“It’s All Wrong But It’s Alright”
Summary: You and Aaron Hotchner have an interesting relationship. He’s your boss, and you’re one of the agents underneath him.
What happens when you get triggered during a case, and comforting you leads to something more?
Word count: 6,006
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x BAU! Reader
Read it on AO3
mentions: SA, CSA, it’s implied that reader has a history of CSA, oral sex, fingering
Hotch knew as well as anybody that this case would emotionally weigh heavy on the team, maybe even more than it usually did.
They had successfully apprehended Monica Menzel and her sixteen year old son Jacob, but certainly not before uncovering disturbing details that would more than likely haunt the team for the rest of their lives.
The victims, all of them, were below the age of nine. There were no preferences in boys or girls or hair color, not even eye color, but they were all tortured and sexually assaulted in the same exact way, and then their bodies disposed of and covered with a tarp, as though in remorse. As it turned out, Jacob was losing control and abusing these children while Monica disposed of them quietly.
It made Hotch doubt whether good in humanity ever existed, especially when he thought of Jack waiting at home for him to come back so he could tell him all of the shenanigans he had gotten up to at his Aunt Jessica’s and regale him with the details of classroom drama.
And, he figured, the rest of the team were thinking similar thoughts, their minds all engulfed with the children in their lives and how it only takes a split second for every sense of safety to become compromised.
But as the team left the precinct, neatly separated into SUVs, and caravanned back to the hotel, Hotch looked over at you in the passenger seat and wondered who you were thinking of. When he had opened the door for you, you’d sat down and not even murmured a “thank you,” like you usually did, instead looking as though you were a million miles away. He knew something was turning inside your head. It didn’t take a profiler to see it.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he flipped up the blinker to make a turn.
“I’m exhausted,” you replied, almost too quickly. “We’ve been up and at it with this case since five this morning, and I didn’t sleep very well last night. Probably didn’t get more than three hours
in total.”
When Garcia had booked hotel rooms for you guys, she disclosed that since the town was at the peak of tourist season, she couldn’t book enough rooms for everybody to have a room of their own; which meant that two agents would have to take one for the team and share. You and Hotch had drawn the short straws, but despite being a subordinate and superior sharing a room, it hadn’t been awkward at all. You each had a double bed and made yourselves at home.
Still, he was all too aware that you had tossed and turned into the wee hours of the morning, and more than ever he wished he could have assuaged whatever was bothering you.
“Was the bed uncomfortable for you?” Hotch asked casually, his eyes still on the road.
“Not at all. I was just… thinking, is all. You know how it can be.”
He nodded solemnly, his lips forming a solid line. “I do know.”
You hummed an affirmative noise before turning to look outside the window, though there wasn’t much to look at since it was already almost dark and most of the street lights were still off.
Hotch wished you would open up to him. Heck, even before, you didn’t mind opening up to him, even just a little. But now it was like a barrier loomed around you and your thoughts, forbidding anyone who dared approach.
“For most of this case, I found myself thinking of Jack,” he confided, glancing over at you.
“Yeah? I don’t doubt it. Having kids when you’re in this line of business… it can’t be easy.” For a moment, your tone sounded open and concerned, and he sensed your eyes on his side profile.
“It’s not at all,” Hotch said quietly with his eyes still on the road ahead of him. “It makes me wish I could take Jack somewhere and hide him away from the ugly side of humanity. But… I’m all too aware that’s not feasible, nor is it healthy. So, we persevere together, and all I can hope to do is guide him until he’s ready to step out into the world on his own.”
“I imagine he’s already seen too much of how ugly humanity can be,” you said gently.
“He has. There’s no hiding it from him now,” he admitted softly.
“Once you’ve seen it, heard it… you can’t go back from it. Even that young.”
Something in your voice made him glance your way intensely. Was it… wistfulness? Melancholy?
It was quiet for a few moments as he focused on driving while you turned back to the window and continued staring out. He figured he couldn’t force you to confide in him, so he may as well give you space, but he was still worried; probably more than he’d like to confess.
As soon as you entered the hotel room, you beelined straight for your suitcase. “I’m going to take a shower first, if that’s alright with you?”
Hotch nodded as he began plugging up his devices on his side of the shared side table. “Perfectly fine with me. It’ll give me time to call Jack before we settle down for the night. Take your time.”
You began gathering up your clothes and necessities and toted them to the bathroom, the door closing behind you softly. Hotch had never wanted to wiggle his way into your brain more and find out what was going on in there.
He’s always known you had a soft spot for children, and he was first hand testament to it, just witnessing how you’d interacted with Jack every time Jessica brought him by the BAU for a visit or when he would bring Jack for an event at Rossi’s—you’d always taken time to ask him how school was, you’d ask about some project or another he had told you about before, and often times you’d reach out to ruffle his hair fondly. When he had read up on your files during the hiring process, he also learned you had nieces and nephews, and from how you spoke of them, you seemed to love them and had a good relationship with them; probably a tad bit protective, especially considering what you’d seen on this job.
But something about the way you were withdrawing and reserved now suggested this was personal, much more personal than you wanted to let on.
Still, Hotch felt like it was none of his business, and picked up his phone to call Jack.
By the time he finished an exuberant conversation with his son and Jessica, Hotch heard your blow dryer running. (you always kept an extra blow dryer in your go bag. Derek once suggested you take it out to have more room for clothes, and Hotch thought you’d form daggers with your eyeballs and throw them at him. (Derek never brought it up again.)
Fifteen minutes later, you walked in with your dirty clothes and stuffed them into a mesh bag in your go bag; and Hotch felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.
He hardly ever saw you dressed this casually. Your hair was down, fluffy at the crown from blow drying it, and wearing a large oversized t-shirt and shorts, as well as colorful fuzzy socks on your feet. But your face—it made him stop cold. Your eyelashes were wet with freshly shed tears, your eyes were rimmed with redness, and your cheeks were spackled with flush.
Hotch said your name, but he was interrupted.
“Hotch… just—hold me,” you said pleadingly, your voice cracking slightly.
Wordlessly, Hotch opened up his arms to you while he was sitting on the bed, and you fell into him, burying your head into his chest while your body spasmed with sobs.
He didn’t even care if you got snot on his dress shirt. Whatever comfort you needed that he could afford you, he wanted to give it to you. A washable shirt was nothing compared to the weight you seemed to be holding inside.
Soothingly, Hotch rubbed your back while his chin rested on your head and whispered, “Hey, hey.”
You continued sobbing, and tentatively his hand moved up to your hair, stroking it softly. Soon, the shaking and spasming ceased, and you just leaned into him, and the first breath you exhaled seemed like it released twenty pounds of burden from you.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked gently, his hand roving politely over your back. He couldn’t help but think about how the cotton shirt under his hand was the only thing separating him from your skin; probably just as soft and gently dewy if your face was any indicator, but he pushed it away as soon as the thought came—now was not the time.
You were quiet for a moment.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Hotch said quietly, “but I know that talking about it… it can help, getting it out in the open.”
“I don’t want to burden you, Hotch. This case was heavy for all of us,” you all but whispered, almost muffled by his shirt.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed you shutting down after a case. Especially pertaining to child abuse. I’ll respect your privacy, but you need to know you don’t have to bear this on your own.”
You chewed your lip as tears threatened to spill over again, contemplating your options. Lie to your boss and evade the question? Pretend everything was okay? Maybe tell him you’re emotional because you’re on your period?
Finally, you lifted your head away from his chest and looked at him. It was almost breathtaking how much comfort and care you found in Hotch’s face, and it sent a shiver down your back as the kindness in his warm brown eyes melted you.
“Hotch…”
“Aaron,” he urged softly, “call me Aaron. Don’t you think we might be beyond work nicknames now?”
“Aaron,” you tested out the name on your tongue like a foreign object as your tone lowered, “I… I have a history with…. sexual abuse.”
“It’s not in your file,” Hotch said, concern creasing his face, and a little bit of his professionalism seeping in.
You shook your head. “It wouldn’t be. I had it sealed away.”
“But-“
“I knew it would affect how people, especially employers in our field, would look at me, Hotch,” you said, “especially as a woman. I… I’m considered weaker emotionally, at least from the stereotypical level anyways. Swimming with this upstream in my public record would’ve held me back. I hold up, and I save my breakdowns for when I get home. And in my defense, this is only the second one I’ve had since I started working at the BAU.”
Hotch looked at you, his brows slightly furrowed. “That… makes sense. But I still wish you had told me- or at least one of us- about this. We could have helped you reach out to resources. You… didn’t deserve to carry all of this by yourself, especially when you know your cases might trigger you.”
“It’s taken me a while to trust anybody with this,” you said softly.
He’s silent for a moment, his hand stilling while it was smoothing your hair. “Do you trust me?”
“I trust you every day in the field with my life, Hotch.”
“Aaron,” he reminded you, “You do. But… do you trust me with your past?”
“Yes,” you murmured.
Silence fell between you as you both seemed to become aware of what was happening in that moment.
Your head was on his chest, as it moved up and down with every breath. One of his hands was in your hair while the other was resting on your back. Your hands were splayed on his shoulders. His lips were only mere inches from the crown of your head. Your legs were resting between his. You were in his arms and the shiver of sadness that came with crying was being chased away by the warmth of them around you.
The temptation on Hotch’s part to kiss your head, your nose, your lips, it was almost surmountable. But he didn’t want to take advantage of your vulnerability, or his position as your superior. He couldn’t do that to you.
So, you did what any subordinate would spontaneously do when they’re a little fatigued by his politeness- you reached up and kissed his face, only missing the corner of his mouth by half of an inch.
He said your name almost in a gasp.
It was such a simple thing, but it shifted the world underneath you both.
“I’m your superior,” Hotch reminded as much to himself as to you, “we can’t do this.”
“Why not?”
“You’re emotionally vulnerable right now. I’m your boss and you’re my subordinate, so there’s also a power imbalance. And I- I’m so much older than you. You could have any man you want, you don’t have to settle for me.” His voice cracked almost minutely when he mentioned settling, but you heard it.
You scoffed as you lifted an eyebrow. “I’m not settling, Aaron. I don’t know who told you that nonsense, but no one is settling by… by being with you. And… I may be emotionally vulnerable, yes,” you admitted before your tone turned soft, “but I’ve… I’ve been wanting this for a long time.”
Hotch felt surprise jolt through him and he tried to lean up a little more even with you on top of him, though his hand still cradled the small of your back. “Oh, really?”
“Are you really so surprised?”
“You’re just…” he struggled to find the right way to say what he meant, “you could have anybody you want, you know? I’m a middle aged man headed towards being over the hill, with emotional baggage, and a young son.”
“You’re also emotionally constipated,” you said with a small smile tugging your lips.
He chuckled quietly, and you felt the vibration of it from his chest. “Is that supposed to convince me?”
“It means I’m aware of your shortcomings, Hotch. Or what others may view as shortcomings.”
There was another beat of silence, then things started moving like a whirlwind.
He rolled you over so that you were underneath him, and his nose rubbed the side of your face as he lowered his mouth to your ear. “You really need to start calling me Aaron during these intimate times, don’t you think?”
You gulped as you looked up at him.
“Are you sure you want this?” Hotch asked quietly, “I would feel… so guilty if you ended up… regretting this later. It’s okay to take a bit longer to think about it.”
There was a hint of passion in your voice as you tilted your chin up to him. “You don’t know how long I have been thinking about this, Aaron Hotchner.”
That lit a fire in him that he didn’t know he had a wick for, and his hands slid over the sides of your face as he tilted your head up towards him, inspecting the flush that had formed on your cheeks.
“You’re so beautiful. I’ve always been aware of it, did you know that?”
You opened your mouth to answer, and he covered your lips with his own, feasting on you like a man starved. It wasn’t long before his tongue asked entrance, and you granted it, his tongue grazing against yours.
You weren’t sure how you expected Hotch to kiss. Passionately? Without a doubt. Fervently? Definitely. But you didn’t realize “reverently” and “frenzied” were adjectives that could be used together, and yet it was perfect.
You hadn’t realized you were doing it, but you were grinding against him, his slacks rubbing against the cotton of your shorts, eliciting moans from him that you’d never heard before, but felt like music to your ears as it sent a shiver down your spine. In response, his hands slid to your breasts, his thumb rubbing against your nipples through your thin T-shirt in gentle circles as the rest of his hands cupped your breasts.
“Someone didn’t wear a bra,” Hotch said almost cheekily.
“I wasn’t exactly expecting to get felt up tonight,” you laughed.
“I suppose not. You really are beautiful, you know that? And seeing you under me… I never thought you could get prettier, but apparently it’s possible.”
“Aaron…”
Hotch continued rubbing your nipples, gently, but with enough friction that it shot pleasure through you. “That’s right, sweetheart,” he whispered, “Aaron.”
“Do you mind doing me the honors of removing my shirt? Please?” You asked.
“Thought you’d never ask,” he breathed, kissing your forehead before he gently set about removing your shirt, shimmying it over your head before tossing it unceremoniously on the AC unit under the window.
You watched nervously as his eyes roved over your chest, almost feeling the burn of his gaze on your skin. But then he began leaning down and kissing a path from your collarbones, down to your belly button.
“Sweetheart, your breasts are magnificent,” he whispered before pressing kisses to each of them, “they’re just right for me.”
“Are you so easy to please?”
Hotch kissed your breasts again in answer, slower this time, as he nipped and sucked on the skin, leaving hickies in his wake. He chuckled to himself as he looked at his handiwork.
“I truly hope you weren’t planning on wearing a low cut shirt tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t, but I guess you eliminated that choice for me.”
He smiled, almost deviously, if you could believe he was capable of it. “You could, but I think you would have to answer some… piqued interests. But I also think… one part of you wants to show everyone, that you were marked, by me. And…” his voice lowered, “I can’t say I hate the idea of it.”
Before you could form a reply, he inched down towards your nipples and took one into his mouth, sucking on them gently. He wasn’t at all surprised when he felt your fingers thread into his hair, tugging at them the more he played with your nipple with his tongue.
Before he switched to the other nipple, he looked up at you, almost ironically puppy dog-like. “Are you enjoying this, my dove?”
“Yes,” you panted, “I’ve… I’ve never had this done to me before.”
He froze where he was. “None of your other partners did this for you?”
You shook your head.
“Amateurs,” Hotch muttered to himself before licking your nipple, wetting it.
Before long, he was back at it, sucking your other nipple, far less gentle than the way he had started, and his hand squeezing and kneading the first breast.
“Dear god-”
He completely unlatched from your breast to smirk at you. “I’m afraid God has nothing to say in this little foray.”
Impatiently, you reached up to unbutton his button up shirt feverishly, your fingers clumsily clashing into each other. Hotch chuckled at your excitement.
“You’re so cute when you’re eager,” he murmured to you, his own fingers reaching down to assist you in unbuttoning his shirt.
“Do you know how often I’ve wondered what you look like under here?” You asked as your eyes watched more and more of his chest expose.
“I’m not exactly… Derek in terms of body shape,” he confided. “And maybe at one point, I would have rivaled him. But I’m afraid my abs have… congealed a bit, especially since I became a dad.” He unbuttoned the last button.
“If you think that will deter me one bit, you have another thought coming, Mr. Hotchner,” you said sassily as you began pushing the shirt off of his shoulders. It was your turn to marvel at him and his body- his arms were toned, his chest had polite smatterings of hair and, much like Hotch in every other facet of his life, a happy trail that could only be described as neat and tidy. He was right that he wasn’t built like Derek, but in every line of him, you could tell he held incredible strength even for the average middle aged man, even if he had an adorable hint of tummy that you wanted to press kisses on. The scars from Foyet did not escape you, and you respectfully reached to trace them with your fingers, a ghost of pressure. To know that he endured that, and thrived in spite of it… you felt soft towards this stern looking man.
“You’re sure you still… want a piece of this?” He said almost awkwardly with a smile.
“If I wasn’t sure before, I know I am now,” you assured him as you kissed the underside of his jaw, “you’re beautiful.”
“I’m… beautiful?”
You raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me no one’s called you beautiful before?”
“Handsome, sure. Beautiful… no.”
“Well that’s just sad,” you pressed a kiss to one of his pecs, “because it’s the goddamn truth.”
You’d never seen him blush before, but you smirked with satisfaction when he turned red from his ears down to his neck.
“Are you ready to take this to the next level then?” Hotch asked, his hands moving down to the waistband of your shorts, playing with the drawstrings while he waited for your confirmation.
“Absolutely.”
With shaking hands, he began pulling down your shorts, tugging them down until he could discard them across the room, leaving you in your cotton underwear.
“You’re so wet already,” he said with a small smirk as his fingers touched the crotch of your underwear, hooking it to the side before ultimately deciding to just take it off entirely, as He quickly yanked it off and sling shot it.
“Those were my nice pair,” you mumbled, though you were thrilled at being completely exposed to him, feeling the crisp hotel air against you.
“I’ll buy you some more if they’re ruined,” he promised as he moved further down your body.
“You’re so perfect, you know that?” Hotch said as he began rubbing your clit. You squirmed but you couldn’t stop the moan that sprang from you.
“That’s my pretty girl,” he praised you, “the noises you make are almost provocative, sweetheart.”
“You’re too good,” you said breathlessly, the tightness in your stomach overwhelming you. Hotch chuckled as he kissed the side of your neck, careful not to leave a mark, knowing you’ll still have to ride on the jet home with the rest of the team tomorrow.
“I’m not sure if that speaks well of me or poorly of the guys you’ve been with before, sweetheart, we’re just getting started here,” he deflected slightly. He continued rubbing your clit, the circular motion sending jolts of what felt like electricity through your body.
Your hands instinctively reached to the side and gripped the sheets when he began sliding a finger in tentatively, his thumb on your sensitive nerves now, keeping the circular motion going. His eyes searched yours, those eyes slightly darkened by warm lust.
“Is this good?” Hotch asked.
“God, yes,” you bit out.
He hummed a noise of acknowledgment while he slid in a second finger, emitting a moan from you.
“You’re so tight, darling,” he murmured, “am I going to need to stretch you out a little before we get to the main event?”
“It’s been a while,” you admitted.
“How long?”
“Before I moved to Quantico.”
Hotch was quiet for a moment, surprise registering on his face. “Baby, that was… at least over a year ago.”
“I’m so busy with work that I hardly have time to meander into the dating scene. Haven’t really wanted to either.”
“Maybe we could talk to your boss about that,” he said teasingly.
You were about to respond when you felt his third finger slide in, and you took a deep breath.
“That’s my good girl,” he breathed into your ear, his voice low with desire, “taking me so well while I fill you up with my fingers, and taking those deep breaths.”
His fingers pumping in and out of you made you gasp and grasp the bed sheets even tighter between your fingers. You hadn’t, in a million years, thought you would be in a position where Aaron Hotchner was between your legs, pleasuring you with his fingers. Those fingers you had studied for months, fiddling with pens while he listened to others talk, and fantasized what they could do to you. Now you were feeling it, you were finally feeling what exactly those fingers will and can do to you- and the answer was “make you feel fucking amazing.”
The combination of his fingers inside of you and his thumb on your clit was too wonderful to describe. You could write a sonnet and it still wouldn’t completely encapsulate how you felt.
“I think I’m ready,” you whispered.
“Are you sure, baby?” He murmured, “we don’t have to hurry. If it’s been awhile for you, then I think we should take our time. You deserve to be completely ready and comfortable.”
“I want to make you feel good too,” you said, glancing down at where you could feel his erection against your leg. Hotch blushed slightly.
“This isn’t about me, sweetheart. This is all about you. And you make me feel good when you feel good, making all those pretty sounds for me, knowing I’m the one who makes you feel like that, and that I’m the one with my fingers in your pretty pussy.”
You shivered again, but you bit your lip as you looked down at him.
“I still need to put my mouth on you, baby. Do you want that? To feel my lips on you while my tongue finds your swollen clit?”
“I… you don’t have to, I know some guys don’t-“
“Don’t tell me you think it’s an action of sacrifice on my part,” he scoffed with a smile, “like I said before, I want to make you feel good. I would be honored to eat you out, darling.”
Your cheeks were pink from the slightly crass words. “I didn’t even know you knew-“
“Just how old do you think I am?” Hotch rolled his eyes. He gently slid his fingers out of you and you barely stifled a groan as you felt the loss.
“So do I have your permission?” He asked, kissing your neck again.
“Yes sir.”
He smirked up at you as he bent his head towards your core. “You’re calling me sir now?”
“Terrible habit.”
Feeling Hotch’s lips on you was like nothing you’d ever felt before, but the moment his tongue began lapping at your clit, rolling it around and sucking on it, you don’t know where you went. Everything melted away, and all you felt was him.
Occasionally his eyes would flit up from his task and gauge your reaction, but every time, he knew you were more than satisfied. You grasped the bed-sheets tighter still, your head tilted back as a loud moan you didn’t realize you were making left your lips.
As his tongue searched relentlessly, hitting nerves you forgot you had, your legs jerked in response. Without even looking, his hand grasped your hips, stilling them firmly.
“Oh my god-“ you groaned.
Hotch moved away from you, his lips and chin covered in your juices, but a devious smile alighted on his face. “I take it that you liked it?”
You panted a few breaths. “A little.”
“Ah, yes, a little is what got your cum all over my face- imagine if it was a lot?” he chuckled as he moved himself up your body to kiss your lips, your juices meeting your tongue.
“Aaron, I…” you hesitated for a moment. He raised his eyebrows at you.
“Yeah?”
“I think… I think I want to do this again. When we get home in Quantico. And… I want to save the… you know, actual sex, for then. In one of our actual beds. Am… am I being too presumptuous?”
He kissed your forehead. “You would’ve been a fool if you thought I was going to risk it all for a one time thing, sweetheart. Of course I want this again, you’re not being presumptuous.”
Hotch moved to climb off of her, but you grabbed him by the belt loop with a hooked finger and a raised eyebrow, emboldened by your arousal.
“Where do you think you’re going?” You asked.
He chuckled. “As much as I loved eating you out, I can’t live with your juice on my face, dove. And… I figured you were signaling to me that we were done for the night, so I was going to clean you up.”
“We’re not done.”
“No?” He raised an eyebrow.
She glanced pointedly at his erection, tenting his slacks.
“Oh… darling, we don’t have to-”
“I know we don’t. I want to.”
Hotch leaned back on his knees. “Darling, I-“
“I hate having to keep interrupting you, sir, but perhaps losing the slacks will help us to continue this conversation.”
He reached down for his belt buckle with a laugh. “Bossy, aren’t we?”
Within a few seconds, he had unbuckled and his slacks beside the bed. Through his boxers, the outline of his dick was prominent, and you felt your mouth salivate at the sight of it.
“You did this to me, baby,” Hotch said softly.
You blushed, still looking at him, but your hands reached for the waistband of his boxers, and inched them lower.
“Damn, sweetie, do you have a permit to conceal this large of a weapon?” you drawled as you stared eagerly at his dick, the pre-cum gathering at the tip of it as it stood tall.
He chuckled, his cheeks turning pink. “This one and a few others.”
“How do you want us to do this?”
Hotch hummed. “On your knees on the floor, sweetheart. Do you need a pillow?”
You clambered off the bed and got on your knees, waiting for him to follow suit.
He stood in front of you, almost hesitant, but the moment you gingerly grasped his dick, something in his eyes snapped into action, and his hands grasped your hair, tugging at the roots slightly.
You licked him from balls to tip, and under your touch, you could feel him shudder.
Experimentally, you swirled your tongue around the tip, then eased it into your mouth until you felt him hit your cheek
“Fuck-” Hotch rasped, his grip in your hair getting tighter, “you’re teasing me, doll.”
You looked up at him with arched eyebrows, deviousness reflecting in the glint of your eyes.
“You’re such a sweetheart, you know that? All those times we were on cases and you’d do those cute little mannerisms of yours. You’d tap your finger to your chin, or you’d part your lips when you would lift your head to look at something. Or when you would drink your coffee and widen your eyes at me over your mug. You’re just- fuck.”
Of course, that sudden expletive was because you’d mischievously pulled a bait and switch and taken him all the way to the back of your throat, opening up wider for him.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he cursed, “sweetie, you’re marvelous, I- shit.”
