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retrievablememories · 3 years

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whip appeal | lucas (m)

title: whip appeal pairing: lucas x black!reader genre: smut request: “In honor of Lucas' bday, can we get a fic in which Lucas and his Black gf go out to celebrate his bday with friends? They can't keep their hands off each other the whole dinner and things end up getting super spicy 🤭 once they get back home. They both liked to be praised? 🧐” and “Can I request a Lucas and black gf riding please? I know we talked about this before so here it is glasses😎! Thank you!” word count: 4.1k warnings: riding, unprotected sex, creampie, face fucking, face riding, oral (female and male receiving), praise kink, a little exhibitionism, dirty talk, maybe sub!lucas?, overstimulation a/n: this is pure filth, heaven help me. 💀 decided to combine two requests for this one. i was never really a big fan of the “getting down at the dinner table” smut trope, but well…it seemed fitting here lol

In celebration of Lucas’s birthday, you and him had decided to go out to dinner with the WayV members and some of your own friends. You’d even made sure everyone’s schedules would be clear for it, which mostly meant nicely asking (or maybe jokingly threatening) your friends to shuffle some of their plans around so they could attend.

As soon as you all sit down in the restaurant, the WayV members sing Lucas a birthday song embarrassingly loud, which makes him blush a little but he’s also pretty pleased by it.

And if there’s anything else he’s pleased by, it’s your outfit choice for the night.

You have decided to wear one of Lucas’s favorite dresses on you, one he got you a year ago for your first anniversary. It’s a form-fitting black dress with a slit on the side—a fairly high one, which you were a little bashful about at first. You quickly ended up loving the dress, though, due to Lucas’s enthusiastic reaction to you in it.

Yes, it’s definitely hard to forget how he’d peeled your panties off and bent you over the couch with the dress still on, bunching the fabric up in his hands so he could tug you back onto his—

Anyway, it’s a great dress.

That still holds true now, of course. He’s barely left you alone since you got in the car with him, though you could also say the same for yourself; he manages to look even finer than usual in his leather jacket and all-black fit, which is quite a feat. You had half a mind to persuade him into a quickie before you left, but that would only make you late; it’s always hard to stop once you both start.

You’d both agreed you’d make it through the dinner without incident, though now that you’re sitting in the restaurant, you’re not entirely sure if either of you can keep to that.

It’s hard to pay attention to what anyone else is saying with Lucas sitting so close to you, his arm and his thigh brushing yours every so often, sending his cologne wafting past your nose—more often than it probably should, and you know he’s doing it on purpose. He’d even placed your napkin on your lap at the beginning of the meal, his hands lingering on either side of your thighs for a little longer than they should have, and you gave him a cautious look in return.

As you all wait for the entrees to get to your table, Lucas’s hand goes to your thigh under the table, his fingers pressing heatedly into your skin. You give him a sideways glance as his fingers linger where the slit in your dress is, as if they’re about to go up under the fabric and head where they’re not supposed to.

“Yukhei. Keep it low,” you whisper to him, and place your own hand on his thigh higher than it probably should be in public. It was initially meant as a warning gesture, but your intentions change as soon as you feel the hard muscle of his leg under your palm. Because you just can’t resist now that he’s opened the door.

“I am, you just have to not make it obvious.” He grins, brushing his fingers along your exposed skin. This makes a shiver go up your spine, and you shift in your seat a little abruptly, your own fingers edging ever closer to his groin. Your sudden movement catches Kun’s eye and he gives you both a look that’s a little more on the suspicious side than neutral. You try to give him your best innocent smile, and he nods in reply, though the slight wariness doesn’t totally leave his gaze.

Lucas’s hand refuses to move from your leg. Instead he brushes his thumb repeatedly over the sliver of your thigh revealed by the dress, knowing how distracting it’ll be for you. Whenever you or he isn’t talking to one of the others at the table, he takes those short moments to lean over slightly and whisper obscenities in your ear as if he’s just casually talking, well aware of how it’ll affect you.

“If you can be a good girl and keep our little game secret, I’ll give you a reward when we get home.” This makes you sit up straighter in the chair, fully alert as if you weren’t intrigued already.

“A reward? It’s your birthday, shouldn’t I be giving you one?” you whisper back, still trying to keep your eyes forward like everything’s normal.

Lucas chuckles, and his warm breath hitting your ear and the side of your neck makes your heart beat a little faster. “The only reward I need is your p—”

“Oh, here comes the food!” one of your friends exclaims. Her voice makes you jump, mostly because you almost felt like you were about to be found out. You look up, and just as she says, the waiter has come back with the first round of plates.

You sigh a little in relief when Lucas’s hand finally departs from your leg, and then you’re slightly embarrassed that you were already this wound up just from a few touches. You bring your own hand back to your lap and mess with the napkin, trying to calm yourself down.

You do such a good job of it that you almost forget about your game with Lucas as you all start eating and talking more enthusiastically. You and your friends enjoy listening to the men’s banter and silly jokes, even if their wordplay is a little lost on you at times.

However, your mind is brought right back to the matter at hand after the entrees are taken away and it’s time for dessert.

Lucas leans over to you as you take a drink from your water and mumbles, just low enough for only you to hear, “You’re not wearing any underwear, are you?”

You snort and almost cough but manage to catch yourself before you draw everyone’s attention. “Hmm...you’re just now noticing?”

Lucas sucks his teeth and shakes his head as if he’s about to reprimand you, but he only grins slyly. Like clockwork, his hand slides back underneath the table, only this time he takes the initiative to push his hand through the slit in your dress and grip your inner thigh.

His fingertips are dangerously close to your heat. You stiffen up instead of trying to deter him, because if you were to grab his hand now, there’s a major chance you might just push it further where you want it to be instead of pulling it away.

Hendery says something that makes everyone else laugh, and Lucas takes this moment of distraction to shove his fingers between your legs, the pads of them sliding over your clit. You can’t control your response as well this time, and you make a little yelp, kicking your leg up and hitting your knee against the underside of the table. Lucas withdraws his hand from you as soon as it happens, though he can’t stop the laugh that comes bellowing out.

Everyone’s heads whip towards the two of you at the sudden disturbance, varying expressions of confusion and suspicion on their faces.

“Are we disturbing you? Should we all leave so you two can have a moment?” Ten suggests, a knowing expression written all over his face. He even seems a bit bored, as if he’s already used to walking in on you two in compromising positions at the dorm—which he is.

“No, that’s not necessary.” Lucas is still laughing, which makes you want to roll your eyes because he’s making it even more obvious although he was the one who wanted to be discreet about it in the first place. “We’re fine, it’s nothing.”

“Damn, Y/N, y’all couldn’t wait until the last course?” Another one of your friends giggles behind her napkin like she’s utterly scandalized, and you sigh.

“Don’t worry about me! Like you haven’t been flirting with Yangyang all night.”

Yangyang lets out a nervous chuckle, and your friend gives you a look that says we will talk about this later.

You try to focus on your dessert when it comes, plus the conversations the others are having, but Lucas’s touch has gotten you all riled up and your mind keeps drifting. You’re beyond the point of pretending like you can handle this anymore. By the time dinner is over, you’re clinging to Lucas’s arm as you all leave the restaurant, and you barely want to let him go so he can say goodbye to the WayV members—which they find lowkey hilarious.

One of your friends joins you as you wait for Lucas to finish his conversation with the others, and she rests her arm on your shoulder, shaking her head.

“Okay, not to sound totally greedy, but that dessert wasn’t enough for me…” she comments. “I know it’s one of those fancy-pants restaurants and all, but they don’t gotta downsize everything. What about you and your man? What’d you think of it?

“Well, I got Lucas a birthday cake at home, so I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Is that right? I wonder what kind of cake it is,” your friend says this innocently, but the look on her face tells you she means something else entirely. “What flavor? Vanilla? Strawberry? Chocolate?”

“Oh, girl...look at the time. Time for you to go home!” You laugh with your friends for a few moments more before you and Lucas finally depart from the rest of the group and head back to your place.

The atmosphere is tense once you and Lucas get in the car, though not in a bad way—quite the opposite. “You’ve been messing with me all night. You should be more than ready for what’s going to happen once we get home,” you tell him.

“Is that a threat? You already know I’ll take whatever you give me.”

“Take, you will,” you say with a scheming smile on your face, and you slide lower in your seat to get comfortable as you run your hands up your legs, tugging your dress a bit higher as you do. Lucas’s eyes dart to your hands and exposed skin, and his own palms tighten around the steering wheel.

You laugh at his reaction and return your hands to your sides just as quick as you placed them in your lap. “Now, keep your eyes on the road so we can get home in one piece.”

Lucas is already tugging you into the side of his body as he unlocks the front door to your place, and his lips are against yours only seconds after the door closes. His body is hot and firm against your own, and he still tastes like the dessert he ate back at the restaurant. It makes you want to push your tongue into his mouth—which you do.

“You know,” you murmur when you both separate for a moment, “I don’t think either of us won that reward, since we got caught.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re still my good girl.” As if emphasizing his point, Lucas tilts your chin up and kisses you again.

Eventually—maybe a few years later, with how long it feels like you’ve been making out against the wall—you both make it to your bedroom, Lucas’s leather jacket stripped off somewhere along the way. You push him to sit on your bed, though you still keep your hands on him as you unbutton his shirt, exposing his tan skin to you.

His pants are next as you bring your hands to his lap so you can unzip them, already feeling a bulge underneath your palm. You rub your hand over it, finding the tip of his cock through the material and circling your thumb across it. Lucas drops his head back as a deep sigh comes from his chest, and he lifts his hips slightly to meet your hand.

When you have his pants fully undone, you kick your shoes off and drop to the soft carpeted floor in front of him, pulling his pants and underwear down enough so you can pull his dick out. It’s long and hard and leaking precum as you wrap your hand around it, and it twitches at your tight grasp.

You’ve barely done anything yet, but Lucas says under his breath, “Fuck, I love it when you suck my dick, baby…so pretty for me.”

You smirk as you stroke your hand along his length, feeling the precum sticking to your palm. You press forward to place your lips on his shaft, sliding your tongue out of your mouth to drag up the length of his member. When you get to the tip, you carefully take it into your mouth and suck it firmly. A noise between a groan and a growl rises from Lucas’s chest, which hits you straight between your legs.

Lucas breathes heavily as he sits up on his elbows and watches you suck him into your mouth, your lips and hand fitting around his member like you were perfectly made for each other. He’s bigger than you were used to in previous relationships, but that doesn’t mean you don’t make it work every single time.

“Y/N...Y/N. God. You feel so good.” He especially likes when you take his balls into your mouth, which you do now, and he has to give a concentrated effort not to move his hips further up.

“You can feel even better if you fuck my face.”

“Really?” You don’t do this very often, but you figure it’s a special occasion, so why not. Lucas’s stomach tenses, as if he’s about to explode at the very mention of it. “Want my cock in your throat?”

“Do it, Yukhei.” And then you open your mouth and slide his shaft against your tongue, pushing him inside, inviting him to do just as you’ve offered. He lays a hand on the back of your head and pushes his cock further into your mouth, experimentally at first, to prepare you for it.

Soon, he lets a little of his control slip and thrusts more fully into the back of your throat, his fingers digging a little firmer into your hair. The sounds of it are so filthy, but he loves it and it makes his stomach flood with desire—makes his dick throb in your mouth. It creates an inevitable mess, with your spit dripping down his length and his balls, but the uninhibited nature of it makes you even wetter.

Lucas finds himself dangerously close to the edge quicker than he expected, and he pulls himself from your mouth with a lewd, wet noise.

“I don’t wanna come just yet,” he groans, and before you know it he’s pulling you up onto the bed with him, guiding you to kneel over his face. You don’t question the sudden switch-up or complain; you just hike your dress up higher so you can watch his face as you lower your hips down, rubbing your pussy over his waiting tongue. He moans when you make contact, like he’s been wanting to do this all night, and he wastes no time with bringing his hands to your hips and rocking you against his mouth.

“Yukhei, please,” you moan. It feels like every neuron in your body wants to fire all at once with how his tongue works over your clit and his plush lips wrap around it and suck hard. He can’t say anything in this position, but he answers you with a deep moan that makes your nerve endings vibrate and your walls clench around nothing.

You want him in you, want him to stuff you full with his dick and bust inside of you, but you’re not done riding his face just yet. His chin and lips are all wet from it. He wraps his arms around your thighs and holds you tight against his mouth as you thrust down onto him, and you have to place your hands on the mattress above his head to maintain your stability as he forces an intense orgasm out of you.

Lucas continues lapping into you as you drip onto his mouth and chin. He’s almost embarrassingly loud with how hard he’s sucking your pussy, like drawing all the juice out of a piece of fruit, and you double over and howl as he works you over. Your neighbors have probably had it with you by now, but you can’t think about that as you cum fast and hard again, your clit throbbing as he swirls his tongue around it repeatedly.

“God, I can’t take anymore, your mouth—oh fuck—” He still hasn’t let up yet, and you bang your fist against the bed, your agreed-upon sign to stop for whenever it gets to be too much. At that, Lucas finally releases your thighs from his iron hold and backs off of you.

You feel like you could probably sleep for a day straight from the head alone, but Lucas is still hard and leaking precum and there’s no way you’re letting that go unanswered for. You shimmy down his body so you’re sitting in his lap now, and you shiver when his shaft slides against your still-sensitive clit.

Lucas watches intently as you grasp his length and bring your hips up so you can push it into you, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. A groan rumbles in his chest as your pussy squeezes around him. “Are you real? You look like a fucking angel on my dick, baby.”

You giggle, an almost drunken sound—even though you are quite sober at the moment—as you seat yourself fully on his dick and begin rolling your hips. You grasp his shirt where it still hangs off his body, bringing him up so he’s sitting straight with you in his lap. You catch his lips and taste yourself on his mouth.

You both continue kissing as your bodies fall into a natural rhythm, one of Lucas’s arms going around your waist to gain a better grip so he can thrust up into you a little harder. He angles himself so he can hit your g-spot with every motion, and you scratch at his neck and his back when he does.

“I don’t know how long I’m gonna last,” Lucas admits, though his hips never stop moving against yours. He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth, a line of exertion creasing between his brows. A trail of sweat drips from his neck to his jawline, and you follow it with your tongue.

“I don’t care, just come. Give it to me, Yukhei.” Your hand tangles in his hair and you bring his head closer, tucking your face into the side of his and taking his earlobe between your teeth.

“Goddamn, Y/N…” Lucas can’t do much more but moan and gasp as you push your hips into his more forcefully, pulling him ever closer to his climax, and whatever else he’d planned to say comes out choked as his balls draw up and a vein pops out against the skin of his neck.

Lucas slumps back to his elbows as if the strength has been sapped from his body as he lets you ride him as if you’ll never get to do it again, throwing him headfirst into an explosive orgasm as sticky cum bursts inside you. A string of nonsense leaves his mouth, mostly curses and groans and some syllables that sound like your name.

“Y-Yukhei…” You can barely gasp his name as your own climax crashes into you, making you clench almost painfully around him as you come. You have to pause for a moment to simply ride through the sensation, too encompassed with the feeling to be able to do anything but cry out and let your body slump against his.

You both lie like that for some long moments, breathing hard against each other and trickling with sweat. When you feel steady enough to sit up again, you do so.

Even as the tension in Lucas’s body unravels itself, you move your hips again, a dizzying winding motion. Your pace is a little slower after you’ve come, but you don’t stop rocking your body on his. You feel Lucas’s cum shifting in you and leaking back out, but that doesn’t bother you. He’s still rock hard inside you, and you are going to milk this for all it’s worth.

Lucas’s eyes pop open, and he looks at you with an expression of surprise. There's something else in his gaze that’s a little new to you—something like submission. “Y/N…”

“Can you take another, Yukhei?” You reach behind yourself to find his balls and fondle them momentarily, and he twitches inside you. His thighs flex underneath you, and you sigh and marvel at the beauty of his perfectly formed body in action.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he moans, but he lies flat on his back again to offer himself up to you, letting you fuck yourself on his oversensitive member. The sounds of your lovemaking are wetter and nastier because of his cum dripping from you, and it makes lust swirl in your stomach.

Groans and grunts spill from Lucas continuously now as you increase the pace again and push your knees into bed to ride him more feverishly. One of his hands comes to fist in the fabric of your dress like he wants to rip it clean off—or maybe bring you down harder on his cock—and his face colors red from the pleasure racking his body.

Though you never stop in your motions, you lower yourself so you can bring your mouth to his neck and kiss the heated skin of it. You swear you can almost feel the blood rushing in his veins. Lucas gives you a few hard thrusts from beneath, though his hips stutter and he ends up letting you do most of the work again.

There’s little warning when he comes this time. He shouts, a cut-off sound like he’s been silenced before he could fully vocalize it, and shoots more hot ropes of cum into you. He seems to release even more of his seed than before as his cock pulses repeatedly inside of you, and you wonder how much you could coax out of him if you went at it like this all night.

“Yes baby, fill me up...so good for me, so sexy…” You mumble this against his neck as you grind on his abdomen, needing that extra stimulation to your clit to meet your own end. He’s trembling now from the aftershocks of his climax, and in a few more moments, the overstimulation might really overload him.

“Fuck Y/N, come on—” He shoves his hand between your bodies, and although the angle is a bit awkward, he rubs his fingers against your clit in a way that finally pushes you into your final orgasm. You writhe against him and clutch onto his shoulders for support as you lose yourself again in that burning thrill racing through your body.

You’re both a sticky and tired mess by the end of it all, and you don’t even know if you’ll be able to stand up to get in the damn shower. Still, you are more than satisfied. Lucas himself must be on cloud 9, judging by the blissed-out expression on his face, his hair a complete mess from how it was originally styled earlier in the night.

Grinning, you cup his cheek and kiss his lips again. “Happy birthday, Yukhei.”

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ghosttotheparty · 3 years

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say my name and say it twice (cotton candy skies)

31. also on AO3 chapter thirty

Jens wakes up in the dark to the sound of his phone buzzing and chiming. Lucas moves when the sound fills the room, taking in a breath and exhaling as Jens moves away from him, careful not to tug the blankets off of Lucas’s body. The alarm stops when Jens taps the screen of his phone and Lucas nuzzles his face into the pillow, the hood that covers his curls hiding his face slightly.

Jens smiles softly at him, holding back from pushing the hood away, and slowly gets up from the bed, gently placing the blankets next to Lucas, listening to his quiet huffs of breath and the muffled sounds of the city waking up outside, some cars, some voices.

