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#whether this is meant to come off as funny or annoying is subjective
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ihopesocomic · 9 months
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Another way I think IHS is better than MP that I don't think anyone else has mentioned yet is the comedy. You guys certainly do a far more competent job at placing comic relief at the right and appropriate moments. Moments like Adamant's flashback to how her head got stuck in a meerkat hole and Quiet sang despite the former being annoyed. Or when Fade the squire freaks out like a little cat when Diamond gives him a good swipe! You guys do it well and it doesn't interfere with the comic's tone.
To be fair, it's very easy to be funnier than MP. It had no idea what it was doing for drama, and comedy is WAY harder to write. Which is why I'll never write a comedy LOL I know my limits. But thank you! I ask for all kinds of input on it, so it's good to see that people are enjoying it for what it is. Using humor sparingly in something like this helps to break the tension. Which is really all I need it to be.
I know comedy is subjective but there's still basic rules to follow, based on context (and geography). So it's really important to establish early on what kind of mood you're going for. So it's not jarring when there's humor later. This is like. Basic shit about genres. It's not forbidden knowledge, this is just stuff people know without realizing, so I expect people in the industry to know this better than anyone.
I know some of you might be thinking "What humor?". First of all, exactly. Second, I'm talking about A) Hover's ableist jokes at Nothing and Quickmane. B) Hover's near-constant deflection every time she opens her stupid mouth in episode 3. C) Shit like after Feather makes his big anime protagonist speech in episode 6, Nothing is all "How aboot we start with getting some sleep tonight before fixing the whole world?" like not only was that not funny, but it was literally after this kid broke down about his family being killed and hating Pride Law, like read the room Nothing, jfc. D) In episode 7 Powerstrike being like "I know she did (love me). Only Sunce knows why." And she laughs about it, like was that meant to be funny? Was it tongue in cheek? I still don't know. But all I could think about is how abusive she was to her daughter right before she disappeared. So whether it was meant to be funny, or her coming to some sort of realization about herself, it doesn't matter because she's trying to find humor in her being an abusive fuckin parent while her kid still cares about her.
Then there's Ghost in episode 10, where we presumably hear (from Ghost) Tangle's last sobs of desperation before getting mercilessly killed by someone he trusted. Whether or not you feel Fire deserved psychological torture or not isn't really the point. The point is MP thought that after Nothing gets the shit beaten out of her, and tells Fire to kill her, it was a good time to lighten the mood. Which is just disturbing. Or as someone tried telling me "It's a dark comedy, it's supposed to be disturbing". Like yeah, I know what dark comedy is. Some of my favorite movies are dark comedies. But that's the big difference here isn't it? MP isn't a dark comedy, it's barely a comprehensive story. I know what it was trying to do in the scene, and it didn't work due to the scenes leading up to it, I dunno what else to tell you.
It's fine if you find it funny, I find lots of unfunny things funny. I still think this is funny. I could honestly go on about this scene, it pisses me off in a way other scenes don't, but I've already rambled too much.
Like there's a fewwwww places I could probably fit in humor if I was writing MP? But I would start by having Hover know what fuckin tact is. But I'm not a professional. - Cat
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silasbug · 2 years
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dream log Nr. 017
08/09/2022
Type: - | Flow: really disjointed, like drunken memories | Amount: 1
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(tw: sexual themes, death, alcohol)
this dream was really weird? like, really weird. i only remember it from the part where it got strangely sexual (i'm not going to elaborate much, it was just really weird considering my current aversions to this subject), then everything kind of fell apart. i was sure someone had gotten killed, then i got super drunk & called some unknown numbers.
yeah i'm really thrown for a loop with this one. it was just weird.
.
it starts off in a room. kind of like a living room, there were couches, but most of the furniture had been pushed to the walls to create a space in the middle of the room. there were mats on the floor (kind of like workout/yoga mats).
i was in this room with SO & another couple (a man and a woman). we were apparently having a foursome, or swinging? uh.. yeah i have no idea.
the man was all kinds of weird, i don't remember him saying a single word, he was intimidating and seemed kind of dangerous. it was all very.. primal? the atmosphere was really heavy, like a thick blanket over the entire room, but i'd be lying if i said that it wasn't actually pretty hot. well, in the dream. pretty sure this situation wouldn't be okay with me in the real world.
i remember an old radio playing somewhere, i remember seeing it, but it was only important for a second.
as the other couple starts doing their thing (going at it, just a few feet away), SO comes over to where i'm laying around on the ground and does something awkwardly funny. i was apparently pretty into what was happening/the atmosphere in the dream, so this completely caught me off guard, i started laughing a little, but was immediately turned-off. i asked them why they had to ruin the mood by making it funny, that i didn't always want it to be funny.
i get a little upset/annoyed at it, and eventually either we or the other couple leaves.
i keep getting bad vibes from the guy the entire time, it's like a black spiral of negativity surrounds him, emenated from him. he seemed entirely too dangerous and i wasn't sure why he was there, why he made me so uncomfortable, but everything in me screamed every time he got too close.