You looked innocently up at him, although the slight shift in movement almost made you choke.
“That will teach you, you cheeky- oh god, I don’t know how much longer I can keep…”
Ropes of cum spilled down your throat, and somehow you swallowed it all, though it took a lot of effort to do so. After it dissipated, you pulled away from him, just sitting back on your knees and looking up at the beautiful man before you, his hands in your hair. To the eye that didn’t know anything about him, he was just an average middle aged man, but to hers, before her stood a man who had been through so much, and loved and cared despite the risks involved, and whose strength was unmatched.
Hotch gently pulled you to the bed and laid you down. “I’m going to be right back, sweet thing,” he said as he kissed your forehead before going to the bathroom to retrieve wet wash rags.
Thirty minutes later found you on his chest, skin to skin, and his arms around you gently.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” You asked.
“Probably, but what?” He replied before kissing the crown of your hair.
“When you said you noticed all of the cute little mannerisms I apparently do.”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating his chest under you. “Absolutely I do. I’ve noticed from the beginning, when you applied for this job and came in for an interview. You kept touching your neck when you were nervous or felt vulnerable.”
Your eyebrows collided. “You were still in the process of divorcing Haley at that time.”
“I can’t say I immediately fell in love with you at first sight,” he admitted, “but I can say I felt like I met someone I thought would be nice to have around.”
“When… did you realize you liked me in a… in a different way?”
Hotch stroked your back. “When you remembered Jack’s birthday and sent home a little present by me to him.”
“God… Hotch-“
“We just went through all of this for you to call me Hotch? Really?” He smiled cheekily.
“It’s a habit! Anyways, you… you’ve known for that long? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want to cross any lines that I shouldn’t have,” he said simply.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to deal with the fallout from here, you realize that, right? And Strauss.”
“God, I didn’t think I’d hear Strauss brought up post coitus,” Hotch groaned. You laughed heartily.
“Let’s just… keep it between us. Just for now.”
“For now,” he agreed. You snuggled into his chest, and fell asleep like that.
Of course, you forgot that he left a mark on your collarbone when you had to untangle your limbs from him the next morning to pack up and get on the jet and go home. You couldn’t use the curling iron excuse, not that far down. And it was simply too hot for a turtleneck. So, before you boarded the jet, you made up your mind to gaslight everyone. And you meant everyone.
“Am I crazy or is that a hickey?” Derek pointed out when you sat across from him at the four seater, closest to the window. Hotch lifted a brow and widened his eyes at you from where he was sitting, conveniently facing you at the two seater behind Derek.
“God, Derek, don’t you know anything? This is a birthmark.”
“A… a birthmark?” Derek sounded bewildered. “Girl, I’ve known you for almost over a year now. You didn’t have a birthmark.”
“You didn’t notice? I’m almost hurt, Derek Walter Morgan.”
“That is not my real middle name, you know that, right?” Derek leaned back in his chair. “Where could you have possibly gotten any lovin’ from, hm? I know it wasn’t boss man.”
“You know, Derek is right. I don’t remember you having a birthmark,” Spencer jumped in from where he was perched on the couch across from you guys.
“Oh c’mon, Reid, like you’re the most observant person in the room!” You said with a smile.
“I know an iron burn when I see one and… sorry, but that’s not it,” Emily quipped.
“It’s just a birthmark- have you guys considered concealer exists? What’s next, you guys believe Emily naturally has berry red lips too? Gullible.”
“So… why did you leave it off today?” Rossi asked, obviously suspicious.
“I woke up late. Didn’t have time to do my makeup routine.”
This begrudgingly seemed to suffice most of the team, but Rossi was no fool, and he noticed Hotch’s t-shirt under your flannel, and winked at Hotch, who only rolled his eyes, then glanced at you, a vulnerable smitten woman among profilers.
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Auctioned (P. 1)
Pairing: Dark!Thomas Shelby x Virgin!Reader/OC
Warning: Darkish Themes, Prostitution, Smut, Eventual Loss of Virginity, Dubious Consent, Corruption, Destructive Behavior, Massive Age Gap
Notes: Damn, I had this in my drafts for a while but could not publish it as I was a little afraid about how it would be perceived. Also this is the first time I used an OC, so be gentle with me.
The rain fell relentlessly, a steady rhythm that matched the pounding of Y/N's heart as she walked down the dimly lit streets of Small Heath.
It was a neighbourhood perpetually caught in the grip of shadows, where whispers of danger cascaded through the air like an ominous secret.
Clutching her coat tighter around her trembling form, Y/N navigated the labyrinthine alleyways towards her destination. The wind howled, carrying with it a sense of desperation that seemed to echo her own.
After mere minutes of walking down the street, the brothel she had worked at as a waitress for the past two years stood ominously before her, its ornate facade a stark contrast to the gritty reality of its surroundings.
It was a daunting place she had visited many times before. Both of her sisters worked there, and it was Y/N's eldest sister who had orchestrated tonight’s ordeal.
When Y/N was only sixteen years old, her eldest sister told her not to give away her innocence lightly as, according to her, a woman’s virginity was a commodity these days. Men were willing to pay much money for it, and six months after Y/N turned eighteen, she decided to partake in one of the brothel’s first-ever auctions.
“There are many men here tonight and you are the only virgin” Y/N's sister told her, causing Y/N to cringe but remain silent. “In three months’ time Em, we will be debt-free” her sister then reassured her as rumors of illicit dealings and forbidden desires swirled around the brothel’s walls, warning Y/N and the two other girls partaking in tonight’s events to tread with caution.
Y/N's determination propelled her forward though nonetheless, into the grand hall of the establishment and, albeit with trepidation lingering in every step, she pushed through her anxiety. The weight of her decision bore down on her shoulders now, the knowledge that she had offered her innocence for sale causing a knot of guilt to form in the pit of her stomach.
Pushing open the heavy wooden doors, the creaking sound reverberated through the room, capturing the attention of its mysterious clientele, including men that were twice and three times Y/N's age.
Seeing them, gave Y/N second thoughts. She disappeared again into the back of the room, telling her sister that she was unsure as to whether she could go through with this and, once again, her sister reminded her of what was to come if she did not.
“Trust me Em, it is better to fuck one guy for a few months than a ton of them for years. You will have money once your time is up. It will be worth it” her sister told Y/N, who reluctantly nodded.
The deal was to give up her virginity and three months of her life to the highest bidder and in the brothel’s owner’s opinion, such offering was going to attract a bid of at least one-thousand pounds.
One thousand pounds was more than Y/N could make in five years, thus she agreed, setting herself up for a good life of her own.
***
Glancing through one of the open doors again, Y/N saw that the auction room was illuminated by dim candlelight, casting elongated shadows across the velvety red curtains that framed the stage.
Many men were still arriving, taking their seats and talking with each other. Y/N could count at least fifteen thus far and were astonished by the fact that all these wealthy men were prepared to pay for her inexperience.
Then, a hushed silence fell over the crowd as another man walked in and it was your sister who peaked through the crack in the door with you now, trying to ascertain what was happened.
“Oh shit” she said as she looked at the man who just walked in. His sharp features were framed by a weave of dark hair, blue eyes piercing the dimly lit room with a predatory intensity. This was Thomas Shelby - a figure whispered about in hushed tones, notorious for his criminal empire, and feared even by those who claimed to know him.
“Who is he?” Y/N asked nonetheless, curious about this handsome but intimidating-looking stranger.
“His name is Thomas Shelby. You would have heard of him?” Y/N's sister said, causing Y/N's chin to drop as, just like everyone else, she had indeed heard of him. He was often referred to as the king of Birmingham, a man whose name had become entwined with notions of danger and darkness. He had blood on his hands and was a career
Criminal who was so powerful that even the police did not stand in his way.
“It is time, come on” the owner of the establishment then said and, with trembling legs, Y/N walked into the room, accompanied by her sister.
All heads turned as Y/N's presence filled the room, but she did not take notice of anyone but him, secretly hoping for this stranger to make a bid.
Y/N's breath hitched as, within seconds, her eyes locked with those of this dangerous man, his icy blue orbs penetrating through her like a shard of glass. She felt exposed, vulnerable, as if he could see every secret she held close to her chest, every fear she carried.
Thomas smirked at her, his lips curling with a dangerous mixture of arrogance and charm. He adjusted his tailored suit with the precision of a man who commanded respect, his piercing gaze locked upon the platform where the auctioneer eventually prepared to begin, with you by his side,
The auctioneer's voice boomed through the room, shattering the silence like a crack of thunder.
"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we present to you a rare opportunity. Up for sale to the highest bidder is this young woman's innocence and her services for three months, at a location of your choosing” the man announced and, immediately, whispers raced through the air, mingling with the pounding of hearts.
Eyes flickered from Y/N to Thomas and back again, playing a silent game of anticipation and curiosity. Y/N's cheeks burned with a mix of nervousness and defiance. This was her choice, her chance to take control of her own destiny and yet she hoped that, at least, someone she could be attracted to would become her bidder.
As such, Thomas Shelby was clearly the most attractive and intriguing man in the room and, whilst Y/N had heard tales of Thomas Shelby, the man who straddled the line between the law and the underworld, she was not afraid.
Thomas Shelby’s notoriety preceded him like a shadowy myth and, again, his lips curled into a barely perceptible smirk, his features a carefully crafted mask of unreadable intent. The flicker of amusement in his eyes danced with a darkness that weakened Y/N's knees.
Was here to bid, she wondered? Or was he for the show and the sheer absurdity of it all?
"Let us not waste any time," the auctioneer then continued, his voice dripping with a blend of excitement and intrigue.
"Bidding for Miss Y/N begins at five hundred pounds" the actioneer then announced and the crowd stirred, pockets of murmurs rising like a symphony of anticipation. The forbidden allure of Y/N's offer had captivated them all, and now they were hungry for the chase.
Thomas Shelby remained a silent observer, however. His eyes locked onto Y/N's form with an intensity that made her feel exposed. A shiver of uncertainty crawled up her spine, but she refused to falter. She had made her decision, and she would see it through to the end.
Then, the first bid pierced the air, followed swiftly by another and another. The numbers climbed higher, the desperation of the bidders mirrored in their furious gestures and sharp intakes of breath. From her vantage point on the stage, Y/N watched the faces blur together, a sea of greedy desire stretching out before her like a treacherous ocean.
Among the throng of potential purchasers, only one stood out to her still and this was Thomas Shelby. His eyes were unwavering and fixed upon her. Bids soared into the thousands, the clambering voices echoing through the rafters. In this room of twisted desires and hidden intentions, Y/N's worth was being calculated, her innocence commodified.
A sense of nausea swirled within Y/N's gut, the weight of what she was about to lose hitting her like a sucker punch. She knew the money would bring temporary relief, but the cost of her first time being handed over so coldly – it was a sacrifice she could never fully comprehend.
Biting her bottom lip, Y/N steadied herself, her gaze finding solace in the not-so-innocent eyes of Thomas Shelby across the room. She had set this chain of events in motion, and she would have to live with the consequences, whatever they may be. At last, the bidding war reached its peak, the crowd growing restless, each participant desperate to claim the illustrious prize. The air crackled with anticipation, a storm waiting to unleash its fury.
The auctioneer, sensing the crescendo, roared, "Going once, going twice..." The tension in the room reached a fever pitch, every person holding their breath, their gaze transfixed on the stage. And then, in an instant, Thomas Shelby's voice, low and commanding, cut through the silence like a knife.
"Ten thousand pounds" he said and the room gasped, a collective intake of breath that snaked its way through the assembled throng.
Thomas's bid was a declaration, a statement that he alone was the one who would possess her at a price that was much higher than any other bid before.
Y/N's heart pounded in her chest, her pulse reverberating in her temples. She locked eyes with Thomas, her voice trembling as she promised herself that she would not crumble beneath his intimidating presence even though he wanted her to, by simply looking at her.
"Sold to Thomas Shelby for ten thousand pounds!" the auctioneer's proclamation hung in the air, sealing Y/N's fate like a binding contract.
A mixture of relief and trepidation surged through her veins, her steps faltering as she descended from the stage, her composure teetering on the edge. Thomas approached her with a measured stride, his every move calculated and deliberate. He extended a gloved hand towards her, a pale contrast against the darkness that seemed to radiate from him.
"Y/N, is it?" he asked, his voice a low timbre that held a hidden power, causing in Y/N to nod silently.
"It appears you now belong to me" he then asserted and Y/N paused for a moment, feeling herself teetering on the precipice between freedom and captivity.
“It seems so” Y/N responded as she chose to swallow her fear and accepted his hand, their fingers intertwining in a pact that neither of them fully comprehended.
“Very well then” Thomas responded before he pulled her closer and Y/N felt the weight of his reputation settle upon her shoulders. The echoes of his criminal empire whispered around her, the unknown dangers lurking beneath the surface of this enigmatic man.
With every guiding step, Thomas led her out of the brothel and into the night, the rain washing away the remnants of her former life. The world around her seemed to fade into insignificance, her focus solely on the ruthless man who had claimed her as his own.
***
Eventually, they emerged onto the dark streets of Small Heath, the rain obscuring their silhouettes as they walked side by side. Y/N's nerves danced with a mix of apprehension and curiosity, her mind frantically searching for answers to the questions that suddenly enveloped her.
"You've heard of me, eh. So you know what I do?" Thomas stated, his voice cutting through the raindrops like a razor and Y/N hesitated to answer for a moment, her words momentarily catching in her throat.
"Yes. I have heard that you are dangerous," she finally admitted, the honesty laced with a touch of fear. A hint of a smile danced across Thomas's lips, his eyes narrowing with a blend of amusement and something darker.
"Dangerous, eh?” he chuckled. “Well, I suppose that is not entirely wrong. Although, one might argue that danger can be seductive” Thomas then asserted and Y/N absorbed his words, feeling a shiver run down her spine. She couldn't deny the magnetic pull she felt towards this enigmatic criminal, as if some inexplicable force drew them together despite the odds stacked against them.
"Why me?" she whispered, her voice barely above a breathy plea. The question hung in the air, mingling with the quiet patter of raindrops on the pavement. Thomas stopped abruptly, his grip on her hand tightening ever so slightly. His gaze bore into her, stripping away any pretence that either of them wore.
"Because I saw something in you that intrigued me. Despite, what kind of criminal would not want someone as innocent as you to corrupt, eh?" Thomas joked as the rain continued its relentless assault, washing away the remnants of Y/N's innocence and revealing a strength that had long lain dormant within her.
This journey was not just about the loss of her virginity – it was an awakening, a test of her own resilience. The intoxicating mix of danger, attraction, and the unknown propelled Y/N forward, her heart pounding in her chest like a wild creature. She had embarked on a journey into darkness, and she was determined to emerge on the other side, transformed.
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❝ thank ya fer trustin' me wit' this, sis. ❞ @ Maki or Izumi from either versions of Ultimate Farmer Itsuki! c:
Kids always said such weird things. It wasn't like Maki wanted them to get along with her, or think she was cool or interesting or kind, and yet they always gravitated towards her - hugging her, asking her to play with them, things like that. It was actually kind of annoying. Didn't they get that she was a coldblooded killer? Couldn't they tell how empty she was, like the part of her that was supposed to be human had drained out completely? It wasn't like she was some childish superhero who only hurt the bad guys, either - Maki killed who she was told to kill, without arguing about it.
It had been a throwaway comment, the kind made when only half-paying attention. Even without understanding adult romance, kids were always so curious about it, and whatever ideas they had in their little heads was more outlandish and fantasy than real life. As a high school student, Maki always fielded questions of whether she had a boyfriend, or what kind of guy she wanted for a husband, from wide-eyed brats. This time was no different, something like 'If I wanted to date someone, it wouldn't be a guy, but I don't want to date anyone so just drop it, okay?'
Itsuki, though, had taken it more seriously than Maki meant, which made her feel like a jerk for trying to blow her off. "Yeah," she finally answered, accompanied by a small sigh. "It's not really a big deal." At least she wasn't being annoying about it. Compared to some reactions, Itsuki's was pretty empathetic and sweet. "It's not something I'd be any good at hiding, anyway. But, thanks, I guess." For herself, it wasn't like she'd ever date anyone anyway, so it felt all abstract, and there were more important lies to keep up. Still, if she was going to pretend to be a Child Caregiver, she should at least try to impart some morality, that it wasn't something to focus on or treat others badly for. "Anyway, are you hungry? I'll get you a snack if you want something." The sooner she could get away from that conversation, the better.
Truthfully, it was a little pathetic as a sixteen-year old to find elementary students frightening, but Izumi had good excuses in her mind. Firstly, she was afraid of everyone, children included. Secondly, elementary school had been the most difficult time she could remember, between her parents splitting up and her mom moving away to Sweden, and the bullying reaching its peak. Always called mean names, or pushed in the hallways, or waking up on a field trip bus to cruel things scribbled on her body and people laughing at her.
But, it didn't seem like Itsuki was going to punch her, or call her something mean, and while that wasn't enough to set Izumi at ease, it was enough to get her to speak. "S-sure..." She nodded, still standing timidly. "And thank you for not, um, saying anything m-mean?" At least adults mostly had the tact to be more subtle in their cruelty, but kids and other teenagers would just come out and say mean things to someone's face with no self-consciousness. It made it scary to try to talk to new people, or go to new places where she didn't know anyone.
Although, given that Itsuki was looking up at her, maybe this was a point to try to be helpful? Maybe? "I'm f-fine," Izumi lied, "b-but sometimes kids can be really mean in schools to people who are different, s-so..." She swallowed, summoning up what little courage she had to try and offer a piece of advice, in hopes that it might help someone else out there. "If you ever see someone g-getting picked on for being different, Itsuki-chan, you should t-try to stand up for them." Izumi offered a weak smile, hoping that she could come across in any way as a reliable older girl who could be counted on and listened to. "It would help a lot, to those p-people, I think..."
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👤 x2 ?
-- Anonymous
meme :: Send 👤 to meet an NPC in my muse’s life
Lady Rhonda Hightower née Rowan
Lady Rhonda is the cousin of Lord Rowan, the daughter of his uncle Lenard Rowan.
Her mother, the Lady Bethany Peake, died giving birth to her in 263 AC, and her father passed away when she was only five. She was taken in and raised at Goldengrove under the care of Mathis, but also spent time as lady in waiting to lady Tyrell for some years.
She was sixteen when Katya and her twin were born, and a beauty.
Seven years later, in 288 AC, Lord Rowan arranged for her betrothal to Ser Baelor Hightower, the heir to house Hightower. Their wedding was delayed however, primarily because of the Greyjoy Rebellion drawing Baelor to the fray. She wed him at last in the late 290 AC, almost two full years after their betrothal.
As of 298, she have not had any surviving children by him. She gave birth to a son who died at just a year old, and have suffered two stillbirths, both girls.
She resides at The Hightower in Oldtown.
Due to their age-gap and Rhonda often being away when Kat grew up, they were not close.
Even so, she did send condolences and encouraging words to Kat when her betrothal to Garlan Tyrell fell through, and when Lord Cuy passed away before his and Kat’s wedding, and after she learned of what had happened with Dareon.
Ser Randar Webber
Ser Randar Webber was born in 242 AC, as the second son of the late Lord Edric Webber, and the brother of Lord Jacen Webber, the current lord of Coldmoat.
He became the captain of Lord Rowan’s household guard when he was 24 years old, appointed by the late lord of Goldengrove; Lord Corren Rowan, and have held the position for over thirty years.
Even though he is starting to feel age catch up with him and is looking for someone to take his post one day, he is healthy and strong for his age and fully capable of his duties still.
He was once married to Lady Gella Webber, born from a lesser branch of house Fossoway. They had two sons together. The oldest died in a sickness when he was still young, the other died in battle during the War Of The Ursurper. Lady Gella died not long after, and Randar never remarried.
Ser Randar have been a presence at Goldengrove throughout Kat’s entire life, and she knows him as trustworthy and a protector.
He was one of the first called after a maidservant had raised alarm, when she’d discovered Dareon with Kat. He personally remained with Kat while Dareon was being dragged off, until her father came. He was commanded to try and keep his men quiet about the event, but it got out anyway. He was present when Dareon was whipped, and when he was given the choice of taking The Black, or gelding. He thought the boy should have been hanged for what he did, but respected his Lord’s decision to be merciful, and afterwards saw to it that the former singer was put into the hands of a Night’s watch recruiter.
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THE BASICS
Name: Sage Savannah Franklin.
Age: Forty-One.
Gender: cis Female, She/Her.
Occupation: Co-owner and bartender of The Jagged Yard
Birthday: September 23rd, 1982.
Zodiac Sign: Libra.
Location: Claret Park, Providence Peak, Colorado.
Birthplace: Providence Peak, Colorado.
Orientation: Bisexual.
THE PHYSIQUE
Eye Color: Blue.
Natural Hair Color: Blonde.
Height: 5′ 7″.
Body Type: Slim.
Allergies: Atlas Williams.
Dominant Hand: Right.
Scars: Just the typical kid who thinks she can do anything, paramedic who saves lives, and avid hiker who likes to find adventures in the wilderness types of scars.
Tattoos: Most likely a tiny drawing of a bunny that Ruby drew on the inside of her upper arm not usually visible when she isn’t in a tank or short sleeves, a wolf cub tattoo on her forearm that matches with Atlas (bc they took to calling Maggie their little wolf after the fifth time she bit one of them while teething), and a back tattoo of the field she proposed to her ex-wife in inside of a frame (inspo, inspo)
Piercings: Her earlobes and a few on her helix.
THE INTRODUCTION
( trigger warning: grief, loss, pregnancy )
Sage grew up in Claret Park, her parents were settled and very much the picture of the middle class family that really no longer exists in today’s society. They planned and prepared for her and loved her to death, but even though she loved both of them she was 100% a daddy’s girl. She was a kid who loved any chance to fix things or roll in the mud and was almost always climbing trees when she shouldn’t have been.
Her childhood went by fairly uneventful until her parents had her sister when she was 8. That’s when her father came home with her baby sister, but not her mother and suddenly Sage learned the meaning of the word death.
When she turned 18 she immediately took the courses to become an EMT and over the next few years worked her way into a Paramedic title. Saving lives became her MO, a way that she could make up for the fact that she couldn’t do a damn thing to save her mother. Obvs that wasn’t her fault, but Sage is stubborn and I wouldn’t recommend telling her otherwise.
She met her wife in her early 20s and they quickly fell in love, got married, adopted a cat, and had a baby. She was head over heels for the woman she had met over a slice of pizza at her favorite joint. Everything was perfect, but perfect never managed to stay for long and when she was 34 she had her second personal encounter with death.
Losing their 6 year old daughter took a toll on her relationship with their wife and everything soon came crumbling down for Sage. With her daughter gone, her wife left town and never looked back and Sage found herself abandoning the sixteen year old paramedic career for a job as a bartender at The Jagged Yard.
It took almost five years for her to climb out of her pit of self-destruction and it took her (accidental) pregnancy with her second daughter, Maggie, to shake her out of it, knowing she needed to keep it together so she could be the best mom possible to the baby that needed her. In deciding her life needed a big upheaval, she sent out divorce papers to wherever her wife may have been (her lawyer tracked her down, but she opted not to know) and purchased The Jagged Yard from the previous owner and her mentor in one fell swoop.
It’s been a year and a half since she had her daughter, a year since she bought the bar, and quite a few months since her divorce was finalized and she took up her last name again, a step that took the biggest step of growth because it meant giving up the one she had shared with Ruby. She knew she’d never stop grieving, but moving forward is something she had to do.
Sage is currently living in her family home in Claret Park with her sister, Asher, and shares time with her daughter with Atlas.
THE HEADCANONS
She has a Bernese Mountain Dog named Springsteen who is a retired search and rescue dog who spent the first few years of his life saving lives in the Colorado mountains.
Most definitely has had a crazy night out with the Chief of Police ala this little gem and probably is a close friends of him due to her previous career.
Moved into the house she grew up in when she and her wife had their daughter. They renovated the entire house from 80′s drab to modern fab.
As the owner of The Jagged Yard, she considers everyone who works there part of her family and would help them out no matter what they needed.