When he comes back from brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he catches Zoë in the hallway. He’s never seen her this early in the morning; even during the beach trip he’d only happened to see her around ten in the morning when everyone else had woken up and gotten dressed, when Zoë has put on her mascara and blush and lipstick, and whatever she put on that Jens doesn’t know about. Even in the dim light of the hallway, he can see that her bare face is quite lovely.

“Good morning,” she whispers as he slips halfway into Lucas’s room, and he waves before she disappears into the dark in the direction of her room. It’s dim in Lucas’s room, but light even for Jens to see without turning on the light. He doesn’t change his pants, staying in the same sweatpants that he put on yesterday after ballet, grey with rolled cuffs and pockets, and then he catches sight of a hoodie tossed onto Lucas’s desk chair. Even in the dark, he recognizes it, a soft pastel purple hoodie that is too big on Lucas, probably a perfect fit for Jens. It has old paint stains, varying shades of browns and reds, on the lower sleeves and on the lower hem, which Jens assumes are from Lucas absentmindedly wiping paint-covered fingers on the fabric, or leaning over a canvas and resting an arm on it.

As he’s pulling it on over the long sleeve t-shirt he slept in, he hears a quiet, muffled noise, and he turns, pulling the hoodie over his face. Lucas is watching him, his face half-covered by the blanket, but Jens can see that he’s smiling from the way his eyes are squinted, the corners crinkling with suppressed laughter.

“What?” Jens says quietly, trying not to laugh back.

“You’re stealing from me?”

“Yeah,” Jens says, nodding, raising an eyebrow. Obviously. He adjusts the hem on his waist. He was right. It fits perfectly. He steps closer to the bed and Lucas lowers the blanket, revealing his smile (Jens’s heart swells), lifting his chin slightly. Jens falls to his knees next to the bed, resting his forearms on the edge of it and leaning over until their lips press together. Lucas’s fingers twist Jens’s hair and he sighs and Jens bites his lip gently.

When they pull back, Jens touches his face, brushing over his cheekbones before resting on his chin.

“You’re talking to the guys today, right?” Lucas asks quietly, and Jens nods, taking a deep breath.

“Yeah. And I think I’m gonna come out to the girls too. I’m walking with Zoë so… Might as well.”

“If you want to,” Lucas whispers, smiling as he pulls Jens in for another kiss.

“Hey,” Jens says softly when he pulls away again, looking at Lucas, who hums sleepily. “Do you wanna tell Milan?”

Lucas snorts, arching his back to stretch.

“Do I wanna ask Milan…” he repeats sarcastically.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“He’s gonna lose his shit,” Lucas says, holding back a giggle, playing with Jens’s hair as Jens rests his chin on his forearms. Jens furrows his brows, smiling. “I told him I have a crush on you,” Lucas explains, and Jens’s smile grows until his eyes almost disappear.

“You’ll have to tell him that we met before that get-together here,” Jens says.

“I will,” Lucas reassures him, and pulls him in once again, tugging at his hair. Jens smiles as their mouths meet, letting Lucas’s tongue in, letting Lucas bite down on his lip softly, lazily.

From the hallway, from the door that Jens left cracked open, Zoë’s voice calls quietly, “Jens! Time to go!” and Lucas groans quietly as Jens kisses him once more before standing.

“Text me how it goes?” Lucas asks, his words slurring slightly, and Jens nods.

“Text me how Milan reacts?”

Lucas’s eyes drift shut as he chuckles almost silently.

“Of course.”

“Okay. I have practice again today but I’ll call you tonight.”

“Mm. Good luck, baby,” Lucas mumbles.

Jens grabs his bags from the floor at the foot of Lucas’s bed, swinging his backpack on before sliding the strap of his ballet bag around his shoulders.

“I love you,” he says as he steps out the door, and he smiles when he hears a quiet, incomprehensible mumble in response. He lifts his head when he shuts the door, with both hands, as quiet as possible, and sees Zoë standing at the front door, holding it open with her foot, looking at him fondly. His face burns and he starts toward her but she lifts a hand, holding a granola bar.

“Catch.”

He does, fumbling with it before catching it in the air by his knees, and Zoë claps a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide and grinning.

---

“So,” Zoë says as they head down the sidewalk. “How long have you guys been together?”

Jens sighs, feeling the chill of the brisk air in his lungs, and furrows his brows, smiling, as he thinks, looking up at the lightening sky.

“Uhm… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Zoë repeats, turning to look at him as they pass a telephone pole. She stumbles slightly, the rubber of her sneakers catching on the rough gravel, and he reaches out with an arm as they both laugh at the absurdity. She grabs his arm, hooking her hand on his elbow, and continues giggling, shaking her head.

“How on earth can you not know?”

Jens reaches around and grabs his ballet bag, moving it so it’s behind his body, so she has room to walk by his side without the bag bumping her with every step.

“You know, it was really unclear.”

“You getting together?”

“Yeah,” he says, glancing down at her as they cross the street. “I don’t know when exactly it happened, but.... Maybe a few weeks ago?”

She shakes her head again, smiling.

“How did you guys meet?” she asks after a few seconds.

“You know what…” He bumps his shoulder into hers and she adjusts her grip on his arm. “I’m not gonna tell you yet.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll tell you when I tell the other girls. I think you’re gonna like the story, though.”

“Well now I’m just mad,” she says, her bright smile contradicting her words, “because now I’m even more curious.”

“Good. I’m keeping you on the edge of your seat.”

“I’m gonna fall off.”

Jens giggles, feeling Zoë’s shoulder shake next to him as he reaches up to catch the strap of his backpack.

She holds his arm the whole way to school and after they arrive, despite the confused looks the girls give them, eight eyes looking at him. It’s really no different than usual, but he feels like their eyes are burning into him, reading every minute detail on his face. It feels like he doesn’t even have to say anything. Jens feels his face burn, even though he knows It’s just my friends. All of them stand in a sort of circle that Jens feels like he’s at the centre of, and Zoë lets go, and he can feel the absence, the spot on his arm that her hand was suddenly cold.

“Hey,” he says awkwardly. He glances to Zoë, who’s turned to face him like the others, and she gives him a small smile with a subtle tilt of her head, encouraging. “So, uhm…” His eyes scan in front of him, going from girl to girl, their raised, confused eyebrows. He stops at Jana, whatever words he was going to say suddenly stuck in his throat.

She gives him a sort of shrug, lifting one shoulder slightly before dropping it and shaking her head, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s up?” Luca asks, and Jens’s gaze jumps to her like he’s startled.

“I—” His voice catches and he clears his throat before trying again. “I have to, uh, to tell you something.”

“All of us?” Amber asks in a small voice, glancing from Jens to Jana and then back.

“Yeah, it’s— it’s not, uhm…” He trails off again, unsure of how to say what needs to be said.

“Jens,” Zoë says in a firm but gentle voice. “Just say it.”

“I— I’m bi,” he says finally, his eyes still stuck on her, on her nodding head. “And I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh!” Jana exclaims, her head jerking back in surprise before a grin overtakes her face. “Oh, cool!”

There’s a second, a pause, and then a half-smile forms on his own face.

“Congratulations, Jens,” Yasmina, says, reaching out and hitting his arm lightly with a sweet smile on her face. Her head tilts like Zoë’s, the hood of her sweatshirt folding at the neck, where it’s tied with the strings in place of her hijab. He smiles back, feeling his face flush. His shoulders lift unconsciously as his hands tuck into his pockets.

“Who is it?” Amber asks enthusiastically, looking like she’s ready to start bouncing up and down. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Uh, Milan’s cousin,” he says, dropping his shoulders and laughing a little bit.

“What?” Amber says, her jaw dropping as she grins. “How the fuck…?”

“Milan’s cousin?” Jana interrupts, grinning, and Jens nods. “He must be happy.”

“I actually don’t know, we haven’t told him yet.” He ignores their scandalized expressions and Lucas’s cackle. “Lucas is telling him today and he’s gonna tell me how he reacts.”

“Wait, so they’re both the gay cousin?” Luca says, cocking her head.

“Uh… Yeah, I guess. I hadn’t really thought about that.”

“Huh.” She looks away for a second. “I’m the only one in my family.”

She’s met with silence.

“Wait—” Amber says, blinking and holding up a hand.

“Are you seriously upstaging my coming out right now?” Jens asks, suppressing another grin, and she shrugs.

“Eh. Saw the opportunity and took it.”

“Okay, Luca, give us all a second to respond to that,” Zoë says as Jens holds his hand out and Luca fist bumps him. “Someone please ask how they met!” she bursts, and Jens snorts, having forgotten about her desperation to know.

“Jens, how did you and your boyfriend meet?” Yasmina asks, taking pity on Zoë.

“So…” He takes a deep breath and steps back. “This is what I didn’t tell you,” he says, looking at Zoë. “I’ve told the guys but uhm… it’s been a long time coming.”

They all stare at him patiently, looking like they’re hanging onto his every word. Amber’s head is tilted toward him, her chin dropped slightly, as though he’s sharing a big secret. (Though, he supposes, he is.)

“We met outside my dance studio,” he says finally, an awkward smile fighting its way onto his face.

“Huh?” Luca says.

“Yeah.”

“Come again?” Yasmina says, tilting her head.

Jens inhales again, his shoulders coming up into an uncomfortable shrug, and then he exhales sharply, pulling his duffel bag in front of himself, deftly unzipping it and digging around, under the clothes and water bottles, under the small towel and the plastic bag full of bandages and tape for his toes, feeling his face heat up red under all their eyes, until his hands find the pointe shoes, grabbing them where their ribbon laces are tied together and pulling up, out, and then in the air in front of himself, watching their eyes move from him to the shoes.

“Ta-da,” he says weakly.

When he gets no response (except a confused “Uhm?” from Yasmina), he clarifies, “These are mine.”

“Those are yours…” Jana says, the gears turning in her head.

“These are mine, yeah.”

“Huh?” Lucas says again.

“Okay…” He shoves the shoes back into his bag and fishes his phone out of him pocket, his face heating again as he feels their eyes on him.

Finally, he finds what he’s searching for, and he holds the phone out where the shoes hung from his hands, where they can all see, and he watches their faces, hearing the audio from the video slightly over the sounds of other students around them, bustling and talking and laughing just barely overtaking the sound of Lucas laughing.

He smiles as they watch it, remembering the day it was taken.

It was just a few days ago. Lucas had come over to hang out and insisted that it was fine if Jens wanted to practice while he was there. It had resulted in this: a video of Jens doing pirouettes and Lucas giggling to himself as he records. The video ends with Jens realising why he’s giggling and turning, laughing, to smack the phone out of his hand.

“So you do ballet?” Jana says when the video ends, and Jens nods, putting the phone back in his pocket.

“Since I was little, yeah.”

“But…” She gives a small shrug. “How did I never know?”

“Well,” he says, not wanting to give it away before she figures it out, “I usually practice once a week unless I have a recital coming up.”

“Once a week…” she repeats.

“How big are your classes?” Zoë asks before realization can hit Jana’s face, and Jens looks at her.

“Uh, not too big, maybe fifteen, twenty people? I only have three actual friends from it and we don’t hang out that often outside of practice.”

“Once a week!” Jana exclaims, stepping forward and hitting Jens’s chest, and he looks back at her, laughing.

“Yeah, every…” he says, nodding and grinning.

“Thursday…” she says slowly, her smile growing, and slapping his chest again, playfully aggressive.

“What’s happening right now?” Yasmina asks, looking back and forth between them.

“Every fucking Thursday—” she hits him one last time— “Jens would disappear and none of us knew where he was going.”

“And he was going to ballet practice,” Amber says, her voice light and awestruck. Jens smiles at her, nodding. “That was graceful,” she adds.

“That’s what Aaron said,” he replies, cocking his head and smiling fondly.

“So you met… what’s his name again?” Luca asks.

“Lucas.”

“So you met Lucas outside your dance studio?”

“Yeah, one Thursday I was leaving the studio and I saw a boy, and I thought he was cute, he thought I was cute…” he trails off, gesturing vaguely with a hand before stuffing it into the pocket of his, Lucas’s, hoodie.

“Damn…” Luca says. “Maybe I should take up dance, find myself a cute lady.”

Before Jens can say anything, he’s interrupted by a loud squeal, and Amber grabs him and Luca in a bear hug, bouncing up and down excitedly. Jens laughs, wrapping his arms around the two of them, hearing Luca let out a shout of surprise before she begins to shake with laughter too.

“I am so proud of both of you,” Amber says when she pulls away, looking into his eyes intensely and then looking to Luca. He nods, smiling brightly as he looks up over her shoulder to Jana and then Zoë, who smiles almost proudly.

“I love you so much,” Amber says quickly, nearly shouting, as she pulls him back into a hug, rocking back and forth.

“I love you so much too,” Jens says, squeezing her and Luca, ignoring how uncomfortable the straps of his bags feel.

“Jens, I don’t want to interrupt but…” Zoë says, and Jens looks up to see her looking at her watch. “You have to talk… to the guys, don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, squeezing them one more time before letting go. Luca reaches up and ruffles his hair and he makes a face at her. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Yasmina holds a hand out and Jens slaps their palms together, holding on for a second and she squeezes, smiling softly at him.

“Oh, I wanted to see a picture of Lucas…” Amber says as she steps away from Jens.

“I have pictures of him, don’t worry,” Zoë says, quickly hugging Jens and nodding at Amber.

“You do?” Amber asks, confused.

“I live with him, Amber.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

“Later, Jens,” Luca calls out as Jens starts to walk away, and he turns around, walking backwards, to wave at them.

He makes his way across the courtyard until he catches sight of the guys. Moyo is leaning against a fence, looking around, people-watching, as Aaron holds his phone out for Robbe to look at. None of them seems to be really present in the conversation. Moyo sees him first, straightening and coming off the fence when he sees Jens coming toward them, his eyes widening and his mouth opening like he’s trying to say something.

Jens tries for a small smile, but he thinks it might look more like a grimace.

“Hey,” he says when he’s close enough that they can all hear him.

Robbe looks up from Aaron’s phone and smiles, trying to look bright. Aaron stuffs his phone into his pocket, glancing to Moyo and Robbe before looking at Jens steadily, warily.

“Jens—” Moyo starts, but Jens stops him, shaking his head and holding up a hand.

“No, it’s fine,” he says, trying again for a smile. “I’m not… I—I freaked out yesterday, but it’s…”

He shrugs, shoving his hand back into his pocket. They’re quiet. Awkward. Aaron sighs. Robbe’s eyes don’t come off Jens.

“So you guys are… aware…” he says, trying to ease the awkwardness unsuccessfully.

“Yes,” Moyo says, and Jens snickers at the ground before looking up to see Moyo’s eyes shining back at him.

“Uhm… yeah. We’ve been… seeing each other for a while now.”

“So you’re bi?” Aaron asks.

“Yeah.” Jens huffs, trying to relax his shoulders. “I never told you guys because, I didn’t really know until Lucas, or—” He shifts, shuffling a foot on the concrete he stands on, and he looks up to the sky, trying to sort his thoughts into words. The sky is blue. Cotton-candy blue, Lucas would say. “I think I knew and I just… never really acknowledged it until Lucas. It never mattered until him.”

They nod.

“And then I didn’t tell you guys about us because I just didn’t really want anything to change, I guess. Like, I wasn’t scared, it was just…” He shrugs.

“Things did change when I came out,” Robbe says.

“For the better,” Moyo adds.

Jens bites his lip, nodding, and he looks away, to the ground.

“I know.”

“You and Lucas are cute together,” Aaron says, grinning.

“Thanks, Aaron.”

“It’s his Instagram, isn’t it?” Moyo asks, and Jens nods, pressing his lips together. “I’m still going to follow it, don’t worry,” Moyo says hastily. “It just makes sense.”

“Uhm…” Jens takes another deep breath, scratching the back of his neck. “There was something else I was going to ask you guys.”

It’s something he’d talked about with Lucas, something that was his own idea, though Lucas seemed more excited about it than he was.

“What?” Robbe asks, and Jens hesitates for a second before asking.

“Would you guys want to come to my next recital?”

Immediately, their faces light up and Aaron gasps loudly.

“Yeah!” Moyo exclaims.

Jens halts, them, holding up a wait a minute finger.

“It’s formal,” he says. “So you need to look nice, you know, wear a jacket.”

“I don’t have a jacket,” Aaron says, deflating, looking forlorn.

“I have one you can borrow,” Moyo says. “Just don’t get it dirty.”

“You have a formal jacket?” Robbe says, looking at Moyo and furrowing his brows, smiling confusedly.

“I’m classy as fuck, bro.”

“Clearly.”

“So that’s a yes?” Jens says before Moyo can get in a retort.

“That’s a hell yes,” Aaron says. “I’m so excited.”

“Is Lucas going too?” Robbe asks.

“Uh, yeah.” Jens scratches the back of his neck before running his hands through his hair.

“Does your mom know about you guys?” Moyo asks.

“Uh, no.”

“No pressure.” Moyo raises his hands in a surrendering gesture and Jens laughs.

When the bell rings, Moyo has his arm around Jens’s shoulders in a casual embrace, and they head to the entrance of the school. As they enter, Jens catches Zoë’s eye and shoots her a thumbs up and a grin, and she holds up her hands, curved into a heart.

He smiles.

His heart feels a little lighter.

#this is so bad im so sorry #it was supposed to go up (on tumblr) last night but tumblr wasnt opening so #its here now #:)#also remember to eat something and hydrate #and take any meds or vitamins you have #and stretch your back and relax your shoulders #i love you #vds #van der stoffels #wtfock #wtfock fic #skam nl #skam nl fic #renew skam nl #save skam nl #jens stoffels #lucas vdh #lucas van der heijden

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eirian-houpe · 3 years

Text

The Pawn Shop On Main Street - Chapter 1

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Mad Hatter | Jefferson & Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Additional Tags: Cursed Storybrooke (Once Upon a Time), Angst, Romance, Eventual Smut, Will add more as apropriate

Summary: Gold is suddenly awakened from the curse, not by the fail-safe that he programmed into his mind, but by the unexpected presence of his long lost maid, with whom he fell in love well before Regina cast his Dark Curse, Rumplestiltskin must now find a way past Belle's disbelief and fear. She is still under the influence of the curse. With the help of his dear - his oldest - friend, Gold seeks a way past obstacles so that he can rekindle the love which he rejected back in the Dark Castle.

The story is set in the same 'verse as The Library Beneath the Clock Tower, and could be considered a sequel of sorts.