.
after a while, SO decided they want to go talk to the guy. i'm no longer sure about what, but i distinctly remember them going to see him. i tell them to be careful and to keep their phone on them.
i don't hear from SO for a few hours. i try calling, but there's only static on the other side, or they don't pick up at all. i get extremely freaked out and start texting with the woman from the other couple, asking if she knew anything. about where the guy is, where SO is, whether or not they're okay, but she knows just as little as i do.
eventually, i get so scared and become convinced that he's killed SO. he seemed entirely capable of it, i think i had been worried about that before SO even went to go see him, i was afraid they would be in danger. the unanswered calls, unread texts just serve to convince me more of this. nobody knew where they were. hours pass. i was so scared.
.
i eventually find myself in a bar/club where i'm already somehow inebriated, despite not having had any drinks. i was behaving and felt as if i was drunk in some sort of way. despite this, i proceeded to drink more.
i keep trying to call SO, but through my blurred vision i can't entirely make out the names in my phone, there are multiple people by the same name with differing last names, i get confused. i had apparently met some new people at the bar and saved all of their contact info. there were shots of me with a rotating roster of people i've never met at different booths in the club.
i accidentally call the same unknown people multiple times, each time i apologize profusely, saying i meant to call a different person of the same name. i end up callin a specific number from the USA a good 2-3 times on accident. he just laughs and tells me it's okay. (somehow, despite just having met them, they were already back across the ocean, huh.)
at this point i am still convinced that SO is dead. the continued radio silence just serves to further solidify that assumption. i get drunker.
eventually, after a good 6-8 hours have passed, SO comes back. fine and unharmed. i am so relieved, but also absolutely horrified.
when i asked what happened, they couldn't tell me. it's as if they had just disappeared into the ether for that amount of time and then suddenly reappeared.
i was relieved.
.
there was an odd little bit about us being in a mall and playing some strange kind of japanese mahjong-memory game on the floor. i couldn't play it because i couldn't read the kanji.
after the game, we end up following a tour up a mountain. i can barely remember any of this, but right before waking up we had finished the tour and were very far up.
there was snow all around us, and we had to walk all the way back down. we were both wearing shorts, but i had a jacket and scarf whilst SO was stuck in only a T-Shirt.
it was really, really cold. i kept asking SO if they wanted the jacket & that i'd be fine with just the scarf, but they kept refusing. so we kept walking down the mountain, somewhat leaning on each other, shivering.
then i woke up.
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likeastarstar · 3 years
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The House Call
Summary: As a full time grad student and part time drug dealer, you have a lot on your plate and Namjoon being a shitty school project partner is NOT helping, ok?!
masterlist.
Okay, so you were a drug dealer.
Nothing major! It was just weed, which would be legalized quickly, given the way the rest of the world was going. It was just to get you through grad school, you only sold to friends. You kept your circle tight, not many people even knew you dealt. You were very selective, which is why when Seokjin asked to share your number with his friend, you were unsure. But he was your most reliable customer, so his friends must be too.
What made it even worse was that he apparently was too busy to meet up at your usual drop spot- insisting to pay extra if you did a house call instead. You agreed, obviously, but still. It was annoying.
You had things to do, there was a huge project due the next morning and your partner hadn't done his part of it. He looked smart enough when you were paired up- he had glasses and everything. How were you supposed to know he was lazy as shit.
A buzzing in your pocket interrupted your internal rant- who the hell was calling you this late at night?
"Hello?" You snapped, letting your bad mood seep through your tone.
"Uh, hi- I had a question about the project."
Namjoon- your project partner. Of course. You groaned, walking up the steps to the apartment complex to where you were meant to drop off the weed. All of your conversations with this new customer had been through Jin, a fact that you regretted deeply.
"Get it over with, you know you really should've done this sooner," You sighed, checking the apartment numbers twice before knocking on the door.
"I normally would've but I've been really stressed, ok?" He apologized, a shuffling sound coming through the line.
You rolled your eyes as the door in front of you opened, revealing-
"Namjoon," You gasped, taken aback. He was Jin's friend? What are the odds. You hung up quickly, raising your eyebrows dramatically, "What are you doing buying weed instead of working on our project?"
He looked shocked himself, towering over you with his phone still pressed to his ear. He was dressed more casually than you were used to seeing, his hair disheveled in a way that oddly looked better than when he tried to tame it.
"I told you I was stressed," He mumbled, "Come in. I didn't know you were a dealer."
"I didn't know you smoked," You bit back, rolling your eyes.