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now you're in the world (part two)
I am so sorry, whenever I give you guys a chapter number estimate, just add 1 to it. Huge huge thanks to my endlessly supportive gf @nb-fearne and friend @minky-for-short!
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Orym and Briar continue through their first day in Rexxantrum but Orym continues to struggle shaking off the memories
Please consider leaving comment over on Ao3!
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Zephrah, three years before.
Orym wondered how many times in his life he’d done exactly this. How many times had he walked this narrow, pebbled path that snaked around the lowest and widest of the Summit Peaks where most of Zephrah’s homes nestled, down to the closest thing they had to a sheltered valley up here, down to where the market grew like a clustered of colourful, canvas mushrooms. Since he was old enough to walk, it had to have been hundreds of times. First with his hand firmly held in his mother’s, then running ahead of her, then by himself, then with Will on their days off. Thousands of times, maybe, his sandaled feet had disturbed these smooth grey pebbles.
So why was it so difficult today?
Less a rhetorical question and more one he was pretending he didn’t know the answer. He just had to keep going. Put his feet where he’d put them thousands of times before. There was no choice in it, Derrig was on duty, Mel was out on a house call and the girls had gone with her for some extra pairs of hands. Briar could wake at any moment- certainly would if this road didn’t smooth out soon- and when she did, she would be starving with no formula left in the house. Orym had thought it through, turned it over in his strategic mind every which way and there were just no other options.
And more than that there was no damn reason why this should be difficult. Strap Briar on his back, make the short, easy walk to the market on a glorious sunny day and just buy some more formula from kind old Mrs Jones who ran the general store and, hell, had been ruffling Orym’s hair since he was born. He could do this. He would do this.
But it was just really damn difficult.
Briar wasn’t a spot of trouble, a flour sacks’ worth of weight that wasn’t enough to bother Orym even though he was severely out of practise, snoozing contentedly against his back, her soft snores a comforting counterpoint to the far off whistling of the wind. Orym stepped lightly so he didn’t jostle her too badly, focusing hard on the placement of his feet to help ignore the rising panic which ticked up and up the further he got from home, the more the world around him opened up.
He got down to the market, still managing to maintain that careful, detached focus on anything other than his jangling nerves. But then came the real problem. If Orym had any control over the situation, he wouldn’t have come down to the market at the height of the day, when it was certain to be busiest- farmers taking their lunch while the temperature hit its peak, the guards just changing shift and lingering to chat, morning chores done and folks just getting out of the house. Maximum number of eyes and noise and whispers.
But the mission was clear, Briar needed feeding and he’d happily turned over the ability to do anything about that naturally back when he was sixteen. You couldn’t pick and choose any task you were given, it just had to be done. Orym had forgotten that for the better part of this year but he was remembering fast.
As soon as he walked into the main square, modest in size but beautifully decorated as most things were in Zephrah, Orym could feel eyes on him. How many were real and how many were his rising panic, it was hard to say but they all had the same effect of throwing his pulse higher and tightening his shoulders.
None of it was malicious. He had to remember that. The people he walked past were familiar faces, old acquaintances, he had no enemies in Zephrah beyond old Farmer Peters who’d never forgiven him or Will for filching his orchard apples back when they were teenagers. He knew their names and they knew his. If they looked over at him, it was out of shock, then double checking it really was him, then out of sympathy. No one had seen him outside of Derrig and Mel’s place in nearly a year now, of course seeing him walk through the main square was cause for soft gasps and wide eyes and whispers.
Orym could know all of this, he could hold these perfectly rational explanations as tight as he liked but it meant nothing. His nerves still screamed danger.
Fortunately, no one tried to hail him or stop him to talk, the surprise was enough of a cloak for Orym to dodge away with a tight nod and an unconvincing smile. Just walk straight through, head to the general store, get in, get out, get back home to safety. A simple mission, executed quickly and cleanly. Surely he remembered enough of two decades’ training to manage that, however long he’d been out of the game. He firmly told this to his racing heart and didn’t wait to see if it listened.
The general store was a broad building, growing outwards rather than upwards, the way buildings in Zephrah quickly learned to do if they wanted to stay standing. It even spilled outwards, the packed shelves tumbling out into baskets and trays made of old wheelbarrows arranged haphazardly along the front store, all with bright hand painted signs. It needed to be full to bursting with what it took to get outside goods up to the bluffs of the Summit Peaks, let alone past the elemental magic. If it didn’t grow here in Zephrah, it had to be found on these shelves.
Orym didn’t give himself the chance to hesitate, there was no big, deep breath or steeling of the nerves, no slowing the pace. He just walked right in, under the swinging, chalk sign (that simply said General Store- why would it need to say anything else?) and went straight up to the shelves. It took him a while to find where the baby stuff was kept, it wasn’t part of the carefully mapped out route he’d traced with and for his mother when he was young and he’d not come down into town since he became a father. He’d only been leaving Derrig and Mel’s house at all for the few months that Briar had been alive, a thought that made something inside him curl up with shame. Two boxes of the formula Mel recommended, Briar needed to get her weight up after all. There wasn’t a line at the counter and Mrs Jones was polite enough to let him get through this interaction without coming unravelled, then it was back up the bluffs to safety. A simple mission after all.
But Orym had forgotten more than he’d hoped. Because there was one thing the Air Ashari drilled into their guard above everything else, something that had slipped out of his mind. It was when things seemed to be going well that you had to be most on your guard. He’d only forgotten because it had been so long since anything had been going well.
He didn’t see what broke. Something small and glass, innocently slipped out of distracted hands by another customer in the next aisle over. It wasn’t much, not very much at all, but Orym’s calm was that thin.
That sharp, sudden sound sent him back. His heart stopped in his chest and one panic, an old panic, smoothly took the place of the new, overlapping and swelling like two raindrops joining together until they couldn’t be teased apart and Orym was drowning in the middle, standing under the cherry blossom again. Again, the swords were crashing and the screams were cutting through the day that otherwise had seemed just like any other until it wasn’t. Around him, his people were under attack.
And somewhere, far out of his reach and beyond help, as he had that terrible day and nearly every night since, his Will was dying.
“Orym! Oh love, I didn’t see you come in, are you…are you okay?”
He didn’t hear the words, they came from another time than the one he was in. But he did feel the hand on his shoulder, not recognising it as the gentle hand of Old Mrs Jones and whirling with a sharp cry of fear and panic, groping for a sword at his hip that wasn’t there. He felt something crawling up his throat from inside, something that blinded his eyes and blocked his ears and strangled him from within. It felt like black slime.
He’d fought back that day, he’d been a soldier then. But now he was just a scared, grief stricken man with the worst day of his life closed around his mind like a trap he kept stumbling into. So Orym ran, going into a full, frantic sprint, somehow managing not to hit anything or anyone as he tumbled through the busy market square. The shapes of people arcing out of his path or perhaps even reaching out to help became more lunging shadow people with terrifying steel claws. His own strangled scream became just one of the many ricocheting in his skull, though the only one he left behind him as he scrambled for the edge of town, the gravel spraying from behind his heels.
Orym was halfway back up the hill when a sound shattered the rushing panic, a sound that reminded him he was running somewhere and not just an endless battle that was already lost, that made him feel the rawness in his throat and the ache in his lungs, the hammering in his chest and the burn in his legs. But the sound quickly shadowed all of that.
Briar was crying.
Orym stumbled to a halt, tipping forward and having to catch himself on palms that screamed protest as stones tore them. He gave a shuddery moan, feeling the weight of all of it pressing down like a sword point between the shoulder blades.
And he shrugged it away. He’d never been sure how he did but he’d managed every time so far and didn’t plan on looking too close for fear he’d never manage again. He just did it.
Orym sat on the side of the path amongst the grass, moving and taking Briar out of the wrap keeping her strapped to his back. She wasn’t a baby who cried much, as a rule, but when she got going she really got going. And she was now, her tiny freckled face screwed up and flushed red, her little tongue red and trembling, her fists balled tight against her cheeks as she wailed.
Orym swallowed around the lump in his throat, finding a thin, shaky version of his voice that grew stronger as he soothed her, “Oh petal, I’m sorry. It’s okay, daddy’s sorry. Did I frighten you?”
He rocked her slowly, the way Mel had shown him and the way his arms somehow instinctively knew to do. Briar still spluttered and griped a little more, as if to make her feelings incredibly clear before she finally settled down, sniffling into the front of Orym’s shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Orym sighed again, feeling that he just needed to say it, not just for one thing but for so many, “I’m so sorry, Briar.”
Briar just burbled, her green eyes fixed on his face, swimming with leftover tears that could fall or could not. She reached out one arm, free of her blankets, and flailed up to his face, stroking aimlessly along his jaw, clearly only vaguely in control of her own movements but knowing what she wanted. Orym smiled and caught her questing little fingers, pressing his lips to them. They locked tight onto this thumb, almost as if she was the one giving him comfort.
“I’m working on it, petal, I promise,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
Now her crying had stopped, he stood, though he wasn’t quite ready to let her out of his arms. Orym looked back down towards the market, with its noise and its eyes and its questions. With the memories built into its stones, the same way all of Zephrah was. The thoughts he just couldn’t be stronger than, not right now, the way they lurked there amongst what had once been home and safety and warmth.
But then Orym looked down at Birar, her eyes wide and expectant, loving him without question, needing him completely.
“Okay,” he held her closer, feeling a soft breeze stir his hair, “Let’s try this again.”
He started back towards the market. The thoughts didn’t come back that day.
-
“Daddy, there’s so many stairs!”
Orym had just been thinking the exact same thing, though he wasn’t as excited about it as Briar sounded. The two of them were standing at the bottom of the stairway in their apartment building, facing an elevator with an out of order sign taped to it and five floors between them and their new home. It was funny, when they’d been packing back in Zephrah, the ten boxes all of their combined belongings fit in had seemed so small and a little sad. Now they seemed like ten too many, gathered around them.
Orym gave her a fond smile, glad of her enthusiasm even if he didn’t share it, “Think you can make all of them? Or are you going to need a piggyback?”
“No!” Briar looked at her dad, scanalised that he’d suggest such a thing, instantly competitive in a way that reminded him so much of Will, “I can do all of them!”
“Of course,” he reached down and ruffled her curls, “But it’s okay if you want to ask for one.”
Briar sniffled at the idea, pulled her backpack up higher and determinedly grabbed the nearest box- one labelled ‘Orym, Clothes’ in Nel’s neat, looping penmanship. Of course, it didn’t budge an inch.
Orym struggled not to laugh, looking at the other carefully boxes clustered around them, most much heavier than that one, “Don’t worry about that, petal, I can do those in a few trips…”
“Or…if you wouldn’t mind a hand? I could help?”
Orym turned, annoyed at himself for not recognising that low screech as the sound of the stairwell door opening behind them. He had to get a better grip on these surroundings but the sounds were so unfamiliar and so many, it was like trying to identify each individual ingredient in a heavy stew he didn’t much like the taste of. And now there was a tall, blue skinned air genasi in very modern clothing was standing behind them and Orym had no idea they were there until they spoke, like some kind of rookie shaking in his first, overlarge set of armour.
The air genasi smiled, “I thought it was you. You two were in The Blooming Grove earlier, yes?”
Orym blinked, now even more on the back foot, wary and blunt as a result, “I…yeah…who are you?”
The genasi blushed suddenly, voice building speed into a full on nervous babble, “Ah. That…probably sounded a little creepy, huh? Sorry, you mustn’t have seen me, I work behind the counter there, Caddy’s my boss. I guess I was on my way out when you came in so of course you didn’t see me and now I’m standing here looking and sounding like a stalker and now just making it worse by not shutting up!” They gave an awkward smile, “I’m Dorian Storm. To answer your question.”
Briar grinned back, craning her neck to look at him, studying him like he was a fascinating bug she’d come across in the garden, “You talk a lot!”
“I do,” Dorian gave her an apologetic half bow, “I’m not so good at first impressions. But I would still like to help you with your boxes?”
Orym couldn’t hide the amused smile on his face, “I’m Orym of the Air Ashari and this is my daughter, Briar. And if you’re offering an extra set of hands, neighbour, we’d gladly use them.”
Relief cooled the fierce blush on Dorian’s cheeks, that smile grew more easy, “Least I can do. Neighbour.”
Perhaps not everything in Rexxantrum was going to be so unfamiliar.
Between the three of them, they got four of the boxes all the way up the stairs to the door of apartment 10F, mostly with Orym and Dorian doing the actual carrying while Briar ran back and forth between them loudly announcing how many steps they’d done so far. Things picked up when they bumped into a towering faun with curving horns, dressed for a catwalk, who greeted Dorian with the enthusiasm of a close friend and peered down at Orym and Briar curiously. She was introduced as Fearne Calloway, kissed Briar’s hand like she was a princess to the toddler’s extreme delight, and carried four boxes herself without breaking a sweat.
And it was so easy. Orym didn’t know what was going on, he kept wanting to look around and see where the punchline was. When he didn’t want to talk, Dorian and Fearne filled the silence, chatting together or with Briar who was always eager to join in. When he did think of something to say, just an observation or some of his decidedly goofy but intermittent sense of humour, they both looked at him and smiled and laughed like everything he said was important. Orym got to remember oh thats right, I used to be good at making friends. He had barely known the two of them for an hour but he was soon as relaxed in their company as he’d ever been with anyone from Zephrah. Maybe even more so.
Orym had expected to be completely lost in the city but instead, he felt more solid and visible than he had in the last three years. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel like a ghost. They’re just seeing me, he thought in something like amazement as he watched them, they’re not seeing my past or what I’ve lost, they just see me.
That would change, Orym knew that. Maybe he would see these two again and it would have to come up, awkwardly and clumsily, like he’d stuck his foot out in the middle of a dance. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe this would be the only time he’d see them, there were more people living in this apartment block than all of Zephrah probably, and he’d never have to be anything but Orym to them. Not Orym the widower, Orym the figure of sympathy and pity, Orym who couldn’t get out of bed some days, Orym who was too young to look as tired as he did. Just Orym.
It was a nice thought, however guilty it made him feel.
Orym would have offered them a cup of tea to say thank you but, as he explained apologetically, he didn’t actually own a kettle yet. Dorian and Fearne didn’t seem to mind, Fearne bending down to say goodnight to Briar and let her touch all the silk flowers in her horns, gasping in delight as the little girl crafted a few real ones to nestle in amongst them.
Dorian turned to Orym as they watched, lowering his voice a little, a strange, lopsidedness changing his smile, “Um…well, hopefully you’ll come by the Blooming Grove again soon? And I’ll see you there?”
Orym looked up at him, “Hm? Yeah, absolutely, Briar’s going to drag me in there every time we pass I reckon. Hey, I’ll buy you something to say thanks next time I’m in.”
Orym didn’t think he’d said anything particularly surprising but all of a sudden Dorian’s pale blue skin turned darker, his smile grew and he was suddenly avoiding his eyes, “You really don’t have to but…yeah, I’d like that. There’s, ah, actually an open mic night next Saturday? Caddy’s only just started putting them on but he said I could play my guitar and sing a few songs and it probably won’t be any good because I don’t get to perform super often but Fearne’s going and a few of our other friends and you could meet them and-”
Orym reached up and laid a hand on Dorian’s elbow, feeling him jump a little but it did stop his anxious rambling. Smiling, he said, “I’ll see if I’m free. Thanks for the invitation.”
“You’re welcome,” Dorian managed to meet his eyes and looked like he might have said more but Fearne called him over, reminding him that they were going to miss the start of Real Housewives of Kymal if they didn’t hurry.
Dorian startled like he’d been shaken out of a dream, blush now worse than ever. Orym hoped he hadn’t overexerted himself carrying the boxes up the stairs or anything.
“I’ll…I’ll see you around Orym,” he threw him another one of those odd, lopsided smiles before chasing after Fearne whose horns were now so laden with fresh daisies she was shedding petals on the carpet.
“See you,” Orym said in return though he wasn’t sure he even heard seeing as, for some reason, Fearne socked him in the arm as they disappeared around the corner.
“They were so nice, daddy!” Briar beamed, taking Orym’s hand again like she’d realised they’d been apart for far too long.
“They were,” If a little strange, “We’re on a roll with meeting nice people, aren’t we?”
He pushed back the door and let Briar run inside first, now chanting “On a roll!” at the top of her voice and doing slightly messy somersaults down the short hallway, managing to avoid the boxes they’d piled up along it. They were a job for tomorrow, he decided, the sun was setting and he needed to get Briar relaxed and into bed.
Orym had only given the apartment a cursory glance as they’d pushed boxes through the door but now he took his time, surveying it and trying to fit it into his idea of home. It was very sparse right now and probably would still feel that way even when they’d gotten everything unpacked. A plain, slightly sagging black sofa, a cramped little kitchen (not that Orym knew what he was doing in it anyway) with two chairs clustered around a nicked table that took up the majority of the floorspace. And, behind the other three doors on the narrow passage, a bathroom that even Orym could touch both walls of at once and two bedrooms, both with beds you could see the springs poking out of like a wonky spine. It wasn’t much, saying so was something of an understatement, but it was still more than Orym had ever owned in his entire life. A place that wasn’t his mama’s, wasn’t Derrig and Mel’s, it was just theirs. His and Briar’s. The thought was a little dizzying.
That sensation wasn’t helped by the view from the windows. They were used to Zephrah, where buildings crouched low and curved to the ground to let the winds pass over them, domed roofs and sturdy walls. But here, it was like they were amongst the clouds, looking down at the whole city spread out before them like a patchwork quilt. Orym lifted Briar up so she could see properly, felt her little heart racing against his palm as she watched the sun sink below the jagged metal horizon and lights start to wink to life in the shadowy places.
“There’s so much, daddy,” she breathed, her breath fogging the glass.
“It’s the whole world, petal,” Orym murmured, taking a moment to bury his face against her soft, brown curls. She still smelled of grass and daisies and he hoped she always would.
“There’s no stars here,” Briar noticed, sounding confused, “Where are the stars? Are they only in Zephrah?”
Orym kissed the crown of her head, “They’re still there, it’s just hard to see them with the other lights. But they are there, I promise.”
“Oh,” she sounded like she believed him but wasn’t happy about it.
He winced a little, “Think of it like Nana and Grandpa and your aunties. We can’t see them right now but we know they’re there in Zephrah and we know they love us, just like we love them.”
Briar nodded, her hands pressed to the glass, “Yeah…but I’d like it if we could see them.”
Orym felt his chest tighten and he had to make sure he wasn’t squeezing Briar tight enough to hurt.
“I know, petal. Me too.”
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Chapter Two: This Venerable One Lives
“My heart feels like stagnant water though despite the cold nights which felt as if they’ve lasted thirty-nine years, the light of spring still manages to shine through. Could it be that the Heavens are finally pitying this stalk of valley grass, and yet how fearful I am still, of the frost and rain.”¹
He heard a woman yelling in a crisp voice, her voice jingled like jade unpleasantly scratching, giving Mo Ran a splintering headache.
“What is that noise? Who is screaming like a ghost? Come, send me someone to beat this bitch away from the mountain!”
After listening to the angry yelling, Mo Ran was shocked.
…Wasn’t he dead?
Hatred and coldness ached in his chest and Mo Ran opened his eyes quickly.
Just like that, his death and past life scattered as if the wind had blown it away.² He found that he was lying in a bed, not in a coffin. The bed was carved with dragons and painted phoenixes. The fragrant wood was heavily perfumed, and the bedding was a pink so red that it resembled purple, embroidered with mandarin ducks playing in the water. This was the sort of bed that a prostitute would sleep on!
“...”
Mo Ran stiffened for a second.
He knew where this was.
This was an entertainment hall³ near Sisheng Peak!
This sort of hole-in-the-wall place was a brothel. A type of fly-by-night operation that allowed its inhabitants and their guests to gather quickly and disperse just as quickly.
When Mo Ran was younger, he was very much a slut and slept at a brothel ten out of every fifteen days. However, this brothel went bankrupt when he was in his twenties and later became a wine shop. After his death, he ended up appearing at this brothel that hadn’t existed for quite some time. What was going on?
Could it be that he was so evil in his past life, ruining countless boys and girls, that he was punished by the god of the underworld to stay in hell, picking up customers?
Mo Ran's thoughts were wild, turning and twisting around until unconsciously he rolled over.
Surprisingly, there was a figure beside him that was fast asleep.
“...”
What was this situation?! Why was there a man lying beside him??
And a naked man too!
The man had young but exquisite features. His complexion was a lovely snow-pale, with androgynonous features.
While Mo Ran was expressionless, his heart was turbulent, staring at the pretty little pale face who was still fast asleep and suddenly remembered.
Wasn’t this his childhood paramour named Rong San?
Or was it Rong Jiu?
It didn’t matter whether it’s “San” or “Jiu,” what was important was that this boy died of a venereal disease and his bones should have all rotted away. However, in this moment, he was alive, carefully nestled in his bed, his shoulders and neck exposed by his rich brocade quilt, skin covered in blue and purple bruises, the evidence of prior love making!
Mo Ran’s face colored, lifting the quilt as his eyes roamed down.
“...”
It didn’t matter if it’s “Jiu” or “San,” let’s just call him “Rong Jiu.” The little beauty Rong Jiu was covered with whip marks, his pale, jade-like thigh was bound with several red ropes.
Mo Ran touched his cheek, secretly sighing. Oh, this was fun.
He looked at the exquisite rope art, similar to his own skillful techniques, this sight familiar.
…Wasn't this done by his own actions?!!
He was a cultivator who had some knowledge towards rebirth. At this moment, he couldn’t help but start to doubt that he was actually back.
In order to confirm his thoughts, Mo Ran looked for a nearby mirror. While the bronze mirror was in bad shape, he could still make out his own appearance in its dim yellow haze.
When Mo Ran had died, he could stand on his own already at the age of thirty two.⁴ But at this moment, his reflection’s face was actually quite childish, with his handsome eyebrows, he had the look of a cocksure fifteen or sixteen year old.
There was no one else in this bedroom. And so, the tyrant of the cultivation world, the bully of Shu, the Emperor of the human realm, the young master of Sisheng Peak, the one called Taxian-Jun or the “One Who Stepped Upon Immortals,'' after a long period of silence, honestly expressed his genuine feelings.
“Fuck…”
The statement startled⁵ the sleeping Rong Jiu awake.
The beauty sat up lazily, the thin brocade cloth that had been draped over his body slid down his shoulders, revealing a dazzlingly white expanse of skin. His long, soft curls covered his body as he blinked a pair of sleepy peach-blossom shaped eyes. His eyes, tinged with residual redness, were heavy and unfocused as he yawned.
“Um...Young Master Mo, you woke up so early today.”
Mo Ran could not utter a sound. It was as if he was transported back to ten years ago. He had really liked Rong Jiu, this slight and coquettish, pinnacle of beauty,⁶ but now, the thirty-two year old Taxian-Jun wondered what he was even thinking to have found him attractive.
“Did you not sleep well last night? Did you have a nightmare?”
This Venerable One is dead and you call it a nightmare!
Rong Jiu saw that he hadn't spoken for quite some time, and noticed that he was in a bad mood, so he got up and got out of bed, coming to the carved wooden window before pulling Mo Ran into his embrace.
"Young Master Mo, you pay attention to me; why are you so dazed, ignoring me?"
As he held Mo Ran, Mo Ran's face turned blue and he wanted to tear the flesh from this little seductor’s back immediately, to scratch seventeen or eighteen lines down his cheek, but he held it back.
He felt dizzy, still not understanding the situation.
After all, if he really was born again, if yesterday he had fucked Rong Jiu⁷ but then beat his face swollen, he was the same as before. That kind of behavior would be no different from being mentally fucked up. It was not appropriate, it was very wrong.
Mo Ran sorted out his emotions and asked casually, “What month and day is it?”
Rong Jiu was surprised, but then he smiled and said, “It’s the fourth day of May.”
“The thirty-third year?”
“That was last year, this year is the thirty-fourth year. Young Master Mo really is a forgetful nobleman; the more powerful he becomes, the more he forgets.”⁸
Thirty-fourth year...
Mo Ran’s eyes grew dark as his thoughts raced.