Chapter 1 - Old Friends

He felt drawn to her. He could not look away, his gaze transfixed as her eyes took in the fireworks bursting overhead. They paled by comparison. Nothing could compare.

…a brief flicker of light in an ocean of darkness.

The thought caught him off guard, as if he were standing on the edge of a fall, with a gust of wind buffeting him toward the edge. He felt suddenly thirsty - the earth waiting for the cloud above his head to burst like the sparkles and fizzles overhead.

All this time she had been right there, within reach, the meaning that had been missing for as long as he could remember - as long as he had been in Storybrooke. It made sense of everything he’d done, but at the same time made no sense at all.

Suddenly afraid, for no reason he could understand, he took a step closer, right behind her, caressing her fingers softly, before taking her hands, slowly, into his own. Their fingers entwined.

It flashed through him in a pulse; bright, vibrant, burning away the fog of years and realms.

She mocked him. Regina mocked him - how dare she, and yet, he had no energy, and even less will to react to her impudence.

“Is this about that girl I met on the road?” She laughed and stalked the room, her hips swaying in exaggerated sensuality. It reminded him of Cora, and that did little to change his mood… the reminder of other betrayals, other… abandonments. Regina glanced his way. “What was her name? Margie? Verna?

Rumplestiltskin barely breathed her name. “Belle.”

Suddenly business-like, this evil queen he had created, said matter-of-fact as she fixed herself some tea - uninvited, “Right. Well... you can rest assured I had nothing to do with that tragedy.”

He stopped idly spinning the wheel and turned to walk toward her, all but willing pox into the cup she was stirring, “What… tragedy?”

“You don't know?” Regina asked as though scandalized, then chuckled as she cleaned the spoon with her mouth and set it down. “Well, After she got home… her fiancé had gone missing.” He feigned innocence, but Regina knew. Her expression told him so. She took only a few steps away before turning around. “And after her stay here, her… association… with you, no one would want her, of course. Her father shunned her, cut her off, shut her out.”

Hope flared in his heart, and in an unguarded moment, he let the words slip from deep within that hope. “So she needs… a home?”

Regina laughed cruelly, though whether at what had happened, or at him for his weakness he was uncertain, then went on, “He was cruel to her. He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying. After a while, she threw herself off the tower. She died.”

She spoke the last two words with such careless triumph that the urge to throttle the life from the conniving bitch almost choked him… murdered his hope.

“You're lying,” he growled.

“Am I?” she countered, leaving him cold and dead inside.

He wanted to be angry now, to rail against the lies Regina had told him, blatant fabrications, right to his face, and yet… Here was his light. Hale, whole and…

“You’re real,” he breathed. “You’re alive!”

He moved closer yet, moving his fingers again in a soft, quiet caress. The curse was lifted, he remembered. Everything, and oh, how beastly he had been when they had last seen one another. When he had sent her away.

”I’m not a coward, dearie. It’s quite simple really… my power… means more to me than you.”

She pulled herself up to her full, diminutive height, and looked him full in the face. “No. No, it doesn't. You just don't think I can love you. Now, you've made your choice. And you're going to regret it.”

His heart broke as her voice quivered - a roar of pain that almost drowned out her following word, “Forever.”

He curled his hands into fists. His hard, pointed talons left wheal marks in his palms, but he couldn’t allow her to see how much her words affected him.

“And all you'll have... is an empty heart,” her voice broke, and she forced herself to go on, “and a chipped cup.”

Her eyes were filled with tears, but she held his gaze, and he had to push his own rising tears deep inside lest he belie his words. Not until she had turned, and walked away, out of the cell, and out of his life… forever… and he could no longer see or hear her, did he move - and then only to close his eyes.

Was she feeling this too? Did she remember? A part of him hoped not; hoped that fate had delivered him a way to right the wrongs of his past; to woo her, to love her as she deserved to be loved, and yet, the Dark One knew that ‘loopholes’ was another word for lies. Gold wanted no more lies.

For a moment, one sweet, sharp moment she leaned against him, tightened her fingers around his, and he knew… he knew without any doubt that she remembered. At least in that moment, she remembered.

“Belle,” he whispered.

Then, like the icy fall of rain that dampened even the hottest fire, she snatched her hands from his, and he was suddenly frozen, bereft. Helpless to do anything other that watch with mounting fear as she turned to face him; tried with all his heart to let her see that she had been right all along - that she had the measure of him, and not only that - but now, in the face of seeing her again, though he wanted nothing more than to reach out and draw her into his arms, hold her forever - protected, loved - he was still a coward.

“Belle,” he whispered again, reaching too late to catch her as she picked up her skirts and fled. He cried out for her, as he should have done then, in the Dark Castle - called her back, “Belle!”

His cry was echoed a moment later and he registered a familiar voice behind the calling. His friend, Jefferson. A Storybrooke friend, yes, but the Dark One’s only friend through all the ages. How could he not have known?

He stared. He stared after Belle, who stopped at neither of their calling, and he stared toward Jefferson, meeting the horrified expression that mirrored his own.

The Hatter seemed torn, glanced away as if to find Belle in the crowd, but ultimately turned his steps and hurried to Gold’s side.

"You knew!" Gold almost sobbed, and reaching out, grabbed Jefferson by the lapels of his flamboyant, silk tailcoat and pulled him closer, almost shaking the man. "How could you know… know me and yet say nothing?"

Jefferson’s long fingers closed around his wrists, not to prevent, but to anchor, as if the Portal Jumper feared to let go and needed to hold him close as he spoke.

"The man you are here and I said that?" Jefferson said, pained, and only then Gold saw the tears that were gathered in the other man’s blue eyes. "How could I, and not have you cast me away?"

For all that he saw, for all that he felt, still Gold gave vent to his own pain. "But you were my… we were friends!"

Instead of words, Jefferson answered with cry, almost of anguish, and suddenly releasing his wrists, clutched Gold close.

"We are friends," he sobbed, clinging tightly. "We are!"

At first, startled, Gold struggled, tried to push Jefferson away, but as the present melted away leaving just the two of them alone on the rise above where the other revelers were lost in their drunken celebrations of the night, Gold… Rumplestiltskin missed his friend, and already held tightly in Jefferson’s embrace, pulled the man closer still, and held him through the maelstrom of all that he was - pawnbroker, landlord, deal maker, sorcerer, master, Dark One, killer, father, husband, lover… coward - all of it, every little piece of him returning in a rush, he clung to Jefferson like a man drowning.

Eventually, both spent, they each slumped, exhausted to the ground, mute and panting for breath, though as he looked across at Jefferson, Rumplestiltskin saw that silent tears still ran down Jefferson’s face. Intuitively he knew the cause.

“I didn’t know,” he said, and Jefferson raised his face to look at him, incomprehension in his wet and shining eyes. “Grace,” Gold offered. “I didn’t know what Regina planned.”

“I know,” Jefferson whispered, before finding his voice. “I have always known it was her doing, and hers alone.” He reached out for Gold’s hand, and he took it without hesitation, listening as Jefferson continued. “For all that we didn’t see things the same way much of the time; for all that we fought, I knew and never once doubted that you’d ever do something like that to another man, another father. I saw what you did for Baelfire and—”

“Bae,” Gold interrupted. His voice hoarse and rasping. He felt Jefferson’s fingers tighten around his own, and he took a breath. “If I had the power,” he said, “to undo what she did.”

“No!” Jefferson sounded alarmed, almost terrified, then went on more calmly, “No. Not until we can be together. Not until I can be sure she won’t hate me for abandoning her. She can’t know.” His voice cracked as he went on. “Cloe’s her mother here. She knows nothing about a foolish man who made a promise and then broke it; who abandoned her to ignominy and hardship.”

“Jefferson…”

The other man blanched, and releasing his grip on Gold held up both hands in surrender, as if he thought he’d just delivered some kind of terrible insult.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Gold murmured quietly.

“Then whose?” Jefferson shook his head; argued. “I can recite a whole litany of ‘if I hadn’ts’ going all the way back to before we first met. Who else’s fault can it be?”

Gold fixed him with a level, uncompromising look.

“No,” Jefferson said firmly. “You are not responsible for all the ills of every realm.”

Gold was silent for a long time. He knew Jefferson well enough to understand that when he had his mind fixed on something - especially something self-deprecating - there could be no moving him; not until he saw the truth of it for himself.

Both men sighed, almost at the same time, and that made Gold chuckle just a little, with a good deal of his own self-deprecation, before he said, “And that… that, my good man, is why you are the Dark One’s only true friend.”

Jefferson let out another sigh, then offered Gold a smile through half-pursed lips, and then started to push himself up off the ground where they had both fallen.

“I’ll find her,” he promised softly. “Make sure she’s safe and gets home all right. We can fix this. We’ll find a way.”

“Ever the optimist, Jefferson.”

“Hardly,” the Hatter said dryly, before turning, ready to begin his descent from the hill. He stopped after just a few steps, and turned back. “Rumplestiltskin?”

Gold looked up, his head tipped to one side. “Hmm?”

“How long?”

Gold looked skyward, as if the position of the stars could give him the answer to Jefferson’s question, and they might well have - had time not been motionless in Storybrooke these past… He shook his head. He knew the answer. It was written into the fabric of the Dark Curse, into the single drop of ‘True Love’ he had dripped onto the parchment; The single drop that would herald the arrival of The Savior.

“Twenty-eight years,” he answered quietly. “Twenty-eight years.”

#rumbelle #cursed storybrooke #angst #romance #eventual smut #the pawn shop on main street #the library beneath the clock tower #i will always write jefferson

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neo-brownskinnedangels · 4 years

Note

Hi! Can you write wayv/nct dream's reaction to seeing you in your bonnet/night scarf for the first time☺ (Also your work is amazing and I'm so happy someone actually writes about wayv❤)

Absolutely and thank you for your ask ❤️ of course WayV is my ult unit, and I wish more people wrote about them. And thank you so much. ❤️❤️

Kun;

Kun was sitting in bed reading a book as he waited for you. You were in the bathroom wrapping your braids up in your purple scarf. Turning off the bathroom light you walked over to t he bed, crawling under the clovers. ��What’s that?” Kun asked, noticing the scarf around your head. “My scarf, so I can wrap my hair.” You explained. “Isn’t that the think that’s always on the pillows when we wake up?” Kun chuckled. Cause it never stays on at night so, when you guys wake up it’s always off. “Now don’t come for me like that, ever in your life.” You laughed, cuddling up to him.

Ten;

Ten had come back from a long day of practice, dropping his bag down by the front door. You were cooking in the kitchen, wanting dinner done for him since he had a long day. “Hey babe.” Ten smiled walking into the kitchen. “Hey baby.” You smiled, pecking his lips. “Is this a beanie?” Ten chuckled, looking at the bonnet on your head. “No, dumby does it look like a beanie?” You chuckled, going back to stirring the rice. “What is it then?” Ten asked, amused as he hopped up on the counter. “A bonnet, so my hair doesn’t get messed up, it like protects it.” You explained. “Oh.” He chuckled, nodding in understandment.

Winwin;

He wanted to cuddle with you since you guys had nothing to do that day. You lied beside him, as winwin wrapped his arm around you. He touched your bonnet. “What are you doing?” You asked, looking up at him. “Touching your hat.” Winwin said, petting your head. “Boy stop, It’s not a hat.” You laughed, moving his hand. “Yes it is.” Winwin said, looking at it. “No it’s not, win how you gonna tell m-, it’s a bonnet.” You laughed, kissing his cheek. “Bonnet?” “So I can keep my hair safe.” You nodded.

Lucas;

You came to see Lucas at the studio, half cause you missed your boo....half cause you were bored. He was taking a break now for lunch. He ordered the two of you wings and you sat on his lap, eating with him. “I like your head band.” Lucas smiled, playing with the knot that you’d tied in it. “It’s not a head band.” You laughed, picking up another wing. “It’s not?” He asked, eyes wide as if he’s been life to his entire life. “No, babe it’s a scarf.” You chuckled. “It keeps my hair down, and protected.” You explained. “Oh,” he chuckled. “Do I need one?” He asked, making you burst out In laughter.

Xiaojun;

Xiaojun was FaceTiming you as you were getting ready for your weekly dinner with him. He was running a little late so he decided just to swing by and get you. “What’s that one your head?” He asked. You slid the bonnet of your head, releasing the curls of your sew in. “It’s a bonnet baby.” You said, focausing on making sure your hair wasn’t flat and had some volume. “Does it like keep your hair safe or something?” Xiaojun asked curiously. He wasn’t quite sure if that was right, but just assumed that’s what you used it for. “Actually, yeah.” I chuckled, surprised that he knew what it was.

Hendery;

“You look so cute with that on.” Hendery smiled, seeing you arrive at his place. “My scarf?” You asked, surprised as you walked through his front door. “Yeah, it’s pretty.” He smiled, closing the door. “Thanks, I thought I looked a little busted but okay.” You smiled.

Renjun;

You were coming over to hang out with Renjun today. Since neither of you really had anything to do anyways. “Hey baby.” Renjun smiled opening the door for you. “Hey.” You smiled, pecking his lip. “What are wearing?” Renjun smiled, looking at the bonnet on your head. “My bonnet.” You replied. “A bonnet?” He questioned. “Yes, you want one?” You asked him giggling. “Sure.” Renjun shrugged, clearing not knowing he didn’t need one.

Jeno;

You were sleeping over Jeno’s house for the first time, which was very surprising that your parents agreed to it. Jeno walked into the bathroom, wrapping his arms around your waist as you placed the scarf around your edges. “What are you doing?” Jeno asked curiously, watching your motions in the mirror. “Wrapping my hair up.” You replied. “What’s that do?” Jeno questioned, looking to you now. “It hold my hair down, so it’s nice and slick.” You smiled, turning in his arms to peck his lips.

Haechan;

“You look like my grandma.”Haechan said, looking at you on your bonnet. “Who? Me? I was just sitting here on the couch chillin and you come here with the bullshit.” You said, watching him sit beside you. “I was only joking. You don’t look like my grandma.” “Thank y-,” “you look like strawberry shortcake.” “Are you really coming for my bonnet today?” “Bonnet. That’s what it’s called?” Haechan smiled, looking at the pastel fabric on your head. “Yes, educate yourself.” You laughed as he pulled you into a hug.

Jaemin;

“What is that? I always see you wearing that but I never know what it is.” Jaemin said, as you walked up beside him. “Um, a bonnet.” You said, looking at him. “Why do you always where it? And where does your hair go?” Jaemin questioned. “Jaemin, my hair goes in the bonnet. The bonnet is to protect my hair.” You chuckled, giving him a weird look. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m very curious.” “I see.”

Yangyang;

You couldn’t find your scarf anywhere and Looked all over the place, going into the room Yangyang was in to see he had it around his neck. “YangYang.” You sighed, snatching it off his neck. “You could’ve choked me.” Yangyang said, pretending to feel scandalized. “Boy, bye no one was gonna choke you.” You said, wrapping it around your head. “Why are you putting that on your head?” He asked, watching you. “Cause it’s a head scarf, not a scarf for your neck.” You laughed, shoving him slightly.

Chenle;

“Don’t old ladies where bonnets?” Chenle laughed, his high pitched laugh as you shoved him away. “Okay, okay I’m sorry.” He said, calming down as he pulling you back into a hug. “You look cute I’m only kidding.” He said, kissing your cheek. “No cause you’re making fun of my bonnet.” You fake whined pulling away from him. “No, no, no you look cute, I’m sorryyyy.” He said, pulling you back. “You better be.” You smiled, pecking your cheek.

Jisung;

“You look really pretty Y/N.” Jisung said softly, looking at the red scarf you wrapped around your head. “Really? You think so?” You asked, looking up at him. The two of you had been watching a movie together and he just randomly said it out of the blue. “Yeah, you’re scarf looks really pretty on you.” He smiled looking at the African printed scarf. “Thank you.” You smiled.

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wildernessuntothemselves · 3 years

Note

have yall seen the

outside: I'm so hot

inside:when i was younger i was really insecure and engaged in self deprecating jokes that made me feel worse but now im trying to love myself but its still hard so sometimes i give myself extra words of affirmations meme?

thats what I thought of when seeing the jun being a bit sus ask,both cockiness and going for the throat thing

the personalities we see are if not fabricated then heightened versions of who they are,they know in front of the camera they have to play up the part and do it constantly,it's still a performance even if it's a genuine part of their personality,the chaos we see is most likely not how they are when they are together without a camera,not that constantly,we don't know them personally they could be monsters behind the mask or just less chaotic more balanced human beings.

not sure what your conclusion was to this message but yeah I agree. their on cam persona could be nothing like their real personalities but that's all we have to go on + some of them slip because they can't be acting all the time + some of them are better actors than others

anyway this is why we both said this is all speculation. we don't know them in real life and we're not trying to claim that this is really who they are

the reason I'm now expressing my hunches is because I had a bad feeling about lucas and a couple celebs that later got into scandals but I never said anything because fans would kill me because they're pure babies who would never do anything wrong but now they've been exposed so I just thought I'd share which idols also give me an off feeling and see if anyone else thinks the same

#mort talks

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inspired-by-the-music · 4 years

Text

For You

Chapter 2: The Ribbon

“If you laugh one more time,” Lucas threatened through gritted teeth, “I’m dropping out of this subunit!”

Considering the initial stress of Kai’s departure from the subunit, I guess Lucas expected me to tremble at his threat. Instead, I laughed harder, and he glowered at me.

“I’m sorry.” My apology was insincere, but I had to say something when he looked at me like that. “It’s just— Lucas, this dance is so sensual, and my feelings for you are not—”

“That’s funny,” Lucas said without even the smallest smile. “I seem to remember you snapping on Kai at the photoshoot for having a very similar attitude.”

Again I said, “I’m sorry,” this time a little more earnestly before continuing, “It’s just a little embarrassing— dancing with you like this when you’re practically my brother.”

Lucas clicked his tongue and started to argue before realizing he couldn’t. “Yeah.” He laughed at our reflections, which gripped each other tightly. “Yeah, you’re kinda right.” He released his hold around my waist to flick the light switch off.

When Lucas pressed play on our subunit(LX2)’s first finalized song, returned to my side, and once again danced his fingertips across my lower back, I didn’t giggle at the contact. With the only light seeping into the room from under the studio door since the sunlight had not yet broken through the clouds— much less through the windows lining the wall— it was easy to forget that the touch belonged to Lucas. I could pretend that the touch belonged to someone else— someone whose presence didn’t make my heart swell from some fraternal familiarity but, instead, race in anticipation of some unknown affection.

