit with a beautiful white dress.

“Oh hi, Saerom. D-Doyoon. You look really nice.”

“Y-You look amazing Hayoung.”

“Well then. You two have fun and be safe out there OK?”

“Yes, captain!”

With a nod, you made your way out the door and looked at Hayoung.

“Let’s go!”

As you walked away with Hayoung, your mind went back to Saerom and the activities you indulged in earlier.

You surely are gonna miss having sex for six months.

#smut #kpopsmut #female idol smut #fromis9smut

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eregyrn-falls-art · 7 months

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youtube

And here it is, the video version of the "Trouble" Multi-Artist Lyric Comic! All the kudos in the world to @stariousfalls for editing this whole thing together!!!

Go here for the post with all of the lyric page art viewable separately. Go to the Trouble Lyric Comic tag on my main blog to see links to people's posts of their art.

Below the read-more, please find the credits, with tags/links to everyone's blogs!

And once again, huge thank you to everyone who participated in this project -- it was so much fun to work on! And special thanks to @mercury-falls for helping me to organize all of this! I'm still so jazzed to see this final product -- the "amv" to this song that I've been wanting to see since 2016, and here it is, and it's wonderful! And it's even MORE wonderful because this represents a LOT of people coming together to express and share their love for this show.

(Go here for some more extended thank-yous!)

CREDITS

Photo Collage One: Elishevart, Pinkplatiploo, Zephrunsimperium, Creativepup, Batman-gif, Fordtato (all newspaper clippings), Shadeartstuff, Skysdrawings

I’ve been a beggar: lemonfodrizzleart

And I’ve been a king: kingsofjersey

I’ve been a loner: muria-art

And I’ve worn the ring: everlight_283 (instagram)

Losing myself: batman-gif

Just to find me again: tazmiilly & gin-juice-tonic

I’m a million miles smarter: eregyrn-falls-art & stephreynaart

But I ain’t learned a thing: annakitsun3

I’ve been a teacher: gobblewanker

And a student of hurt: skysdrawings

I kept my word: orangephoenix6

For whatever that’s worth: mother-ofthe-universedraws

Never been last: jackyjackdraws

But I’ve never been first: jasmine-sketchbook

Oh I may not be the best: stephreynaart

But I’m far from the worst: spectralreplica

Oh I may not be the best: elishevart

But I’m far from the worst: zkyeline

Oh, I’ve seen trouble: fexiled

More than any man should bear: mischieflily

But I’ve seen enough joy: ginandshattereddreams

I’ve had more than my share: gin-juice-tonic

And I’m still not done: morcian-draws

I’m only halfway there: jamesfenimoreharper

I’m a million miles ahead of where I’m from: fordtato

But there’s still another million miles to come: deerpines, orangephoenix6 & fordtato

Photo Collage Two: Creativepup, Cbmagus49, Inkdrawndreamer, Bluefrostyy, Fordtato, Mother-ofthe-Universedraws, Fordtato & Jamesfenimoreharper, Shadeartstuff, AlphaZeD, Bewildred-grimsley

Oh I keep on searching for the City of Gold: vililae

So I’m gonna follow this yellow brick road: cbmagus49

Thinking that maybe it might lead me on: cutebatart

I’m a million miles farther: hellmandraws

And a long way from home: eregyrn-falls-art

I know that there’s a plan that goes way beyond mine: possumbreath

Got to step back just to see the design: pottersfieldcustodian

The mind fears the heart: rechoclo

But the heart doesn’t mind: novantinuum

Oh I may not be perfect: tazmiilly

But I’m loving this life: hubbabubbagumpop

Oh I may not be perfect: athgalla-arts

But I’m loving this life: thisiswhereidraw

Oh I’ve seen trouble: purblzart

More than any man should bear: shadowofaghost5

But I’ve seen enough joy: alextwdgf01 & fordtato

I’ve had more than my share: dragonsheepstudios

And I’m still not done: acetyzias & stephreynaart

I’m only halfway there: cryptidjeepers

I’m a million miles ahead of where I’m from: chiiroptereh

But there’s still another million miles to come: stephreynaart

Photo Collage Three: Cbmagus49, Fordsy, Puppylove, Lemonfodrizzleart, Jamesfenimoreharper, Gin-juice-tonic, Fordtato & Vililae, Rusted-blue, Sciencevillain, Mother-ofthe-Universedraws, Possumbreath, Shadowofaghost5, Pinestwinssimp, Nour386, Cutebatart, Possumbreath, Melodramaticwolf, Tazmiilly, Eregyrn-falls-art

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satocidal · 6 months

Text

𓂂 ˚ ☆ ꙳ * ࣭ 𓂂 ˚ ☆ ꙳ “Opposites Attract?!”— Gojo Satoru

Synopsis: the famous rich boy of the campus and the Dean’s daughter? Scandalous—especially when they’re both jealous as hell.