During the thirty-fourth year, and himself still at fifteen years old, he had just been recognized by the Lord of Sisheng Peak as a long-lost nephew, rising from a mangy dog who was easily bulliable to a phoenix of a noble house.⁹
So, he was truly reborn then?
Or was this just an empty dream after his death?
Rong Jiu smiled and said, “Young Master Mo, I see that your hunger has made you dizzy to the point that you can’t even remember what day it is. You sit for a while, I’ll go to the kitchen and bring you some food. How does that sound?”
Mo Ran, newly reborn and still unable to really deal with the implications of everything, remembered what he used to do. He was always charming and romantic, and so enduring his nausea, he grinned and pinched Rong Jiu’s leg.
“Very well. I want a bowl of porridge, and I want you to feed me when you return.”
Rong Jiu put on his clothes and left. After a while, he came back with a wooden tray with a bowl of pumpkin porridge, two youtiao,¹⁰ and a plate of side dishes.
Mo Ran was just a little hungry, so he grabbed at one of the pieces of bread to enjoy, however, Rong Jiu suddenly pulled his hand away and said, “I’ll feed you so just enjoy.”
“...”
Rong Jiu picked up a piece of the fried cake and sat on Mo Ran’s leg. He wore a thin robe and wasn’t wearing anything underneath. His pale, slender thighs straddled Mo Ran and brushed against Mo Ran’s skin, grinding temptingly in a way that left no room for ambiguity about the purpose of his actions.
Mo Ran stared at Rong Jiu’s face for a little while.
Rong Jiu probably assumed that he was horny again. “Why are you staring at me? The food is going to get cold.”
Mo Ran remained silent. Thinking of the pleasurable things that they had done together during his past life, he slowly rubbed the corners of his mouth with a sweetly charming smile.
He had done a lot of disgusting things in his life. If he really wanted to, he could do anything, no matter how disgusting. At this moment, he was merely putting on an act, a child’s trick like this comparatively was nothing.
Mo Ran carelessly leaned back against the chair, smiling. “Sit.”
“I...I am sitting here.”
“You know where I’m telling you to sit.”
Rong Jiu’s face flushed. “So anxious! How about when the Young Master finishes ea— ah!”
But before he could finish speaking, he was dragged up by Mo Ran who slammed him forward and pressed him down. Rong Jiu’s hands were shaking as the porridge bowl fell to the ground. He stuttered, “Young Master Mo, the bowl…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But you should eat...nn...ah!”
“Am I not eating right now?” Mo Ran’s grip tightened upon his waist, the sight of Rong Jiu’s lovely neck and pretty appearance reflected in his pitch black eyes.
During his last lifetime, he had loved kissing those captivating red lips during intimacy. After all, Rong Jiu was lovely and could say all the right things to turn him on. It wouldn’t have been a lie to say that Mo Ran cared for him.
But now, knowing what dirty things that Rong Jiu’s lips had done to him behind his back, Mo Ran felt that instead, his mouth was foul and disgusting and he definitely didn’t want to kiss him.
The thirty-two year old Mo Ran was different from the sixteen year old Mo Ran.
For example, the sixteen year old knew how to be gentle, how to love and be intimate. However, the thirty-two year old only had desolation in his heart.
Afterwards, gazing at Rong Jiu who had passed out after having the life fucked out of him, the turmoil lifted from Mo Ran’s half-closed eyes, now even shining with some hidden joy. He was very attractive when he smiled, his eyes were a deep, rich black rimmed with a ring of arrogant violet that shined at certain angles. Pulling Rong Jiu onto the bed by his hair, he casually picked up a shard of broken pottery from the ground, brushing it against Rong Jiu’s sleeping face.
He was someone who always paid back his grievances;¹¹ today was no different.
Thinking about how he had financially provided for Rong Jiu, how he had even thought about purchasing his freedom, and then how Rong Jiu had schemed against him to pay back his kindness, his eyes squinted as his lips curled into a smirk, pressing the shard of broken pottery against Rong Jiu’s cheek.
In the flesh trade, if he didn’t have a pretty face, he would have nothing.
This vulgar man would have to live on the streets like a dog, crawling on the ground only to be kicked by boots and abused... just thinking about it made him so happy that the nausea from fucking him dispersed.¹²
Mo Ran’s smirk grew even lovelier.
With just some applied pressure, a thread of blood, gloriously red in color, trickled out.
Though he was unconscious, Rong Jiu must have felt the pain and whimpered softly with a hoarse voice, looking pitiful with tears clinging to his lashes.
Mo Ran stopped.
He remembered a friend of his.
“....”
He realized what he was doing. It took him a few seconds to come back to himself as he slowly, carefully lowered his hand.
He was such an evil person that it had become his personality. He only just remembered that he was reborn.
Right now, nothing had happened yet, that incident hadn’t even happened yet, that person… hadn’t even died yet. Why did he need to walk the same cruel path when he could simply do it over?
He sat down with his feet dangling by the side of the bed and casually played with the shard of pottery in his hand. Seeing the greasy pastries still on the table, he took them over, peeled away the greasy paper and took a large mouthful and then another mouthful, face almost shiny with grease.
This pastry was the main dish of this entertainment house. It was really not so delicious and, compared with the delicacies upon delicacies that he had tasted later, it felt like he was chewing wax, but after this entertainment house closed, he had never tasted it again. At this moment, the familiar taste of the pancakes brought him back to reality, the taste of reality on his tongue.
Every time he swallowed, he became more convinced that he was truly reborn.
After the entire pastry was finished, he finally recovered from his confusion.
He really was born again.
All the evil things that he had done in his life, all the irrevocable things haven’t even happened yet.
He did not kill his martial family, did not massacre the seventy-two fortresses of Rufeng, did not trick his teachers and destroy his ancestors, he did not get married, he did not…
No one was dead yet.
He smacked his mouth, licking around his white teeth. He felt a tiny ray of joy in his chest, expanding rapidly with the same enthusiasm as an ocean torrent.¹³ He had been a man known all over the world during his lifetime¹⁴ due to his knowledge of the three forbidden arts. He had been proficient in the first two; they were all cultivation techniques. Only the last one, “reincarnation,” was something that he couldn’t manage, despite his intelligence.
Unexpectedly, what he couldn’t have achieved in his last lifetime had come true after death.
After all the pain, his hatred, the desolation and loneliness, his ambivalence from his previous life rumbled in his chest, the sight of the army marching upon Sisheng Peak, their overwhelming force.
He didn’t want to live like that anymore. Everyone said that he was born under a vicious star,¹⁵ that he was fated to die alone. Everyone had eventually turned their backs on him. In the end, even he had felt like he was already dead, unable to communicate and so, so lonely.
He didn’t know what went wrong for a heinous person like him to deserve a second chance.
Why did he want to destroy Rong Jiu’s face from such a small grudge that happened so long ago?
Rong Jiu’s favorite thing was money. This time, he wouldn’t pay him for his services, and would also skim a little money from the top just to teach him a lesson. He didn’t want to be responsible for the other’s life, at least not now.
“This is me going easy on you, Rong Jiu,”¹⁶ Mo Ran said with a smile, tossing the piece of porcelain out the window.
Then, he ransacked Rong Jiu’s jewels and valuables before stuffing it all into his own bag. He took his time dressing before jauntily strolling out of the entertainment house.
Uncle, Aunt, Cousin Xue Meng, Shizun, and…
Mo Ran’s eyes softened at the thought of that person.
Shige, I’m coming…
——
Footnotes:
1. Okay so this line has some what similarities to Hong Yingming’s “Cai Gen Tan” with some lines directly and poetically taken from there. There are definitely some Heaven's Light vibes from the Hunchback of Notre Dame so I’m translating this a little bit more literally so that readers can appreciate Meatbun’s prose. The direct Mandarin is “我本已心如死水万念灰,却不料三九寒夜透春光,莫不是天意偏怜幽谷草,怕只怕世态炎凉多风霜” and according to Weibo, this line is considered one of Meatbun’s best lines.
2. 风吹雪散 directly translates to “the wind blows at the snow and scatters the clouds”
3. The phrase is “瓦子” which conveys something small and shoddy, very much a “fly by night” sort of operation. According to my research on Beidu, these operations were quite common during the Northern Song Dynasty, and referenced in Wu Zimu's "Menglianglu" with the line “来时瓦合,去时瓦解'' translated to “to build with you come, to collapse when you go,” a very shaky enterprise.
4. 立之年 or “the year of standing.” A Confucian statement which means “at the age of [30] a man can fully stand on his own, is self sufficient.” 飞扬跋扈 means “the arrogance of youths” so given that it’s Mo Ran, I wanted to translate as “cocksureness” but you can also go with “youthful arrogance.”
5. So here’s a really funny play on words because 操 in 操醒了 is the same 操 as “fuck.”
6. 千娇百媚 is an idiom meaning “the height of beauty,” It originates from Chen Xuling’s “Miscellaneous” poem from the line “绿黛红颜两相发,千娇百态情无歇,” as well as Tang Zhang Wencheng’s “Youth in the Caves of Immortals” line “千娇百媚,造次无可比方;弱体轻身,谈之不能备尽.”
7. 颠鸳倒凤 is a colloquialism for having sex in more classic novels from Yuan Wang’s “West Chamber.” It means for the young luan (a mythical beast) to turn the phoenix.
8. 贵人多忘事 is translated to "noblemen really have short memories;" it's an idiom that was used to criticize how high-ranking officials were arrogant and didn't 'remember' to take care of their old friends, used as an insult. Here, Rong Jiu is saying as Mo Ran gets stronger, the less he values Rong Jiu.
9. 枝头的凤凰 is an idiom that means “your value is determined by your family.”
10. Fried pieces of dough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtiao
11. 睚眦必报 — This chengyu originates from Sima Qian’s “Records of the Grand Historian: Biography of Fan Ju and Cai Ze” in the Western Han Dynasty. It’s used to mean “even the smallest resentment must be revenged” and is a derogatory idiom.
12. 消云散了 is a chengyu meaning “vanished like smoke” and originates from Xu Fanting’s “Three Years of Unspoken Words.” Mo Ran’s nausea over fucking Rong Jiu “disappears like smoke.”
13. 惊涛骇浪 or “ocean current” is particularly a great current full of terrifying turbulence. It comes from Tang Tian Ying’s “The Collected Works of Yushan Hall: The Story of Haiyunlou.” In this instance, this ocean current is a metaphor to express Mo Ran’s exuberant happiness at his realization that no one has died yet, he's so adorable! He's excited like a puppy!
14. In the next sentence, 叱咤风云 “globally renown” is from “Liang Shu Yuandi Ji,” describing a sensational, prestigious general. Essentially meaning omnipotent.
15. 命主孤煞 is a chengyu meaning “born under a vicious star.” (https://www.yamab2b.com/zhouyi/MzNiZjg=.html here’s a source you can translate to read more)
16. 便宜你了 — I’ve translated it here as “I’ve let you off easy.” Essentially, it means to take advantage of or profit from someone else’s expense.
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Pirate Party Part Two
Party pirates, partying in a piratey way on a pirate ship! Sugar! So much sugar it's not historically accurate! But why take that joy from these fictional children?
TW for emetophobia, underage smoking even tho I don't think they had those laws back then, but they do for this fic I guess lol
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"Can I learn?" the little girl, maybe seven years old, with her blonde hair falling in her eyes, looked up to Jim.
"How to throw knives?"
The girl nodded. "It's really cool how you do that."
"Thanks," Jim smiled. "Well...okay, you can't tell your parents though. No throwing knives in front of them."
They knelt down and handed the girl a knife, only for Oluwande to snag it instead.
"Jim!"
"She wants to learn!"
"She's a child!"
"I know!"
"This is a fucking knife!"
"I know that too!"
The girl let out a whimper, and they both broke into apologies.
"I'm sorry," Oluwande said. "Jim just keeps their knives really sharp, and I didn't want you to get hurt."
The girl nodded thoughtfully. "Could I learn with less sharp ones?"
"Actually, then if you get cut it's gonna hurt way worse," Jim said.
Oluwande gave them a look.
"It's true!"
"Can I learn how to fish?" The girl asked.
They both let out relieved sighs.
"Absolutely," Oluwande said. "Wait until you see all the weird fish there are..."
From the corner, Izzy listened until they were too far away to hear. This, to him, was maximum, peak, bullshit. There were so many children, and they were everywhere all at once, and sticky! They hadn't even been fed yet, and they were somehow already sticky. It was ridiculous!
Luckily there were a few older kids who had gotten his hints to keep the kids away from him, and they all redirected any of the younger ones if they so much as looked at him.
Except for one.
"Parties are stupid," the boy slouched by him against the wooden wall, and rolled his eyes. "Fucking kid shit."
Izzy bit back a smile. The boy was maybe sixteen, give or take a year or two. "Yeah, I hear ya. I'm not up for all this shit either."
"Like, who even has birthday parties anymore, that's so immature," the boy scoffed, and Izzy faked a cough to stop himself from bursting out laughing. "Like, be original, do something cool."
He was dying, the kid reminded him so much of himself and Ed at that age. It was horrible and funny, but also wild that the kid was clearly trying to impress him.
"What would you have done?" Izzy asked. "Pirate ship isn't cool enough?"
"Okay, so, the locale is actually cool," the kid replied. "But the activities are like...dancing to kid songs? And cake? And whatever that one guy with the seagull is doing?"
Izzy peered out and could just see Mr. Buttons doing what looked like a magic routine with a seagull for some of the kids.
"You don't wanna keep seagull guy?" Izzy joked.
The kid laughed. "Well. I guess he could stay."
Izzy nodded. "Mom made you come to watch a sibling?"
"How'd you know?"
"Just a guess," Izzy said. "You'd rather be doing stuff you think is fun."
"Yeah," the kid said. "Trenton, by the way."
"Izzy."
"Like, me and my friends, we like music and hanging out, and smoking stuff," Trenton said.
"Stuff?" Izzy asked.
"We can't get full smokes from anybody, so we all just cut off bits of our parent's and then glue them back together."
He nearly lost it then. It physically hurt not to laugh. Trenton was so earnest, so painfully wanting someone to think he was cool. The feeling took Izzy back into his own memories.
"Nice," he managed to choke out. "Say, why don't I go grab us each a cigar or a pipe or something?"
Trenton's eyes were dinner plates. "For real?"
Izzy shrugged. "I'm not your parent, and this is a party, right? Hell, I first smoked at thirteen, how old are you?"
"Almost fifteen," Trenton replied.
"You need to catch up then!" Izzy crowed. "I'll be right back with some, hang on."
As he went around the corner to the nearest stash of cigars, he ran into Lucius.
"You are not."
"He's at the age where he wants to be rebellious," Izzy sighed. "I had people help me do stupid shit as a kid, and looking back those were the adults I admired most!"
"I'm sorry your childhood was like that, because that sounds excessive and ultimately damaging," Lucius said sharply. "But you can't give him a cigar."
"He'll throw up and not want the rest anyway," Izzy protested. "That's what I did with my first cigar."
"Ew," Lucius grimaced.
"Yeah, me and Ed, one stolen cigar. Ran miles away from town to smoke it," Izzy continued fondly. "Taking a puff, then puking. Giving it to Ed for his turn, and he'd do the same, then give it back to me and-"
"Yeah, that's good, I get it," Lucius interrupted. "I just-"
"Look, I'm not trying to be creepy or a bad influence or whatever," Izzy cut him off. "Honestly, I know how it seems. He just seems miserable, and miserable kids act up. But maybe if he's happy, even if sick, he'll just fuck off and lay around for the rest of the party."
Lucius nodded. "I hate that that's a good point. I pulled a littler one off a rope and he bit me when I said he couldn't be up there."
"What is it with you and getting bit?"
"I don't know," Lucius muttered. "Anyway...fine. One cigar, but after that he goes to sit in his assigned chair and wait for lunch!"
"Thanks Mom," Izzy rolled his eyes and retrieved the cigar, ignoring the pain when Lucius slammed his hand with the metal lid of the stash box.
Back at the wall Trenton looked like he might pass out already just at the sight of the cigar.
"You said you've smoked before, right?" Izzy asked, knowing full well that had been a lie.
"Yeah, but maybe remind me?"
He smiled as he ran through instructions, and watched the kid light up.
"Take it easy, not so much at once," Izzy warned, finally plucking the cigar from his hand.
But Trenton was preoccupied coughing his lungs out, then hurling over the side of the ship to the delight of the nearby seagulls.
"What did you do?" Ed asked, exasperated. The baby on his hip whined at the cigar smoke in her eyes.
"Sorry," Izzy stubbed the cigar out quickly, waving away the smoke. "Sorry for that kiddo, you weren't meant to get any of that."
"Izzy," Ed said. "Seriously, is he okay?"
"First cigar puff, and he took a big one," Izzy laughed.
Ed's face relaxed. "Oh fuck, is that all? Poor thing, but we all do it."
"Part of growing up," Izzy agreed.
"Yeah, but you're too little for that yet," Ed said to the baby, booping her nose. "Not till you're a silly teenager, making bad decisions and having fun."
A knife suddenly went whizzing past them both, nearly nailing Izzy's head. The baby started to cry, and Ed handed her to Izzy as he rushed off shouting for Jim and Oluwande.
Izzy stared at the baby, who stared back at him, both in the way one might examine a particularly disgusting bug.
"So...what the fuck, huh?" Izzy asked her.
She looked around, babbled something lightly, then hiccuped. For a moment, she seemed content, and he thought maybe he didn't mind the little ones as much as he thought.
Then she gulped, hiccuped, and vomited all over his neck and chest, and he had to resist the urge to drop her and run to puke off the side of the ship himself.
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It Doesn’t Sink In Until You Actually Look in the Mirror
I feel like recently once been doing better compared to past years. I’d say I only have a complete breakdown like once a week to a month depending on how things are going. Though there’s still always a feeling at the back of my mind no matter what I’m doing air where I am that’s always scratching and clawing away at me. I have nothing to look forward to. I distract myself day to day with whatever mini arch’s going to get some comedy for the people who are still watching this late into the series, after the quality’s severely gone down and the plots are just getting reused from previous seasons. I don’t really know what kind of job I would want to do because I get bored of things so quickly, and any job I find that I do like I usually leave because I think I can do better money-wise. Though I never save up to move out. What’s the point? To speedrun my fucking depression? Because I know the second I’m completely out on my own for like a week I’ll blow my brains out. I try to pretend like I don’t need people, and I’m pretty introverted so it’s not like I always feel like I need to be around people- but that tends to make me spend what feels like weeks holed up in my room and slowly dying since there’s so little time to spend with the few people around me anymore. Parents are always working. Sisters have their own million things to do. The one friend I have I don’t have any money so I don’t want to bother if I can’t pay for anything that I would wanna do. So I wait for a time when something can happen, and I’m disappointed because everyone’s too tired and busy. I don’t blame them. For my last job I couldn’t do a lot because I was working a lot of the time. So now I dig my face in my phone and try to get through the day. I clean toys, fix my collection. I got a TikTok account and started making videos but now I’m just addicted to watching the numbers slightly go up. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten it but I fucking did with the excuse that there’s more MH videos on there or whatever. Still a fucking hypocrite as always.
But anyways- I know that once I leave my parent’s house there’s nothing for me out there. I feel bad for leeching off of them this long but I don’t have the money and I know on the little times I’ve been truly alone I’ve come seconds away from being another body bag. What is there out there? Exploration that I don’t want to do? Finding a job that ranges from hating it but gets enough money to get by or a job I like where I get paid like I work at McDonald’s? Wasting my time searching for some magical fucking unicorn of a girl to not think I’m repugnant and take me as her like fiftieth option only for us to end in loveless marriage where she’s fucking my friend because I have nothing to offer, if I CAN EVEN FIND A WOMAN? Maybe ending up in a loveless hetero marriage where I’m used as a fucking toy to some manchild before I gut myself? Having kids that I’ll want to strangle after having that little fucker destroy my body even further than I already have before they grow up to be a crack dealer before killing me and taking my last sixteen bucks? Building a collection that just gets me a small hit of dopamine for spending like $50 a day, only for some scum of the fucking earth to break in and steal it all? Care about politics for every single fucking brain-rotted 900-year-old to stroll up and pick the dumbest fucking decisions possible and send everybody back to the fucking Stone Age? Eat myself to death to get that last shred of dopamine? Care about my appearance for it to just continually get worse until I fit perfectly into everyone’s favorite little trailer trash trope? WHAT IS THERE TO FUCKING LIVE FOR?! If this is supposed to be the goddamn peak of my life both physically and emotionally and I’m sitting here staring at a screen and praying that I get 100 fucking people to sit and watch me play with dolls?
A random thought, but I rewatched Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron recently. It’s been one of my favorite movies since I was a kid but I don’t watch it often so I don’t get burnt out on it, so when I rewatched it the other day it felt like I was watching it for the first time. I was legitimately crying at the end because I love that movie so much. I pretty much never feel anything after watching a movie besides “Oh that was pretty good” or “That was bad.” This feeling I got in that moment was pure fucking bliss. I for once felt like life was worth living, like the world could be beautiful and people could make art so powerful that it actually changes you. I know, I know, it’s stupid. But my heart was soaring and I felt like humans weren’t actual hell for once. Life is precious and worth it and you can find the most brilliant amazing beautiful things in places where most people might not. I loved a lot of movies before, and I’ve always loved this movie but this time it felt like it hit me just perfectly. I’ve seen movies that made me feel a certain way, but I was full-on bawling afterwards out of joy for once. I couldn’t stop crying and smiling.
I still don’t know why I felt so happy after it.
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From the peak of Mt. Coronet, one night, three comets shot off in different directions. At first, the villagers of Jubilife didn't think much of it. Not until Professor Laventon had stumbled upon a near-dead body the very next day, courtesy of his three foreign Pokemon. While the boy recovered over the course of several days, it seems other parts of Hisui have fallen into a similar state of panic.
Warden Ingo was surprised to hear of someone in the Diamond Clan rumored to be a sort of opposite to him, or even a counterpart. At first, his mind had flashed to a man who looked like him, who dressed in white, but when he'd heard she was a girl, that deeply buried memory suddenly vanished from his mind and that was that. A child, they said, somewhere around the age of fifteen or sixteen, though due to tensions between the two clans they had no way of knowing much more about her. He supposed he should ask Melli about it when he next climbed the mountain.
Volo, meanwhile, was strongly intrigued by the figure he'd found atop the cliff near Arcanine's grave. She didn't seem to be severely harmed, but there was no real way of knowing. Around thirteen or fourteen years old, she seemed, very young for a traveler and clothed very strangely. And that rectangular device clutched in her hands looked... very promising.
He managed to bring her home and convince Gunter he hadn't kidnapped a random girl, nursed her back to health, and convinced her to join the Ginkgo Guild. She gratefully agreed, quickly learning everything she needed to know. Volo shared gossip with her and she was essentially free labor for the low, low price of knowledge. Some merchants swear they've seen the two eyeing each other as if the other hand something they wanted. It seemed like a strange relationship to them. Mutually beneficial, yet... something was lurking under the surface. No one knew what.
All this, while the boy in Jubilife Village was being evaluated by the adults, and whispers were being thrown around, some tickling his ears, about whether they should throw him out into the wild to his death or continue housing him. Home was not a light thing to give away, and the boy could only curl up around the one semblance of warmth that stuck by his side no matter what.
That didn't mean Rei had to like all the bad things they were saying.
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- You might see things differently when you’re as old as I am.
nancy drew...detective! (1938)
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pairing: jungkook x reader
summary: But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.
Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.
wordcount: 15k
genre: summer!au, ex high school classmaters, kinda frenemies to lovers, tattoo artist!&piercing artist!jungkook, popular!reader
rated: m (fluff - smut - angst)
warnings: you broke jungkook's heart you bitch!! , oral sex (m&f), protected sex (shocking tbh), CL as your bestie it doesnt get better than that! idk i dont wanna spoil too much
author's note: fucking finally dude!! i've been writing this since february but school was kicking my ass. now that i finished my exams and mercury is in gemini i was able to finish it. if you read this, i hope you enjoy it!