Who did I imagine was dancing with me in the dark? Nobody specific. Nobody I knew. Nobody I met yet or would likely ever meet.

I was not often unsatisfied with my career. I loved performing, and I highly regarded the honor of representing my country as an idol and expressing myself as an artist. But in that moment when somebody who wasn’t Lucas touched me— when I realized at the sudden sound of his voice that this was a delusion, that romance would be a fantasy for as long as I was an idol (which I still hoped would be always)-- my heart plummeted from its height.

Maybe I was lonely.

Maybe we were all lonely.

Maybe it was just a matter of realizing it and admitting it.

Maybe we didn’t know how to admit it; maybe we never would.

“What would you say if I asked you to go camping with me and the guys this weekend?” Lucas asked. The question was almost an act of mercy, an instinct to protect me from thoughts and feelings that had no comfort— that would drown me if explored.

We moved in sync. We were always on the same page even if we weren’t allowed to be. For me, that closeness to Lucas was not an act of rebellion against our industry; I just didn’t know any other way to be.

I said, “I wouldn’t,” and Lucas huffed, frustrated either by my response or because he had fallen out of step. Squinting to watch him leap over to the stereo to restart the song, I added, “Even if Mom would let me go out into the middle of the woods with a bunch of boys— and she wouldn’t!— camping is not how I want to spend my last weekend of ‘freedom’ before the North American leg of our world tour.”

“Well,” Lucas sauntered over me, and we took the dance from the top. “How else do you plan to bond with the guys?”

I hadn’t drafted any ideas to appeal to the members who didn’t already like me. Burning at the reminder that I wasn’t well-received by everybody, I grumbled, “I’m not sneaking out of my mother’s house in a futile effort to get Kai to like me.”

“It’s not just about Kai.” Lucas smirked, “There’s also the opportunity to be alone with Taemin—”

“I don’t want to be alone with Taemin.”

Lucas laughed that shallow laugh he reserved for when he thought I was lying, but I was not lying. I meant it when I said that nothing seemed more distressing than the thought of being alone with Taemin.

“Besides,” I reminded him, “Donghae’s birthday party is this weekend, and we’re all required to go.”

“That’s on Sunday. Taeyong was thinking that we should go on Saturday—”

Before I could repeat that there was no way Mom would let me go camping, unsupervised, with SuperM— before I could explain that even if I wanted to (and I didn’t!), there was no way to sneak out without Mom noticing and grounding us all right before the tour— the lights flashed on. The room was illuminated a blinding white.

When my eyes adjusted, I saw that Lucas’s palm was flat against my cheek— I felt it, warm, coarse— and we flinched away from each other. We squirmed at the commercialization of something so intimate, at the realization that our first tender touches had been scripted, before Donghae’s shrieks split through ears

“Lei!” Donghae’s widened eyes fixed solely on me, and he scrambled to catch the milkshake that was falling from his grasp. “What— what are you doing?”

Had I been doing something scandalous, I might have been horrified by Donghae’s interruption of our dance practice. As it was, I treaded the brink of laughter long before Lucas collapsed on the ground in a fit of giggles.

It was silly that despite knowing my schedule well enough to plan when to bring me a milkshake, Donghae hadn’t known, “Yes, Donghae, my mother knows that I am practicing with Lucas for the debut of our subunit. This was her idea.”

“So she approves—” Donghae set the cup down at his feet to gesture vaguely at me and Lucas with his hands— “of all this. . . touching?”

When I nodded, and Lucas responded with more laughter, Donghae shook his head. “I can’t believe this! I’m going to talk to her!”

I don’t know what he hoped that would accomplish. The executives approved of LX2, and with so little time before the launch of the tour, they wouldn’t recast or disband the unit just because Donghae pitched a temper tantrum to Mom. Besides, I frowned, he wouldn’t have been able to get two words into his monologue with her avoiding him.

“And you two,” he scolded, “keep this door open and this light turned on. We don’t need any more scandals!”

As he sat upright, Lucas’s shoulders stiffened and I held my breath in anticipation of Donghae’s conclusion, “You don’t want to end up like the idol who never debuted!”

It always came back to her.

I was drowning in a nightmare that Lucas and I were on stage together in Atlanta. I was laughing because his fingertips tickled as they brushed against my exposed lower back. Lucas was laughing because he couldn’t imagine being attracted to me like the dance implied. The audience was laughing because our song was ridiculous. Baekhyun and Mark were laughing because that was all they ever did. Kai didn’t offer the smallest smile because he still hated me, and he knew that he could have performed in the subunit without making it a joke. I don’t know where Ten and Taeyong were, but they weren’t standing with Taemin who stared at me in utter disbelief, asking in a silent scream, “How did you ever become an idol?”

I woke with such a start, heart racing and breaths shallow, that I thought the pillowcase over my head was a figment of yet another nightmare until Mark’s voice, uncharacteristically nervous, said, “Guys, I think she’s awake.”

We were in a car, I realized, when we banged into a dip in the road.

“Shit, Baekhyun,” Lucas griped. “Learn how to drive!”

“I can drive just fine! The road just gets a little rockier the closer we get to the lake—”

“Lake?” My word was trapped inside the pillowcase. It bounced around, suffocated me, until Mark spoke up again.

“Lei is awake!” He yelled before pulling the pillowcase off of my head. He smiled so softly that I might have been grateful were it not for the rage that washed over me as my eyes blinked and adjusted to the reality that I was in the back of Baekhyun’s stupid Audi. With Mark. On the way, apparently, to a lake.

Lucas whirled around in the passenger seat. “Finally! How did ya sleep?”

My eyes narrowed as my tongue readied to lash Lucas for participating in some kidnapping plot, but my voice caught in my throat when Baekhyun turned from the darkened road to wink at me. “Pretty good, huh, Lei? I heard ya moaning something about Taemin.”

The color drained from my face and returned as a scarlet blush that I hoped the boys wouldn’t notice under the car’s roof that extinguished the starlight. Baekhyun laughed, and I sank back into the seat next to Mark. I turned my gaze out the window— trying to find the stars or moon through the Autumn trees— and I tried to cross my arms, but they were bound tightly behind my back with some silky fabric. I was too angry or embarrassed to speak even to ask someone to remove the restraints until Mark promised, “You didn’t actually say anything about Taemin.”

I glanced over at Mark, and his eyes were wide. Sincere. Holding his eternal desire to please. How much did that desire relate to his confessed crush on me? How much was it a mere character trait, a summation of Mark Lee?

“Yeah.” Lucas slapped a hand on the back of his headrest to get my attention. “You were totally passed out.”

Relieved slightly, I breathed, “I bet that made it a lot easier for you all to kidnap me.”

“You’d think so, right?” Baekhyun shook his head harder than he should have; there was no way he could focus on driving with his head thrashing like that. “I mean, I’m glad you didn’t scream— and Lucas told me you’re a biter—”

“Dude,” Mark laughed, “that sounds so dirty!” My swipe at his arm made him laugh harder. He probably didn’t feel the sting of the strike through his thick hoodie.

Undeterred by Mark’s outburst (and Lucas’s gagging at Mark’s outburst), Baekhyun continued, “But all your dead weight made you a lot heavier to lug out of that window. And why did you have to sleep on the second floor and make everything more difficult?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sorry. Next time, tell me when you’re gonna break into my house to drag me off on some midnight adventure— without my consent, I might add!— and I’ll be sure to fall asleep on the living room floor couch for your convenience.”

Lucas and Mark snorted at my reply, and Baekhyun said without taking the time to blink, “Thank you for your consideration!”

I wanted so badly to be mad— to keep my brow furrowed in the back seat and scowl so hard that they would have no choice but to take me home— but it was impossible because of the pearly grin Baekhyun flashed at me through the rearview mirror.

It’s unfair, really, that some people should be so cute. Baekhyun, Lucas, and— on occassion, when he decided it best suited his aims— Ten, were dangerously adorable. They could have convinced me with a single smile that they were innocent of murder, I bet. Baekhyun and Ten were conniving with their charms, but Lucas was just cute by coincidence or fate or nature.

Taemin could have been dangerous if he wanted to be, but I hadn’t known him to wield his cuteness as a weapon. Sometimes, I thought it was unfair that somebody should be as unaware of their charms as he was. Looking back, though, I don’t know if he was all that unaware. Maybe he knew well the effect he could have on people with no effort. I didn’t know; I don’t know; Taemin is, was, and always will be something like a mystery.

As if sharing one brain cell, Baekhyun and Lucas cheered, “I love this song!” and Lucas cranked the radio’s volume so high that the car bounced on soundwaves.

For Mark to hear over Lucas and Baekhyun’s deafening voices, I had to yell, “Where are we going?”

Mark’s face scrunched, confused. “Huh?” Then, a figurative light shone over his head. “We’re meeting the other guys at the campsite by the lake.”

Anxious once more, I asked, “Who’s going to be there?” But Mark had joined Lucas and Baekhyun in singing a song I couldn’t recognize, so he didn’t hear me.

My question went unanswered until Lucas helped me out of the backseat, and I looked over to see Taeyong, Ten, Kai, and Taemin gathered around a campfire. They were laughing at something, and their laughter grew louder as they raced to greet us.

Kai’s smile fell and crashed around his bare feet in the sand as his eyes settled on me. “What’s she doing here?”

Ten glared at him. Because I didn’t want to be a source of tension in the group, I scrambled to make a joke. Turning to reveal my bound wrists, I chuckled, “Well, believe me, I’m not here by choice!”

Suffice it to say that I hadn’t predicted the ensuing argument.

“What the hell?” Taeyong growled. When I turned to face him, he was cutting Baekhyun with his eyes. “Is this what you meant by ‘drastic measures?’ Kidnapping Lei from her house?”

“Don’t criticize your leader’s methods!” Baekhyun scolded as he pulled a drink— something I couldn’t quite see in the moonlight— out of a cooler in his car’s trunk. After gulping through half of the bottle, he said, “I got Lei here, and that’s more than you can say.”

Taeyong rolled his eyes, and Ten said, “Momager is definitely going to notice that Lei’s gone, and she’s going to kick your asses—” he gestured to Baekhyun, Lucas, and Mark— “and ground you, and take your phones—”

“I don’t want to get my ass kicked!” Mark pouted.

“And I don’t want to get my phone taken again,” Lucas sulked.

Baekhyun yelled, “if I’m going down, I’m taking all of you down with me!”

Kai argued, arms crossed, “Like hell I am! I didn’t even want her to come!”

I wished harder than ever that this was just another nightmare. Maybe, I thought, if I blinked enough, I would wake in my bed far away from this fighting, away from Kai’s scrutinizing stare. Fidgeting with my restraints while everybody was too busy bickering to notice— even Taeyong, who focused his rage on Baekhyun’s “poor leadership”— I wandered past the campfire.

Had I been wearing a jacket to shield myself from the cold mid-October nighttime breezes, it wouldn’t have been such a bad night to spend outdoors. The stars were on full display, and the moon was a sterling crescent so bright that I thought, were my wrists not bound, I could have reached out and grabbed it out of the sky and put it in my pocket.

That was a silly thought I dreamed about often: holding the moon, carrying it around with me in the daylight as if I could protect it better than the sky. I don’t know who planted that dream in my mind or why, but I was always grateful for it.

While I kicked at some rock I found at the edge of the water, somebody stepped up behind me and tugged at the fabric around my wrists. Half expecting it to be Lucas, I wheeled around with a smart-aleck comment dancing on the tip of my tongue.

I swallowed my words and forgot them as Taemin stared at me with smiling eyes. He waved. His mouth was closed, it seemed, to give me the opportunity to speak first. Then, realizing that I wouldn’t (couldn’t), he softly said, “Turn around, and I’ll untie you.”

While he set to untangling the knots, he offered, “I’ll drive you home if you really don’t want to be here.”

“You have a driver’s license?” I would have asked if my teeth didn’t sink into my tongue when his soft fingertips brushed against my skin as he unraveled the fabric.

Taemin grabbed my shoulder to urge me to face him. His eyebrows were raised in anticipation of an answer, so I shook my head and crossed my arms, trying to rub my goosebumps away. Again, Taemin had stolen my voice, and I was shrinking or melting under his gaze that I couldn’t match.

“Are you cold?” Taemin noticed how I shivered, and I noticed how he traced his fingers along a sky blue ribbon that must have been used to tie my wrists.

I nodded, realizing that Baekhyun, Lucas, or Mark must have stolen from my vanity the ribbon I wore on my debut stage. I wasn’t particularly attached to it until Taemin suggested, “I’ll give you my jacket if you give me this ribbon.”

I hadn’t worn it once since that performance nearly seven years ago, and it seemed that Taemin’s touch was reviving its once radiant color that faded after being abandoned on my vanity for all that time, but my chest tightened at the thought of losing this symbol of my debut.

Why did Taemin want it anyway? What could he do with an old ribbon?

Taemin shed his light blue denim jacket and carefully draped it over my shoulders. Its warmth enveloped me; its soft fleece interior— snow white— tickled my arms.

Mumbling my thanks, I bowed, and Taemin said, “You don’t really have to give me this.” He held the ribbon out to me. “It’s just— I heard that if someone gives you a ribbon—”

“Aye, love birds!” Baekhyun screamed at me and Taemin. He and the other boys, still wearing scowls, were gathering around the campfire. Beckoning me and Taemin over, Baekhyun announced, “We’re gonna play Truth or Dare!”

Before we obeyed Baekhyun, Taemin offered me the ribbon again. I shook my head, saying, “You can keep it if you want it.”

Not wanting to overanalyze my decision, I ran to sit down on a bean bag with Lucas. Here’s the problem: that bean bag wasn’t quite big enough for two people, so I nearly toppled onto the sandy, rocky ground. Thankfully, Lucas caught me— laughing as usual— and pulled me into his lap.

While Ten pretended to gag at us, Mark said, “Yo! Lei, there’s way more room with me!” although he sat on a bean bag identical to Lucas’s in every aspect except color; while Lucas’s was cotton candy pink, Mark’s was navy blue.

“Listen and listen good,” Lucas told Mark, “the most popular ship in S.M. is Leicas, not— well, your name and Lei’s don’t even fit together to make a ship name!”

Mark retorted, “Obviously, our ship name is Marklei, which is perfect because my name is actually—”

“I thought,” Baekhyun interrupted with a mischievous grin, “that the most popular ship in S.M. was Kai and Taemin.”

While Taemin offered a polite smile from his place on the ground at Kai’s side, Kai quietly glowered at the fire.

Oh, I sank, he really doesn’t want me here.

As if sensing my frown without seeing it, Lucas wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on my shoulder. “So, are we gonna play Truth or Dare, or what?”

Baekhyun looked to Taeyong (who sat on a scarlet bean bag) for permission to start the game. Taeyong shrugged at the attention. “Why are you looking at me? I said that we should talk through our issues as a group. This Truth or Dare thing was your idea.”

Digging into his cooler, which I guess he pulled out of his trunk while I was talking to Taemin, Baekhyun chirped, “Oh yeah!” He held up a bottle. “Let’s start then!” After taking a swig, he passed the drink to Taeyong and asked, “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.” Taeyong took a small sip of the drink that he spit out when Baekhyun asked, “Do you think I’m a bad leader?”

(Maybe) trying to prevent the atmosphere around the game from souring, Ten roared, “Take another sip! The first one doesn’t count since you just sprayed it all over Taemin’s face.”

Taemin still smiled politely as he brought the hem of his shirt up to wipe at his face with the white fabric. Although my eyes had already darted away from the first glimpse at Taemin’s abs, Lucas pressed his hands over my eyes.

Lucas laughed as I swatted him away so I could watch Taeyong’s face burn crimson as he took another sip at Ten’s direction. Meeting Baekhyun’s gaze, which was icy despite his boxy smile, Taeyong answered, “I think you have the potential to be a great leader, but you play around too much. These guys—” Taeyong nodded vaguely at Lucas and Mark— “really look up to you, and I think you should consider that when you encourage them to participate in over the top schemes.”

Baekhyun had been towering over Taeyong, but as he processed the mindfully phrased advice, Baekhyun sat atop the closed cooler. My gaze shifted nervously from Baekhyun to Taeyong, wondering who might first break the silence, wondering if Taeyong would apologize for speaking his mind.

The silence was finally broken by Baekhyun. “You know, I’ve never been a leader before. There’s a part of me that wants to believe that I’m doing a good job just because I have the title. There’s a part of me that wants to say that you all should follow me because I’m the oldest. But maybe— you know, I’ve never led a team with unlimited members.”

Baekhyun smiled at Taeyong and offered him a handshake that was instantly accepted.

Their agreement was unspoken, but I understood: Baekhyun knew that he could learn from Taeyong’s leadership experience. Baekhyun held the title, and Taeyong respected that, but the success of our group did not depend solely on Baekhyun’s wild schemes or Taeyong’s rational lectures. They— Baekhyun and Taeyong— were two halves of a whole leader.

The tension between them hadn’t disappeared, and it probably never would. Left unchecked, the tension would have led to dissent; once addressed, it could better our group. This, I realized, was the merit of open communication.

Bearing this in mind, I wasn’t offended by Kai’s response to Taeyong’s question, “How did you feel when Lei was added to SuperM?”

Although he was resigned to hating me, Kai seemed reluctant to answer even after taking several sips of the drink passed over by Taeyong.

“Upset,” was all that Kai said at first. He only added more at Taeyong’s urging. “It’s just— we had something really good between the seven of us. We had something special with our fans. Adding an eighth member feels wrong to me. And adding a girl—”

“Dude,” Ten snarled, “don’t start with that sexist shit, or—”

“It’s okay,” I said, knowing that Ten wouldn’t stand down at anybody else’s request. I smiled to prove that I wasn’t wounded by Kai’s words although my heart was pounding and a blush was rising in hot splotches across my cheeks.

Kai was entitled to his opinion even if his opinion didn’t favor me, so I met his eyes and said, “Please continue.”

As if seeing me for the first time, Kai held eye contact with me. “It’s nothing personal. I just— having a girl in the group adds a lot of complications. Everybody’s already gonna be focused on you because you’re new. On top of that, the fans are going to criticize us no matter how we interact with you because you’ll never be one of the guys.”

(I didn’t even want to be one of the guys, but I wheezed at the word “never.”)

“Just in this last week of people knowing that you’re in the group, SuperM has been associated with your Lucas dating rumors. And now that you’re in a subunit together, it’s just gonna be the Lei and Lucas show, and that’s not fair after all the work we— all the work I have dedicated to this group.”