— A/n: Roughly based on something from my real life lmao— except that we didn’t get together because hehe. Also, this is the first part of a kinkmas fic that I have planned, it’s been broken since the fic was getting too long <3 (both can be read stand-alone!) Tagging @romiyaro @draecys @maeby-cursed because yes; nsfw version <3

— Word count: 5.7k

— warnings: Fem! Reader x Satoru Gojo; slightly suggestive Suguru and Mei Mei (they deserve to be warnings here); undertones if jealousy; a kiss (or three) at the end, I know—scandalous right; Reader wears spects in one scene; this has a LOT of bickering. Just banter for that matter, reader says smn about sex work BUT I assure you it’s not supposed to be in a negative light <333

4.5 g.p.a—a perfect reputation that you held, a decent social life—an amazing father to back you up, you weren’t ever part of the fraction of people who got in through with scholarships, why would you when your father stood as the dean? —but you’d worked for it.

3.7 g.p.a—it could’ve been far better, easily, if he only put himself in—far too loud a social life with a following of 4k+ on his Instagram while he only followed back his best friend and pretty little things (for a day or so)—part of the fraction who got paid in, who never struggled for it.

Sure, you hadn’t really struggled either—but hypocrisy was only allowed to one and you chose to take your chance.

You didn’t…despise him, the man that Gojo Satoru stood out to be, but lords, you hated the concept around it.

The loud cackle at the back of each lecture—the proxies and his fan girls, you hated it all.

More so, you hated just how enamored your dad was—after all, it was Gojo Satoru that had won the trophies and the plaques—Satoru Gojo that was a Power Player.

But the credit wasn’t to be forgotten for you too—dabbling in all that was academic, if the second half of your dad’s office as the dean were filled with Satoru’s achievements, the first half was yours.

Two sides of the same coin.

Your eyes never left your dad for a second, “you can’t possibly expect that out of Me dad,” the whine wasn’t subtle, nor the snicker that gojo let out at your words and outlet—earning a hard glare.

And to all the pampering and spoiling your father had to offer, it all failed when it came down to the pride and prestige of the university.

“It’s non-negotiable y/n,” the sleek brown in his room shone that afternoon, polished—every groove, every rounded corner—almost a story to behold.

“Yeah! Tell her Mr.Dean,” another snicker- another glare, your father sighed in his dismay.

“You,” your father glared at him, “need to find a way to shove it in your schedule as well—you’re both the elected representatives.”

To end with all whines and groans.

“I have no idea how but I need you two to find a presence of mind and perform your best in curating an experience at the fest. Dismissed.”

A sharp inhale, yours and the roll of Satoru’s eyes, your dad was aware how interesting an evening and a fest in general he would be witnessing.

You’d known Gojo Satoru for 3 years now, spending the last together at the University, standing as the President of Student Council—all against Gojo’s constant “nepotism” comments while he stood as the Captain of the Football Team—against your criticism as well.

A certain peak in the way you two governed your particular fields independently but, together?

Well.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always that you both disliked each other but, you couldn’t exactly deny the certain distaste the day you’d set eyes on him…

~First Year~

“Dad, please, make sure that no one knows that you and I are, at all related,” a chuckle your father let out, “of course darling, but don’t get prissy when I don’t let you out with attendance matters and all,”

Another chuckle shared, nothing too serious.

“I’ve heard Gojo Satoru will be joining this year too?”

An innocent question, curious is all you were—anyone would be, one of the best the country had seen in years.

Your father nodded slowly, “just so happens to be true, stay in check though, don’t want messing with people like that,”

It was evident, the wary tone that your father had acquired over the years, dealing with all that was the ego of such students, who stood tall with the heap of money that belonged to their daddies.

A slow nod you passed too—your father smiled, you were a smart girl after all.

But fate was decided and what had to happen would happen for sure.

Because you swore to maintain the secret, you weren’t to be even found to have the slightest relation of blood with the Dean — but then whatever could you do when you step out blindly, bumping right into the guy you wanted not to.