Inkphoria
You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping the flyer too tightly, rumpling the paper in your hand until you're pretty much sure it's ruined. It's the first day of June, and it's already too hot. The sun and humid weather are causing beads of sweat to form in your hairline and your white tank top to stick to your skin. Your jean shorts didn't feel this uncomfortable a few hours ago and you're sure the heat is causing your mascara to transfer to your eyelids and lower lashline. You've never needed a slushie and a smoke this bad in forever, even if you knew the later would make your parents lose their shit.
Inkphoria
You read it again. Your brain is trying to guess what font its written in, an excuse to try to steady your heart beat until your nerves ease a little and you can finally gather the courage to step into the damn shop. You've noticed a few people passing by giving you strange looks because maybe it hasn't been fifteen minutes. Perhaps you've been unmoving like an idiot in the middle of the street for longer than you want to admit.
Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.
'Its not that much of a big deal. It's not even that painful, trust me.'
You wish you could trust your best friend, but your best friend is also the same woman who assured you Cats was the movie of the year. Yes, not 'Cats: The Musical'. 'Cats', the movie.
'And this could be a great start to get out of your comfort zone and start living your life exactly the way you want to, not the way people expect you to. Not the way your family wants you to, not the way Adam wanted you to.'
But although her credibility could sometimes be questionable - like that time she also told you she'd tried marmite and 'honestly, it's not as bad as people make it out to be'-, you also didn't trust anybody in this world as much as you trusted her. She had always been your entire support system, the only one around you who never sugarcoated, who always treated you as an equal, who was always there for you to help you discover yourself and, at the same time, remind you of who you were.
'And it's gonna look so hot, too.'
That's it. Sticking the wrinkled flyer on your back pocket, your feet finally start moving. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing open the door.
The first thing you notice is that, thankfully, the shop is empty. The second thing you notice is the bright sky blue walls, a green undertone peaking through. Your eyes scan nervously the interior. Frames with tattoo designs and people modeling other different designs decorate the walls, some skateboards also hanging from the ceiling. A few plants in the corner, and two leather couches on either side of the room. Your scanning stops on the counter, where a girl with short, platinium hair and -what you guess is- the eighty percent of her body inked. Face included. She's been looking at you, a smirk tugging at her lips. Her tone is amused when she speaks
"Hi." she says. "You can come closer, you know? We don't bite."
Great. As if you couldn't feel more out of place, apparently you also couldn't look more out of place.
"Sorry." you gulp as you walk forward. "It's my first time doing anything like this."
She laughs this time, but it's not mean. It's not mocking, thank God, and the smile she sends you is as warm as the weather, friendly, luckily helping you calm down a bit. "A virgin, huh? JK's gonna love this." your eyes jump in surprise, but she's fast to wave her hands in front of you. "Just a joke. So, first time getting a tattoo. You have something in mind, honey?"
"Um, no. Not a tattoo. Not yet, I think." you wet your lips, regretting not reaplying chapstick before stepping inside. "A piercing."
"Oh! Cool!" she claps her hands, too excited for your own taste, pulling from under the counter a catalogue. "So, where will it be? Cartilogue? Nose? A lot of people are getting their septums pierced right now, though, so you might-"
"Nipples. Like, one of them."
Her gaze finds yours in surprise, although her face swiftly transforms again into an amiable expression. "Now, that's badass. Alright!" she skims through the pages of the catalogue until she finds the nipple piercing collection. You scratch your head before wiping your forehead sweat-free. "You can pick either barbells or hoops, although barbells heal faster and they don't move around as much. There's different kinds of metal, too. Gold or platinium. If your skin is sensitive, I recommend titanium. It's hypoallergenic and not as problematic."
The blonde keeps talking as you nod your head, a smile making its way into your face while silently thanking her for her easygoing personality. It quickly makes you feel comfortable and stupid for being so terrified of doing this.
Once you decide, settle on the cost and sign the papers, she stands up from the stool she'd been sitting on. "Ok, I'll go tell my coworker. He's been sketching tattoos all morning, it's time he gets to work!" she laughs, but suddenly your smile banishes and your throat shuts down.
"He?" your alarmed tone halts her motions and she looks back at your frightened expression.
He? A he is going to pierce your nipple? You're about to let a random stranger, a HE, see and touch one of your boobs and then pierce a needle through one of your nipples?
"Oh, baby, don't worry. I'd do it myself if I knew how to, but I only do tattoos. Most of our staff are on summer vacation so it's mostly just him and I. If you don't feel comfortable, which is totally understandable, you can wait until september when Minzy comes back and she can do it for you." It's her turn to scratch the back of her head as she adds: "but trust me, we're professionals. He's not a creep or anything like that. He's been doing this for a long time. He won't cross any boundaries."
September? You won't even be here in september. Fuck.
Sure, you could do it when you move back into the city. But this summer was supossed to be the summer. You already decided after your breakup with Adam that there would be no trace of the old you. That it was time to push yourself, to do the things that you've always wanted to do, unapologetically. To find the new you, the real you. To stop being scared.
So after going through you options for a few seconds and taking a deep breath, you make up your mind.
"It's fine. I can do it."
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
"JK, sweetheart!"
Jungkook is finishing drawing a Chinese dragon when Mijoo opens the door without knocking. Again. He puts the pen down, rubbing his eyes. It's monday, a slow monday, not much work, and he had hoped it would stay that way until closing time. It's summer and Jungkook hates summer. He hates the heat, he hates being drenched in sweat, and he hates the fact that he can do nothing about it. Because working in the summer is terrible. Summer makes him lazy, makes him want to bathe in a tub full of iced water and not get out until he turns into a raisin and october comes. It makes him irritable. Summer makes him annoyed by people -like Mijoo, even if he loves her to death- and himself.
"I got a girl here who wants a nipple piercing, her first piercing by the way, so get your shit ready and bla bla bla. Straight titanium barbell. Also, don't flirt and don't be creepy. She almost ran away when I told her a male was going to be touching and piercing her tit, be mindful of that. She's too cute, if you want to get her number you should wait until it's done. I think that's it. I'll bring her in in a minute."
Mijoo leaves as fast as she talks, but Jungkook is already used to it. He's already used to the headaches her mouth causes too. He sighs before standing up, tying his too-long raven hair into the best bun he can manage. He washes his hands, sets the table up, sits on the chair and puts the gloves on. He's too busy sterilizing the jewerly when Mijoo comes back with you.
"Alright, my babies. I'll leave you to it." she turns to you. "He'll explain everything, from how the process will be to how to take care of it after it's done." she leaves before saying bye, closing the door behind her, and then he finally turns to you.
Your eyes meet and suddenly everything stops. He almost drops the sterilizing machine, his whole body tensing, going into panic mode as he recognizes you immediatly. His hands shake.
Of course he does. Of course he recognizes his high school crush. The too goody two shoes, too pretentious and too rich, too good for everybody and, most importantly, 'too good for Jeon Jungkook' girl of his high school dreams. Of course he recognizes the girl he had confessed his stupid crush to when he was sixteen. Of course he recognizes the girl who rejected and broke his young and foolish heart when he was a dumb teenager.
It doesn't matter that six years have passed ever since. He still knows every lock of your hair like the palm of his hand. He still remembers the shape of your lips and the exact shade of your eyes. He can still identify the body he fantasized about -and jacked off to- when he was a hormonal teen, now filled in all the right places. Now a grown woman.
Just one look at you after years and years of pining is enough to almost make him faint. And grow a boner under his jeans.
And by the look on your face, your eyes wide and your mouth agape, you recognize him as well.
Dammit.
He schools his features and clears his throat. Forces his body to relax and compose himself, because he's not a teenager anymore. He's also a grown man, who has matured, who now has much more experience with women than he did back then. He had already embarrased himself enough when he was sixteen to be doing it all over again. You're just another attractive girl in a sea of attractive women.
He turns to you. You still haven't said anything. Neither has he.
"Um, you can sit on the table." he manages, motioning to the set up in front of him. He watches you taking doubtful steps until you're sitting down, your eyes avoiding his gaze. He almost forgot you were here to get pierced. Holy shit, you were here to get pierced. To get your nipple pierced.
You're a professional, Jungkook. You can do this, Jungkook. You've seen boobs before, Jungkook. You've pierced nipples before, Jungkook.
Clearing his throat again and forcing his hands to stay by his side, he speaks. "The... The top." your gaze finds his, like a puppy about to get scolded. You look at your top, realization dawning on you. "You don't have to take it off. You can just pull it down."
So you do, pulling the straps of the white tank top down and dragging the fabric down with trembling fingers. No bra. Jungkook gulps as your breasts comes into vision. As perfect as he had imagined years ago. His cock twitches. Round, full, perky and so damn inviting he has to hold himself back from latching onto one nipple with his mouth around it and swirling his tongue over the nub until you're a pretty, moaning, little mess on his piercing tabl-
He closes his eyes for just a second before reminding himself to act like the 23 year old Jungkook he's tried so hard to become. The confident, assured Jungkook he is.
"Okay, this is how it'll go. First I'll clean it and scrub it to get rid of any bacteria." he's so glad he hasn't stuttered yet. 23 year old Jungkook doesn't stutter like 17 year old Jungkook. He's also glad he can pick the alcohol bottle and the surgical scrub without trembling. When he faces you again, you're watching his motions with your lip caught between your teeth. That has him swallowing the lump in his throat.
Making eye contact with him again, you take a deep breath and offer a small nod, so he gets to work. He can show you and himself he's a grown man. A grown man who can pierce a nipple without appearing like it's the first time he's seen a boob in his life. The sooner he does it, the sooner it's over.
Jungkook wets the paper towel with alcohol before carefully wiping over your nub with it. Your back arches, probably from the cold feeling, he guesses. He rubs it a few times before throwing it in the trash can nearby. He avoids looking at how enticing the soft peak is salluting him when he reaches for the marker. He doesn't say anything when he dots it with it, jaw clenched and his dick painfully stiff.
"Lay back." his voice low as he commands, turning away to get the clamp. When he slides closer, he tries to ignore the view: you, with your hair sprawled and your sweaty, shiny skin and your eyes focused on the cieling, nipple fully erect, like the star of one of his most erotic dreams. He extends his free gloved hand before he can stop himself, fingers carefully working the nub until he's sure it's painfully hard. Almost as hard as he is.
You gasp, your back arching again. He stills and looks at you, your cheeks flushed pink. Probably from the heat, he guesses again. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He can't stop himself from wondering how responsive would you be in a different setting, most likely his bed while his teeth play with your breast and his cock dives into-
"You okay?" he studies your face, your eyes not meeting his and instead still focusing on the white ceiling.
"Mhm." you reply with a small voice.
"Relax, alright? It'll be over soon." his voice is as gentle as he can, his fingers mindlessly caressing your breast to try to soothe your nerves. Or maybe it's just because he's a selfish bastard. Whatever it is, he forces himself to bring the clamp to your nipple, securing it around it.
"Take a few deep breaths. This will only take a second of pain and then it will go away." He misses the way your mouth falls open, but he doesn't miss the way your eyes squeeze tight as the needle goes in.
"Ah!" he definitely doesn't miss that either. He goes rigid for a second, because that didn't fucking sound like a cry of painfulness. It's breathy, and whiny, not too loud and, for fucks sake, if that's how you sound when you're getting fucked, he swears to God-
He feels your heartbeat under his hands when he puts the barbell in and then the bandage over it. He takes a look at you, chest moving up and down. And then you take a look at him and what he sees is almost enough to take you right there.
Reddened cheeks, drops of sweat framing your face and those eyes glazed with something he's seen too much in the women he's fucked throughout his life. They're half lidded, mascara adorning your long lashes and almost smudged, looking right through him.
"Jungkook..." and your voice, as you say his name -acknowledging him for the first time since you stepped into his shop, for the first time since you were sixteen-, it's hoarse, almost inaudible, like you just came all over his-
He's on his feet in an instant like he's been burned. "It may bleed for the first week, and it can be really sore. The swelling will eventually come down." he's quickly tidying up the table, a bottle in his hand that he hands to you without looking directly. "Wash it gently with this soap and warm water once per day. Don't touch it. Wear a comfortable...bra. If it gets crusty, clean it with saline. Not alcohol or any other thing you might clean a wound with. The soap I just gave you or saline. Nothing else."
He's pacing around the room as he takes his gloves off and throws them in the trash bin, too agressively maybe, then he keeps rambling, like he's hurriedly trying to make you leave as soon as possible. "Avoid pools and the sea. It takes about six months to a year to heal, so don't... don't touch it, don't play with it or..." he clears his throat, "don't let anyone else play with it. And if it gets infected, come back immediately and I'll take a look at it." which he honestly hopes it won't happen. When he faces you, your top is back on and you're getting off the table.
"Alright, um...I'll do that." clearing your throat, your hand gripping the doorknob. "Thank you."
But right before you can exit the room, Jungkook says your name.
"_____." when you turn around to face him, it takes a few seconds for him to make eye contact from across the room. "It was good to see you."
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"Let me see!"
It's the first thing Chaelin says when she opens the door to her appartment. It's on the second floor, small enough to compare it to most expensive appartments you'd stayed in throughout your life, but big enough for Chaelin, her cat and her -impressive- collection of acrylic nail kits and pairs of high heels. It's also big enough for her to offer you the only guest room until summer is over so you didn't have to, one, stay at your parents' place, and two, find an appartment in a short period of time for a short period of time.
When you left years ago, you did so with the thought of 'never looking back'. You never really expected to return here, of all places. Maybe visit your best friend for a weekend at most, have dinner with your parents on a saturday and then go back to the new life you'd made for yourself on a sunday.
But that was before you'd caught Adam cheating.
Tale as old as time: childhood sweethearts get engaged, move in together, son of a bitch sleeps with the assistand he told his girlfriend not to worry about, and then the brokenhearted girl packs her bags and leaves the cheating bastard begging for her to come back.
You'd be lying if you said you were surprised.
Throughout your life, you'd learned to expect many things, regardless of being sheltered and babied by your family since you were born. Watched too much Maury and Dr.Phil. Too much Gossip Girl to know what the deal with life really is.
So, thankfully, you'd only shed a few tears, mostly because your ego and self steem were slightly triggered. You'd realize long before that your feelings for Adam started to disappear once he popped the question and you said yes. Your love story began as teenagers but soon after graduating, the two of you went on different paths: you'd matured, grown into your twenties while he got stuck at 17 and never stopped acting as such.
So yeah, whatever, break ups are hard. But they're not as hard when the love is gone and the sole reason to stay with your partner is to please your parents. You were also right when you expected your mom to tell you to 'forgive and forget' because 'those things just happen, it's not a big deal, honey'.
But above all things, the last thing you expected to happen when you came back was to show your tits and get pierced by none other than motherfucking Jeon Jungkook.
Jeon Jungkook. Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.
The lanky nerd with braces, glasses and an anime obsession much bigger than his hentai obsession, which is saying a lot. The shy, awkward classmate who'd stuttered his undying crush for you when you were just kids. That one who you had rudely rejected like the bitch you used to be in high school.
But my God, Jeon Jungkook was anything but a kid now.
You were shocked. You were gagged. Couldn't seem to fathom what was happening and what your eyes were seeing. It took you a while to close your mouth when you realized JK was Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie.
With messy black hair, a smoldering gaze free of glasses, piercings adorning both ears, and his right eyebrow,, the braces long gone showing perfectly straight - but still bunny like- teeth. The clothes he wore were loose, all black, but it was impossible not to notice the muscles of his back and arms, covered with tattoos from his hands to his forearms. You'd bet there were more of them underneath the fabric.
It was awkward at first. You didn't know what to do, or what to say. Didn't know if he rememberd you. So you chose to stay quiet while your body chose to react like it had never been in the presence of an attractive young man in it's entire life.
And oh, did it react.
He was reluctant, his old timid demeanor peeking through his newly adopted persona. But as soon as those hands came in contact with your skin, your whole body was lit on fire. Like you were 16 and losing your virginity over again and it was the first time a dude touched your boobs.
There shouldn't have been anything erotic about it -besides the fact that your entire breasts were exposed-, it should've been just a professional procedure. But those gloved fingers touched and pinched and suddenly you were too aware of Jeon Jungkook and the way you were starting to sweat profously, not due to the heat of the season.
You tried to distract yourself by looking at the cieling and not at his gorgeous face. Tried to avoid thinking about Jeon Jungkook and how his mouth would feel wrapped around you. Tried not to think about the way your panties were a second skin to your folds, and how tempted you were to grind your hips until you recieved some sort of friction with the jean fabric of your shorts. You wonder if he noticed you squeezing your thighs together. You hope not.
And then the needle happened. You never thought of yourself as a particularly kinky person. Sex with Adam was boring for the most part and you'd lost your libido for a long time. Stopped thinking about sex altogether. But the pain. The pain mixed with his hand rubbing soothing circles on your breast and his voice, as sweet as honey, guiding you through it. It made you reconsider a lot of things you'd once dismissed as 'weird' or 'deviant'
You swear you almost came right on his table.
And then your eyes connected, you made the mistake of calling his name like a satisfied woman who still needed more, and it was all gone. He stood up like a scared cat, gave you a bunch of explanations about the aftercare that you barely grasped without even looking at you and pretty much rushed you to leave.
So you walked, all the way from the tattoo parlor to Chaelin's appartment, mortified, and completely humilliated.
"Are you gonna let me see or not?" your friend says expectantly as you finally sit down after chugging a glass of iced water. You sigh, placing the glass on the table before carefully pulling down your top. "Oh my God, it looks so cool!" she gasps and you can't help a smile while she studies it in amazement. "Did it hurt?"
"Um, I guess." you keep out the part where you almost orgasmed, obviously, stopping her hand from touching when she reaches towards you. "Wait, no. He said something about not touching it for like six months or a year, I don't remember."
At that, Chaelin's eyebrows quirk up. "He? It was a he? Was he cute, at least?"
"You won't believe this..." looking away for a few seconds, you take a deep breath. "It was Jeon Jungkook."
There's a pause, a silence that fills the room when Chaelin's jaw drops. "Jeon Jungkook...pierced your nipple?"
You close your eyes, bracing yourself for what you're a hundred percent sure is coming.
"Ha..." there it is. "Ha ha..." you still know there's more. "Ha ha ha..."
Chaelin laughs hysterically for about God knows how long, while you keep drinking your glass of water unfaced, your mind drifting back to Guk. Gukkie. Jeongukkie, his tattoos and his stupid gloved hands.
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You know he's here.
Everything was cool, you were doing alright, having a great time with your vodka sprite in hand and your cute white bikini on. Chaelin was by your side, the guys were excited to have you back and thankfully, you'd avoided most questions about Adam and they'd avoided digging too deep into the topic. You'd sunbathed the whole afternoon, kept away from the water like he'd told you and ate the Hawaiian pizza Yoongi insisted on ordering despite Namjoon's and Jimin's complaints.
It's at night, when you're a little tipsy and your cheeks are flushed, that you feel it. You'd barely noticed Taehyung disappearing to let in a new guest.
You don't see him, but you feel him.
You're sitting on the pool tile steps, legs dangling and the water baely reaching your belly to make sure it doesn't touch your very sensitive and newly pierced nipple. Your back is facing the sliding glass doors of Hoseok's house, but the moment you hear his voice, smooth but animated as he converses with Taehyung, your body wakes up immediately, back straightening, goosebumps forming on your arms and nipples tightening against the fabric of your two piece.
You don't turn around, instead opting for downing the remaining of your drink and coming to the realization that, of course, Taehyung, social butterfly who'd always got along with everybody and remained friends with most people from high school, still keeps in touch with Jungkook.
You ignore him when he enters the pool, still peering from the corner of your eyes while pretending to be engaged in Chaelin's and Jihyo's conversation. Your mind sabotages you by taking you to that day a week ago at the tattoo parlor.
To the warmth of his hand, to the few strands of hair that his small ponytail couldn't keep together, to the way his eyes focused on such an intimate part of your body, to the endless ink decorating his skin, to-
Great. Now your bottoms are wet and not due to the water.
You don't miss Chaelin supressing a laugh and her not so subtle elbowing. You glance at her in warning and try to keep calm for the next fifteen minutes until Jin proposes moving to the living room to watch a movie.
"I'm gonna stay here for a little longer, guys." you say, after clearing your throat. You needed some time to gather yourself before being in a confined space with Jungkook.
"Are you sure?" Jin stops by your side to place a hand on your shoulder as everybody starts exiting the pool. "It's Mean Girls! You love Mean Girls! You never miss a minute of Mean Girls!"
Rolling your eyes, you wave him dismissively. "I know every dialogue on Mean Girls like the back of my hand, I think I'll be alright, Jin."
When everybody finally leaves, you take a deep breath, covering your face with your hands in an attempt to get him out of your head. Damn Jeon Jungkook and his irresisitble glow up.
"You okay?"
The unexpected voice startles you, a gasp finding its way out of your mouth and causing you to jump on your seat, heartbeat erratic as you instantly recognize who it belongs to. Your hand grasps your chest as if that would do anything to protect yourself against him.
"Shit, don't do that!" you say, the words almost getting stuck in your throat as you see him approaching you, still submerged in the pool. The more he nears you, the less water depth there is and the more visible his torso comes into view. Wich was exactly what you'd been avoiding.
Because Jeon Jungkook was ripped, as you'd imagined when you first encountered him.
Broad shoulders and strong biceps and chiseled abs and veiny forearms. Drenched hair, a full sleeve of tattoos and water dripping from delicious tan skin and all just so very hard. That paired up with a loopsided smile that does nothing but make you shudder.
"Sorry." he doesn't sound apologetic at all when he says that, the smirk adorning his features telling. "You just seemed a little off." you advert your gaze when he pushes his hair back.
"I'm fine, just...just wanted to be by myself."
"Oh" Jungkook's smile disappears. "I can leave, if you want me t-"
"No!" you're not sure where that comes from and neither does he, judging by the look on his face when your eyes find his. Eyebrows raised and mouth slightly parted, he's as surprised as you and there's an awkward silence for a few seconds. "Um, you don't have to. I mean, it's not my house, you can do whatever you want." you sniff and tame your voice, trying to seem cool and collected like you didn't just practically beg him not to go.
Ironic, considering this was exactly what you had been fearing for the past thirty minutes.
And then he smiles. A knowing smile. A smile that says 'you just totally checked me out and now you don't want me to leave'. A smile that you would have never associated with Jeon Jungkook of all people years ago. A smile that makes you want to look away but still keeps you in place.
"Sure." he says, closing the space between the two of you slowly but still leaving enough distance. "So, how's it going?"
You clear your throat, head high and determined not to let this man, or any man for that matter, turn you into a trembling mess. You're still you and you're not easily shaken by the opposite sex. Or at least that's what you helplessly chant in your head.
"Everything's cool. I'm on summer vacation now," a little white lie, "so I decided to-"
"The piercing." he says, the smile never leaving his face. "I meant how's the piercing."
"The pier- right." you almost miss the step he takes forward, all too aware of his height over yours but thankful for the centimeters that being propped on the stairs added to yours. "It's-" you almost, almost miss his knee touching your knee and him slightly separating your legs with his own inch by inch. Or how your thighs open unvoluntarely to welcome him in and how you can barely find coherent words to speak. "It's doing-" or the way his smile disappears and is instead focusing his dark stare fully onto yours.
"It's doing well." you finally say in a whisper, not being able to bring yourself to be louder.
He hums. "May I see it?" Jungkook wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and the action and his voice is enough to make you nod your head, bewitched.
His movements are unhurried, his hand coming up to tentatively come in contact with the flesh of your clavicle. His fingers skim through your skin upwards, his touch is feather-like when it wraps around your throat. You pant, and he stops but he doesn't move away, his eyes still focused on yours, studying you, daring you to pull back, to tell him to back off. But just a simple touch of his and you're fully under his control. It reminds you too much of the day you got that damn piercing.
Your lips are parted and for a moment he stays just like that. His body so close to yours but not close enough, and his hand slightly gripping your neck. Your pussy clenches around nothing and you can't wrap your head around the fact that something so simple sets your entire being alive and leaves you aching.
Then, as slow as he started, his hand travels from the front of your neck to the back, pushing your hair aside to carefully untie the straps of your bikini. He breathes through his nostrils, doesn't make a sound. He seems so collected it's starting to annoy you.