You pursed your lips but stepped into his place, looking around curiously. It was nice, decorated in a way you wouldn't have expected from a 20 something year old boy. His place was relatively clean, other than the multiple empty cup noodles placed in random areas and the insane amount of paper laying around, "is this all schoolwork?"
"I'm taking a lot of classes," He shrugged, "How much is it?"
"Uh- thirty," You answered, picking up the nearest piece of paper. It was for micronutrients in the human body. the human, a class you had taken two semesters ago on a whim. "No wonder you're stressed out."
He handed you the money wordlessly, trading you for the paper in your hand. You looked at him for the first time since you walked in, only now noticing the dark circles under his eye and the way he had seemingly bitten his lower lip raw. You groaned, feeling all of the annoyance you had minutes ago turn into sympathy.
You shoved the money in your pocket and handed him his weed, pulling your backpack off your back, "Get high, take a break."
"I can't take a break right now, I'm so fucking behind on all of my classes-"
"Chill, I'll help you. Light up, we'll work on the project together and then I'll help you on micro. I got an A in it, I'll tutor you."
So that's what you did, working through the mountain of shit he had piled up in his living room side by side. You never really noticed how funny he was before, both unintentionally and intentionally. He offered your own weed to you and you accepted, feeling nice and relaxed by the time you had gotten around to tutoring Namjoon on other subjects.
"Do you understand it a little more now?" You asked, looking up at him. He was sat beside you on the couch, thighs touching yours with an arm stretched behind your head on the couch. He nodded and frowned, correcting his work and leaning towards you to show you. "Y-yeah, that's right."
He smelt really good- like sandalwood and honey. You couldn't help but stare at the way he was sucking his cheeks in in concentration. Why the hell was this guy a environmental science major? He could be a model.
"You're a really fast learner," You noted, your voice soft and hazy, the way it always was when you were high.
"You're a good teacher," He mumbled, smiling sleepily at you.
He looked so cute you couldn't help it, leaning forwards to kiss him. Namjoon was caught off guard, freezing for a moment but his lips were soft and his skin was warm, drawing you in before you snapped back to reality, pulling away sharply.
"I shouldn't have done that," You gasped, leaning away from him awkwardly. You had to get out of here- eyes already searching for your belongings. Embarrassment crept up on your skin, heating your cheeks. Maybe you could blame it on being reallt fucking blazed, which you were.
"No," He said suddenly, catching your arm with a hand around your wrist, "I should've done it."
What?
"Why do you think I wanted to be your partner for this project?" He smiled, eyes lighting up in a cute way you hadn't noticed before.
"Um, because I'm the smartest person in class?" You guessed, playing with his large hand idly. His fingers felt good between yours, tingling shocks sparking in the places where his skin touched yours.
He laughed softly, nodding sheepishly, "That too- but more than a good grade, what I wanted was you. Part of the reason I'm so behind in class is because all I do during lecture is stare at you- you're not very good at controlling your facial expressions, did you know that?"
You pulled your mouth into a tight line, smiling awkwardly. It was true, you had been known to show every thought passing through your mind on your face. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"You're really scary," He shrugged plainly, as if it were just an obvious fact. "You yell at me a lot which makes me nervous and horny at the same time and I've been trying to figure out whether that means I'm a freak or not."
"It's a good thing I enjoy yelling at you," You noted, more to yourself than him.
"You can yell at me whenever you want, baby," He said jokingly, grinning down at you. Holy shit, he had really nice teeth.
You barely had time to process his words before his lips were on yours, leading the kiss this time. His hand cradled the side of your face, thumb stroking your still flushed cheeks delicately as his other arm wrapped around your waist. You placed your hands on his shoulders, squeezing the muscle under your palms and pulling him closer to you. Namjoon guided you onto his lap, holding you closer him. God- he was warm and strong and so, so soft.
His hands stayed in their polite place at your waist, kneading into the flesh of your sides with a purpose. Namjoon was a good kisser- an easy balance of dominant and soft. He knew where to push and pull, reading your body like it was second nature to him. First kisses could be awkward, but this one was perfect.
His tongue licked a tentative swipe along the edges of your mouth and you reached up to sink your hands in his hair, pushing his head to the side slightly as you parted your lips and allowed him to deepen the kiss. His tongue was soft against yours and he tasted like smoke and something sweet, your favorite strain of weed invading your senses.
"We should do this more often- maybe not the tutoring thing, but this- the kissing thing," He said, parting from you for a moment.
You nodded eagerly, pulling him back towards you, "Yeah, definitely- the kissing thing. Maybe if I give you enough time to stare at me outside of class, you'll do better too. I really can't date anyone below a 3.5 GPA you know."
"Okay, calm down," He pouted, narrowing his eyebrows at you, "I have a 3.8."