A hiss and a curse—“the fuck? Watch where you’re going,” he mumbled-eyes boring into yours, and then simultaneously, at the car.

Anger that flashed down right—“watch your damn language,” unironically, you muttered—something he’d never let you live down.

“Woah there princess, what are you on? Some patrol duty round here-?” The smirk was infuriating, his disheveled hair all the more—especially when he continued messing it up all the more.

A scoff, yours—“Mind your own business,” a shove passed and an attempt to move away—“Y/n L/n?” He held your campus manual.

The certain way your name rolled off his tongue, it caught your attention—“ya dropped this,”

A smirk adored his face as he handed back to you the campus manual, of course it wasn’t anything you required but to solace your father, there you held it.

A cramped “Whatever,” you let out, snatching the booklet from his hands quick—wanting nothing more to do with the stranger that you’d bumped into.

Just as you walked away though, “L/n huh?” The words, his, that you knew would cause you issues.

“He’s Satoru Gojo?” Your surprise lay hidden under the music that boomed all too loud—watching closely the white haired boy you’d bumped into a couple days ago.

“Yeah? You didn’t know?” The grin on your now best friend, and then just-roommates-friend offered little help.

Of course you hadn’t, and now you wish you didn’t still.

It was true you’d spotted him all so much over the past few days, and the people that followed him and the rumors still—unaware to why and how.

But now, with all the pieces in your hand you wanted to hide away—especially when those blue eyes stared right back—with a grin he trampled over.

“Oi! L/n right? We met at the first day?”

You cringed at how loud he spoke—so very sure that absolutely everyone could hear him, all over the booming music.

A subtle nod you passed, trying to get away from the spotlight he’d casually thrown round you.

“Your dad’s the Dean right?”

Silence- literally, just as he said that, the music system paused too—you wanted to curse your luck.

Widened eyes—star-struck stares from all those adored Gojo, amused ones at you from everyone who bothered to think.

You’d have considered lying—unless Satoru Gojo hadn’t chosen to be a dick about it, “You guys have the same last names so I thought- and then, the other when we bumped into each other- remember?” He chuckled as a couple of girls let out audible gasps, envious that you had already touched him so.

Before opportunity even lay still, he continued, “so I thought, because frankly either you’re his daughter or…you know, mistress—but that I doubt,” you wanted to punch away the grin he held, the snicker and the secrets he dropped out like flies.

So while you stood there, waiting for the ostracism—Gojo only giggled, “Don’t worry though, you’re fine, got more of your mom’s genes right?”

Fuming, you stood there—red that masked your vision—“excuse you?” A brow remained cocked, Gojo’s facial expression never once changed—it was about to.

“You’re one to talk about dads huh? Your daddy donated in just about how much into your esteemed football team huh? To get you selected?”

Satoru wasn’t new to comments such, in fact that’s what he’d built his career over but just the way you said it—just the way your angry face stared back at him—he found you annoying, adorably so.

That night, Satoru’s fan following increased by a decent thousand or so, people became aware of you and maybe, you realized, being the Dean’s daughter wouldn’t be that bad a fact.

But all the more, Gojo and you formed a sudden bond still, dislike and nothing less masking the two of you whenever the other was mentioned.

A farce? Maybe—but you were easily, in too deep to stop now.

Often nights you spent, thinking how the two of you could be friends—but huge egos that clashed in, something told you it wouldn’t happen all so easily.

The following week and there on were interesting—you joked all week that you’d blocked Gojo, you never did.

Gojo swore he’d have you black-listed for being so audacious—he never did.

When the huge messaging group—meant to be dead in a day—was formed, you both ended up saving each other’s number discreetly, never to approach it again, at least for a while.

And that was just how it went on “he annoys me so much,” and “she annoys me so much,” but little by little, small steps in the dark—you both were each other’s biggest cheerleaders still- applauding each other louder than anybody else.

Hands clutching onto your notepad you continued jotting down the points—fingers working fast so as not to let a single bright thought escape you.

The event was huge—the University’s 150th Anniversary—perfect, grand, extravagant—to be organized partially, by you.

There was time, plenty—absolutely 1 months before the panic would settle in, 2 before it would be over.

But seconds were quick—hasty in the way they changed into minutes, hours to come and days passed by, never realized.

A finger raised to push your spects up the bridge of your nose—you sighed, eyes landing on the form in front of you—mouth ajar and his sunglasses fixated in his hair, another piece of candy tossed up high before he caught it in his mouth.