Instead, your breathing is ragged when the top falls down, exposing both your breasts to him. That's when he removes his eyes from yours and his jaw clenches. Your nipples perk up under his gaze, like they remember him and the effect he had on them just a week ago. You're at least glad you're not the only one affected but he seems to be a master at keeping it under wraps.
Then, his hand moves again, leaving goosebumps on your skin as it goes south. Jungkook takes his time, so deliberate you want to scream, until he's cupping your pierced breast, keeping away from the nipple just like he'd advised you a few days prior. You can't look away from his face, from his eyes observing you like you're a full course meal and he's been starving for days. You feel drops of water falling from his hair to your thighs, his thumb caressing your skin so delicately as it faintly nears your still tender nipple. Just nearing it, never touching it.
"Beautiful." his murmur is almost imperceptible and for a moment you think you've imagined it. Your back arches on its own, breast pushed against the palm of his hand, almost like your body is begging him to come closer, to touch you more, to feel you all over. He meets your eyes briefly, gauging your reaction, before going back to your chest. Suddenly, the grip on your breast tightens, fingers ever so softly squeezing your flesh. From your throat comes a mewl, your eyes shut and your legs close around his waist.
"Jungkook, please..." you whisper when you open your eyes. He looks at you, unvertainty written all over his face, lips bruised as if he had been biting on them too hard, gaze as glassy as yours. And just like that, the spell is broken. He blinks and his expression changes completely. Lips forming a straight line and jaw tight. His hand retracts, fixing your bikini top over your breasts before tying it around your neck like it originally was. Meanwhile your eyebrows crunch in confusion. But when you're about to start asking questions, he clears his throat.
"It's healing okay." he steps back, avoiding your eyes. "I'll see you inside."
Jungkook leaves the pool like nothing happened.
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Jungkook is fiddling, fixing the position of his glasses and combing through his straight hair with shaky hands, habits he's tried so hard to get rid of in his sixteen years of existence but still finds impossible to.
He can't help it. He's always been like this: the quiet and awkward kid in class who sits in the back, a misunderstood puppy in a sea of stronger dog breeds that could eat him alive. An outcast. Too geeky for his own good. Notebokes full of Dragon Ball doodles on the margins of the pages, the shelves in his room stacked with Marvel figurines, and a closet filled with outdated clothes that he has been inheriting from his older brother.
He has never been the type to stand out, always being overlooked by people like he's invisible. He doesn't mind though. He'd much rather be ignored than getting picked on by bullies like he used to in elementary school.
He never gets invited to parties. Ever. He's a nobody who barely speaks, and when he does he either stutters or manages to embarrass himself in one way or another. He's seen the look on people's faces when they look at him. Their eyes seem to scream 'weirdo' everytime he gets acknowledged.
So obviously the only reason he was invited to this particular party had a first and last name: Kim Taehyung. The only kid in Jungkook's entire life who didn't look at him in a funny way, the only kid who took the time to entangle in a random conversation with him after class and who seemed geniune enough to make Jungkook feel comfortable.
He's not sure how it happened, since Taehyung mostly hangs out with the cool kids. But somehow it did, and now Jungkook is uncomfortably standing in a living room full of drunk teens, looking directly at you.
You, the one girl Jungkook had been pining on for God knows how long. You, who are obviously too pretty, too popular, and way out of his league. You, with your plaid skirt and your polo shirt and those legs that never seem to end. You, who are sitting with your friends in a couch, drink in hand and visibly tipsy. And yet, he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone pull of the 'drunk-rosy-cheek' look better than you.
He can hear your laugh through the music and he already thinks it sounds better than whoever is playing in the background.
"Come on, Gukkie! Her friends are leaving and she's all by herself now! It's your chance" Taehyung's obviously drunk too because it took Jungkook a while to decypher his exact words. He'd disappeared for a while and now that he's back, he's pushing Jungkook in your direction.
"This was a mistake, Taehyung." Jungkook shakes his hair and steps back, quickly glancing at the front door to prepare his escape. But his new friend's grip on his hoodie keeps him in place.
"Guk, listen. The only thing you have to do, is walk up to her, and say 'hey I think you're, like, really pretty. Just letting you know. Bye!' That's it. Jung- Dude, Guk, seriously, look at me." Taehyung grabs Jungkook's cheeks, squishing them between his hands and forceing him to face him. "You've been crushing hard on her for years, my man. We're graduating and you won't see each other again. What's the worst thing that can happen? Getting rejected?"
Jungkook's eyebrows draw together. "Um, yeah?"
"Exactly! Getting rejected is not the end of the world, bro! It just means keep trying on other girls!" Taehyung releases his hold on Jungkook's cheeks. "I just think you're going to regret not telling your crush she's your crush. Who knows? Maybe in the future you two will get married."
Jungkook snickers, muttering a 'yeah right' under his breath. Still, he can't help the smile that Taehyung's words always seem to pull out of him.
"Now," Taehyung playfully slaps Jungkook before turning him in your direction again. "Go get 'em, tiger!"
"Okay," Mijoo's voice slices through Jungkook's memories. She's sitting on Jungkook's desk, munching on her brownies and looking at her coworker expectantly. "And then what?"
He sighs, running a hand through his hair, sits back on his chair, already feeling the effects of Mijoo's baked goods. "And then I walked up to her, like a damn fool, stutter and all. And I say:" he clears his throat, making an effort to do his best teenage Gukkie impression."'Hey, _____, um, so, I think you're beautiful and I've had a crush on you since seventh grade, haha, just wanted to let you know.'"
Mijoo rolls her eyes, still chewing. "And then what?"
"And then she looked me up and down, giggled, fucking giggled, Mijoo, and said 'Who are you, again?'" Mijoo gasps and Jungkook closes his eyes, trying to force that recollecion out of his head.
"What a bitch." she can't help but laugh before apologizing. Jungkook merely shrugs his shoulders and takes another bite of his brownie. "She didn't say anything else?"
"She said something along the lines of:" he clears his throat again, this time, doing an impression of you. "'That's sweet and all but, you and I... we're not the same. And I have a boyfriend, so...' She said that like I didn't know, like I wasn't aware of the school's it couple! Like I was dumb!"
Mijoo nods. "And now you want to fuck her even more than you did in high school."
"I- No! Well, yes. Fuck, of course I want to sleep with her! But I just... can't."
"Why not?"
"Did you hear anything about what I just told you or were you too concentrated trying to get high?"
It's Mijoo's turn to roll her eyes. "I heard everything you just told me. I just don't understand what the problem is. You two were sixteen. Sure, she was a bitch about it, but Lord knows I've been a bitch my entire life and now I'm not anymore." Jungkook raises an eyebrow at that. "Okay, sometimes I can be nice. But the point is..." Mijoo finishes her piece of brownie before getting off of Jungkook's desk. "It's been, what? Nine? Ten years? People change, JK. You're the best example of that. You want to fuck her and she obviously wants to fuck you too. You're both adults." she wipes her hands on her shorts. "I think it's time you fulfill that high school fantasy of yours."
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You've made up your mind.
And by you, it means Chaelin has made up your mind.
It didn't take long to convince you though. That last interaction with Jungkook cause too many emotions stirring within you. It left you hot, it left you bothered, it left you confused. Sure, it also left you a little bit embarrassed like the first time, but above everything else, that interaction with Jungkook left you absolutely livid.
Because who the fuck did Jeon Jungkook, formerly known as Guk, Gukkie, Jungukkie, and currently known as JK, think he was to come near you, speed your heart rate's up, and then runaway like that?
You've spent days thinking about it. About that face, about that body, about those hands and- shit. You're doing it again.
You've spent days trying to push those intrusive thoughts. Spent days trying to bury what happened. You've spent days trying to keep quiet, not telling anyone about it and just wishing that stupid spark of desire simply went away.
But it has just been simply unavoidable. You haven't been able to ignore the sleepless nights with your brain drifting back to that night and forbidding your hand from slipping under your panties. Or the excessive amount of time during the day where images of him suddenly popped in your head and wouldn't go away, even with you squeezing your thighs to try to make the ache go away.
So you ended up ranting and ranting and ranting to the only person you could confide on, who is obviously your best friend. Your best friend, who's too smart for her own good and knows you too well for your liking. Because apparently your moodiness and snappy remarks couldn't go unnoticed.
And after explaining the fiasco over a bottle of wine -and minutes of endless laughing on Chaelin's part because, again, it's Gukkie you two were talking about and, according to her, this was "the most karmic thing I've ever seen"-, she gave you the best advice an older sister could ever give.
"Fuck him."
"I know right? Fuck him!"
"No. I mean, fuck him."
And now here you are. Right inside that room you stepped in weeks ago, confronting the man in question with the same confidence that has always distinguished you from others and trying to act like the fluttering inside your belly wasn't nauseauting.
"A date."
"Yes."
"You want to go on a date with me." this wouldn't be so hard if Jungkook didn't look so delectable in a plain white t-shirt and ripped jeans. You cross your arms over your chest, doing your best to not look down at the exposed skin of a man who obviously worked out a lot and apparently, never skipped leg day. "What's the catch?"
He's sitting on his chair, back resting comfortably and legs spread, narrowing his eyes at you and probably wondering why the girl at the front desk let you in without an appointment. Also, probably wondering if there was a catch to all of this.
"There's no catch. I just want to go to the fair this weekend. I'll ask Taehyung for your number and text you the date and the exact place we'll be meeting. Unless..." your quirk one of your eyebrows. "Unless you're already planning on how you'll chicken out this time."
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Of course, Jungkook says yes to going on a date with his high school crush but spends the following days overthinking every single thing.
He can't help but feel like it's kinda sketchy. What if you're planning your vendetta on him? What if you don't even show up and he ends up there looking like a damn idiot? What if you hate him and are just messing up with him? What if that incident in high school is going to repeat itself?
"If she doesn't show up, you simply move on and never speak to her again. It's that simple. She can't have that much power over you to cry about something like that." Mijoo had said that same day she let you in the tattoo parlor after you'd asked to see Jungkook. Jungkook's coworker hadn't even question you and just motioned you to Jungkook's room with a knowing smile on her face. Later that day, Jungkook had scolded her about it and she'd simply shrugged.
He considers cancelling, eyes reading the 'won't be able to make it, sorry (sad face emoji)' over and over again and fingers hovering over the send button so many times he's lost count. But then he remembers that comment of yours about him chickening out and Jungkook starts seeing red.
How couldn't you understand he's just terrified of you rejecting him one more time? Sure, Jungkook is now an adult who doesn't get butthurt over stuff like that. He's experienced too much after graduating from high school and he's a much stronger individual than his fragile self back was back then.
But something about you just makes him feel so... weak.
He still finds it impossible to concieve where he got the courage to approach you like that at Taehyung's pool, or how he brought himself to touch you for longer than a minute without coming in his pants. He'd enjoyed it too much. Allowing him to see you so exposed, just for him. He'd be so tempted to kiss you right there and then, to run his hands up and down your thighs and fully wrap your legs around him to let you known how much you'd affected him. Once you called his name, it was like he'd finally snapped out of it and backed away like he'd been burned by you. He spent the next twenty minutes trying to keep himself from pulling down his pants and jerking off in his friend's bathroom.
It's terrible. Because he feels like the teenager he used to be when you're around. Shy, insecure and overall a mess. You showing up in his life after so many years and now apparenly being interested in him seems like a dream that he's not sure he wants to keep being in or wake up from before it's too late and he falls back into that tumoltuous longing that will inevitably end up in heartbreak. His heartbreak.
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It's saturday night, he's standing by himself in the crowded fair at the spot. You're fifteen minutes late and he's already about to turn back and dip out. He feels too awkward and the nerves are eating him alive.
You're not going to show up. You're not going to show up and now he feels and looks even dumber than the time he told you he was crushing on you. You're not even going to show up and now he's going to come back home, get drunk by himself and curse your name for-
"Hey!" he turns around to the sound of your voice and sees you running towards him. "Sorry I'm late! I couldn't find my phone and spent like thirty minutes looking for it. Turns out, Sharon Stone, was taking a nap on top of it and I didn't even notice."
"Sharon Stone?"
"Chaelin's cat."
To be honest, he's too surprised to process your explanation right away. He might also be a little speechless because that sky blue sundress looks too good on your skin and your eyelashes are so long, framing your beautiful eyes, and your lips are all glossy and kisseable that it takes him a while to find his own voice.
He clears his throat. "It's alright." scratching the back of his head, he momentarely adverts his gaze from you in an attempt to not get distracted by how soft your hair looks and how much he wants to wrap it around his hands in a ponytail. "Um, where do you want to go first?"
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Almost an hour and a half later, when the sun has already disappeared and you're both surrounded by colorful lights, Jungkook decides to buy the both of you hot dogs and a drink and you both settle down on a bench.
You've been walking all over the fair, going from booth to booth, playing any game in sight Jungkook dared you to -he obviously had a competitive streak-: from the ballon and dart games, to the shooting games, to the bumping cars, to the ball-in-basket one. To say you were having fun was an understatement.
You'd almost regretted setting the date up. You were sure he wouldn't even show up and if he did, you were scared of how awkward things could get between the two of you. And if things were awkward, you were sure it would only take less than thirty minutes for the both of you to part ways and never talk again about such failure of a date.
To your surprise, none of that happened.
The conversation was flowing, both of you acting like you were strangers on their first date getting to know each other, which, to be fair, that's exactly what it felt like. There was a slight banter, teasing each other when one of you lost in whatever game you were playing while the other was obviously winning. There were laughs and a funny feeling in your tummy whenever you'd walk side by side and his arm brushed yours.
There was no stiffness on his shoulders, no mention of the past or your previous encounters, no acknowledgement of the blatant sexual tension you'd experienced before, not an ounce of avoidance whenever your eyes met his and he was even sure of himself enough to place a hand on your lower back or briefly interwine your fingers with his to guide you through the mass of people.
It felt like you'd both unspokenly agreed on making each other feel comfortable enough to have a good time.
"I didn't think you were going to show up, to be honest." you suddenly say, taking a sip of your strawberry juice and thankful to finally let your feet rest for a while.
Jungkook looks at you, hot dog mid air and eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline. "You didn't think I was going to show up? I didn't think you were going to show up." you simply shrug, lowering your gaze seepishly, the beginning of a smile on both your faces. He surprises you by tilting your head in his direction with his forefinger. You watch him watching you, a little dazed, a little lost in how his dark hair messily falls over his forehead and his equally dark eyes study your face, his thumb swiping over your lower lip. "You um... There was ketchup right there." he lies.
"Oh" you say, feeling your face heating up. "Thanks. Red doesn't really match this dress." you manage a smile and tuck a lock of your hair behind your ear.
At that, he eyes your dress for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. He's debating on whether or not to say something but you beat him to it.
"I'm sorry, by the way."
"For being late? I already told you it's fin-"
"No." you shake your head. "For... that time when we were young and I was such a concieted brat." you say, looking away , trying to find anything else that's not his pretty face. "I thought I was a queen bee back then. I was annoying and rude, specially to you. I..." you lick your lips. The cherry glittery gloss was already gone. "I thought it was cute, what you said. There was no reason for me to act like that. I know this doesn't make anything right but..." when you turn to face him again, there's still the same expression on his face. "I'm sorry."
A few seconds go by before it's him who's shaking his head. "It's okay. It was a long time ago, anyway." he smiles at you, although it doesn't reach his eyes and seems sorta forced. You sigh, and he takes your hand. "Let's go to the ferris wheel."
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tell you're tense. You're sitting right beside him in the ferris cabin, your back is all straight, you're facing forward and he believes you haven't blinked for what feels like an eternity. He thinks it has everything to do with your conversation a few minutes ago. You were probably not content with his response but what could Jungkook do? There was really no point in apologizing for something that happened years ago, but at the same time, he didn't want to hold anything against you like a resentful asshole because it was really not who he was. But there was still a little bit of stingyness inside of him and he didn't know how to make it go away.
At the end of the day, here you were, on a date with him that you'd asked for, getting along and asking questions about him and laughing at his jokes and trying to start all over again.
But then the ferris wheel starts moving, and he finally understands why you look so uncomfortable.
It's the way you immediately grip his forearm, nails digging in his skin and he swears he hears the smallest gasp forcing itself out your throat.
"Are you... scared?" he tentatively asks.
You say nothing for a while, not moving an inch. He would laugh if you didn't look so pained about it.
"I don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters." you finally say through gritted teeth.
"It's not really that small and ferris wheels are not rollercoasters. " your nails dig deeper and he winces. "Okay, okay. You don't like small confined spaces nor rollercoasters, and that includes ferris wheels. So why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know. I've never liked ferris wheels but you seemed excited about it, so..."
There's a silence after that in the environment, neither of you exactly sure of what to say or how to act. Until Jungkook moves one of his hands hands until it's resting on the one who's holding onto him for dear life, fingers caressing yours. The warmth of his hand spreads through yours and although it's almost July and you can already feel your sweaty back staining your dress, it's oddly comforting. What's more comforting even, is him twisting his body towards you and talking with the calmest and most soothing tone you've ever heard.
"Look at me." you do instantly, unwillingly, and kinda wish you hadn't. It's almost as if your body will do anything he says without question. Like he has some sort of power over it to just react however he wants. His eyes bore into yours and suddenly the cab doesn't seem so suffocating. "It's just you and me right now. We're not even on a ferris wheel." the corners of his mouth turn slowly upwards. You zone out the environment, suddenly too aware of him and how close he is and how loud the beating of your heart is to your own ears.
"Jungkook."
You swallow the knot in the back of your throat when he removes his hand from yours. It almost makes you protest, - now realizing you've losened the tight grip on his arm- , before it craddles your face, keeping you in place while bringing his body closer.
"You have to stop saying my name like that."
With his thigh touching your thigh, your whole demeanor melts. When he leans closer, and you feel his breath fanning over your lips, your eyes shut closed.
"Tell me I can-" he starts to say.
"Yes." you finish for him. He doesn't doubt on closing the distance between you two. His lips touch yours and your body shakes in excitement. It's just him lightly skimming your lips with his but it's already too much and at the same time, not enough. It has you deepening it, yourself moving closer when he kisses you again. It has you relaxing against him, the tenseness prior disappearing and making you arch your back when his tongue asks for permission.
But it's exactly then, the moment you open your lips to him, that has you losing your mind.
The sparks fly, traveling from your head to your toes and then settling on the pit of your stomach as soon as the kiss starts to turn desperate and rough. When he nibbles your lips with his teeth, it makes you mewl and whine and your nipples tight against the cotton of your dress. It makes the metal barbell to feel uncomfortable, slightly painful. And when he goes back to being messy and filthy with his tongue tangled with yours, your thighs close on their own.
He forces himself to pull his hand back and bring it down, finding the parting of yd opening them for him. "Wait," you say, your fingers wrapping around his forearm as you try to catch your breath."The ferris-" he shuts you up with another kiss.
"We're not on a ferris wheel." he reminds you, a soft whisper against your mouth. And for whatever reason, you believe him.
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"He fingered you on the ferris wheel."
"Yes."
"And you came before the ride was over."
You take a small sip of wine, your eyes focusing on the TV where a rerun of the Golden Girls is playing, although, to be fair, lately you haven't been able to pay much attention to anything else but a certain brunet with doe eyes and kisseable lips. "Yes."
She hums, stealing a handful of popcorn from the bowl between your thighs.
"How long did it took? Like five minutes?"
There's a pause in which you clench your jaw, your fingers twitching around the glass in your hand, and then you answer. "Probably less."
There's another pause, and then-
"Ha...Ha ha...Ha ha ha-"
You let her laugh. It's okay. You knew you had it coming.
Chaelin knows the pillow you throw right at her face is also something she had coming.
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It's not that you're mad.
Jungkook and you had a great time on that fair date, he made you laugh, bought hot dogs and drinks for the two of you and got you off inside the cab of a ferris wheel on record time with those magical, long fingers of his. Technically, there shouldn't be anything to be angry about.
Except it's been a week and you can't stop thinking about him, about wanting more, and about those words that he left you with after the ferris wheel ride ended, when you had tried to return the favor.
'Next time, maybe.'
And there hasn't been a next time.
The thought of texting him or giving him a call to ask for another date is persistent in your mind. It remains while you do the laundry or wash the dishes, while you shower, while you eat or while you spend your days at the beach with Chaelin. There's always the incessant desire to reach out towards your phone, unlock it and dial his number to beg for more.
But you'd never been one to beg, so you resist the urge everytime that feeling starts to creep up on you and it washes over you like a wave. You silence your phone and try to concentrate on making the most out of your summer.
It's one random night, when you're tiredly dragging your feet across Chaelin's apartment's carpet, yawning and ready to succumb to a well needed slumber, that you see your phone screen's lighting up with a message.
Your heart pathetically leaps inside your chest when you read his name.
'you free on saturday?'
You wish you could say you ghosted him, ignored his text and moved on with your life until it was him who begged you for another date. But the truth is you opened it in a matter of seconds and typed 'i'm free, why?' back in a rush with trembling fingers.
So now you're on the passanger seat of his car while he sits on the driver seat, the first saturday night of July, like he's Danny Zuko and you're Sandy Olsson, watching a vintage movie in a drive-in theater which plot you don't give a shit about, even if Jungkook's date plan idea made something inside of you churn with adoration.
And the only reason why you don't give a single damn about the movie playing in front of your eyes, is because you're hot. Way too hot. And the reason and cause is none other than the boy-now-turned-man sitting on your left.
You barely exchanged words when he picked you up, just rode in silence until you got to your destination and you bet he can feel as well as you do the tension in the air.
You've surveyed him a few times from the corner of his eye, noticing him fiddling with the rings around his fingers and shifting in his seat from time to time. And if the sight of his fingers bring memories that you've tried to bury to keep yourself from lunching towards him, a brief glance at his forearms, adorned with ink drawn through his golden flesh -doing a poor job at concieling the veins running underneath- and his skin-tight jeans wrapping those muscled thighs of his is enough to have you be the one squirming in your seat.
A woman can only endure so much, and you come to that realization thirty minutes into the movie.
"I want to suck your cock." you say, a stern expression on your face as you turn your body in his direction.
Jungkook frozes as your voice slides over him. It takes him a couple seconds to look at you, shock widening his eyes and parting his lips.
"Huh?" he manages, his grip on the steering wheel turning his knuckles white.
Without separating your gaze from his, you gather your hair and tie it in a ponytail with the hair tie previously around your wrist. You don't miss the quick glance he sneaks into the curvature of your neck and the valley between your breasts.
Inching forward, closing in on him, you place one of your hands on top of his thigh, the action making his whole body tense. "____..." he whispers your name in a warning that doesn't sound convincing even in his own ears.
You smile, your eyes never wavering from his as your hand inches upwards, slowly caressing over the fabric of his jeans until you finally come across what you were looking for.
His hand flies to your wrist, stilling your movements. "____, this is not-". He starts, but his voice gets stuck inside his throat when you palm his undoubtly growing erection.
"Shh." your shaky breath fans over his cheek and you force yourself on your knees on the passanger seat in a more comortable possition to stop the trembling to reach them.
You fumble with the belt holding his pants in place, then with the button and finally with the zipper. He helps you by lifting his hips to pull his jeans and boxers to his thighs and you have to bite back a mixture between a gasp and a moan at the sight below you. You haven't even seen Jeon Jungkook naked all the way, but the mere sight of his hard cock with pre-cum glistening on his crown is probably the sexiest thing you've ever had the pleasure of appreciating.
It gets sexier when you wrap your hand around the base and his body melts in the driver seat, throwing his head back with his eyes shut. It gets even sexier when you finally lower your head, swirling your tongue over the head before finally engulfing him fully in the wet warmth of your mouth.
"Shit." his voice is tight, uneven as his hand loosely grips your ponytail, as if careful not to accidentally hurt you and break the glorious moment.
Although you wouldn't mind at all. Because the moment your hands are on him, and your tongue is on his shaft, that's the only thing you care about. Your belly is twisting, an undeniable wet spot on your panties as the fabric sticks to your folds, and the more you suck Jungkook, the more you want from him. His earthy taste is addicting and the soft little whimpers he occasionally can't prevent himself from are making you want to milk him until he can't take it no more. There's this desire within you to whorship him and his cock like you had been dreaming for the past weeks.