"I have a 3.84," You bragged, "Don't worry, I'll tutor you."
He stifled a laugh and began kissing you again. You smiled and reminded yourself to thank Kim Seokjin for asking you to make a house call.
(A/N: giiirrrl what the hell? I don't have a 3.84 in my program...maybe I should've gone into a creative writing grad program instead....LMAO)
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loupettes · 3 years
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Some Ten/Rose domestic fluff for the DoctorRose Fic Marathon, mostly to soothe my mental health but who doesn’t need more Ten/Rose in their lives?
T W E N T Y   O N E
SUMMARY: Ten/Rose. It's Rose's twenty-first birthday, and she's invited the Doctor along to a party thrown by her mum. A night of pub celebrations, boisterous friends and family gatherings, quizzes, a little bit of jealousy and some hard truths ahead, the Doctor must grit and bear the domesticity for his best friend — well, the love of his life. If only there was something to make it worthwhile..
TAGS: fluff, domestic, romance, jealousy, pub quizzes, everyone loves Rose Tyler (the Doctor being top of that list), mutual pining, longing, etc etc
Read on AO3: twenty one
***
“See you’ve found a way to pass the time,” she muttered once Laura was out of earshot, slipping her arm out from his and grabbing the napkin from the bar. She looked at it distacefully for a moment, before she passed the napkin to him.
“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”
“How hard that must be for you.”
He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, she seemed irritated, and when Laura put the drink in front of her and begrudgingly took the tenner from the Doctor, Rose seemed to only sadden as she swirled her straw around in her drink.
“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.
He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”
Rose looked at her drink for a moment, a pinch in her brow that he couldn’t translate. It wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t even the irritation she was projecting on her voice, but he wasn’t fond of it, he knew that much.
“Only got eyes for you, promise.”
***
It was one of those days, the ones he hadn’t really ever had to subject himself to in his many years of life, and he calls them ‘obligatory domestics’. The kinds of days where he needs to drop Rose off so she can do a bit of ‘life admin’: check in on her grandparents, nip to primark to get some basics, cash her birthday cheques, all that sort of stuff.
And then, of course, there were the days he needed to attend parties.
Now, he wasn’t a party person. Awkward small talk, terrible music — depending on the decade, of course — dreadful finger food, that annoying needless obligation to stay and ‘enjoy yourself’ when all you really wanted to do was leave. This was one of those days where Rose had a party to attend, and had asked him to just drop her off back at home for the night and they could get back to travelling the next day.
The problem was, it was her birthday party.
Now, if it were his birthday — if he even had a birthday — then he wouldn’t exactly call it a mark for celebration. Not even at the turn of a new century, and he most certainly wouldn’t call turning a thousand a celebration, which he was sure was coming up soon. And the funny thing was, Rose didn’t feel the need to celebrate birthdays, either. Well, unless they were somebody else’s; she would go out of her way to make that day astronomically special for them. So when she had turned to him last week, when they were out enjoying a milkshake in a diner on Panvorix, and told him, regrettably, that her mum wanted to throw her a birthday party with her friends and family for her twenty-first, which he was sure meant something to humans, he wondered whether he really needed to be there.
But, and this is where he finds it difficult: he somehow knew she wanted him there. She hadn’t explicitly said so, she had just sort of shrugged and said ‘you can come, too, although I doubt you’ll want to’. But other than that, she had talked about it as though she was going to go, not they. And if he only paid attention to her words and what she was saying, like he thought most humans — and, well, every other species in existence — did, then he would have felt no obligation whatsoever to join her. But these humans, and especially the British, have this odd sort of way of communicating where they would say one thing with words but also without them, and usually, the things they weren’t saying was quite different to the things that they were. And it seemed as though this was the case with Rose. Her lack of eye contact, the slight reddening in her neck, the indifference that he just knew wasn’t as indifferent as she would have liked it to be. She’d slurped her milkshake and changed the subject and that was that — no need to dwell. But once she had gone to bed that night, he wondered. He tinkered away in the control room and tried to interpret all those little things and he just couldn’t, so he gave up and decided to take her for her word. So he told himself, if she brings it up again, if she asks-but-doesn’t-ask him to come, then he’ll go with her. Otherwise, he’ll leave her with her mum for the night and come back for her the next day as she asked.
That was until Jackie called.
“You’re coming,” she had said flatly, and she had said it in such a frighteningly threatening way that he only nodded and agreed.
Rose had seemed most happy when he had said they were getting to her mum’s for midday on Saturday. She had quickly tried to hide it, and once more he got the impression that she was only acting nonchalant. But he wasn't quite sure, so he double checked just to be safe.
“You sure you want me there?”
She had frowned, and again shrugged without looking at him. “Course, you’re my best mate.”