A frustrated sigh you let out—“can you please sit straight and help?”

His eyes bore into yours- cerulean, they were pretty, almost prettier than the whole of him, you hated it.

“Isn’t it your job?” A grin he passed, a clench of your jaw was all you could—“we’re in this together, don’t give me that bullshit,”

Another grin, “talk to me when you need booze,”

“You don’t even drink,” the words fell out your mouth all so quick, hesitant you looked at him—“how do you know?” It was an amused smirk that he held, it annoyed you how the man in front seemingly only talked in three supposed emotions.

A small break, “well, I uh- noticed through the parties,” it was true, you did notice through the parties—it was hard not to, since you didn’t drink—you couldn’t be all so sure about the rest.

“You notice me at parties? You notice me at all?” Urges inside you that had to be controlled, such a perfectly punchable face Satoru Gojo held—“help me work on this damn idea,” you mumbled, ignoring all of what he wanted to discuss.

A roll of his eye and yours—“not gonna do it so easily,”

A huff you let out.

Frustration at peak.

“Actually,” your voice was quieter than you expected it to be, “wouldn’t it be better if you were there to advise us? Me? You’ve been organizing parties for so long and,” your face turned towards him—smile never faltering at his disgusted expression—he knew what you were doing, he wasn’t new to sugar coating after all, “I would love learning from the best.”

Jaw clenched, hands sauntered over to the back of your chair—most would consider it an action of endearment, you knew better.

“I would beg to differ Ms. Daddy’s princess,” Your blood boiled at his ignorance—sure, he was Satoru Gojo—but nothing gave him the right to act superior when he stood at his father’s money itself.

Hell, all he was meant to be was just a batchmate, captain of a stupid team that barely mattered—you?

Sure, a well suited empire would never land on your back, nor a fortune as his until you’d worked half your life into it— but you were better, you knew it. Denial onto his privilege to negate the Authorities could’ve never been acceptable by you.

your eyes remained stuck onto the ground —defiant—“well, i suppose it would only be for the best,” stubborn you sat and so did he—stuck in between the thickening tension.

“The best,” his voice exasperated, “would be for someone like you to sit back down and do as you’re told.”

Mouth hanging just in the slightest, you dared not to meet his face—focusing on the little stains and creases you’d administered on your sneakers—eyes sneaking onto his pair, perfect, as expected.

“That’s a little rich, coming from you—”

“—and this is the best they’ve found? You? To help me huh?”

Bigoted. Nose flared, curses at the tip of your tongue and you could do nothing as he further scoffed, “getting a privileged bitch to do my job, now they know my worth huh?”

“Excuse you?” Shaky, you sat—words spilling out before you could stop it—“your worth? Absolutely as nothing, but a spoiled man-baby who cannot deal with things maturely?”

Confusion marked his face—of course he would be, all so blind to the simple generosity that gets offered to him—all so he can kick a ball.

“The event is in 2 months sir,” address regained to the topic, you spoke flatly, “I would well appreciate that you helped us in the organization of said fest—if not, well, it would be a sheer pity that the entire football team would have to suffer,”

And there lay your ultimatum, naked and threatening—and he knew it was all but empty.

“L/n,” Gojo coughed—not quite sure, uneasy evidently, with the tension that hung lose in the atmosphere—“You maybe influential in your own ways on the campus but-”

“-but I’m just a student here, as you are,” you looked directly at Gojo now, “And to adhere to rules is the basic of most authoritative environments. So I suppose, you’ll be all the more pliant in helping us plan the fest and encouraging our juniors to help us out.”

Defiant—squinted eyes of Gojo simply stared blankly—“Alright,” he muttered.

“If help is what you want, that’s what you’ll get.”

And the deal was settled—to your compromise and his.

A week had passed since—the discomfort only grew.

“What the fuck? You’re speeding rumours now?” Rough were the words that greeted you first the moment the two of you entered the study you currently sat in—a half shrug you passed him, “I would need help and rather than begging you for it, why not just keep you as my assistant?”

“Excuse you?” His tone, bewildered as he shut the door behind the two of you—“Your assistant?” He barked out a laugh—“They really are making sheer idiots now huh?”

“Says daddy’s little prince who couldn’t use his academics to get in like everyone else,”

A scoff he passed—“How very original, at least my daddy has the power and how is yours, at all better?” he let his words trail off, a smirk on his lips as he pulled a chair to lounge in, and well, all cases be true, his dad probably had more money than you could imagine.

The certain charm of Gojos, after all.