"This is s-so fucking h-hot." he rasps between ragged breaths, the bobbing of your head, sliding up and down his dick as your hand works the centimeters your mouth can't take is about to make him faint.
"Getting a blowjob?" you joke, your throat starting to feel sore as you kiss his leaking tip.
"N-no." he draws in a rough breath when you take him all of him again. "You giving me a blowjob... T-the f-fact that anyone c-could see us..." he darts a quick glance at your body, your ass up in the air and your dress sliding down, almost exposing you completely. "The fact that-ah! Shit..." he squeezes his eyes when he feels a glob of your spit lubricating him.
There's a sudden need to make you feel the same, to touch your skin and have you shaking the same way you have him. So one of his hands travels from your spine, to your perked ass, finally dragging the cotton of your dress to allow himself to see your thin white panties. "The fact that anyone could see you l-like this," he murmurs, regaining a little bit of control when he squeezes one of your cheeks. "letting t-them see you s-sucking my cock and..." he smirks when he feels you gasping around him, his fingers trapped between your thighs and pushing them inside your heat easily "and letting them see me fingering this pretty little pussy."
Soon after that he's cumming in your mouth while you're cumming around his fingers.
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At first, it's mostly on weekends when you see each other. Weekends of stolen kisses and soft sighs and whispering against each other's lips. Then weekends turn to week days, sitting on grass while sipping on refreshing beverages, drawing each other laughs, elbows touching as you walk around the park side by side because the both of you are too scared to interwine your fingers together.
Jungkook feels content like this: sitting on the sand with you between his thighs, admiring the sunset while nuzzing your neck and inhaling your scent every now. He likes waching you enoying your strawberry ice cream, almost forgetting the chocolate chip one already melting in his hand.
"If you were an ice cream flavor,which one would you be?" you ask him, relaxing against his chest.
"Rocky road."
"Why?"
He shrugs behind you. "Everyone likes rocky road."
You hum, playfully rolling your eyes. "What about me? Which ice cream flavor would I be?"
"Lemon sherbet, in the summer."
"Lemon sherbet? Out of all of the flavours out there, you're rocky road and I'm lemon sherbet?"
"Lemon sherbet, in the summer." he corrects.
"Okay, fine. Why?"
"You're boring and basic."
You gasp, trying to feign outrage but not being able to repress the laugh that escapes your throat. You elbow him, his laugh mixing with yours while taking the time to wrap his arms around your form, the breeze blowing your hair allowing him a spot between your neck and your shoulder. "You're boring and basic, but once you have a taste..." he presses a small kiss on your skin, causing the tiny hairs on the nape of your neck to rise. "Once you have a taste, specially on the hottest day in the middle of summer, you can't stop tasting and licking until there's no more lemon sherbet left."
You suck in on a breath when he craddles your jaw to face him. "It's been my favourite flavor since I was a kid." he kisses you immediately after, his lips swallowing the small whimper now stuck in your throat.
You close your eyes as his tongue opens your mouth, arousal blasting your insides and something much, much deeper that you fear to even name shredding your chest.
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The beginning of august comes faster then you two realize, but what you both do realize is how hard it's becoming to stay away from each other.
It's been thirty days of dates happening almost everyday, sharing high school memories and anecdotes of the time you spent away from each other. Hours of getting to know each other and opening up to each other. From failed relationships to new friendships. Of park dates walking side by side and fingers now interwined because you both realized one day that, fuck it.
It's difficult to sleep when you realize you're starting to catch serious feelings for somebody who was just supposed to be a fling. It's hard to sleep when his face, his voice and his touch and thoughts of missing him when you don't see each other start haunting you at night.
It's hard for Jungkook to focus on work when you're everything that's occupying his mind. Because he has a hundred sketches to make but he's too busy thinking about the hundred different sketches he would make of you.
It's hard not to send him a goodnight text, just like it's hard for him not to reply in a matter of seconds, almost as if he was already waiting to recieve it.
Jungkook thinks of you at night. Of how pretty and absolutely perfect you are for him. Of the taste of your lips, the way your hair feels between his fingers, or the flush on your cheeks when he makes you cum as droplets of sweat accumulate between your breasts. He thinks about your voice. He also thinks about the amount of hours left to be able to listen to it again.
But mostly he thinks about how ridiculous this situation is. Because he was stupidly crushing on you when you were only teenagers, daydreaming about a chance with you. And now his crush is long gone and he's starting to realize that he's falling, and falling fast.
You, too, think of Jungkook at night. Of his ability to bring a smile out of you, to soothe you with just a few words and filling your belly excitement, happiness and feelings you're sure you've never felt before.
Jungkook's managed to imprint himself in your dreams, and you, in his.
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Getting drunk with Jungkook is fun and messy.
It's fun because he lets loose, he stutters a lot like he used to do when he was a teenager and he makes you laugh louder than ever before. It's messy because he has no control over his hands as they explore your body, clumsily taking your clothes off as his mouth laps at the breast he's allowed to touch.
He's more forceful and dominating too, pinning your hands above your head, and commanding you to keep them right there, on the pillows of his bed. When you rebel against it, your fingers finding the hard planes of his chest, he pulls away from you and places them back where he left them. "Don't make me tie you up." he threatens, and your body shudders beneath him.
He sucks, and bites and leaves marks all over your skin, grunting in response to your moans. Creating a path of kisses from your lips to your stomach, his shoulders separating your knees, opening you up only for him. And thankfully, when you reach down to tug at the strands of hair framing his face, he lets you, because he knows you need something to hold on to the moment his tongue eats you up. He leaves his fingertrips on your thighs as he keeps you in place, not allowing you to runaway. Just forcing you to take it as he takes from you.
And when you cum, he doesn't back away. He keeps sucking, and licking and punishing you with his mouth until you're cumming over and ove again, screaming and begging for his cock.
Having Jungkook over you, both completely naked, skin to skin and only sweat in between is more than you could've ever fantazised about. He slurls your name when he puts the condom on. He would do anything to feel you raw, but he also knows he wouldn't be able to last a minute. The sight of you spread open, with your cheeks darkened by a crimson blush and your hair tangled all over his pillow is a picture he wants to keep forever.
He enters you when you call his name, your voice dripping with need. He stretches your warm and wet felsh, slowly easing himself into you at first, until he's fully inside and your bodies are completely in union. A shiver runs down Jungkook's spine when he looks at your contorted face in pleasure, your lips forming an 'O' and your pussy clenching around him.
"Oh, my God." you moan into the dark of Jungkook's room, and even then, he can clearly appreciate every curve of your body lifting off the mattress to connect with his. He lowers himself on his elbows on either side of your head, caging you in and capturing your mouth with his.
"I know, baby." he murmurs. It's hot, in the middle of August but suddenly Jungkook doesn't hate summer as much as he used to. Not with you sharing the heat with him. "It's way beyond what I could ever imagine." You nod hurriedly against his lips, your arms finding their way around his neck as he starts rocking in and out of you.
"It's too good." you cry, when he hits a particular spot that has you rolling your eyes in bliss and gripping his waist tighter with your legs against you. Your fingers thread through his hair, not bothered by the beads of sweat gathered on the nape of his neck.
"Too good..." he agrees, not missing the shiver that's shaking your own frame when he picks up his speed. "You have no idea what I would do t-to fucking feel you with n-no barriers between us," his movements become frantic as his hips slap against yours, his jaw clenched as he keeps talking, "to s-stuff you full of my c-cum over and over again until it won't stop d-dripping."
Jungkook's voice against your ear has you trembling and your orgasm nearing closer, your nails scratching down his back as his thrusts overpower your form. "Would you like that?" he asks with his voice strangled.
"Y-yes. Anything y-you want."
"You'd take all of my cum like a good cum-slut?"
You hate the fact that that's what makes you come undone. The twisting and knotting in the pit of your stomach finally snapping until you're holding on to him like you never want to let him go and he's following soon after.
Because if Guk, Gukkie, Jengukkie was not only able to make you come in less than a few minutes with his fingers or his tongue, but he was also able to make you cum instantly just by calling you a good cum-slut, that means you're fucked. Like, really, really fucked.
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There's a knot in Jungkook's stomach and a suffocating grip around his vocal chords as he caresses your skin. The sun is rising in the distance with the first rays of light entering his room through the window. Your shamphoo is intoxicating him, numbing him and enticing him to bury his nose in the tangled curls pressing against his chest. Your arm is thrown across his stomach, your breathing leavig goosebumps all over his body.
"It's too early. Go back to sleep." you mumble against his heart. He wonders if you can feel it dangerously speeding up.
"I can't." he says, voice struggling to stay balanced. "I have to tell you something."
You hum in response, sleep still interwined with your body, your arm tightening around him. You sigh in content, expecting him to elaborate.
He wets his suddenly dry lips. "I don't want this to end. In fact, ____.... I want more. Need more."
"Jungkook..." your whole body goes rigid right away, untanglling your bodies from each other and sitting up on the mattress.
"No, listen to me." he mimicks your movements, rapidly grabbing your hands to make you look at him. His eyes are expressive, a mixture of fear and hope swirling in his dark irises. "I wake up everyday, and you're the first thing I think of. I go on about my day, and I keep thinking about you, wondering what you're doing and counting down the hours until I get to see you again. I spend every night dreaming about you, and when we'e together, the only thing I can think about is how I wish I could stop time so I don't have to say bye to you the next morning. ____, I-"
"Jungkook, stop please." you shake your head, pushing away from him and in desperate need of air. You press a hand against your chest, beating back the throb of pain while the other curls in a tight fist, the feeling of your fingernails digging into your palm less painful than the ache inside your heart. "This... This wasn't supossed to happen, Jungkook." you start pacing around the room, as if trying to find an exit while avoiding his gaze. "This was just a summer fling. That's all it was, I'm supposed to come back to the city in two weeks and-"
"A summer fling?" a sardonic sneer comes out of him. "Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening again..." he mumbles to himself before rising from the bed. You stop immediately, a shiver quaking through you as his impressive frame intimidates His eyebrows are drawn together and his dark eyes are void of any prior emotion. "You're going back to the city in two weeks? And you didn't care to tell me until now, after I just spilled my guts to you?"
You eyes fill up with uncomfortable tears, reaching one arm towards him. "Jung-"
He flinches, taking one step back. "A summer fling is all I mean to you?"
"Ju- "
"Look me in the eyes, right now, and tell me that's all I mean to you. A summer fling." panic crawls up your throat. There's the need within you to confirm, to stare into his beautiful and stern eyes and tell him that, yes, that's all he is to you. But you've never been a good liar. So nothing comes out. You opt for wrapping your ams around yourself wishing they were his and lowering your eyes to the ground. "I think... I think you should leave."
Those are the last words he says to you, and the last thing you see when you turn around one more time after gathering your clothes, is his back as he looks out the window.
You allow yourself to cry the exact moment you step into Chaelin's apartment. Your friend is sitting on the couch, bowl of cereal in hand and a fresh cup of coffee sitting on the livingroom's table.
"Hey, you're early tod- Baby, what's wrong?"
"Please, don't laugh."
That morning, you lay down for hours on the couch with your head on Chaelin's lap while she softly brushes your hair as you cry, hiccup, fight through the pain in your heart and relate to her as best as you can the latest events.
She doesn't laugh at all.
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
"She'll come back." Mijoo's slurred words do nothing to put Jungkook's state at ease that night. He simply shrugs, fingers clenching at his sides, frowing into his drink before gulping down the bitter taste of vodka in one shot. "Seriously, I think she's just afraid. My ex was the same."
"Comparing her to your ex is not the analogy you think it is."
"Ugh, shut up. Things didn't work with my ex because she was a bitch." Jungkook gives Mijoo a pointed look which she responds to by rolling her eyes and sipping on her rum coke. "Your girl is not a bitch. She used to be a bitch. What she did this morning was bitchy, but, like I said, she's just being a pussy. If she only wanted sex with you, she wouldn't have been doing couple stuff with you the entire summer."
"Whatever. I don't care." he lies and Mijoo knows he's lying but decides to drop the subject fo now.
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
"We can't keep spending our days smoking weed." Chaelin speaks over Blanche's voice on the TV.
"I know. I'm just sad."
"You have to come back and tell him how you feel."
"I know."
There's a beat of silence before your friend kicks your thigh with her feet.
"I know and I will." you mumble through red eyes and smoke clouds.
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
It's September first and it doesn't feel like Jungkook's birthday at all. He's been trying to focus on his work, alternating between isolating in full hermit mode and hanging out with friends to drink away his sorrow. The days have gone by and before he could realize it, he woke up today with over twenty text messages wishing him a happy day and a throbbing hangover.
He dresses up on autopilot. First a cotton shirt, then a pair of jeans and lastly, his Nike's. He doesn't bother tying his sneakers just like he doesn't bother taking a shower. He smokes a cigarette for breakfast, the death stick making him feel nauseaus on an empty stomach. And then he goes to work.
He's been repeating the same routing for the past weeks and he's not thinking of changing it, not even on his bithday.
He spends hours drawing, tattooing and drawing some more between yawns. He ignores texts an phone calls and simply waits until the day is over to go home, go to bed and forget about the fact that you're probably on your way to the city and that he hasn't crossed your mind not even once.
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
Inkphoria.
You've been standing outside the shop re-reading the word for fifteen minutes, although it definitely feels like it has been longer. You're gripping cup of ice cream as it melts down your fingers the more you wait. The shop is already empty and it's starting to darken out side, and still you're so hot. Your shorts are heavy and your tank top is sticking to your skin. You didn't even bother to put on any make, although your eyebags definitely needed some concieling and your lashes some dimension to hide the fact that you'd been crying for the last few days.
'You're crazy about him.'
Chaelin's voice echoes inside your head.
You've lost count of how many times your best friend has given your advice, or simply encouraged you to do something you've been too scared to try.
'And he's cazy about you too.'
Chaelin might be wrong about marmite and the movie Cats, but she's definitely now wrong about anything regarding your and Jungkook.
That's it. You briefly close your eyes, inhale a deep breath then release it slowly. You start walking. It doesn't take longer than three strides and you're pushing the door open.
The tattoed blonde looks up from the counter the second you come into view. She smiles at the distance between you two. "You can come closer. I won't bite."
You clear your throat, stalking closer to her. "Is he-"
"He's in the back." she replies before you can finish you question. You close your mouth, clear your throat and nod your head.
"Thanks, Mijoo." she gives you a small wink, her smile easing your nerves like she had three months ago.
She watches you disappear. She shakes he head, her smile meeting her eyes. "I told him so."
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
Jungkook ignores the knock on his door at first. It's almost ten and the parlor is about to close. He just has to finish this last fucking sketch so he can grab his shit and go the fuck ho-
Knock knock.
He growls, exhasperation cursing through him. He runs a hand through his messy pile of hair, his rings tangling between the strands, making him wince in pain. "Come in." he grunts under his breath. The door opens. "Mijoo, I really have to finish-"
He stops dead in his tracks as soon as he sees you.
"Hey." you say after a moment of hesitation.
"Hey." he replies and although there's something inside, deep in his chest, shouting at him to stand up, run up to you and kiss your face while he tells you how beautiful you look right now and how happy he is to see that you're still here, he decides against it. "Listen, ____, I'm pretty busy-"
"No, you listen to me." you cut him off abruptly. He looks taken aback and is already opening his mouth to say something, but you're not having it. "Please, just... Let me talk."
Silence looms between the two of you for a while, a staring contest defying each other to back down. When you take one step inside and close the door behind you, he sighs and leans back against his chair.
You move towards him slowly, your lip caught between your lip going through your mind for the speech you'd been preparing the last few days. Your hands are sticky due to the the sugary treat liquifying in your hand. "I know there's no reason you should give me another chance after rejecting you in high school, and there's definitely no reason why you should forgive me for the way I shut you out a few weeks ago. You've been confessing your feelings to me since we were teenagers, and now it's my turn to tell you exactly how I feel about you."
"Jungkook, the truth is... I like you so much. I like you more than I've ever liked anyone. Ever. I said this was just a summer fling, and I was lying. I was lying because there's no way a simple summer fling could make me feel the way you do. There's no way a simple summer fling could make me want not just summer with you, but also fall and winter, and spring and every summer that comes next."
You hadn't realize when your eyes filling up with tears until the sight of him starts blurrying in front of you. His fingers reach yours, his thumb comforting on your skin. "____, it's okay-"
"I'm not done yet." you sniffle, gathering enough courage to continue. "I brought you a lemon sherbet because you said it was your favourite. But you also implied I was your favourite, and I want to keep being you favourite, but now it's already melted and-"
The corners of Jungkook's lips start pulling upward as he tugs you towards him, his heart loudly jumping inside his chest. "Shhh, come here."
He takes the ice cream from your hand and places it on his desk. Then he's helping you onto his lap, your head tucked under his chin and your arms wapping on their own around his neck.
He doesn't care about your sticky fingers or the wet stains of your tears in his shirt. The only thing he cares about is the fact that you're right there, letting him engulf your frame and drown in the scent and warmth he'd misses so much.
≿━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━≾
The first day of June has Jungkook sweating and wishing for a haircut. Jungkook usually hates summer. He hates the fact that he has to shower at least twice a day, and the fact that the heat is almost unbearable to sleep in and also the fact that he's easily sunburnt.
This year, however, Jungkook likes summer a little bit more.
"Excuse me, miss. Do you have an appointment?" it's the fact that you're starting to wear those summer dresses he loves so much, and the fact that your skin glows under the sun like glitter, and also the fact that he can lick ice cream off of it whenever he desires.
"I am the appointment." your giggle is almost childlike, playing with Jungkook's heart strings. You shut the door behind you, nearing him. You also seem to always have that flush on your cheeks. Although he likes to think part of it is due to him. He doesn't say anything else as he puts his pencil down and instead turns around in the chair to have you immediately on top of his thighs.
Yeah, he also likes the path your lips trace from his cheek, to his jaw, ending at the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. It still makes his body quaver to this day.
"Let me see." he murmurs against you forhear, his hand already working on unbottoning the front of your dress.
"Mijoo hasn't left yet." you whisper back, your smile impossible to supress and the faint whimper impossible to hide when his fingers expose your breast and tug at the titanium barbell adorning the already hardened nub.
Jungkook loves knowing he was the one to do that, and also the only one to play with it. He doesn't hesitate when he dips his head. "As if we'd ever cared about that." he adds, wrapping your sole point in his mouth.
He fucks you on his studio table with your legs around his waist and his tongue playing with both your breasts, the tattoo sketches long forgotten, scattered on the floor as he whispers against your flesh something that sounds a lot like 'I love you'.
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Change of plans | Elliot x Reader
Summary: You get your nipples pierced
Pairing: Elliot x Reader
Word count: 0.8k
Request: One thought: reader getting their nipples pierced and Elliot’s reaction
keep sending prompts
-
It was a crazy idea, but here you were, sitting in a tattoo and piercing parlor.
The initial plan was to go see the new movie with Tom Holland - Cassie had a huge crush on him -, but when Maddy passed in front of the tattoo and piercing parlor, she changed the plans and decided you should all get pierced.
Cassie took the soft way and got a second lobe while Maddy did her bellybutton - again. She had it done at the beginning of freshman year, but lost the jewelry while at the beach and it closed. This time, she'll be more careful.
You wanted something different, though. Something bolder.
''It looks so fucking good, Y/N,'' Maddy said as you exited the parlor.
''It hurts like a bitch, though,'' you moaned, feeling the fabric of your clothes rub against your freshly done - and very sensitive - piercing. ''Remind me why I thought this was a good idea? My nipples feel on fire now.''
''Bitch, I'm in pain too,'' Maddy declared, looking down at her exposed piercing, the skin around it very red and angry. ''How am I going to sit in the car?''
''How long will them take to heal?'' Cassie asked you.
''Eight to twelve months, the piercer said.''
Cassie raised her eyebrows. ''Wow. That's crazy long.''
You hummed. ''You think he will like it? Elliot,'' you asked, biting your lip.
Beside you, Maddy snickered. ''Elliot is such a boy, of course he will. His teenage hormones won't be able to handle it.''
You gave the raven haired girl a stern look, hating when she made fun of your boyfriend. She didn't mean any harm, it was just Maddy being Maddy. ''Don't talk about him like that...''
''You're the one who told us he always has a boner,'' Cassie reminded with a little giggle.
''And that he had premature ejaculation troubles,'' Maddy added.
You groaned in embarrassment at your past drunk confessions. Tequila and you were not a good mix. You always ended blabbing and spilling secrets. ''I was drunk when I told you that!''
If Elliot knew you - even if accidentally - told Cassie and Maddy about his sexual problems, he'd be mortified. It was private matter and you felt really bad for revealing these informations to your friends.
.
Elliot opened his mouth to speak, but closed it. He had no words. It's like his brain short-circuited the second he saw them.
Being naked in front of Elliot usually didn't make you uncomfortable. You were way past that stage in your relationship. But standing in the middle of his bedroom with your shirt off, baring your breasts to your boyfriend as he blatantly stared at your newly pierced nipples was making you really uncomfortable.
''Are you going to say something? Because this silence is making me really nervous.'' You shifted on your feet, getting more anxious.
You would rather he tell you he hates them than this agonizing silence.
''Jesus fucking christ,'' Elliot said under his breath. Then, he groaned, suddenly feeling warm.
''Do you like them?''
His eyes flickered up to yours. ''Do I like- I fucking love 'em.''
Elliot grabbed your hips, pulling you closer to him, his eyes practically at level with your freshly pierced nipples. He swiped his tongue over his lips, feeling his pants getting tight at the sight of the silver jewelry going through each of your nipples. They were peaked and the skin was a little red and bruised.
''I just want to wrap my lips around your nipples and suck on them.'' He kissed your stomach, going up between your breasts.
You breathed out a giggle, anxiety over. ''They gotta heal first, E.'' You buried your hand in his blond curls, feeling his lips on your skin.
Elliot sighed dramatically. ''I know.'' He tilted his head back and raised an eyebrow. ''Don't you need to be eighteen to get your tits pierced, though?''
Although most piercings can be done if sixteen years old and have written permission from your parental guardian, nipples piercings required to be eighteen. No reputable body piercer will pierce nipples on someone who is underage. It's creepy and it's too easy to cross lines legally.
''Yeah, but did you see my tits? The piercer was not going to turn me down. He wanted to see them too.'' You laughed shortly.
Before you, Elliot's jaw crisped, getting the irk about that piercer.
Sensing his train of thoughts, you cupped his face and sat over his lap. ''Before you worry, I had Maddy stay in the room with me so nothing weird would happen. I was safe with her. You know she wouldn't hesitate to call a pervert out or raise a hand if he got handsy.''
You could see on his face that he still didn't like it, but it was already done. And nothing bad happened.
''Now, can you please get me ice? They really hurts.''
Elliot nodded. ''I'd offer to kiss them better, but...''
-
Tag-list: @milkiane @euphoricfeminine
Elliot tag-list: @adashipsjegulus @lovesanimals0000 @ellyskey
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Happy and Hungover
Pairing: Cassie Howard x Reader
Summary: The reader has a bit too much fun at a party the night before. Luckily she has a loving girlfriend to take care of her who can handle her liquor much better.
Warnings: Mentions of alcohol.
A/n: Hello all, I'm going to be updating just as much as yesterday but I just wanted you all to know that I love you all and I appreciate you beyond belief. Also I have a really big test tomorrow so if I'm MIA just know that I'm probably studying.
Cassie had a rocky history with liquor.
Her mother and father both drank themselves into stupors without apologies. Then her father left and ventured into heavier stuff while her mother kept up her same old shit. Bottles and bottles of wine to mend her broken heart.
Cassie told me that she first tried alcohol when she was sixteen, not having any interest in it before hand. But there was no way she was that good at holding her liquor if she didn't have lots of experience.
She stopped drinking about a year and a half ago. I was proud of her, but sad that it occurred after she had hit rock bottom. It was after the night in the hot tub during all the Nate and Maddy drama. She was horrified after throwing up in the hot tub, not wanting to put herself in a position to get that messy ever again.