And so here he was. Waiting in the control room for her, in a blue suit this time, while she packed her things in an overnight bag.
Today was her actual birthday. Her mum had called her all excited, wishing her a happy birthday — even though she was about to see her in a couple of hours. The Doctor had made her a cup of tea and said happy birthday, too, but Rose’s cheeks had flushed pink and he took that to mean that was enough making-a-fuss over her birthday for the day. Other than that, he hadn’t seen her all morning, and so when she entered the control room freshly showered and now in her jeans and a hoodie, her backpack slung over her shoulders, she grinned quite sheepishly and said,
“Hello.”
“Hello,” he echoed, a little less nervously. “All packed and ready, then?”
“I am indeed,” she nodded, and skipped over to him with a bit more gusto. “You mentally prepared?”
‘Oh, absolutely not.”
“Me neither,” she chuckled, and tugged on his arm. “You didn’t see mum on my eighteenth — she gets several octaves higher, just to warn you.”
He shuddered. “Well, lucky for you— and me, I suppose— my capacity to detect high pitches gets less and less with each passing century.”
“That’s good to know.”
   After they had gone to Nando’s for lunch, Jackie had asked the Doctor to join her and help set up at the pub while Rose got ready back at the flat with a couple of her mates. He hadn’t been in love with the idea — a few hours alone with Jackie filling him in on the gossip of somebody called ‘Bev’ while various 90s pop songs echoed through the room, that was — and she certainly did like to talk when she was excited. They had pinned a few ‘Happy 21st Birthday!’ banners around the room, chucked a lot of small plastic ‘21’s across the floor and the bar, and, by the time Rose called to say she was on her way, the room had filled with quite a lot of people indeed. Some family members he was sure he had met before, little kids of cousins he definitely hadn’t, and a few of Rose’s friends who seemed to know her family quite well. It was the first time that day he had sort of warmed, seeing that Rose had grown up with such a loving group of friends and extended family, and he even loosened just a little as he chatted to a few while they waited for Rose to turn up.
“Everybody, she’s at the bottom of the road!” Jackie called out loudly, when she received a text from Shareen. At that, people picked up nearby birthday poppers and whistles, getting to their feet with excited and anticipatory smiles — the Doctor even had a confetti cannon himself ready to go for when she walked in.
But of course, when she did walk in, he couldn’t do anything at all except look at her.
As people called out excited ‘happy birthday!'s and set off their poppers, the Doctor found himself completely anchored to the spot while the room only burst with colour and into life. He had always found her quite beautiful, especially when she was giggling away or saying something particularly clever, and he had even found himself breathless once or twice to watch her. But tonight, goodness — he wasn’t convinced he had two bloody hearts because neither one was beating and certainly neither of them were supplying oxygen to the rest of his body.
It was her smile, without a doubt. It was different somehow, like an old smile he was sure she must have used before she met him, to see all these familiar faces of her loved ones. That, and her cheeks were dusted a delightful pink, a little shy he knew she must have been to have so many people around her for her. Her hair was wavy for once, and she wore a black dress that the Doctor was momentarily ashamed to find himself looking at; the way it sculpted her curves and defined the most enchanting silhouette, cut mid-thigh and exposing her legs — and he was especially ashamed for his gaze to linger on those, but she was simply so exquisite, everywhere, that he soon felt instead the same overwhelming awe he gets when he studies a painting, ones in which the colours tell a compelling story and the shapes express feelings that words could not completely.
He still hadn’t managed to find his breath by the time she caught his eye, and he found himself desperately trying to cling to coherent thoughts when she nervously made her way over to him.
“Hello,” she said again when she got to him, pausing for a moment before she reached up on her toes to give him a hug. He had just enough semblance of normality to return the gesture, albeit weakly — still trying to process his thoughts as he was.
Tell her!
“Happy birthday,” he whispered instead, and he heard her giggle by his ear before she released him, and there was a moment where he could have told her just how breathtaking she looked, but of course, he didn’t.
Instead, she scratched her arm and looked around the room. “Thanks for helping mum set all this up.”
“Oh, right—” he cleared his throat “— sure, no probs.”
“You’ll have to fill me in on all the gossip later.”
“Don’t worry, I took notes.”
She chuckled, and her eyes softened as she looked at him, taking him in, and they seemed to even darken somehow, which sent an odd sort of sense of affirmation through him — he was right not to shave today, then.
“Listen, er—” she began, her brow creasing in awkwardness, and she started scratching her arm again. He watched her curiously, wondering what she was about to say and feeling strangely nervous, all of a sudden. “Please don’t — I mean, thank you for coming, it— I just wanted to say please don’t stay, if you don’t want to— if you’re feeling awkward or anything just feel free to, you know—”
“Rose, it’s alright,” he grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be alright.”