Either to rebel against Kai’s criticisms or to brace me against them, Lucas patted my shoulders.

Weirdly, though, I didn’t feel upset. My skin was tougher than anybody expected. Besides, I preferred this conversation with Kai to the months of silently avoiding each other. Understanding his grievances against me helped me understand him. Maybe by responding with the same honesty, I could help him understand me.

I had to try.

“You might not have been excited to work with me,” I started as Kai passed the bottle to Mark (because, for some reason, Taemin had walked away from the game), “but I was excited by the chance to work with you.”

Kai’s eyes broke away from Mark and settled on me. This time, his eyes were no longer filled with anger or apprehension; they were soft, warm, kind enough to encourage me to keep speaking authentically.

“I know you’re probably right.” I shook my head, stomach tightening as I admitted, “No, you’re definitely right. People would rather look at me and guess who I’m kissing behind closed curtains than appreciate how I contribute to the group. They would rather see me as Lucas’s other half than my own person. I hate that too.” I did. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. “I’m sorry that my presence has affected what you’ve built with the other members, especially because I didn’t want— I don’t want—”

My voice broke as I tried to organize my thoughts. I think everyone assumed I was on the verge of tears because Mark gasped, and Lucas hugged me, and Baekhyun distracted himself by rooting through the cooler again, and Taeyong ran a hand through his hair like he always did when stressed, and Ten glared at Kai, and Kai apologized and crossed the distance between us to envelope me in a bone-crushing embrace.

“I can’t breathe,” I gasped, and Kai dropped me onto Lucas’s lap. After Kai returned to his seat, and the thick tension in the air dissipated, and Taemin returned wearing a relieved sort of smile, I concluded, “I’m genuinely honored to perform with all of you.”

The boys responded with over-enthusiastic coos (Baekhyun even pretended to faint) before Mark was dared to jump into the lake wearing all of his clothes.

When he returned shivering, Mark yelled over everyone’s laughter, “Just watch— if I catch a cold, Momager will avenge me!”

“Yeah,” Ten agreed before taking a swig of the drink even though it wasn’t his turn to play yet, “right before she beats your ass for doing such a stupid thing just because Kai dared you!”

I don’t know why they were so fearful of Mom physically attacking them. Mom rarely raised her voice, let alone her fists. Still, when everybody else laughed at Ten’s remark (except poor freezing Mark), I couldn’t help but laugh along.

“Yo, Lei,” Mark raised his eyebrows at me.

“Yo, Mark.”

“Truth or dare?” Mark handed me the bottle. Now that I held it, I caught the strong scent of strawberry.

It was a sweet strawberry wine. The alcohol barely stung on its way down my throat. “Truth,” I chose, unwilling to leap in the lake or perform any such task.

Mark took no time to consider a question. I guess he’d had enough time to think of what to ask me; or, more likely, Mark didn’t have to think before speaking. “NCT Dream is, like, your ultimate group, right?”

No, they weren’t. I never publicly claimed a favorite group, but if I had to choose, it would not have been a difficult choice.

“I like NCT Dream,” I replied carefully. “Is that the question? To name my ultimate group?”

Mark shook his head, “Nah.”

I sighed, relieved that I wouldn’t have to admit that SHINee was my ultimate group right in front of Taemin, who observed the game with smiling eyes.

“Who’s your bias in NCT Dream?” Mark asked, sitting on the edge of his bean bag.

Lucas groaned and, I imagined, cradled his face in his hands. “I cannot believe that you just got her started on—”

Excited by the sudden turn in the conversation toward my absolute favorite topic, I smiled and sat up as straight as I could. Mark’s hopeful expression should have prompted me to lie— to say that he was my bias— but I enthusiastically confessed, “Obviously, my bias is the love of my life, Na Jaemin!”

Dramatically clutching over his heart, Mark collapsed on his bean bag.

Baekhyun smirked. “Maybe it was Jaemin’s name you were moaning in your sleep!”

And Taeyong raised a single eyebrow at Baekhyun’s response before focusing on me. “Jaemin? The love of your life is Jaemin? Baby Jaemin?” His reaction was a little ridiculous considering that Jaemin was only about a year and a half younger than me.

“He’s not looking like such a baby in the comeback promotional pictures!” I patted around my pockets before realizing that I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t even have pockets because I was wearing black polka dotted pajama bottoms.

I held my hand out for Lucas to give me his phone, and he shook his head when I looked back at him. “No way, Lei, I’m not enabling you to thirst after—”

“You can use my phone!” Taemin offered, holding his phone up high above his head. Everybody gawked at him because he had been so silent throughout the game, and he chose to speak up about something so silly.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have been able to look at Taemin for fear that I would never be able to look away. I wouldn’t have been able to speak to him. But to see Jaemin, I could do anything.

I leaped off of Lucas’s lap despite his laughing protests. Kai moved over to make space for me between himself and Taemin, reasoning, “I want to see the Dream comeback trailers, too,” as Taemin entrusted his phone to my hands. Sitting and setting the bottle of wine on the ground before us, I found the videos on YouTube and watched them with Taemin and Kai.

“Ah!” Taemin cried, “I can’t believe how tall Jisung is!”

“I know!” I beamed at Taemin’s enthusiasm and comfortably met his gaze for the first time. “No matter how tall he gets, though, I think he’ll always have the cutest baby face. Or at least I hope—”

“Alright!” Baekhyun whined, pounding his fist against the cooler. “I’m bored! Lei, ask somebody to play Truth or Dare! I command you as your leader!”

Taeyong shook his head at Baekhyun’s abuse of power while grinning.

Taemin held his hand out for the wine, so I gave it to him, asking, “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Taemin said into the bottle.

Because I had been dying to know for what felt like an eternity, I asked, “What do you believe happens if somebody gives you a ribbon?”

“Huh?” Kai’s head quirked curiously.

Ten asked, “Is that code for something?” and I pictured from his tone that his eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

Baekhyun wailed, “It’s not a fair question if nobody else knows what you’re talking about!” But I didn’t care much whether it was a fair question.

Taemin’s face turned a pale pink, and a smile tugged gently at the corner of his lips. He reached a hand into the pocket of his hoodie where I dreamed he kept the ribbon. “I’m not sure, but I hear it has something to do with soulmates.”

Just like that, I couldn’t meet his eyes anymore.

As the boys erupted into chaotic screams, and my eyebrows knit together in confusion— heart fluttering at the word soulmates as my mind raced to decide whether they were real— Taemin stood to pass the bottle to Ten.

Ten chose dare, so Taemin dared him to call the seventh person on his recent call log (who happened to be Kun) and sing the chorus of “Love Talk.” Being absolutely shameless, Ten accomplished his task without breaking into the slightest blush. Ten laughed the hardest when Kun said, “You really need to lay off the wine— I can smell your breath from here,” with ‘here’ being the WayV dorms miles away.

Then, Ten dared Lucas to perform the subunit choreography with me. Initially, I protested because I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of the members, grumbling, “Why should I have to participate in Lucas’s dare?” But everyone started clapping and chanting, “Leicas, Leicas, Leicas,” even Taemin and Kai, so I had no choice.

In the end, Ten’s dare turned out to be a clever scheme. Just seconds into the dance, he claimed, “You’re doing it all wrong!” Ten peeled Lucas off of me so he could place his hands around my waist and joke to Kai, “This is one of the benefits of having a girl in the group, ya know?”

In retribution, Lucas and I slapped at Ten, and Kai kicked at him, but— being so sneaky and elusive— Ten evaded all of our attempts at justice while laughing.

Once all of us sat down, Lucas dared Baekhyun, “Drop three ice cubes down your pants!”

While the other guys groaned at Lucas’s dare— Mark shrieked, “You take it too far, man!”— Baekhyun challenged, “Only three?” before dumping two overflowing handfuls of ice— retrieved from the cooler— into his black joggers.

Baekhyun’s resulting screams and the other boys’ laughter blended together in an inhuman cacophony. As Baekhyun reached for the waistband of his pants, I screamed, and Taemin shielded my eyes with his hands.

The game continued after the Ice Incident, but I have forgotten most of what happened in the aftermath. I’ve heard that stress does strange things to the human mind. However, I can’t forget that when he had the opportunity to ask me anything, Taemin asked, “Who is your ultimate idol?”

Crinkles formed around Ten’s eyes when he laughed. “Didn’t you hear when Lei yelled at me last round for asking who her bias in WayV is?”

Baekhyun said, “She only got mad because she didn’t want to choose between you and Lucas!”

That was partially true, but I would never admit it.

“No,” Kai argued, “she clearly said that she was tired of everyone asking who her biases are after you—” he glared at Baekhyun— “kept pestering her about who she likes in EXO!”

Baekhyun defended his actions by explaining, “I honestly thought that if I went through every subunit, through every era, she would eventually pick me! I didn’t expect it to be all Sehun, Suho, and—” he mimicked my voice— “‘Baekhyun, my CBX bias is always Xiumin, so quit fishing for compliments!’”

We all laughed at how poorly Baekhyun’s joking tone masked genuine wounded feelings, and he threatened me, “Just wait until Sehun finds out that he’s really your bias after all!” before whipping his phone out of his pocket.

“Anyway,” I focused my attention on Taemin as well as I could, but it’s impossible to look directly at the sun. “You want to know who my ultimate idol is?”

It wasn’t such a bad question. Being asked who your idol is isn’t the same as being asked who your crush is. My idol was somebody who inspired me with his talent— with his art. I shouldn’t have been afraid to identify him because, in a way, it was almost like introducing myself.

But nobody ever asked me who my inspiration was before. On talk shows, it was always about who I was dating, or who I was rumored to be dating, or my relationships with Super junior, or my ideal type. Always, in some way or another, people tried to understand me through my relationships with men. Maybe it wouldn’t have been half as frustrating if I were actually allowed to have relationships—

No. It was frustrating to never be appreciated on my own merit as a human being. It was always frustrating, even though I rarely admitted it to myself.

Oblivious to my internal monologue, Taemin nodded, and I took a deep breath. If I kept thinking so hard about it, I would lose all nerve, so I forced myself to reply quickly, “You are.”

The guys— except Taemin, who seemed stunned by my answer— took turns gagging.

“Oh,” Taeyong teased, raising his eyebrows, “so it’s not the love of your life Na Jaemin?” He had been smug since learning that he was my bias in NCT 127.

Ten accused, “Lei, I bet your favorite comeback is ‘Move’ or ‘Want.’ You know, one of the really sensual ones, where Taemin moves like this.” Ever the show off, Ten jumped at the opportunity to perform Taemin’s choreography.

Kai and Mark were in agreement that “Well, those dances are pretty iconic,” but Lucas set the record straight.

“No, you guys got it all wrong. Lei is the kind who likes for a song to kick her right in her emotions, ya know? When she got ‘Want’ for her birthday, she put that ‘Monologue’ song on repeat. Her favorite SHINee song? The hella intense ‘An Encore’ or ‘From Now On.’ I thought she’d never leave her room again when Taemin performed ‘That I Was Once By Your Side’ on TV! I went over to her house three times that week— because, ya know, Mom is the best cook ever— and that song was on nonstop replay, and—”

“Alright!” I picked a marshmallow out of a bag Taemin retrieved from his car and threw it right at Lucas’s big head. “They get it!” And everyone looked at me to confirm Lucas’s claims, so I admitted, “Look— obviously ‘Move’ and ‘Want’ are iconic, okay? But at the end of the day, I like for a song to make me feel something, I don’t know, tear inducing.”

My tone was harsh, biting, and I glared at Lucas because I thought my personal preferences— especially my thing for emotional ballads— were a little too private to be brought up at a game of Truth or Dare. I knew the guys probably didn’t care much or at all about which Taemin songs I liked, but I felt like I (or, rather, Lucas) had shared too many of the pieces of identity I held closest to my heart.

Taemin ended his silence (which weighted my heart with the fear that he thought I was weird) by saying, “‘An Encore’ is my favorite song too.”

That was all he said before leaning forward so that his bright toothy smile, which was somehow far more beautiful than the usual polite closed-mouth grin, was an unavoidable display right before my eyes.

“Lucas, it’s cold,” I shivered, hoping that none of the others would overhear my complaint from their tents. I didn’t want to have a reputation for being the high maintenance member even if secretly (not so secretly) I was.

Lucas rolled over in our blanket fort to pin me under his weight again.

Suffocating, I hissed, “What are you doing? I told you already— stay on your side of the tent!”

“You’re cold,” he mumbled sleepily into my ear, “so obviously I’m warming you up with cuddles!”

Nobody on this planet craved cuddles more than Lucas, I swear. That arrangement— the warmth emanating from his body as he tucked his arm snugly around my waist— would have been perfect, romantic even, if I wanted Lucas that close to me in any version of the universe.

“Get off, Lucas!” I struggled in vain to untangle our limbs. It was impossible because he was taller, heavier, and stronger than me. “When I said that I was cold, I was hoping that you would pass me another blanket or—”

Unsympathetically, Lucas hummed, “I guess you should have kept Taemin’s jacket on.”

It was a cheap shot— trying to stun me into silence by mentioning Taemin— but Lucas wasn’t above committing that kind of foul.

I retorted, “I guess you should have thrown a travel bag together for me before aiding Baekhyun and Mark in their kidnapping plot—”

“You’re still going on about that?” Lucas huffed as if I would forgive or forget any time soon, especially with the total lack of apology. “Lei, I told you that I packed extra boxers that you can borrow—”

“I am not interested in borrowing your underwear, Lucas!”

Resolving that there was no other option, I forced both of my hands to the parts of his ribs just below his armpits, where I knew he was most ticklish. I basked in triumph as his entire body writhed in laughter, and I could finally muster the strength to push him away in his weakened state.

Lucas must have packed more than boxers in his duffel bag, I reasoned, and I had crossed most of the distance in our tiny tent to investigate that suspicion when he tackled me into the fluffy blanketed floor.

“Get off, Lucas!” Repeating myself was a waste of breath, but the words tumbled out of my mouth anyway.

He rolled me onto my back so I could watch his face contort with his maniacal laughter, so he could watch the panic that flashed in my eyes as I realized that I had started a tickle war. My eyes tightened closed, and I held my breath in anticipation of a touch that never happened.

As if Heaven or Hell intervened either to rescue from Lucas’s insanity or to one-up his chaos, the tent came crashing down around us. I guess Lucas took the blunt of the force because as I struggled to crawl out from under the orange fabric, he screamed something like, “My family jewels!”

That outburst, I think, was the cause of Ten’s and Baekhyun’s identical laughter that I witnessed as I emerged, breathless, from the collapsed tent.

“Mark wanted to wake you up,” Ten started, and Baekhyun finished, “but we told him that he probably didn’t want to see whatever was going on in that tent.”

Sitting on the hood of his car, Taeyong laughed, but he masked his laughter by pretending to choke on his breakfast bar.

Ten and Baekhyun, disappointed with my lack of response to their perversion, set to helping Mark untangle the still groaning Lucas from the tent.

Taemin was standing, leaned against Taeyong’s car, making a face that I thought was a reaction to Ten and Baekhyun’s stupid joke. He looked like he had chewed through a lemon.

“Lucas and I—” I started to explain that nothing that happened in the tent— well, nothing than Lucas annoying me, as usual— but I stopped when Taemin faced me with a smile.

Oh. I wanted to slap my forehead. He had been squinting at the over-enthusiastic bright morning sun. Taemin didn’t care about what Lucas and I did or didn’t do. Why would he?

“Um.” I should have been content to fall to silence, but I couldn’t say nothing with Taemin looking at me like that, like he was excited to hear whatever I had to say. Not wanting to talk about Lucas, I said, “I left your jacket in the tent.” I gestured over my shoulder with a thumb and followed my own gesture to see that Mark, Baekhyun, and Ten were no closer to rescuing Lucas.

Actually, it looked like they had wrapped him up into something resembling a burrito. Knowing them, that was probably their intention. Jokers, even at the crack of dawn.

Taemin’s voice claimed my attention. “Don’t worry about it.”

His hands were shoved into the front pockets of impractically tight black jeans. He had traded last night’s white hoodie for a black one. When his hand carded through his soft blonde— almost brown— hair, I thought he knew that he looked like a character from the pages of a young adult novel or a movie that makes every girl’s heart race.

But then I saw the blue ribbon, my blue ribbon, tied around his wrist, and I knew that Taemin was up to something that I didn’t understand or trust.

“It’s yours, you know.”

I figured that he was talking about the ribbon. For some reason, I felt so embarrassed that, for a split second, I vaguely regretted giving it to him when I barely knew him as anything more than an immaculate figure on stage. For some reason, I glared at him because I couldn’t believe that talk about soulmates, and I couldn’t understand why he should want to be mine— even if it was pretend or convenient or, like Ten said last night while dancing with me, one of the benefits of having a girl in the group.

Had Taemin been anyone else in the world, I would have barked that I was tired of being everybody’s safe crush— the person Lucas could cuddle because the fans shipped it and there were no real feelings involved, the person Mark could pine after shamelessly because I would never let the feelings lead us anywhere, the person Sehun liked to flirt with because there was no risk of slipping into a relationship due to my refusal to date.

I’m glad I admired Taemin too much to lose my temper; I would have felt stupid for ranting when he said, “The jacket, I mean. The jacket is yours. We made a trade, remember?”

“Oh.” I felt stupid even though my rant hadn’t left the confines of my mind.

Probably somehow bothered by our conversation— or maybe taking pity on my inability to talk to Taemin like a normal person— Taeyong knocked his knuckles against the hood of his car. “Lei, Kai said that he wants to talk to you before you leave.”

I grinned, relieved that Kai and I had made some progress toward friendship during Truth or Dare. I thought that even if he still hated me, I would have raced to find Kai to distract me from whatever fire Taemin struck in my mind or chest or stomach.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Taeyong pointed toward the water. Taemin offered to walk me there, and I blurted, “No.”

Taemin winced at my instant rejection, and Taeyong leaped off of his car to oversee the others’ progress in freeing Lucas.

I had to come up with a quick explanation for Taemin. I couldn’t tell him why I didn’t want him to walk with me even if I understood (and I didn’t), but I also couldn’t leave him sulking by Taeyong’s car.

“I have to apologize,” I decided, and Taemin’s forehead wrinkled. “I feel like I owe Kai a private apology, and if you’re there— well, it won’t be so private then, will it?”

Taemin shrugged, and I knew he didn’t buy my reasoning, but he gave me that polite smile. The closed mouth one. The one I was starting to think was more of a habit than a genuine expression. I stared at him, and he bowed, and that meant it was time for me to leave.