“Don’t gotta flex your daddy’s sex work like that buddy,” you muttered, pulling a chair across him—peculiar you found it that he didn’t do so much as throw a fit in objection to the forced responsibility.

“Just giving inspiration baby,” he drew out—he winked, phone pulled out fast as he typed, you sat by forgotten.

A roll of your eyes—“Help me at least,”

Silence- you sighed.

“You’re supposed to help,” again, the very same cold air met you—“Gojo,”

“Nope.”

A sharp intake of breath and you stared at him, had it not been for the pretty face he had you’d have punched him long ago—a second too long you stared however, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,”

Another eye roll—“Just fucking help me,”

“Ain’t gotta princess,” he finally looked up, “I’m here to advise you right?”

An inhale, exhale—biting down on your teeth you nodded, “Of course,” you muttered—which was what had led you to the current situation, tired, exasperated and annoyed.

An hour and a half, slow—very, spent staring a few times at the blank paper and then the ceiling, often Satoru Gojo and then his phone; a couple ideas popped by here and there, all useless—you knew that.

“You know,” you spoke carefully, “As someone who’s helping you bunk without losing attendance, you should really really be thankful,”

“A bouquet will be present in your dorm tonight doll,” not a single glance spared still—it was frustrating simply to sit such.

A sharp exhale you let out, head hung back—this was a stupid idea.

“You know what?” Chair pushed back, you stood up—“I’ll manage,” fingers clutched hard onto your notepad—it hurt when he didn’t do so much as even shrug as you moved towards the door.

Silence, as you turned the handle of the door to leave—not even a look from him.

You despised him.

#6942619412: Yo [11:54 p.m.]

Your eyes narrowed at the sudden text that popped up—ignorance enveloped you still, eyes focused onto the book of applied physics in front of you—regret boring into you as you tried your best to drill the concepts into you, preparing yourself for the soon-to-end semester exams.

#6942619412: busy? [11:56 p.m.]

You ignored still, creeped a little at the protrusion—not enough to let your book down—

#6942619412: idc [11:58 p.mp]

#6942619412: show me your plans [11:58 p.m.]

Face scrunched in annoyance, you stared at your screen—the periodic chimes of notification and the switch from the dull background to immediate light up—Satoru Gojo was somehow a master at infuriating you.

However, as stubborn as lay, you were no better—‘ignorance is bliss’ they said, and you were all too prepared to test it out.

#6942619412: bro wtf. Reply. [12:03 a.m.]

You noted mentally, the time gap between his texts—a sly smile adorning your face. Something in you screamed to not do it—to not go against Satoru Gojo such—the certain something fell to deaf ears as a shit-eating grin you beheld, typing your words in.

You: it’s pathetic of you to message like this [12:03 a.m.]

You: desperate? [12:03 a.m.]

A minute went by, then another—you sighed.

It was perhaps, a bad idea— chime!!

#6942619412: it’s needy of you to message back [12:04 a.m.]

#6942619412: you desperate? [12:04 a.m.]

A smirk—yours, a smirk—his.

You: you realize the first text of your day is to me? [12:04 a.m.]

#6942619412: you realize you’re taking note of how my day goes? [12:05 a.m.]

You: because you decided to bother me in mine—get to whatever you were saying [12:05 a.m.]

#6942619412: there there princess—I demand respect and send me your ideas- or better still I’ll come over to your dorm [12:06 a.m.]

Your eyes remained fixed at the screen; ‘come at your dorm’? Was he stupid?

You: there’s no need to come here gojo. I’ll send you everything right now.

You waited, patiently, however, ever so cruel—time was always slow, especially when waiting onto someone. 5 minutes grudged slow- you were afraid that he would actually show up. Would he?

No, of course not— even for him this was absurd, given the security and the time at night—he was probably asleep—

Knock.

A twist of your window pane’s handle- a thud of your heart and widened set of eyes.

Another knock and you were at your feet, stupidly, opening the window—widening it to welcome Satoru Gojo is your room—scandalous.

A smirk he held, form towering yours by a decent couple inches, “Neat room,” he whistled as he stood awkward, unsure onto whether to place himself until he found your study—making himself comfortable on the spot you just sat.

“Applied physics?” Curiosity laced his voice and a shrug you responded with — “So what?” You muttered, reaching in to close the book—he certainly took note of the tiredness your voice held.

“So you’re an idiot—it’s a tough field.”