“I know, I just didn’t want the last of the Time Lords to perish here in this pub in Southwark out of boredom.”
“Yeah, would be a dreadful end to their race I must admit.”
“Not one for the textbooks,” she giggled. “Nor one I’d particularly like on my conscience, either.”
“Blimey, you’re right — lot riding on the entertainment this evening, then.”
“Well in that case, I should remind you that mum planned this party.”
“Oh,” he groaned, and sighed defeatedly while she only continued to chuckle. “It’s just a couple of hours. I can do it.”
   He sort of regretted saying that. Well, no, he definitely regretted saying that.
He’d spent the first hour or so meeting Rose’s family, and then after that getting to know five or six of Rose’s friends, sat around in a booth. They were all friendly enough, inviting him in as one of their own and of course, he thought, Rose’s friends would be charming, since they were Rose’s friends after all.
And then there was Callum, he thinks his name was, and at first the Doctor was able to maintain a calm composure despite his irritability when the lad put his arm around Rose, but after twenty minutes or so and he still hadn’t moved, the Doctor started to sincerely regret his decision to come here tonight and wondered whether he could quietly slip away and narrowly avoid some other, less painful end. But then Rose would give him that look, that smile that just seemed to settle him if only for the fact that it was hers. And so he stayed, listening to stories of their school days and joining in with their laughter until it became just a little too much, when Callum started whispering things to Rose when nobody else was paying attention. Rose didn’t seem particularly bothered by him, nor was she giving off any signs that she was uncomfortable, but he certainly seemed to have more of an agenda than she, and just enough that it pissed the Doctor off enough for him to excuse himself to get a drink instead.
“Just a Coke, thanks,” he said as he reached the bar, but the bartender looked back at him apologetically.
“Pepsi alright?” she said.
His shoulders slumped in disappointment because why would he want a Pepsi if he was ordering a Coke—
“Just kidding,” she grinned, reaching down for a glass and picking up a glass bottle of Coke. “Wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Oh,” he only half smiled, and loosened his tie just a little to finally just be able to breathe. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“You look like you could use something stronger, though.”
“Do I?” he frowned, somewhat surprised but not entirely that he must look exhausted to others. It was exhausting, realising that he was far too in love for his own good. But the bartender didn’t look like she thought that, not at all, as she grinned over to him.
“Parties don’t really seem like your sort of thing.”
He shook his head, resting his elbows on the bar. “No, not really.”
“So what is your thing, then?”
Earth wasn’t quite ready for the question to be answered with ‘time travel, mostly’, so he flustered a little in search of an answer more reasonable for the time period. “I tried soap carving, once. That was fun.”
She looked back at him completely confused for a moment, and he only added the admission to the long list of things he was regretting about this evening, before she gave him a friendly smile.
“Not something I would have expected you to say.”
When the Doctor only shook his head in hopeless exasperation, she grinned,
“I’m Laura, by the way.”
“John,” he retorted, as she placed the Coke in front of him.
“Nice to meet you John — this one’s on me.”
It took him a second to realise she had just bought him a drink — of Coke — but a common gesture nonetheless he was sure indicated flirting. “Oh— er, thanks.”
She nodded, but didn’t turn to serve any of the other guests, not that it was all that busy up at the bar, anyway. “So, John. Did you, er, come here with anyone tonight?”
As dreadful to admit as it was, he couldn’t say that he had. And it seemed so odd to him to think about, because he went everywhere with Rose, but he had never been anywhere with her. It wasn’t really something he had ever considered, whether he would like to start going places with Rose as his and he as hers, but now, as he thought about Rose with that slimy little git behind him, he rather wished that he didn’t have to fret. Not about the dreadful moment she tells him tonight that she’s going back to Callum's, and not about any other time in the future she would admit to having fallen in love with somebody else. It wasn’t a possessive thing, he didn’t want for nobody else to want her because she was his, but he wanted to just love her and be free to; no more of this pining and hiding and instead just be able to say that he was so terribly in love with her and that wasn’t going to change, no matter how much he wanted it to. Except he highly doubted she would want that, this nine-bloody-hundred-year-old alien who had murdered and cowered to be hopelessly devoted to her when she didn’t exactly ask for it. So, he swallowed, feeling his hearts sink in defeat as he did.
“No. Just me.”
Laura’s lips curled in triumph, and she leant in a little bit closer. “In that case, what are you doing tonight?”
If he was just that little bit less in love, he might have been tempted, he had to admit. But he was far beyond the point now of needing a distraction to this dreadful torment, he was much too in love with Rose to even be able to be distracted in the first place. Yet, he couldn’t quite find his voice to decline, so he only started to fluster as he broke eye contact, and took a sip of his drink in the meantime.
“Tell you what,” she smirked, taking a napkin from the bar and began to scribble something on it. “I finish at eleven-thirty. Here’s my number, just in case.”