It’s funny that after rejoicing in having a reason to leave just moments before, I should search so desperately for a reason to stay standing with Taemin. There were no reasons, so I set off toward the water to find Kai while contemplating Taemin’s smile.

I had no right to crave his authentic expressions, yet I was reeling from receiving such a rehearsed gesture as that tight-lipped grin. I was stupid— for glaring at his ribbon symbolism and then for frowning at the behavior that was perfectly appropriate among colleagues, among acquaintances. This— this is why I didn’t mess with boys. I didn’t understand them, and I never wanted to before, so why did I want to think about Taemin’s smile even though it made me sick, even though it either filled my stomach with butterflies (when it was that bright, full, toothy smile) or tied it in knots (when it was that carefully molded meaningless grin)?

I forced the thoughts from the forefront of my mind and tried to ignore their nagging in the darker recesses when I sat next to Kai on the edge of a wooden pier. The pie wasn’t that tall, so Kai’s bare feet kissed the water’s surface. I imagined that with a little effort, I could make my feet reach the water, but I was content enough with the breeze breathing on my skin.

“Good morning, Kai,” I greeted. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t there just on Taeyong’s orders; I really wanted to talk to him.

“Good morning.”

Kai didn’t look at me directly; he met my eyes in my reflection on the water. He probably didn’t mean anything special by it, but I wanted to think that he was trying to make it easier for me to speak to him. In these past months of working together, he either stared at me, though me, or went to inconvenient lengths to look away from me. This place where we met on the water was a happy medium. It was like meeting halfway.

“I meant what I said last night,” he said, and I guessed that’s why he told Taeyong that he wanted to talk to me. “And I’m sorry.”

I nodded. “I know. I meant what I said too.” Not to make my ramblings to Taemin true but because I meant it, I added, “I’m sorry too, Kai.”

He smiled. Such a genuine smile had to be appreciated directly from the source, not through a rippling reflection on the water, so I looked at him. He looked at me. “You don’t have to call me Kai. You can call me Jongin.”

Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal to everyone, but I always felt wary of the difference between a stage name and a birth name. Lei was my name on stage and in life, and I often wondered what it would have been like to have separate names. Would that have made it easier to distinguish me (the person) from me (the idol)?

Lucas said that I thought too much when I asked him whether calling him Yukhei or Xuxi would make him my best friend. “I’m your best friend no matter what you call me, silly. Don’t ya know a name’s just a name?” He flicked my forehead, unaware that he had expressed a sort of wisdom penned by Shakespeare. (I know Lucas said it didn’t matter, but I feel like I should explain that I ended up calling him Lucas because he laughed at my pronunciations of Yukhei and Xuxi.)

I knew I wouldn’t make a habit of calling Kai by his birth name because I just didn’t know him well enough for it to sound right coming from my mouth. I should have just forced through my discomfort if sharing his name with me was a way to express the desire for friendship— if calling him Jongin was the way to become his friend— so I tried it just once when I said, “Okay, Jongin.”

That moment I shared with Kai was the happiest I had been since joining SuperM, and it couldn’t have lasted more than a few minutes before Heechul came running onto the pier, screaming, “I’ve found her, I’ve found her!” His chin length black hair was tousled by the wind, his eyebrows were gathered together as his eyes narrowed at me, and the swollen bags under his eyes were an exhausted purple. Heechul hissed, “What were you thinking, sneaking out like that? You mother and I looked for you all night!”

Ah, so that explained the dark bags under his eyes. I opened my mouth to ask how they finally found us, but Kai’s voice filled the air. “It’s not Lei’s fault. Baekhyun—”

Kai was going to explain that Baekhyun, Lucas, and Mark had kidnapped me from my room. That was the truth, and maybe they deserved to be punished for being so dumb, but I didn’t want them to get in trouble— especially not after I had finally started to fit into the group (at least in part) because of their efforts.

“Baekhyun talked me into going camping with everyone,” I said as Mom stood at Heechul’s side. They really did look like siblings wearing the same hairstyle and matching tracksuits— bright red— with their hands on their hips as they eyed me suspiciously. “Really! We needed the group bonding, and I didn’t want to interrupt your drama to tell you where I was going, and—” I knew this would push Heechul’s buttons, so I don’t know why I said this unless I wanted to watch his eyes pop out of his head— “I’m 21 years old, so ,technically, I’m allowed—”

“You are never allowed to give me a heart attack like that! No matter how old you are!” Heechul yelled, so Mom had to be calm even if she didn’t want to be.

“I’m tired.” Her voice was a mumble, and I knew that was my cue to leave. After waving goodbye to Kai on the pier and the other boys on the beach (Their heads were hung in shame at having been caught by Mom and Heechul with the rising of the sun.), I crawled into the backseat of Mom’s SUV.

Heechul passed out as soon as his head hit the passenger seat’s headrest. Trusting that he wouldn’t hear our conversation, Mom started the car and said, “I know you didn’t sneak out, Lei, and I know that I don’t need to explain how recklessly you all behaved.” She eyed me sternly through the rearview mirror. “You need to think about what it means to be the only girl in a group of boys, and you need to decide what you want your reputation to be before the tour stats tomorrow.”

In all my life, I had never really been scolded by Mom. It was worse than I could have imagined. Although she turned her eyes away from me quickly— her stare had lasted just a few seconds— the disappointment seemed to linger over me. I couldn’t tell if I had concerned her as a Mom or as a Manager. I couldn’t tell which was worse, and I wanted to say that I was sorry, but my throat felt too tight to speak.

The pounding of my heart quickened when I noticed it in the space next to me on the back seat: Taemin’s folded denim jacket. I couldn’t wear it with Mom sneaking those glances at me; she would ask where it came from. I couldn’t wear it out in public; it was noticeably too big, and fans would imagine that it had been given to me by a boyfriend. It would only be a matter of time before super fans started tagging me in pictures of Taemin wearing the same jacket.

What good was having a jacket that I could never wear? It was wasteful. It was a token of a memory I couldn’t quite understand.

And still, I felt like I would have to thank Taemin at Donghae’s birthday party.

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welllpthisishappening · 5 years

Text

Hello, hey, hi there internet. I’ve spent the last two days casually dying in my living room, so to combat that, I’ve written some vague Halloween words set inexplicably in the Out of the Frying Pan universe. It’s because @searchingwardrobes tagged me when she reblogged these gifs. Also, this is very much for @shireness-says who is an absolute delight at all times.

She couldn’t move her fingers fast enough.

Emma pulled herself closer, tugging lightly on the mess of hair in her hands and whatever noise he made ensured that these few stolen moments were absolutely, positively worth it.

In a storage closet.

On set.

Where she was dangerously close to ripping her husband’s jacket off.

He had to go film in a few minutes.

It was a miracle no one had found them yet.

So, it might not have been the most mature thing they’d ever done, but it had been a week and she’d spent the last two days looking at costume options to wear while cooking some Halloween monstrosity and Mary Margaret keep texting about the party at the Jolly and it was—

“God, I can’t think when you do that,” Killian groaned, a distinct lack of anything even resembling frustration in his voice.

Emma smiled against his mouth. And nipped at his lower lip. That version of the sound was slightly different and possibly even better, a low rumble in the back of his throat and his hand flat against her back as soon as it worked under her shirt.

“Yeah, that is definitely the point,” Emma said. She gasped when his other hand moved, prosthetic working under her left thigh to hitch that same thigh further up his hip and something shook precariously above his head.

“If we get concussed,” she continued, “I’m blaming you.”

Killian snickered, dropping his head to drag his mouth over the curve of her jaw and the side of her neck and Emma’s back arched of its own accord. “If memory serves, love, this was your idea.”

“Yeah, well—“

“Well?”

“Oh, don’t get smug.”

“Would I do that?”

Emma hummed, another hair tug and unspoken command to kiss her again because they were so goddamn good at kissing each other and she hadn’t checked with Henry on his costume yet.

She assumed Henry remembered to get his own costume.

And that Ryan hadn’t.

Because she was a baby.

“You’re getting distracted, Swan,” Killian murmured.

“You think very highly of you mind reading powers, don’t you?”

“I think you nearly yanked my hair out of my head—“

“—Ok, let’s not joke like you’re not stupid into that.”

It was a closet, so it wasn’t very bright in the few feet of space Emma had pushed them into, but she was certain she could see the first few hints of color on Killian’s cheeks and the tips of his ears and that one, specific way his eyes flashed never failed to leave her just a little breathless.

She scrunched her nose.

“What if we just blew off the party?”

“What?”

“Didn’t go,” Killian shrugged, an impressive feat considering the location of his hand and how much stuff the network had managed to stuff in this closet.

“It’s at our restaurant.”

“And have you planned a single second of it?”

“Why does that sound like a commendation?”

He nipped at the shell of her ear. Emma had to glance down to make sure she hadn’t burst into flames. She hadn’t. So, positives. “It’s not,” Killian said. “First of all, when would you have had the time—“

“—Oh shit, remind me later that Rubes wants to talk about starting some kind of Instagram video thing—“

“—Swan, we cannot talk about Lucas while I’m actively trying to get my hand under your shirt.”

Emma’s nose was going to be permanently scrunched. And impossibly charmed. “Is it not already?”

“Well, that’s just semantics and—“

“You know,” she drawled, scratching lightly at the back of his neck, “you are even more attractive when you’re flustered, Lieutenant.”

“Even more?”

“Also not a condemnation.”

She could feel his smile when he kissed her, which might have been better than the thigh thing and the hand thing and they managed to hide in the storage closet for another three minutes before Emma figured there would be actual repercussions to being in the closet and—

“Oh my God, have you seen this?” Ruby asked sharply, several days later at a party Emma hadn’t planned a moment of, wearing a red hood with a stuffed wolf in an actual basket.

Emma shook her head. The tiara was already pinching her brain. She needed to find her kids. And her husband. And maybe another closet. Or, a hallway.

She wasn’t going to be specific.

“You’re just shouting words at me,” Emma said. “Have you seen Henry? Or Ry? Or—“

“—Your husband post-makeout?”

“Excuse me?”

Ruby’s smile stretched across her face so slowly, Emma was actually concerned something had happened to the fabric of reality. That didn’t last long. Because then there was a phone in her face and a video on the phone and, that time, the nose scrunch came from the blush rising up her own cheeks.

He must have filmed before he cooked — a talking head for Iron Chef and Emma couldn’t imagine how no one had noticed, but his hair was…messy. Standing almost straight up. Clearly wrecked by Emma’s fingers.

Ruby threw her whole head back when she laughed.

“Oh my God, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. That is—you really did a number on him, huh?”

Emma’s face flamed, lips tugged back hind her teeth and eyes squeezed shut, like ignoring Ruby would make sure no one else knew about this, but that was a pipe dream and she could hear footsteps moving towards them.

“Oh, leave her alone, Rubes,” Mary Margaret chided. “Sometimes, you’ve got to seize your opportunities when you get them, that’s all.”

Emma gagged. “You are married to my brother.”

“And your husband filmed his Iron Chef interview with makeout hair.”

“How did the happen?” Emma asked, finally opening her eyes. Ruby was still laughing. “I mean—was Gina not there?”

“Did you want Gina to see Killian’s makeout hair?”

“Stop calling it that!”

Mary Margaret ducked her head, turning to bury her face in Ruby’s shoulder. It didn’t help mask her laugh much, both of them shaking with the rather pitiful attempts to stay quiet.

“That’s not an answer,” she muttered.

Ruby bit down on her hand before she answered. “Apparently Gina was helping Ariel with stuff for tonight, couldn’t be on set when they started filming and, uh—“ She shrugged. “—This happened.”

“Are they going to use it?”

“I don’t think they have another choice, really. Plus—“

“—I think I look pretty great, honestly,” Killian interrupted, an arm circling Emma’s waist and his chin hooking over her shoulder. She definitely leaned back. “And, for the record, Gina was the one who was shirking responsibilities, not me. I was on time for call.”

“Yeah,” Ruby laughed, “you’re a picture of responsibility.”

“You want to let our kids stay at your apartment this weekend?”

“So you can make out with Em?”

“Was that not obvious?”

“And filmed for posterity,” Mary Margaret added, smiling when she saw the presumably scandalized look on Emma’s face.

Killian kissed behind her ear.

And Emma hadn’t really made any decisions about anything to do with the Jolly’s annual Halloween party, but the party was fun and Ariel had let Will come up with some ridiculous alcoholic concoction that left her with a pleasant buzz under her skin and she didn’t argue as soon as her shoulders pressed into the hallway outside of the kitchen, Killian’s mouth catching hers.

She pushed her fingers into his hair.

#cs ff #captain swan #here's hoping this is even coherent #seriously guys my ears are a disaster #i've watched two seasons of bob's burgers today

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charlienick · 6 years

Note

riley & maya, 6

things you said under the stars and in the grass

okay babe, i didn’t give you grass, but i did give you (fingers waggle) so much more.

ao3.

“C’mon, dude, it’s cold.”

“Lucas, stop being a fucking wimp,” Maya sighs from her place beside him on the trampoline. “If you’re gonna keep bitching and moaning, go back inside and measure your dick to Farkle’s again or something else equally stupid.”

“We’ve never done that!”

“Sure you haven’t. Or better yet, go make us some pasta. We’re hungry, aren’t we Riles?”

“Mmm.” Riley only snuggles closer into Maya, burying her head even further into the warmth of her skin.

“Whatever. Farkle’s right, we’re just getting eaten alive by mosquitos out here and will probably get frostbite.”

“Lucas, it’s April in Upstate New York. It’s like 45 degrees out. We’re not gonna get fucking frostbite.” Maya snorts when she turns her head to find Lucas laying next to her, arms crossed with his hands shoved underneath his armpits in an attempt to keep them warm, back rigid. “What, a li’l Texas boy like yerself can’t handle the fearsome outdoors?”

“Yeah, Lucas,” Riley giggles, voice muffled by Maya’s skin. “What’s a country boy t’do?” The accent she uses is significantly worse than Maya’s, but it makes Lucas and Maya smile anyway. Riley could do pretty much anything and it would make Lucas and Maya smile.

“You, too, Riley?” Lucas asks, eyebrows raised.

“Maya’s right! You were so used to hot weather for so long, and it almost never snows in the city. All that smog has you spoiled.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely spoiled,” Maya agrees with a conspiratory grin. “Save yourself, Huckleberry! Go on without us!”

“Please, Lucas! You must make it to dry land and tell our story!” Riley cries.

“Okay, I’m going,” Lucas laughs as he gets off the trampoline, jostling the girls. “But not because you told me to. Spring Break Lucas does what he wants and is not bossed around by his friends like he usually is.”

“Sure. As long as Spring Break Lucas still makes that delicious Three-Cheese Chicken Penne that Regular Lucas is so fond of.” Lucas just shrugs, but he’s grinning, and calls out to Farkle who Maya can see reading on the recliner to start boiling water. Riley and Maya hear do it yourself, I’m not your maid! from inside, and they both laugh as the door opens, flooding them with light briefly before submerging them in darkness once again.

Without Lucas, without anyone else, when it’s just Riley and Maya, it’s usually quiet. Hushed voices, soft touches, everything draped in fabric that mutes the outside world. They don’t notice the cars backfiring outside, or the yelling from the Morgensterns down the hall, or the sycamore tree scraping outside the window. Usually when it’s just Riley and Maya, they’re in the Bay Window, and the drapes and curtains always make the world seem softer somehow, safer.

Or maybe it’s just Riley and Maya that do that.

Maya thinks for a moment about how safe she feels right now, wrapped up in her best friend at her step-father’s house upstate. Riley talks sometimes about how this place looked before Maya ever saw it: drab, lifeless, boring. No pictures on the walls—not even any that Shawn took himself—no area rugs, no interesting furniture. It looked like a house and not a home. But then Cory started visiting more once Riley was old enough to take the train without getting nervous, and Topanga would stay home with Auggie while Cory and Riley would visit Shawn. They’d always bring something along when they went. Something permanent. A photostrip from the boys’ childhoods, or a drawing of a cat Riley made on the train ride up, all jagged lines and the kind of innocence they all thought she’d have to lose eventually.

The picture of the cat Riley drew at age nine is still up on the fridge, and it has the same lack of finesse that her art still has today. But that’s the thing Maya admires most about Riley: she never lets being terrible at something stop her from doing it. Maya knows if she hadn’t had a natural talent for art, she would’ve never pursued it, even if she knew how much she loved it. Fear of failure and rejection runs so deep in her that she thinks it must be paramount to her personality that this point. She doesn’t know who she’d be without it.

But she doesn’t need to; at least, not for the next four years. She is going to the Tisch School of the Arts in the fall, and this is their group’s last spring break together. Maya, Zay, Lucas, Farkle, Riley and Smackle have all been going to Shawn’s cabin every spring since their freshman year of high school. The first two years, Cory demanded that Shawn come along to “babysit.” Shawn ditched them to go hiking both years, and once Cory caught wind of this and the fact that nothing even remotely scandalous had happened while Shawn was absent, he allowed the six of them to go the next year unsupervised.

Most of the time, when the six of them are together, it’s chaos. They’re all loud personalities, and being cooped up in a tiny house for five days doesn’t usually go swimmingly. Last year, they nearly burned the place down when Zay and Maya got into a “flaming sword battle” with burning marshmallows on sticks. The year before that, Smackle and Riley got into an all-out fight over whether or not Buzzfeed quizzes were stupid or not. Riley told Smackle she doesn’t know how to have fun, and Smackle called Riley shallow, and Riley cried, and it took two whole excruciating days for them to start talking again. Lucas, their mediator, couldn’t even solve it. It ended up being Zay who finally out an end to it by telling them he was sick of needing to choose sides. They’re all friends, and they need to act that way. Riley apologized first, which still infuriates Maya to this day, and that was the fight that caused the biggest rift between Smackle and Farkle. He confided in Maya that he couldn’t stop thinking about how torn apart Riley was by being called shallow by his girlfriend.

Things became even more strained between the two of them after that, and their breakup came ten months later and was more drawn out than anything Maya has ever seen. Worse than when Lucas thought there was something romantic between them. Worse than her crush on Josh that was strung out to its last dying breath until Alan fucking Matthews sat her down and asked if she was okay and if his son was hurting her. The reality of the situation sunk in then, how she had been chasing him to ignore a much larger truth, and her come-to-Jesus moment about her sexuality came shortly after.

Worse than… anything.