Another shrug—“Gets me going and nothing could’ve sucked more than chemistry so,”

A snort he lay bare—only then did you realize how quiet it was, soft breaths, the new morning dancing about the timelines—your gaze on his, and his on yours. How so eccentric—not.

“You couldn’t deal with chemistry? Gotta be dumb or some shit,”

You scoffed—knowing where he was leading it, “do we really need me to redo the whole ‘got in because of your dad’ shit here?”

He grinned wide—and just then you noticed the perfect set of teeth—the ones you’d hoped to punch and break some day, “I think I’d wanna skip it tonight baby,”

“Don’t call me that,”

“Prissy, eh?”

A scrunch of your face, a wink his.

“Why, and dare I ask, how, did you get here?” Brows raised, expression amused as he paced about your room—taking it in, familiarizing himself.

“Don’t worry onto that doll, just show me your ideas,”

Your eye twitched, it was simply alien to you—the feeling of being treated normal by him. By Satoru Gojo- reality set in straight Every Time you realized that something in you, even if small, craved his attention, his validation.

Maybe that was why you were hurt—when he’d ignored you initially, when he’d shove you in the hall without a thought spared—when his gaze was all so disrespectful Everytime you approached Him.

Maybe it was just the social construct of it all.

Maybe it was something else.

So surprise was bound to grip you hard— he wanted your ideas?

“Well?” Fidgety, you noted his actions to be—nervous? You wouldn’t be sure.

“Why?”

A shrug, half hearted, “I heard stuff on you,” and now your interest sat piqued, “They say you’re as good as me when it comes down to getting shit done,” a wink—you gagged internally at his words- his charm?

Not quite so.

“You’ve been snooping around since the past week? Got you that hooked?” A smirk you channeled, unsure still- suspicious more so.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he muttered—his eyes were quicker, quicker that yours, cerulean, I suppose something to do with the color of them—all too pretty to have one care about anything besides themselves.

“I’ve heard of your accomplishments beforehand, you know it—you just weren’t so important and most of the time I was trying to stay off your radar,” his face panned towards the shelf you kept full of books—“but you did interest me,”

A scoff let’s your lips, “Anything with a vagina and boobs will interest you,”

“Hey now-” and for a second he seemed offended, not that you cared, “don’t forget about the ass—and please, I sincerely accept dicks too.” And just at that you chuckled slightly—a small win he deemed it, “man-whore,” you muttered past him- closing your books and grabbing onto the notepad from before.

“Here,” you handed it over— a sudden feeling of embarrassment washing over—after all, as much of a jerk he was, Satoru Gojo sincerely was experienced and amazing at what he did.

Lips pursed, you stared as he read through the stuff- “I know it’s all too-” a hand raised to quieten you, he continued reading—quick at that too.

It took him a minute or so, to go through each of the 4 pages you’d jotted down—“Not bad,” you nodded, “not the best,” you bit your tongue.

“I uh- i know it’s a little extravagant?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “or more so, it’s not very realistic? You have steps planned out and …you know, it’s supposed to be done by humans not machines,”

Your eyes raised in understanding, you weren’t too sure, but just enough.

“Put yourself into it—you’re cool you know that?,” eyes squinted, you watched him carefully- not a word let out.

“Just a little…uptight, learn to let go,”

“how do I…?”

He grinned, “have fun figuring that out—the ideas were cool, gotta go now doll,” you blinked once, twice, and without a word he was gone—you let him. However could you even ever stop him?

And you knew well, the rumbling in your room was sure to get your father awake.

A click on the lock—you closed the window behind him—swift was the way he came about, annoying, the way he left. And yet you still stood alone in the room, pacing about with a dorkish smile.

And only five minutes after he’d left, after the daze was gone—you noticed the bouquet of jasmines on your bedside—huh.

Certainly understood the charm now—especially when your eyes focused onto your phone right before closing.

#6942619412: you’re actually cute when you’re not frowning yk? [1:05 a.m.]

You went to sleep.

~Three weeks before the Fest~

“I’d say it’s coming along amazing,” another fruit roll up popped into his mouth—the fifth packet in last three hours, you were only surprised how he wasn’t sick of them yet.

A nod you passed—“but they’re slow-”

“-because they’re people, they are bound to be slow,”

Another nod.

There was something that Satoru Gojo did help you with, and there was something you’d helped him with as well—his eyes panned onto the elaborate list of numbers he’d gathered, oh how you’d spun the man, Satoru ‘never gonna help nobody’ Gojo into your actual assistant.