As he helplessly watched her, he felt somebody put their arm through his as they approached the bar from behind, and was somewhat mortified to find Rose appear beside him. She looked quite peculiar indeed, an expression he had seen a couple of times aimed directly at the woman in front of her, and he glanced down in confusion when she placed her other hand on his arm.
“Malibu and Coke, please.”
Laura looked over to her, then down to her arm, then back up with a look that only seemed to mirror Rose’s. “Got any ID?”
Rose scoffed. “This is my party, you know.”
“Can’t serve you unless you’ve got ID.”
“Tell you what—” the Doctor interrupted, reaching into his pocket for the psychic paper as he heard Rose about to counter “—this one’s on me. Can’t have the birthday girl paying for her own drinks.”
Laura only looked back at him in disillusionment, her eyes flickered back to Rose. “Okay, but it was just you I was buying the drink for.”
Rose scoffed incredulously, and wrapped her arms around the Doctor’s only tighter as the two women seemed to be engaging in a fight without actually fighting. Or from what he could tell, anyway.
“See you’ve found a way to pass the time,” she muttered once Laura was out of earshot, slipping her arm out from his and grabbing the napkin from the bar. She looked at it distacefully for a moment, before she passed the napkin to him.
“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”
“How hard that must be for you.”
He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, she seemed irritated, and when Laura put the drink in front of her and begrudgingly took the tenner from the Doctor, Rose seemed to only sadden as she swirled her straw around in her drink.
“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.
He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”
Rose looked at her drink for a moment, a pinch in her brow that he couldn’t translate. It wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t even the irritation she was projecting on her voice, but he wasn’t fond of it, he knew that much.
“Only got eyes for you, promise.”
She seemed to only laugh in spite of herself at his words, and seemed to receive his joke — although he couldn’t be certain he had meant it to be one. She looked up at him through those devilishly long eyelashes of hers and he tried desperately to think of just about anything to say to change the subject.
“Having a nice night?”
Rose pulled up a bar stool and hoisted herself up, wiggling about to get comfortable. “S’been nice, yeah. So many mates I haven't seen in forever — not since we all went to get our GCSEs.”
He gazed to the side of her in thought. “Five years ago, that must be now?”
She raised her eyebrow, but didn’t smile. “Yeah. Can’t believe it.”
She started poking at the ice in her drink now, but not consciously. She was distracted, seemingly saddened by the thoughts running through her mind. He watched her hand, her nails recently painted, wearing the ring her mum had got her for her birthday.
“I’m twenty-one,” she almost whimpered.
“Wait till you get to nine-hundred.”
He was relieved to hear her laugh, a real one, and she glanced at him with kind eyes, her eyes, not those strangely woeful ones she looked at her glass with. “Yeah. If ever I’m feeling old, I’ll just think about you instead.”
“There are some benefits to being ancient, then.”
She giggled, and it only seemed to tickle her more until he saw her completely, Rose as he knew her returned back to him. It relieved him, and he realised he had stiffened to see her so glum. She glanced once more down at the napkin and he sighed, unsure exactly what she was thinking, before something told him to lift up her glass and place it underneath instead. She turned to him with a shy smile, her lips thin as she tried to hide whatever emotion was surfacing, and she was unable to hold his gaze for long when she leaned against him to nudge his arm with hers. An apology, he guessed, and he himself tittered in response. She was less saddened certainly, but her silence was not quite unburdened, so he sought,
“What’s on your mind?”
“Hmm?”
“You,” he said softly. “I know you don’t like your birthday, but something’s up.”
She once more gave him one of those thin smiles, a smile he recognised was one she was trying to put on for him but unsuccessfully — he knew her, afterall. She sighed, and shook her head.
“Everyone’s… it’s just so strange. Being back, after having been away. Things have just… happened. Like Charlie’s had a baby, can’t believe it. She’s younger than me.”
So that was it. He felt an odd sense of guilt in the centre of his chest that only sank lower, and he realised she had only been confronted with how much she had missed since travelling with him. How much she was missing out on, and how much he had taken from her while he only wanted to keep her for himself. But he didn’t suppose she needed his self-loathing tonight, so instead, he frowned as he thought.
“Charlie’s your…” he began, trying to remember as he scanned the room.
“Cousin.”
“Right,” he nodded. He was surprised to find her watching him with a gentle smile when he looked back at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” she grinned, sheepishly, looking down briefly as her smile only grew less so and slightly more endeared, might he say, instead. “Just you, trying to learn all my family and friends.”
“Trying being the keyword there — there’s a lot of them.”
“I know, but it’s funny,” she teased, that tongue sticking out of her teeth that he had to quickly avert his gaze from, “You can remember something complex and yet still get lost remembering the names of my family.”