It’s still bad even though it’s been a full year. They’re all still friends—Smackle is currently inside watching Animal Planet with Zay—but it’s strained. Maya can tell that Smackle feels more left out than she did when she was on the outside of the group looking in, even though they all invite her wherever they go, and Lucas has been dancing around both Farkle and Zay with long looks and stolen glances—the same long looks that Farkle himself gives to everyone he’s friends with, falling in love more easily and freely than he’d ever be able to quantify scientifically. The same long looks that Maya has been giving Riley since the day they met.

Maya is tired. She just wants everything to be alright. She wants to paint and see her friends happy and kiss Riley. Apparently, the world only wants her to do one of those things.

But even if she can’t kiss her, Maya is happy with Riley. She always is. Being with Riley in any state is better than being with anyone else. Even without the Bay Window, without cars backfiring and people screaming, they’re still safe. There’s stars to blanket them now, and bullfrogs from the pond just through the woods to talk back to them. No matter where they go, they’re still Riley and Maya. Riley is Maya’s best friend on earth, she always has been, and she knows that will never change.

Which is why she should’ve known that kissing her wouldn’t change it either.

“Hey, Maya?” Riley says sleepily from her place on Maya’s shoulder. Maya hums, lost in her own thoughts. “Why are cicadas so loud?”

“Why are you asking me?” Maya snorts. “There are two scientists right inside that I’m sure would be happy to ramble for hours about the etymology of cicadas.”

Unlike anyone else, because Riley is very much unlike everyone else, she doesn’t note Maya’s usage of a two-dollar word. Instead, she ignores the answer entirely, still trapped in her thought process. “Do you think they’re screaming?” It almost makes Maya laugh that Riley continued on as if Maya hadn’t said anything until she realizes that Riley knew all too well what Maya had proposed and how awkward it is for her to talk to both of those scientists right now for much different reasons. She sees the long looks Riley has been giving Farkle for years, and she sees the crafty ways she avoids conversation with Smackle. Maya notices more about Riley than she does anything else. If Riley were an academic subject, Maya would be a scholar in the field. “It kind of sounds like they’re screaming. I worry about them whenever we come up here. They only make noise at night. Do you think they’re hurt?”

“No, honey. I think maybe…” Maya sighs, pushing Riley’s hair away from her eyes so she can look at the night sky better. Riley’s hand tightens in the sweatshirt she borrowed from Shawn’s closet and turns her head slightly to watch the stars move while Maya thinks. “I think maybe they’re singing.”

Riley hums happily at that. “I hope so. Singing in their own special cicada language.”

“What songs do you think cicadas would like?” Maya is always glad to distract Riley from the negative thoughts that flit through her mind.

“Oooh… Bad 80s pop songs with weird beats. Yeah, definitely. Like, you know that one that Lucas is always playing?” Riley hums a little bit of it, and then starts singing it choppily. It’s a bit off-key but she’s clearly trying so hard, just like the way she always sings. Maya recognizes it immediately as Dela. Riley’s right, Lucas played this song non-stop when he discovered it in his venture into genres that weren’t the country music forced on him his entire childhood. She’s missing a few words here and there, so Maya joins her to fill in the spaces.

“I’ve been waiting for you all my life! Hoping for a miracle. I’ve been waiting day and night, day and night!” Riley suddenly sits up and clambers to her feet in that innately clumsy way she always seems to move with and begins jumping as Maya attempts to join her whilst still singing. “I’ve been waiting for you all my life! Waiting for redemption. I’ve been waiting day and night. I burn for you!”

Maya bears down hard on the trampoline at the right moment, and Riley sails high into the sky as they loudly finish the chorus of the song. She collapses onto her back with a shrill giggle, momentum bouncing her several times before she comes to rest. Maya joins her once again, a bit breathless, and then Riley looks over at her with her perfect toothy grin and Maya wonders if she’ll ever be able to breathe again.

And then Riley leans over, cups her cheek delicately in the cover of night, and kisses her. Simple, like they’d done it hundreds of times before, and for a moment, Maya thinks maybe they have. Maybe she’s met Riley before this life, with no bay window but the same amount of safety. Maybe they kissed then, too, and this is just a continuation of everything they’ve done before. It somehow feels more believable than something this natural being their first kiss. Distantly, Maya can hear Dela playing from the portable speakers inside, and she smiles into the kiss. She cradles Riley’s cheek, and Riley’s other hand rests against her steadily beating heart, and it’s perfect. Maya feels like she can finally breathe again.

Riley pulls back only slightly to look at her, and while Maya knows she’s blushing, Riley is not. Her smile is sweet, candy, like spun taffy that Maya wants to pull at until her smile is all that’s left of her. She wants Riley to be this happy always. It makes her a bit dizzy to know that she has the power to do that for someone who is constantly pushing aside her own happiness for others.

“Always wanted to do that,” Riley says in that quiet way she gets sometimes, but only ever around Maya.

Maya nods, and matches Riley’s grin. “Me, too.”

And perhaps it was always as simple as that. Their friends are still a tangled mess of unspoken feelings inside, but under the cover of darkness, her and Riley are just fine. There has never been anything tangled about them, and Maya feels foolish that she convinced herself there ever was.

#ask #amelia #rilaya #fic #girl meets world #is amelia your tag now? your url is too powerful #masterpost

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ghosttotheparty · 4 years

Text

say my name and say it twice (cotton candy skies)

15. also on AO3 chapter fourteen

There’s a train in Jens’s veins when he wakes up. He doesn’t mean to, but he wakes up early, before Lotte and their mom have left.

“What are you doing today?” his mom asks as she sips her tea, and he takes a bite of his breakfast before answering.

“Probably just...watch a movie. Or homework.”

“Mhmm.” She narrows her eyes at him and Lotte giggles even though she’s not looking.

“He’s not going to do homework,” she says into her cereal bowl.

“I will!”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, you’re probably right.”

And she giggles again.

When they leave he cleans his room, shoving clothes into his closet, stacking books and setting them on his desk, his backpack on the desk chair, hanging his pointe shoes on his barre, and he even attempts to fix his hair in the mirror, not that it really works.

He jumps when there’s a knock at the door, dropping his phone, and stands in front of the door, hesitating nervously before opening it and nearly swooning at the sight of Lucas, his curly hair, the chains hanging around his neck over a pink sweatshirt.

“Hi,” Lucas says, smiling as Jens’s eyes sweep over him.

“Hey.”

They stare at each other for a second, the air slightly awkward (or maybe it’s just Jens’s unnecessary nervousness), before Jens steps back abruptly, holding the door open wider.

“Come on.”

He laughs when Lucas curtsies as he passes him.

“Such a gentleman,” Lucas says, turning to look back at him, looking around.

“I try.”

“Mhmm.”

Lucas suppresses a smile unsuccessfully and glances around again, the smile growing as his eyes catch on the wall. He nods to it, stepping closer.

“Is this you or Lotte?”

Jens looks where he’s looking, at a grainy photo of a baby. He rolls his eyes, groaning and covering his face with his hand.

“I should have covered those before you got here.”

“I’m assuming it’s you.”

“Yeah,” he sighs.

“Aw.” Lucas is grinning, reaching out and pinching Jens’s flushed cheeks. “So cute.”

“Do you want anything to drink?” Jens asks, swatting his hands away even though he kind of doesn’t want to.

“What do you have?” Lucas looks at the photo again, smiling, and looks at the photo under it, a small picture of Jens and Lotte a few years ago. She’s rolling her eyes and smiling as Jens makes a face.

“No beer, unfortunately.”

“Shame.”

Jens watches Lucas’s face.

“I think we have juice boxes though.”

“That sounds good.”

Lucas follows Jens to the kitchen and watches him open the magnet-covered fridge, pulling out the juiceboxes.

“Thank you,” Lucas mouths as he takes one from his hand.

They punch the straws into the juice boxes at the same time, like it’s a challenge, and Jens leads the way to his room, sipping the juice.

“Much more artsy than I expected,” Lucas says when they enter, looking at the drawings pinned above his desk.

“They’re all Lotte’s.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” He watches Lucas sip his juice and lean over the desk, looking closer at the marker drawings of flowers and bugs.

“She’s really good.”

“Maybe I should add some of yours to it.”

Lucas hums, quirking his eyebrows at him. He looks around again, his eyes catching at the barre and smiling.

It’s quiet for a second before Jens sets his juice on the desk.

“Come on.”

He goes to the barre, setting a hand on it and getting into first position, his heels together, his other arm hanging in a gentle curve.

“What?” Lucas’s smile drops slowly and he lowers his juice box.

“Come on,” Jens repeats, beckoning with a tilt of his head.

“What, no, I’m not—”

“Come on.”

“I’m not doing ballet, Jens.”

Jens ignores the shiver he gets when Lucas says his name.

“Yes, you are, come here.”

Lucas stares at him, looking scandalized, before he finally sets his juice box next to Jens’s and steps in front of him, copying his stance as Jens smiles.

“You’re too stiff, drop your shoulders.”

Jens sets his hands on his shoulders, pushing them down until Lucas drops them. Lucas shakes his head, grimacing.

“I—”

“A-a-and plié…” Jens interrupts, bending his knees and sweeping his arm. Lucas watches, unmoving until Jens waves his hand in a go on gesture, and he copies him, stiffly, awkwardly, and Jens stifles a chuckle.

“It’s so bad,” Lucas laughs, covering his face.

“It’s not,” Jens says, and Lucas gives him a look. “Just… drop your shoulders.” He places his hands on his shoulders again.

But he doesn’t push, his hands light on him, and Lucas grins. Jens’s eyes drop to his smile and then back to the blue of his eyes.

The air around them is blue, too.

“Jens,” Lucas says, tilting his head in like he’s trying to ground him. Jens’s hands slide over his shoulder to his neck. Lucas’s skin is warm. “Do it.”

So he does.

He leans down and their mouths crash together messily. His eyes close and his fingers slip into Lucas’s hair, catching tangles as he feels Lucas touch his waist, pulling him closer as their lips slide across each other.

This is the type of kiss that’s only in movies, Jens thinks as he tilts his head, feeling Lucas’s tongue slip across his lip gently. The kiss that’s under rain and moonlight, surrounded by swelling music. But this will do. In fact, this is perfect.

Jens’s mind goes blank as Lucas’s hands tighten on him, and he accidentally pushes him, Lucas’s back bumping the barre and Lucas pulls back, a small yelp escaping his mouth.

“Shit, sorry,” Jens apologizes, breathless, and he pulls back, looking at Lucas, who looks almost as flustered as Jens feels.

“Didn’t know you were into that,” Lucas says, quirking his eyebrows and sliding his hands over his chest to his neck, and pulls him in.

“Shut up,” Jens says, smiling as they kiss again.

Lucas’s thumb sweeps over Jens’s jaw and he gets up on his tiptoes, gasping as their mouths open. He tastes sweet.

Jens slips his hands down to his legs and pulls them up, and Lucas lets him puck him up, wrapping his legs around his waist, throwing his head back and laughing as Jens mouths around his neck.

“What are you doing?” Lucas laughs, wrapping his arms around Jens’s neck as Jens turns and steps to the bed.

“Kissing you.” He presses his lips to his throat as if to make a point and kneels on the bed, dropping Lucas under him. He holds himself above him, his eyes flicking back and forth between Lucas’s, studying his freckles, his pink cheeks, his shining lips, which smile.

“Do it again,” Lucas says, and Jens doesn’t have to ask to know what he means, leaning down and taking Lucas’s bottom lip between his own, and Lucas’s fingers curl in Jen’s hair.

Jens begins to smile, the sort of uncontrollable smile that makes his eyes and nose scrunch up, and he’s unable to kiss Lucas back, letting Lucas push him so they roll over.

“Stop smiling so I can kiss you properly,” Lucas scolds him, pulling back and looking at his face.

“Sorry, I’m just happy,” Jens says, slipping his hands to his waist, catching the soft fabric of his sweatshirt in his fingers.

“Me too,” Lucas breathes, smoothing a thumb over Jens’s cheekbone before leaning down and attempting to kiss him again, but Jens’s smile interferes.

“Stop!”

“I can’t!”

“Oh my God…”

Lucas leans down again, pressing soft kisses over Jens’s jaw and neck, and Jens lets himself smile, closing his eyes and sighing as Lucas kisses him slowly.

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” Lucas murmurs against his skin.

“You’re telling me I could have kissed you weeks ago?”

Lucas leaves another kiss on his throat and lifts his head, leaning in close enough that their lips brush as he speaks.

“You could have kissed me the first day we saw each other and I would have let you.”

Jens watches his mouth as he says it, and his smile softens as Lucas kisses him again.

---

“I thought you said we were going to watch a movie or something?”

“I’d rather do this.”

“Mm.”

---

“Does this mean you’re my boyfriend?” Lucas whispers, his fingers tracing lightly over Jens’s face. Jens smiles softly, his eyes closed, an arm bent under his own head, the other resting on Lucas’s waist. His fingertips slip under Lucas’s sweatshirt, softly trailing over his warm skin. Lucas runs a finger over his mouth and Jens kisses it before answering.

“Will you be mine?” he asks just as quietly, and Lucas kisses him, even though both their lips are red and swollen.

“Yeah.”

Jens kisses him again before pulling him in, sighing, and Lucas wraps his arm around Jens, resting his head against his chest. Jens wonders if he can hear his heartbeat.

“I’m not out to any of my friends,” Jens says quietly.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Zoë will probably figure it out though.”

Lucas chuckles softly as Jens trails his fingers over his back.

“Maybe. I don’t think she’d tell anyone.”

“Hopefully.” He sighs. “She’s best friends with my ex.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah. We ended on good terms, I’m just…”

“Not Jens Jens?”

Jens laughs.

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, but Jens knows he’s not asleep because his fingers continue to play with his hair.

“I’d ask you to spend the night but I have school tomorrow,” he says, kissing Lucas’s forehead.

“Unfortunate.”

“Mm.”

“When are your mom and Lotte coming home?”

“This evening. They’re having a girls’ day.”

“That’s cute.”

Lucas’s hand lets go of his hair and slides down Jens’s arm until he tugs at Jens’s hand, pulling it between them and lacing their fingers.

Jens lifts their linked fingers and lifts Lucas’s chin, leaning down and kissing him lazily, a mess of teeth and tongues.

“You’re so pretty,” Lucas whispers when they separate, and Jens groans, rolling his eyes.

“Shut up.”

“I will not. You’re gorgeous.”

Jens shuts him up himself.

---

Lucas sits up when his phone buzzes and Jens wraps his arm around his waist, laying his face on his leg. Lucas winds his fingers in Jens’s hair as he reads the text, scratching his scalp gently.

“I need to go—”

Jens interrupts, whining loudly, and Lucas laughs, dropping his phone next to Jens.

“Milan wants me to join him and Zoë and Senne for dinner.”

“Mm...sweet.”

“Mhmm.”

Jens rolls off his lap and looks up at him and after a second Lucas taps the end of his nose with his index finger, making Jens scrunch his nose and giggle.

“I do have to go.”

“I don’t want you to,” Jens whines.

“Well I have to go eventually,” Lucas says as he pushes himself to turn around, facing Jens, and Jens sits up, reaching out and pulling him in. Lucas smiles as they kiss slowly.

“Will you walk me out?” he asks quietly.

“I guess,” Jens says dramatically, letting go of him and swinging his legs off the bed. He holds Lucas’s hand the whole way to the front door and makes him twirl before he steps out, landing with Jens’s arm on his shoulder, his fingertips in his curls.

“I’ll call you tonight,” he says after Lucas kisses him shortly.

“Yeah? We can fall asleep together?”

“Mhmm.” He kisses him again.

“I’ll see you on Thursday?”

They still speak quietly, like they’re blocking out the rest of the world.

“Of course.”

#:)#love you #van der stoffels #van der stoffels fic #vds #vds fic #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #lucas vdh #jens x lucas #jens and lucas #cotton candy skies #cotton candy skies always look better in person #say my name and say it twice

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inspired-by-the-music · 4 years

Text

For You: 4 O’Clock

Chapter 1: Comeback

Taglist: @jineunwootrash

“Dude! Lei!” Lucas cheered into my ear as he (again) combed his fingers through my recently chopped black hair. Independent from those who cried that I ruined my visuals, he boasted, “I love this!”

Lucas was too excited. About my haircut, about my still-secret impending debut in SuperM’s comeback, about getting to work together after years of being best friends. Even as I struggled to escape his reach, trying to smooth my hair before a stylist could scold me for wasting their hours of hard work, trying to force my smile into the hard line that would fail to convince Lucas to behave, I laughed. I was too excited too.

My laughter died with the ever-present realization that somebody is always watching. That curse of being an idol meant that we couldn’t feel this way— carelessly happy— or, rather, that we shouldn’t.

Before I could remind Lucas (he always needed to be reminded), Mom’s voice broke through the on set bustle. “Break’s over, kids! Hands to yourself Lucas— this is why we have dating rumors! You don’t want to end up like the idol who never debuted!” She spoke without glancing up from her clipboard, without faltering in her fast-paced course to who knows where to do who knows what, the fabric of her bright red pantsuit swishing in time each step.

Lucas finally stepped away, instinctively abandoning his assault on me to stare after Mom. As I dropped my phone into my backpack, satisfied that there was nothing worth a response in my inbox or on social media, he whistled. “Dude, Mom is hot.”

Were I not used to that— Lucas referring to my mother as if she were also his, calling her hot— I might have cringed. Indifferent, I forced my eyes to roll because that was the kind of reaction Lucas liked. “Do you ever think that’s why you can’t get a girlfriend? The fact that you lust after my mother— our manager?”

Lucas shook his head. “Nah. I can’t get a girlfriend because everyone things I’m dating you.” He poked my forehead accusingly as if his smothering affection weren’t the cause of those false rumors, and I swatted his hand away. “Plus, didn’t ya hear? We can’t even touch a person of the opposite sex or else we’ll end up like the idol who never debuted.” His breath huffed out of his forever-swollen lips.

The story about the idol who never debuted because of an unplanned pregnancy was some kind of fable, myth, or urban legend that pervaded every aspect of life as an S.M. idol. Maybe nobody ever really believed it. Maybe everyone thought it was some cleverly crafted tale to get us to focus on training. Maybe we thought we wouldn’t hear it after debut, but it was whispered in response to every dating scandal and mentioned by Mom still on the (frequent) occurrence that Lucas ignored my boundaries.