“Tell me though, when will you order the booze?”

“It’s an official thing- how can you expect booze to be there?” A ridiculed laugh met you—“ever heard of sneaking shit in princess?”

Of course you had, given that Satoru Gojo snuck himself into your room almost every night, uninvited—so far as to snickering when you squeaked out lies to your father about talking to your friends.

“Shut up, there will be no beverage,” he chuckled at your formal tone, beverage, “you and I, or anyone can get expelled for that—it happened last year,”

“You’re your daddy’s only princess though,”

“And you’re not,” a deadpan from you shut him up quick—“dad’s gonna be mad if he finds it, I won’t be expelled but you might, especially given your record and everything—and yes that means your captaincy and everything too,”

A month ago, the nervousness on his face would’ve made you chuckle—giddy maybe but now it only troubled you for him—hours spent on the floor of your bedroom had opened up conversations after all.

“But you’ll save me right?”

He stared at you; you stared back, you noted the closeness.

There was no reply to be offered—but it did ruin the small moment to hear the causal, “Satoru~” from the lips of her, Mei Mei, long time family friend of his and an equatable annoyance to Satoru Gojo.

Both of your faces whipped to meet hers, yours scorned while his broke into a grin—“Oi!” He chuckled—arms spreading out to greet her, hug her.

“Y/n,” she greeted you too, a smile you passed back—part of your council members after all—“how’s the planning going?”

“Fantastic,” tight lipped you muttered—“fabulous,” she grinned, “mind if I steal Toru’ for a second?”

You mentally gagged at her—‘steal Toru for a second’—except those seconds never really were seconds, rather hours and to your utter annoyance, Gojo never add moves to counter it.

“Of course!” And just like that, gone, daily.

A sigh you let out, staring at the preparations—“why’d you let them walk over you all the time?” A deep voice met you, “Suguru?”

A short smile, a short breath of cigarettes met you—in the best way, “Good day to you too,” he grinned, patting the seat beside him, eyes stuck on his best friend and his rendezvous partner.

“You as , and what exactly do you suppose I do? Stop them?”

“He’s your assistant, ain’t he?”

“Yes but-”

“Am I seeing you finally turn into a push-over, like all the other girls when it comes to him?” All in good humor he spoke, but mostly because it was true.

You were bending your walls for a certain someone—it didn’t feel right.

“You think I shouldn’t?”

“I think you should only if this lasts after the rest as well,”

“Will it?”

A pause, a shrug, “I don’t know, ask him.”

You stared at him—“why are you two the legitimate same at advices? And equally bad?” A laugh met you—“go on, ask him—because as of now, Mei Mei seems to have done what she wanted,”

“Huh?”

A look at him and then at them, your heart sank—he was kissing her, your heart sank more, why were you so bothered by it?

A nervous chuckle you passed to Suguru, an empathetic one he did, “it’s fine,”

“Yeah.”

———

It wasn’t fine, hell it was far from fine—especially when you saw them together there on, all the time.

3 weeks, dates here and there—she was around you all the time, and him, it was infuriating in all aspects of the word.

“Who’re you going with?” Almost everyday he questioned, and you never had an answer because somehow, just something in you had made you reject every proposal—something in you supposed that you two would go together.

You were the organizers—but then, it was no rule.

And even if it was, Satoru Gojo wasn’t big on rules.

“Ready?” Suguru grinned, last minute date that you’d found—all so grateful that you stood.

A small nod with a smile you passed—“how do I look?”

“Gorgeous,” another smile, wider—eyes however, they remained stuck onto Gojo.

“It’s not about him tonight doll,”

“It’s never about him,” you mumbled—melancholy—ironic onto how the entire fest that you’d built was based off of youth and what not.

But it was about him, everything was about him- especially in the way your dress, bought just for the occasion was the same cerulean, your hair was braided just how he once mentioned liking, you were wearing the perfume he bought you for you.

Everything.

And you despised all of this everything while having nothing.

“Yo! Y/n,” you paused, Suguru did too—his smirk widening, as did Mei Mei’s, Satoru walked- sauntered over.

“Don’t you look hot?” The grin was wide, your nose scrunched in disgust, “you’re reeking of alcohol,”

He was—of course he was, right after you’d advised him not to.

“Chill, nobody’s gonna know-”

“-we have to meet my dad in 15 minutes.”

“…oh.”

“Well anyways, I see you came with Suguru? You’ve been getting close?”