But, when we started dating and she told me she didn't drink, she made it clear that I could still drink if I wanted. That it wouldn't bother her. I didn't drink that often to begin with but when I did, I had a tendency to get a bit too loosey goosey. It was fun for Cassie, though. She would say that I get really lovie and very appreciative when I'm drunk but I can never remember.
One time she compared me to a sheep and described how she had to 'cattle wrangle' me back to the car.
But last night was just one of those nights. I think I blacked out, not remembering anything after my sixth shot. But I felt comfortable knowing that Cassie was there the whole time and would've never allowed me to get into too much trouble.
I think.
Pulling the blankets over my head with a groan, I hear Cassie laugh from the doorway. The room was beyond bright, the evil sunlight peaking through the blinds of my room. I don't remember coming home last night but it was comforting to know that Cassie managed to change me into pajamas before allowing me to pass out.
"You went way too hard last night, huh?" She teases in a quiet voice, approaching my side of the bed. I hear her place down a glass beside me, her small hands pulling the covers back. Her eyes are soft as she looks down at me, my eyes squinting to make her out. My head pounds as the room around me spins, still feeling the effects of the alcohol from the night prior. "Hi pretty." She coos, kneeling down next to the bed as she cups my cheeks. She looks ready for the day, dressed and her face dawned with a light coat of makeup. Even in my agony, I could still appreciate that she was the most beautiful girl I've ever met. Don't tell Maddy. "I brought you Tylenol and some water." She nods her head towards the nightstand, a hum of appreciation leaving my lips as I snuggle further into the bed. "Maybe if you get up and shower, I'll join you." She offers with twinkling eyes, my heartbeat picking up speed in my chest. She giggles at my wide eyes, my head bobbing in a nod.
"Are you trying to tell me politely that I reek?" I ask in a quiet voice, it coming out croaky and strained.
"Yeah, baby, you're quite literally oozing alcohol." She giggles, pulling the blankets completely off of me as I shiver and I watch as she holds her hand out to me. "C'mon." She mutters, nodding towards the bathroom as I comply.
I slide out of bed, quickly downing the medicine beside me with a sigh. The water was much needed, the cool liquid soothing my aching throat. My feet hit the floor as I groan, my head shaking as I avoid the light coming in from the window. Cass just laughs quietly at me, her lips pressing against my forehead with a sigh.
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up."
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Taglist: @jamespotterswifey @bubblebuttwade @rafelover2405 @leslienjazzy @sorceresss @grxnde-dwt @alex--awesome--22 @bunnietoof @niyamar1e @serialghost @plantlungs @geniusohn @akaliltimmytim @lilaalouuxx @xshariex @elliotsbeigeguitar @elle4404 @lelieja @srhxpci @joselyn001 @taysirene @spinkspanther @thedivineuphoria @peter-maximoffs @tsukishimawhore @poohkie90 @szlaco @distantsighs @nstyles4299 @wolflover384 @givemefoodandlovesstuff @vane28282 @yeswhatever33 @amirrahfranson @vvaalleennttiinna @f-mu @yaspillz @jeyramarie @skylievin@abbybarnes17 @jointherebellion215 @visiondaddy @steezysimfinds @its-ya-gay-boi-luigi @crunchytoenailsyum@glizzymcguirex @beth123lg @melovesmut @letmebeyoureuphoria @rafecameronswhore @4lyssasworld @write-from-the-heart @ariianelle @vampviolets @theanxietyqueen17 @haylee-e
Euphoria Taglist: @usernamelol @ssprayberrythings @pessimisticbiitch @urmomsangel @rosepetalsparks @bluetreecloud20
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It´s too late, isn´t it?
Arthur Shelby x fem! Reader
Summary: Maybe Arthur should have told her, shouldn´t he? No, (Y/N) has moved on.
Warnings: None, maybe a bit of heartbreak tho 🥰😉😭
MY SHELBY BOYS MASTERLIST
Arthur Shelby,
He had been in love with (y/n) for all of his childhood. For as long as he could remember even. There had never been a time where he hadn´t been utterly smitten by the little girl just down the street.
She was a true beauty to be seen. The brightest smile constantly adorned her features and her big gleaming eyes were always there to get him through the day.
Even when unbeknown to her.
Because simply put, Arthur was a coward.
But he was certain that one day! Yeah, one day he would muster up the courage to tell her! Right?
At least that was what nine-year-old Arthur would always tell himself, especially now, as he hid behind a wall as he saw her approaching in her graceful ways.
To him, she always appeared like one of the most beautiful flowers, but with that came his fear, that one day the dirty streets of Small Heath would turn her bright shimmering colours dull, and some men with their fast horses would tramble the little flower over, not noticing her beauty.
Oh, how his smaller brother would scold him now, for appearing so weak and poetic!
Arthur always had known that his smaller brother was so much more smarter and mature than him. But sometimes he still couldn´t stop feeling surprised by little Thomasses ways. It was truly amazing but on the other hand side, it was getting on his nerves… Tommy always tried to do him one better! Just like now!
Peaking out of his hiding spot, he could see them! Tommy and (Y/N)! Tommy knew that Arthur felt some sorta way for her and now he had decided to test his bloody theory! And Arthur surely hated every minute of it!
Just at this moment, the smaller Shelby was telling (Y/N) something that made her giggle and Arthurs face turned red from anger. How dare he!
Later he would tell Arthur how he did anything he could think of, for his foolish brother to finally admit his feelings for her, and oh did Arthur wish he had.
Because what he had felt then, was nothing compared to how he would have to feel for the rest of his life.
On the 23.December 1900 for example,
(Y/N) and the Shelby boys had gone on one of their adventures again. Just like every day, really. It wasn´t anything new to them.
But while getting older, (Y/N)´s parents started to worry for their daughter. She should rather start to get some female friends… what would people think?
(Y/N) couldn´t care less to be honest. She felt happy this way. Catching their breath after having run a couple of miles. Arthur, Tommy and (Y/N) finally stopped. Laughing along, looking at the things they had stolen from the Market.
“Not bad boys… not bad.” (Y/N) grinned while looking at both of them and Arthurs heart couldn´t help but flutter in his chest. She looked so beautiful like this!
Their friendship with each other bloomed like flowers in spring, not one rainy day insight and oh how both of them wished it would stay that way.
But with foolish teenagers around, nothing was able to stay simple, so when Arthur Shelbys sixteens birthday rolled around, Mary Duller from a couple of houses up the street had claimed to be his girlfriend and while (Y/N) was still questioning her relationship with the oldest Shelby, that threatened to break her heart.
Even though she was still not believing what stupid Mary-cunt, as one of her friends had called her snickering, (Y/N) gathered all her courage, visiting the Shelbys home.
Right in the fucking perfect moment! Because when she arrived and John had opened the front door, she caught a glimpse of Marry-cunt Duller on Arthur fucking Shelby’s lap, snogging him like a fish desperate for water!
That day she had sworn to never ever talk to all of the bloody Shelby-lot ever again! Sleeping on a wet tear-stained pillow, she made a pact with herself, not willing to break it, she ignored all of the attempts from the Shelby boys to get her out of her bedroom again.
Her parents were delighted by the fact that their daughter finally grew out of her rebellious phase and encouraged her, even going as far as slamming the door in Johns’s face once…or twice.. or even trice!?
After that, the attempts of the boys became less and less until they finally stopped altogether, leaving Arthurs heart heavy because he still didn´t understand why!
While her parents quickly seemed to have forgotten about them, (Y/N) could not.
Watching with worry in her eyes, as she saw him running about, only being able to think of him again.
Maybe they had gotten older, maybe someone could say that they had gotten more mature… but well that would have been a lie. At least in Arthurs case. More reckless than ever, Arthur strolled down the streets with his brothers, always ready to pick a fight. They were true Small Heath boys after all!
How would this end? She had known Arthur for all her life. But in the last couple of months, he had gotten even wilder, watching him blow off from the safety of her windowsill, she started to think it was better that way, keeping her distance from them.
Rumours had it that the Shelbys weren’t just low Birmingham scum, but actually even worse than that so much worth actually that (Y/N) mother had finally decided for (Y/N) to not see them anymore at all, not even at church, where she would from time to time at least say hi to Ada… and now (Y/N) herself thought that this was for the best.
Live went on as usual, and as their teenage years passed, (Y/N) and Arthur were, as if attracted by each other like mots to the light, slowly getting closer again.
(Y/N) not agreeing with the things he spent his time with and Arthur not understanding (Y/N) prudish ways, their relationship stayed difficult. While both of them refused to tell each other or even acknowledging what they still felt for each other, the day came when it was Arthurs time to say goodbye.
And God how he wanted it to finally be the day he had enough courage to admit it, not only to himself but to the whole world.
It had rained,
it had rained the day he told her.
It poured down on the two, as he told her that he would join the men at the front. Arthur crown prince of Small Heath just still a young boy to (Y/N) with a big heart and too many boiled up emotions in his body would leave their world. Maybe even forever?
It broke her heart. Standing on the platform, watching the train slowly deport the young boy’s souls turning them into men, she knew that he was gone, he would never come back. At least not to her. No. She had lost him. Forever.
That was all she was able to think of, when she slowly strode home that night, feeling so empty. Why didn´t she just open her mouth!? Why was she so stupid!
Why had she been so afraid? Maybe he would have turned her down…her parents would have been disappointed for sure…Oh, why was she thinking of this again!? It would do her no good anyway!
But still, if she had said something… maybe…just maybe he would have stayed?
Oh, who was she kidding… of course he wouldn´t have! Arthur never had been one to leave his brothers fighting on their own!
But had she known that Arthur was thinking of her just as much as she was thinking of him…Maybe she wouldn´t have tried to move on.
Cause while sitting in the mud, the horrors of war, the worst humanity was capable of doing all displaying in front of his eyes…Arthurs mind was far far away.
With her.
Her kind spirit, her friendly face, her breathtaking laugh. All of that was everything he had to keep sane. She was his lighthouse in the middle of the storm, making sure his small boat wouldn´t crash, would find its way home save and sound. Back to her!
She was the only one that was able to bring his mind to rest, the only thing he had to fall asleep to, the only purpose he saw in holding on, in not just giving up, in fighting on hell in life itself!
And that sole purpose alone was the reason his heart overleaped in joy, as he was finally brought back home! Out of this hell hole.
Oh if he just had known.
The moment he set foot back onto the platform of Small Heath, he knew something wasn´t quite right. But to hell with that! Who would care!
He was back home…maybe the demons of France were still tightly packed into his luggage…but all of this would change, right? As soon as he would see her, everything would finally be as meant to be! Everything would change for the better for him, right?
Finally being able to hug his aunt and sister again, he relished in their precents, and even if he was truly happy to be seeing them again, enjoying their warm welcoming, he couldn´t wait to finally see her again!
Had she changed? Because he did! He finally wanted to scream in young Arthurs face that today was the day! He would tell her! He was no fool! He would tell her and finally live the life he had wanted to live!
Maybe he was a changed man, maybe he had a couple more scars, a couple more nightmares, maybe half of who he used to be was gone…but compared to what he had here, to what was awaiting him, all of this seemed so small and insignificant.
Maybe it had been selfish of him, to expect her to be the solution to all his problems…
Maybe having downed a class too much, Arthur made his way over to her parent’s house, oh how nothing here had changed! It was strange because he had… but somewhat the feeling of being at his safe space was very comforting!
Knocking on her very familiar door, he was slightly confused as a younger man opened up. He had never seen him before…had he? (Y/N) never had had a brother.
Slightly confused as well, the man looked at Arthurs dishevelled state. What was a drunk, strange unfamiliar man doing in front of his house at such an ungodly hour?
“Is…IS (Y/N) home!?” Arthur tried to stay collected…he couldn´t wait any longer! All the words he had to spend night after night, day after day, practising for the moment he finally came home to tell her! They all threatened to spill out all at once, every moment now!
“…Yeah. Wait a minute.” The man mumbled to himself, still, a bit weirded out, before turning around, talking to someone else, and shortly after there she stood, in all her glory.
Looking as beautiful as ever.. wait no! She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Her soft-looking lips, her cute nose, her shimmering eyes and her flawless hair….She truly was perfect in his eyes!
Even tho her eyes looked a bit tired, maybe he had woken her up? Not really having the mind to care for that anymore, he straightened his back coughed a bit trying to find a good point to start with. “(Y/N)” He nervously but non the less happily exclaimed, smiling brightly up at her.
His only hope in life, his saviour!
But all that she did was gasp in shock. “Arthur!” even though she still wasn´t able to comprehend what was happening here she had to smile. “You´re back!”
“Yeah I made meself come back! Just for you! Trust me (Y/N) I am no fool! Mark me words! I´ve been trying to tell you this since….Forever I guess! But I love you! Oh, I love you so much!” His voice dropping into a whisper, (Y/N) could have sworn that his eyes were slowly glazed over by a thick curtain of tears as he gazed up at her.
Like a lost soul hoping for, no, craving for its salvation. But she couldn´t give it to him.
Thick tears running down over her rosy cheeks, she snivelled a bit. Her bare feet touching the cold floor of the front stairs, as she slowly made her way out of the house, taking his hands in hers.
“Oh Arthur…Arthur…”
You fool…
Still hopeful he grinned slightly, taking her face in his warm rough hands, still gazing into her eyes.
“Tell me..tell me (Y/N)…I don´t have much to offer… I am just a broken somewhat dumb man but… I know it’s not much. But I will share me everything with you! I am not good with all that poetry posh bloody stuff… but listen (Y/N) all I can give to you is me heart, but you will have it! You already have it! Please… I ask you this…it´s really not much here, at your front door but…will you…will you marry me (Y/N)?”
Sadly smiling (Y/N) hand went up to wipe away her tears. “Oh Arthur…”
And then he saw, the simple little gold band, wrapping itself around her slender finger, almost as if mocking him in the sneakiest way possible and now it was his time to let his tears run free.
“(Y/N)” he pledged, almost throwing himself at her feet. “(Y/N)! Please! I promise… I promise! I don´t know what to do without you!”
Feeling her own heart sink, she tried to pull him into a hug. “Arthur don´t… it won't change anything…”
“Who…tell me who!”
“Arthur… please calm down! Okay!?”
Wheeling around, Arthur looked through her eyes, right into a soul. It sent shivers down her spine. Was he mad? With his strong grip on her wrist, she tried to get loose.
“Stop Arthur.. you're.. you’re hurting me!” Desperate he pulled her closer
“Please… I promise! I promise…I´ll do better! Just don´t leave me like this!”
“Arthur! Stop it! I beg you!”
Her voice was trembling at the sight of the men she once loved more than her own life, sitting at her feet, bawling his eyes out, begging her to stay with him.
She didn´t know what to do! He finally let go of her. His body shook as he finally fully sank to his feet, trembling in the dirt like a kicked dog. Ambandoned by its owner.
“(Y/N)” a third voice joined, as the men from earlyer stepped out of the house, blanked and a pair of simple slippers in hand. “Can´t get risking you catching a cold, love. Not good for you or the baby.”
His voice was laced with concern and a bit of amusement, as he draped the blanket over her delicate shoulders, setting her shoes down on the ground before he noticed the shaking men on the ground.
“What is going on here!?” Baffled he looked to his wife and back to the man on the ground. “Do you need help sir? Is everything alright!?” The concern now replaced by real fear for a life, he tried to lend Arthur a helping hand, before (Y/N) slowly shook her head. “Everything is fine Theo, but thank you.”
Taking his hand in hers, she was able to calm her worrywart of a husband.
And that´s when Arthur realised. He was a fool! He always had been! He was a selfish man! (Y/N) deserved someone better than him. She deserved to be treated with kindness….She deserved something else than a broken man like him, she deserved more than he would ever be able to offer her! And she had already found him… The one who offered her that and so much more than it. And it wasn´t him, it wasn´t Arthur.
He couldn´t even be jealous.
The alcohol in his blood now making him feel nauseous, as he slowly got up. Slapping (Y/N) helping hand away in the process, he straightened out his clothes.
Oh, how he had made a fool out of himself again!
This Theo-man wrapping his arm around his wife so much more loving than Arthur thought he would ever have managed to do, Arthur slowly turned around.
Facing his love one last time. If she would have ever agreed to his proposal if he would have asked sooner? He would never know. But the glance she gave him, was all that he needed to turn around, trying to not look back.
But saying that he wasn´t tempted to, would have been a lie.
Making his way back home was so much more painful than the wounds he had suffered in France, because now?
Now he had nothing to live for anymore. His strength slowly left him, as he stumbled over the cobblestones. He never was one for talking about his feelings much, but how was it possible to feel so much pain, like your heart got squished and torn apart but feel so numb and far away from everything at the same time?
Silently grumbling, he sat down at his own front door, lighting a cigarette, he really had fucked it up this time, hadn´t he?
And slowly it creped through his always, at least appearing to be, thick skin, into his flesh, into his bones. He hadn´t changed. No. Not even Birmingham had changed. It was still a cruel place. And even though nothing had changed, and he was still this cowardly weak little boy, everything felt different now.
This comfort of home was all gone now. It was suffocating how all had stayed the same, his life apparently of so much insignificance that even though he was hurting more than ever, everything still stayed the same…everything would stay the same, he wasn´t one bit important.
At that he just broke completely, the unshielded horrors of what had happened to him now came upon him in all their fearsome reality.
No (Y/N) to shield him from his cruel thoughts. No one to protect his soul in the crossfire, no one to keep his heart from freezing over in the coldest of nights. Would he ever recover? He had seen them, the unlucky men who were slowly eaten up by their regrets of the past. Would he become one of them? Only his future would tell.
But what future could that be, when his heart laid at the front door of the woman he loved more than anything, if she wanted it or not, he would never get it back. And the small boy he once was, he still is, had to learn to live without it.
@datewithgianni
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As Time Went On
Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader
Requested by: anon ‘Could I request a Tommy Shelby x reader where it shows your relationship throughout your whole life so like from being friends at a really young age until married in adulthood’
Warnings: mentions of war/violence/sex but nothing in detail. Also, drinking and smoking
Gif creds to owner
“Oi! You’re not allowed here. Girls aren’t allowed,”
You rolled your eyes, concentrating on scribbling the names of the horses your father had told you onto a bit of paper with a blunt pencil.
“Shut it, Shelby. Your Aunt Polly is a girl and she’s always here. Anyway, Dad doesn’t finish in the factory until after closing time and Mum’s too busy taking care of my brother, so shut the fuck up and let me put my bloody bet on,”
Polly smirked into her cup as she walked over to you both, trying not to laugh at the argument between the two seven year olds (although Tommy would constantly remind everyone that he was actually seven and a half). “Alright, Thomas. Go and help your brother, you know he’s bad at sums. You written those horses down for me , love?” She asked, and you handed her the piece of paper. While she checked over your wonky writing, tommy glared at you, sticking his tongue out at you as he walked away.
***
“What if he kicks me? Or throws me off? Or bites me?”
Tommy laughed slightly. “He won’t. Shadow’s a good horse. Even our Ada rides him sometimes. C’mon, I’ll help you up,” Although a little apprehensive, you accepted Tommy’s leg up as you got onto the horse, eyes widening as he shifted. “It’s alright. He’s just getting used to you,”
“I thought girls were meant to ride with their legs on one side,” you said after a while as Tommy began leading the horse slowly around his paddock.
“Only rich, posh girls who don’t know anything about horses,” tommy said. “Us? We know horses. This is how we do it,”
You nodded, smiling slightly as you looked down at tommy. You were both fourteen now, him nearing fifteen, and he seemed to have grown overnight. When you were younger, you had been a few inches taller than him, which came at a real advantage when you played chase (or a fun game called Run As Fast As You Can So Polly Doesn’t Wack Us With Her Wooden Spoon) but now, even with you atop the horse, you could see how much taller he was.
A little while later, he helped you down off Shadow, and he gulped, feeling the softness of your waist beneath your dress. He cleared his throat and together you led the horse back to the stables, stealing glances at one another when the other wasn’t looking.
***
“My dad will fucking kill me,” you said in a hushed voice, barely suppressing your tipsy giggles as you and Tommy sat by the Cut, hiding in the shadows of Charlie’s yard.
“He’s more likely to kill me,” Tommy grinned, taking a swig from the bottle before passing it to you. “Sixteen years old and here you are, out past midnight, getting you shitfaced, smoking. I really have led you astray,”
You grinned, gulping from the bottle and sloshing it down your front. Tommy shook his head fondly. “You’re such a fuckin’ lightweight, YN,” he said, and you laughed loudly. “Shhh shut the fuck up,” tommy said, his own laugh betraying him as he pressed his hand ovef your mouth. You stared at eachother for a moment as he slowly moved his hand and you leaned in close, pressing your lips against his.
“Oi! Who’s there?”
“Shit, Charlie’s coming, c’mon! Grab the fuckin’ whiskey, YN, for Christ’s sake!”
Tommy grabbed your hand and pulled you up and you ran off, laughing into the night.
***
He was different when he came back from France. They all were.
Tommy wouldn’t let go of you when he stepped off the train, his tears soaking into the shoulder of your coat. It was only when you promised you’d stay with him at the little house in Watery Lane that he pulled away, and you walked arm in arm together.
He proposed that night, and it was the first time you and the Shelby’s (save for Finn, who didn’t quite understand why his brothers were so sad all of a sudden) properly smiled in years.
***
The arrival of Grace Burgess to Small Heath caused quite the stir, but you and Polly saw right through her. She expected her singing to entrap tommy into spilling the Peaky secrets, but when you cornered her before opening time, she soon backed off. Whether it was the butterfly knife you rammed into the bar, the ice cold look you fixed her with, or your silver tongue, she knew it was more than her life’s worth to cross Polly Gray and YN Shelby.
You and Polly made a point of ordering Scotch whiskey whenever Grace was around- much to the brother’s amusement.
***
You were furious with Tommy for facing off with Billy Kimber, and even more so when Sabini got involved.
That didn’t stop you doting on him, making sure his bullet wound from Kimber was cleaned daily.
And Tommy definitely milked it, even after it began to scar.
“Ay, where’s my kiss to make it better, Mrs Shelby?” He’d ask with a cheeky glint in his eye that was only ever seen by you.
“You’re pushing your fucking luck, you,” you’d say.
But of course, you’d press a gentle kiss over the bandage, and another to his lips.
***
When Polly grasped onto your breast after a family meeting, all hell broke loose. Ada, with little Karl on her lap gave you a knowing look, while Arthur and John cheered loudly (“about time, Tom!”). Finn was confused as to why you were recieving an impromptu breast exam at the table, and Tommy... just stared at you with wide eyes.
“Am I...?”
“Is she...?” You said at the same time and Polly just nodded, returning to her seat and giving you both a smile.
You and Tommy left early, with John and Arthur shouting after you both to be careful, ready to wet the baby’s head even though it was barely more than a tiny speck at that moment in time.
***
“Thomas Michael Shelby I am never sleeping with you again you utter bastard! Ah!”
Tommy paced in the landing, your pained screams driving him mad. He had tried sitting at the table and smoking with brothers as you laboured, but he couldn’t bare to be so far away from you. Polly, Esme and Ada were keeping him busy, sending him for more hot water every now and then.
When the piercing sound of a baby crying filled the house, he slumped against the wall with relief as everyone downstairs cheered.
Polly peaked her head around the door, smiling warmly. “In you come then. Come and meet your little boy,”
Tommy felt his eyes well up as he stepped over the threshold to the rest of his life, smiling down at you as you looked up, looking utterly worn out, but with a smile bright enough to power the whole country, a tiny bundle in your arms.
Tommy say carefully on the edge of the bed, leaning a little closer.
“Come here, you silly git,” you said gently, letting him shuffle closer. He peaked over the blanket and felt his heart melt as he stared at the tiny, sleeping baby with a shock of dark hair.
“Our little boy, Tom,” you said gently.
“Yeah,” he said, staring at you both in awe. “Our little boy. My little family,”
Tags: @liliputbahn @lilymurphy03 @imareallygrumpyme @acciosiriusblack
DM me to be on my tag list (with what fandoms you wanna be tagged in, as well as if you wanna be tagged in smut x)
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