All I know is that Lucas and I hated that story, and we expressed our hatred differently. Lucas was determined to rebel against it not by getting a real girlfriend but by committing to being my best friend in every sense of the word, regardless of what the press said, regardless of how fans often misinterpreted, regardless of Mom’s plentiful scoldings. And I— well, Lucas said that I was the perfect idol because I was as obedient as I was talented, but the truth was that becoming the scandalized idol in the next cautionary tale was my biggest fear. That’s why I strictly observed a self-imposed total dating ban: fear of controversy. And maybe deeper down, a fear of intimacy, but more on that later.

I shied away from Lucas’s reference to the scandalized idol, rationalizing to his widening eyes, “I’m due on B set. I have to re-do my introduction because I kept getting distracted by Taemin’s laugh yesterday.” I wondered what could have been so funny to Taemin, but I never would have asked back then.

Lucas’s mouth fell open, I’m sure, to tease me about being incapable of functioning around Taemin, but his turn to speak was stolen by a boisterous trio of men I would recognize anywhere.

The faces of Donghae, Eunhyuk, and Shindong were among the most familiar of my childhood. I could remember vaguely when they debuted. I was six years old, sitting backstage where Mom could find me as soon as the first Super Junior Stage was completed. Being an unofficial trainee at the time, I was studying Mandarin.

Anyway, what matters is that I couldn’t escape once Super Junior fixed their gaze on me. If I did, they would tell Mom, and I would be in trouble not only for disrespecting my elders from work but also my elders in a familial sense.

“Where’s our manager?” Shindong barked at nobody in particular. Nobody responded because Super Junior’s demands for Mom had become too commonplace to garner any attention.

“Isn’t this a bit bold?” I smiled gratefully while accepting a strawberry milkshake offered by Donghae, who greeted me with a small closed-mouth grin. “You guys have stormed onto the SuperM set every day this week.” Which meant I had a strawberry milkshake every day that week. Oops. Another failed diet.

Donghae said, “We’ll cross improper lines for you mom every day of every week,” and Eunkhyuk added loudly, as if aspiring to arouse Baekhyun’s attention, “Yeah! She was our manager first! She loves Super Junior best!”

Baekhyun appeared out of nowhere. As always, his voice— a bright shout— preceded him. “Not a chance! She’s our manager now! I’ll never let you take her!”

And just as quickly as he had appeared by my side, Baekhyun dashed off in pursuit of Mom with Eunhyuk and Shindong following closely behind.

I shook my head. Goofball Baekhyun, running the wrong way.

“What is it?” Donghae tilted his head to meet my gaze. “She’s not that way?”

Donghae was so earnest, so intent on looking right into somebody’s soul, that these moments when I held his attention were blush-inducing. I squirmed, and Lucas snorted. “Oh, uh, I don’t know. I don’t know where Mom is. It’s been kinda hectic, and I haven’t seen her in a few hours—”

It was hard enough to lie to Donghae without Lucas butting in.

“What are you talking about?” Lucas had been quiet for too long, so he shouted through a mouthful of barbecue chips fished out of my backpack. Thief. “She just told us— ow!” He shrieked as I grabbed his hand and crushed it with all the force I could muster.

“Sorry, Donghae.” I bowed to my senior. “We really have to go! I hope you find my mother!” Guilty, my eyes flinched away from his frowning face.

Once we were out of Donghae’s earshot, and once I dropped Lucas’s hand, he stretched his digits and whined, “That hurt, Lei! Why did you do that? And why did you lie to Donghae about Mom?”

“Because,” I hissed, narrowly dodging an intern running with two tall cups of coffee, “they’re fighting.”

“They’re fighting?” Lucas gasped.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Or, at least, I thought they were fighting. I didn’t know why Mom was avoiding Donghae, but I had overheard vague snippets of her conversations with Heechul when they were supposed to be watching some drama in the living room after dinner. I heard her sigh of relief when she learned that she would be responsible for organizing SuperM’s comeback and tour rather than assisting with the next Super Show. I didn’t need to know the specifics that Mom would never tell me. No matter how much I liked Donghae, if there was a fight, I was on Mom’s side.

“Here.” I passed my milkshake to Lucas after taking one long sip. “You can have this. I can’t take it onto set.”

“Ooooh!” Lucas’s eyes rounded in gratitude. He skipped off before turning back to shout, “Wait, Lei, what’s my schedule again?”

He needed to listen during briefings instead of playing around with my hair.

Having settled into the chair, sitting perfectly still so the audio technician could clip a microphone to the collar of my sheer black sweater, I responded (not loudly enough to disturb the tech), “You’re supposed to take pictures with Mark.”

“Okay! Thanks!” He grinned.

That time, my smile wasn’t forced for the camera; it was a reaction to Lucas.

Taemin and Kai were unapproachable, each for completely different reasons.

Lucas joked that I was the born and bred idol, and most people seemed to agree, but I always thought that if the perfect idol existed, his name was Lee Taemin. Like me, he debuted at 14. Unlike me, he proved himself worthy of fame and admiration with pure talent.

Hate comments didn’t need to remind me of the role Mom played in my success. I was grateful and, under my carefully crafted proud exterior, I was insecure. I was not talentless, and I worked hard almost in a vain attempt to distance myself from the poorly disguised mutters that I was only an idol because of Mom; Taemin was beyond talented, and he worked hard because he knew no other way to stride toward his goals.

“You need to stop being so weird,” Lucas told me after one of my first practices with the group. “You can’t just stare at Taemin when you pout about how everyone stares at you.”

Lucas was right. I hated being lumped in with the millions who failed to acknowledge Taemin’s humanity. But the truth— that I was some kind of hypocrite— was easy for Lucas to see; it was easy for him to say.

Lucas was the only person who didn’t seem to realize that Taemin was the center of every room. He was the only one who didn’t cling to Taemin’s every word. He was the only one who didn’t see Taemin’s other-worldly glow.

I think that’s why Lucas was my best friend: he didn’t see me or Taemin or anybody as idols. He saw us as people, liked us as people, and that was rare. From that first day at practice, I was torn between the desire to be like Lucas and the desire to be like Taemin.

Anyway, Kai didn’t like me. He didn’t hate me (at first) or anything, and he didn’t particularly dislike me, but he was the only member (aside from Taemin, who I admired too much to approach for fear of saying something stupid) who didn’t know me pre-SuperM.

Even once I was approved to debut with them, Kai hadn’t held eye contact with me for more than three seconds at a time. I wasn’t sensitive about it, and I wasn’t in the market for a new best friend— Lucas was more than enough— but Kai’s aversion to me was inconvenient, annoying, and frustrating considering that we were cast into a subunit together.

We recorded our songs (which were the most sensual of my career because they were meant to evolve my image from bubble gum pop Idol to something more “adult”) separately. Despite the quickly approaching tour dates, we hadn’t once practiced our choreography together. Kai was my senior, so I couldn’t approach him with my concerns about our lack of preparation. That’s why he was unapproachable; I had to wait patiently for him to address our tension.

I hoped that he would have taken the first step toward me before we had to shoot promotions, but Kai still couldn’t meet my eyes— despite the photographer’s repeated demands that were carefully phrased as requests— as our bodies were pressed flush together before a swarm of cameras.

Although I would rather forget, I think I can pinpoint the moment Kai decided to hate me. He flinched away from my touch again as I draped my arms over his shoulders and laced my fingers together behind his neck, per the photographer’s instructions.

“Come on, Kai!” I rolled my eyes, whining in unison with the rest of the members, who had gathered around the set nearly an hour ago after finishing their schedules. My face was hot not because of the close proximity to somebody as handsome as Kai, not because of the glare that hooded his dark eyes, but because my patience had run out. “Everybody is waiting for us! Can’t you just act professionally so we can get this done some time this year?”

His eyes widened as if I had slapped him across the face. Note: if you ever want to insult Kai— and I can’t imagine why you would— challenge his idea of professionalism.

Kai’s jaw tightened as he forced his eyes away from me to glance tiredly at Mom. “Manager, do we have to do this? I would really like to avoid a dating scandal.”

My next few words were kind of hypocritical since nobody feared dating scandals more than I did. “A dating scandal? These are pictures for our subunit— for our job. Stop making it weird.”

“It is weird!” Kai argued without looking away from Mom as she pinched at the bridge of her nose. He took two big steps backward, and my hands fell from around his neck to my sides. “And I don’t understand—”

“Just do it like this, Kai!” Baekhyun bounced onto the set, leading Lucas by the hand. After winking at the camera, encouraged by Lucas’s laughter (and Mark’s panicked, “Yo, man, what are they doing?”), Baekhyun threw his arms around Lucas’s shoulders and tossed his head back.

When everyone except me, Mom, and Kai laughed, Baekhyun leaped into Lucas. They toppled onto the hard ground, the only indication that they hadn’t broken their neck or any other bones being their ear-splitting laughter.

“Fine!” Mom was calm despite her sharp increase in volume that made me flinch. “If you don’t want to be in a subunit with Lei, Kai, then you won’t be.”

While Kai sighed in relief, I wheezed, dejected. My heart sank down to my ankles. It was bad enough to lose the opportunity to be in a subunit with one of the best dancers at S.M., it was worse to lose it at work where I couldn’t express disappointment, and it was worst to lose it in front of Taemin, who stood stiff and red at slack-jawed Taeyong’s side.

Embarrassed and eager to escape the stares, I bowed to Kai and set to scoop Lucas off the floor, where he still laid giggling with Baekhyun, because he would make me laugh hard enough to drive away this sinking sensation.

“Where are you going?” Mom’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “Stay where you are, Lei. Kai—”

She didn’t have to finish the order. I understood mainly from Kai’s wince that he was ejected from our subunit— not me.

“Wait,” Ten said slowly, in time with my realization, “Lei’s subunit is still a thing?” His eyes sparkled. He smiled because the choreography he created for me and Kai would still find an audience.

Lei’s subunit. My subunit. The title was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Who would replace Kai? I wondered, watching him sulk to Taemin’s side. As Taemin’s eyes flashed to meet mine for the briefest second before he muttered something to Kai— probably words of comfort, probably words to condemn my role in Kai’s semi-public disgrace— I could only think Please not Taemin. Don’t let it be Taemin. Anyone but Taemin.

And I looked at Mom pleadingly, as if she would be able to read those thoughts through my eyes. She blinked back at me.

“Oh my God!” Mark shot both hands up in the air and waved them excitedly. “I’ll be in Lei’s subunit! Let me do it, Momager! Please!”

Oh God. Please not Mark. Don’t let it be Mark. Anyone but Mark.

“Why should you get to do it?” Ten glared up at the standing Mark from his metallic folding chair. “I choreographed their dances, so I should be cast.”

“But I’m, like, the king of subunits!” Mark rose to his tiptoes and waved his arms again in an effort to secure my attention. “If you pick me, Lei, I’ll get you into NCT Dream!”

That was a bit of a running joke— my longtime aspiration to perform with Dream. Hearing it in that moment of high stress made me laugh out loud. One of those side-splitting laughs. Real. Mark smiled at having untangled the knot in my stomach with little effort. In moments like those, I thought it wasn’t so bad that he had a crush on me.

“First of all,” Taeyong interjected, ever the mediator in NCT conflicts, “Mark, you can’t get anyone into Dream—”

“Who do you think talked the agency into making Dream a fixed unit?” Mark’s face turned scarlet as he yelled, and Taeyong didn’t bat a single eyelash.

“— Second of all, Lei doesn’t get to pick who takes Kai’s place.” We all shifted at Taeyong’s casual acknowledgment of Kai’s ejection. “Ms. Kim does. So both of you—” Taeyong eyed Ten and Mark sternly, and I wondered how they didn’t fall apart under his gaze— “be quiet and let her make her decision.”

Mom nodded at Taeyong gratefully. “It’s not much of a decision to make; I’ll just employ the second choice—”

“It’s me, right?” Baekhyun finally jumped off of Lucas, stood upright, and brushed off his all-black suit while flicking his bleached bangs out of his eyes.

Baekhyun’s goofy smile faltered when Mom shook her head. “Lucas, get up. Your dream is coming true: I’m giving you permission to touch Lei.”

“Oh yeah!” Lucas flew to my side.

Before I could wrap my mind around the fact that I would be in a subunit with him— my best friend, my rumored boyfriend— Lucas grabbed me around my waist, which was exposed under a fitted white crop top— and pulled me flush against him into the pose Kai had struggled with for hours. “Leicas forever, suckers!”

As Mom ushered Baekhyun to stand with the others off set, and everybody groaned at Lucas’s ever-enthusiastic embrace of our rumors, I laughed.

The camera flashed at last. Finally relieved enough to breathe, I returned Lucas’s embrace and joked, “Is that going to be our subunit’s name? That silly ship name?”

Lucas laughed as he lowered to press his forehead to mine. That was how things should have been all along: me and Lucas free to smile at each other and express our friendship— as silly and affectionate and beautiful as it was— to the whole world without fearing backlash.

“Look at this.”

I slid my phone to Lucas across the glossy light wood floor as we sat, stretching in preparation for dance practice. I watched his eyebrows knit together as he scooped the phone into his hands; I watched his jaw fall open as he scrolled past the headline and through the fans’ comments.

“Hey.” Taeyong kicked at Lucas’s foot before joining us on the floor. Always the leader (even without the title in SuperM), he reminded, “Phones aren’t allowed in practice.”

Lowering effortlessly into a stretch that resembled the splits, Ten defended, “Momager isn’t here yet, so—”

“Look at this!” Lucas shoved my phone into Taeyong’s face. Then, as if Taeyong couldn’t read for himself, Lucas said, “Pop News is writing about the idol who never debuted!”

As Taeyong gripped the phone with his slender hands (and a curious Ten and slack-jawed, messy-haired Mark gathered around him to gawk at the screen), Taemin plopped onto the floor next to me. His knee brushed against mine, and I stiffened while he smiled despite the room’s tension, skin shimmering without the aid of makeup.

“We don’t have to worry if it’s Pop News,” Taemin said. “They aren’t exactly a credible source— remember how they covered that ‘Any Other Name’ scandal?”

Nobody could forget the chaos surrounding the Korean adaptation of a best-selling novel written by a young American woman. The love triangle between the author, a scandalized actor (Jungkook) and the author’s best friend/famous fashion designer (Jimin) was the biggest scandal in recent history. Everybody knew that gossip as if it were the plot of a classic blockbuster film or an almost distant, almost tangible high school memory, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by Taemin’s reference.

“You keep up with celebrity gossip?” I asked Taemin quietly, my eyes narrowing to see how this information fit with my conception of him.

Taemin’s face flushed pink. He mistook my interest for criticism as he often did in those days, and I didn’t know how to correct him.

While trying (and failing) to connect his phone to the Bluetooth speaker, Kai started, “Maybe Pop News isn’t credible—”

“They’re definitely not credible.” Ten crawled to the side of the room to tuck my phone into my bubble-gum pink backpack. Turning back to the group, he grinned, “Pop News is, like, if Mark was a news outlet: cringey, baseless—”

“Hey! I’m not baseless!”

“Anyway.” Kai puffed his cheeks full of air. “Pop News may be a scam, but they have a lot of followers. Sometimes if a lie is heard by enough people, it becomes like the truth.”

It would have been nice to be able to disagree, to believe that truth is truth, and lies are lies, and rumors are just rumors. I wanted to disagree. But I couldn’t.

Kai continued, “And obviously Pop News isn’t wrong about everything. Jungkook and that author were dating! They’re even engaged now!”

So Kai kept up with celebrity gossip too. Was that the kind of thing he and Taemin talked about over meals?

While my pulse quickened at the talk about dating scandals and I tried to ease my anxiety by resuming stretches, Baekhyun stirred from his nap in the corner of the room.

“Well!” Baekhyun yawned. “If you ask me, Momager is the idol who never debuted.”

“What?” The rest of us shrieked in unison, and Baekhyun laughed like a maniac at our identical wide-eyed open-mouthed expressions.

“Just think about it! When Taemin, the king of dance—” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Taemin stiffen at Baekhyun’s playful compliment despite the bashful smile pulling his lips taut— “kept screwing up that choreo, Momager demonstrated. And she was no amateur.”

Considering Baekhyun’s evidence, I gnawed on my cheek. Mom was a gifted dancer; her precision, like Baekhyun said, rivaled Taemin’s. No, her precision enabled her to find fault in Taemin— perfect Taemin.

Baekhyun wouldn’t mention this, but Mom was also a natural singer. She proved that on the first day in the studio when she coached Baekhyun through a challenging run. After he crossed his arms and whined, “What you want is impossible!” she stunned him silent by belting the notes in one attempt.

But Mom couldn’t be the idol who never debuted, I frowned, because that meant I was the reason—

“Look, Mom is totally hot enough to be an idol,” Lucas smirked before his eyebrows lowered skeptically. “But don’t you think Lei would know if her mom was a former trainee?”

At that remark, everybody turned to face me.

No, I wouldn’t know if Mom was a former trainee.

I knew very little about Mom’s past because I hadn’t asked many questions. I knew that I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, her hometown. I knew that I could not remember the last time we spoke to my father. I knew that life didn’t really begin until Mom started her career by managing Super Junior.

I didn’t remember anything before Donghae started bringing me milkshakes, and Heechul started making me laugh with funny faces, and Ryeowook (or Wookie, as I had always called him) started fitting our tea parties into his busy schedule, and Eunhyuk started unofficially training me to be an idol through dance lessons. I didn’t remember anything before Super Junior became my family.

As I crumbled under my members’ stares, as I drowned in the guilt of having neglected Mom’s pain if she was the idol who never debuted (in the guilt of knowing I had never asked about her because the spotlight had always been on me), Baekhyun repeated, “Momager is the idol who never debuted!” “What?”

We all turned to see Mom’s ghostly pale face in the doorway so quickly that we whimpered and rubbed at the backs of our necks. Whiplash. Great.

“Don’t say stupid things, Baekhyun,” Heechul scolded as he nudged Mom’s motionless body into the dance studio. “Of course Kimberly isn’t a failed trainee! That story about the idol who never debuted is just something we tell you kids—” he jabbed an accusatory finger at me and Lucas— “to keep you from dating!”

Lucas boasted, “I knew it!” And everyone laughed as he triumphantly pumped his fists into the air.

My laughter was forced, though.

A glance down at my watch confirmed that Mom was half an hour late; Mom was never late. Heechul never escorted her to her schedules. Heechul never called her by her full name; to him, she had always been Kimi. Heechul never pressed a comforting kiss to the top of her head.

Something was wrong, and I couldn’t ask what because we were at practice. And I wouldn’t have been brave enough to ask in the privacy of our home. And I wouldn’t have been strong enough to stomach the answer.

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