Your eye twitched—so he did see it—“yeah he’s cool, and helpful, unlike you,”

A giggle, “I have a life outside of you, remember?” Your blood boiled—“of course you do, enjoy it.”

A sharp turn you made, lips bitten, unsure, uncertain—“Honestly though, if I weren’t with Mei tonight I’d actually fuck ya “

Your jaw clenched at the audacity—the other two, Suguru and Mei Mei long disappeared as you flared daggers into Satoru’s soul.

“Can you take one thing seriously? You- you bloody idiot I can’t even-” you whipped around to face him again—eyes boring into his.

Satoru, even in his drunken state knew it would last long, the lecture, a hand pulled you in very quick, a corner, secluded.

“Stop fucking shouting,” slurred his words, they lay bare.

“What do you want me to do then? You- you- I- ugh.” You paused, hard breaths let out—“you’re so fucking annoying.”

“Annoying? You’re the one screaming woman,” the small smirk that he adored annoyed you all the more so.

“Excuse you? I’m annoying?” And at that moment, you let go, “I’m annoying after you spent three weeks fucking with Mei Mei? I’m annoying after you’re the one acting irresponsible? I’m annoying after you ended up treating me like all your others girls? I’m annoying after- after you just chose to walk all over me- I’m annoy- mmph!”

Words lay interrupted quick, a rough hand reeled you in while the other held your head, the kiss was soft, passionate of one would call it, sloppy in the way his lips attached to yours, hungry.

And amusingly, unlike all things Gojo, this did not feel wrong.

But it wouldn’t help your emotions being all over the place—“what the fuck?” You asked, the moment he pulled away—“was it that bad?” An amused chuckle rolled off his lips.

“No? You can’t do this- we can’t just kiss- I-”

“-okay, then take it back,” and just like that, he pulled you in again, lips attaching once more, hands exploring each other easy, slow gasps of breath as you pushed him away this time.

“N-no you- I don’t- what? You take it back,” and almost as if his alcohol was on your mind too, you pulled him in this time—a small peck, harsh, Satoru loved it all the same.

Frustrated you pulled away, grinning his hand held your wrist—“don’t go,” he mumbled, your face contorted into the expression which screamed your annoyance.

“Don’t go? Fuck you Gojo. Fuck you and your damn ego and the audacity you have,” your breaths were shallow, the two stood so close.

“Don’t kiss me when you’re with someone else—you might be a whore but-”

“It was for you,” another mumble, quieter, “to get you jealous and I think it worked?”

A pause.

“And The alcohol?” You whispered—he loved it though, the way you prioritised the reputation above him—somehow you humanised him, “only I’ve drunk it, no one else—to…get your attention,”

“But you never drink…”

“And I never fucked Mei either, or kissed her…or anyone since you,”

“That’s supposed to make me feel special?” It did, but you were done for the day.

“I think so…?”

You blink, once, twice and instead of the third that Satoru expected a sharp slap landed on his face.

“You’re very fucking dumb,” while one hand clutched the cheek he’d been hit at, the other still held your hand, pulling you closer when he heard your choked words—eyes widening at the wetness in your eyes.

“L/n…” a sigh, “fuck I’m- fuck.” He held you close, unnatural to your relation, you let yourself be held.

————

“Sorry?”

You glared at him, the Music blared behind you loud— the both of you stood outside your father’s office, “we’ll deal with that later.”

A slight nod, Satoru was glad you even agreed to talk to him, Satoru was glad you even looked at him—Satoru was simply glad you were standing beside him.

A knock, two more, you walked inside—Satoru, as advised by you stood outside—your father would know of course, instantly.

The room seemed a breath of freshness as you walked, away from the stench that Satoru held, “where’s Gojo?” You were prepared for the question.

“Do you like the fest?” You father was prepared for the dodge—he hummed, “you both did good together, as I supposed,” you hummed.

“He won’t be coming?”

“He’s busy,” you lied through your teeth, “some kids snuck in alcohol, he’s dealing with it,” you were sure you caught your father’s smirk—“that would be highly…inappropriate,”

You bit the inside of your cheek, “of course, we’ll see to it that they’re punished well,”

Your father hummed again, “having a good time?”

“Wonderful,” your father grinned, “well, you can go then but…maybe not today but I do hope meet your assistant soon after, kind of tired of seeing him sneak in through the windows,”

“Dad?!”

“What? You’re grown up and I’ve seen the potential and I kind of think opposites do attract, and you proved me right so,”

Idiots, all around you.

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