“My mind sadly is not a TARDIS,” he jibed, and she chortled delightfully into her glasses as she took a sip. “Everytime I have to remember one of your cousin’s names, I have to forget about something else. I’ve forgotten Einstein’s special relativity equation to remember you have an Aunt called Jeanette.”
“Well, that's a bummer for relativity, because my Aunt’s called June.”
He frowned at her, momentarily fooled, before he rolled his eyes. “No she’s not.”
Rose scoffed with her mouth agape in shock. “Yes she is!”
As she giggled away, he vaguely recalled meeting a month, before his eyes widened and he blinked in defeat.
“Blimey, right then.”
Rose put her drink back down on the bar and struggled to contain her giggles and, goodness, he simply couldn’t look away. Her eyes scrunched shut, her nose wrinkled and smile so bright, she was impossibly beautiful when she was like this, her laughter sounding so pure and so wonderfully joyous. He wasn’t convinced she was laughing solely at his complete inability to remember anything remotely related to something so important as her family, because he only imagined it to be quite disappointing, but he wasn’t about to step in and stop her, especially not when he felt his own smile begin to grow at seeing her this way. She shook her head and opened her eyes as her giggles subsided but smile remained and she looked at him in the most breathtaking way and he could feel himself falling, needing to physically stop himself from leaning in closer to her.
There was a moment, one terribly long agonising moment, where he thought he might just falter. Despite everything inside him begging him not to, he found himself unable to hear himself when her eyes locked with his in such a way, in fact, the only thing that was able to prevent him from kissing her was knowing how terribly awkward it would be when she pulls back, wondering what on Earth he was thinking to presume she would want him to kiss her. So he swallowed, and looked away, back down at his drink and he took another sip.
Thankfully, before he had a chance to make a fool of himself and try to string a sentence together, he was interrupted by a voice sounding from a microphone behind them. They both turned, and, over at the corner of the pub stood two of Rose’s girlfriends, both of whom he remembered were with them at the table earlier, standing with a few pieces of card in their hands.
“Ahem — can we have everyone’s attention, please?” one of them — he was sure her name was Grace — announced, a smug anticipatory smile donned her slightly flushed face, and the room went quiet a moment before the music turned down, too. “Hi! Good evening, everyone! So, in case you aren’t all aware yet, today is our very own Rosie Tyler’s twenty-first birthday!”
The room broke into applause, a few cheers and the odd wolf whistle as many turned to look at Rose beside him.
He teased quietly only to her, “Rosie?”
“Shut up,” she muttered as she elbowed him, but couldn’t stop grinning despite herself. “Little gits know I hate being called Rosie.”
“So before we get started, a very happy birthday to you!” the other girl — Cara, was it? There goes Euler’s equation, he surrendered — said into the microphone. “We hope you’re having a great night, and we love you—”
“Even if she did nick my GHDs.”
Rose snorted when Grace stuck her tongue out at her. “I did not! I just forgot to give them back to you!”
“Hmm, how convenient— anyway,” Grace stressed, and the room was chuckling to their playful teasing. “We thought we might play a little game, before we start the, er, slideshow in a bit—”
“Oh, god,” Rose muttered under her breath, and the Doctor sniggered quietly.
“— just a quick ‘How well do you know Rose Tyler’ quiz. No teams, no competition, strictly for embarrassment purposes alone.”
“Get me out of here,” Rose whispered to him, but he stayed firmly put.
“Oh, absolutely not. I’m staying for this.”
“Then I’m going to fly your ship myself and leave you here stranded.”
“Fine by me, I want to see all those pictures you’ve been so adamant remain hidden away in a box every time we go round to your mum’s.”
She groaned, and hid her face in her palms.
“So, without further ado: question one.” Grace paused for dramatic effect, reading the words on her paper with a teasing smile. “What was the name of Rose’s first boyfriend?”
“Oh my god, my mum’s here—”
“Jimmy!” one of her friends shouted, and the Doctor felt Rose bury her face against his arm.
“No,” she whispered, about the same time Grace called out,
“Incorrect!”
“Craig David!” a male voice shouted, and Rose groaned loudly as the room went quiet.
“That is correct!”
The Doctor scoffed next to her as the rest of the room erupted into laughter. “Oh, come on.”
“Rose absolutely believed she and Craig David were meant to be back in year six, and told everyone they were boyfriend and girlfriend,” Cara giggled, and the Doctor only chuckled to hear Rose repeatedly whispering ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god’ into his arm.
“Had to get her a poster!” Jackie called with a squeal of delight.
“Get me— you’re a Time Lord for god’s sake, go back in time and stop this from all happening!” Rose urged.
“Not a chance.”
“Question two!” And once more, the room went quiet in anticipation. “And a little less embarrassing, maybe—”
“Thank God,” Rose mumbled. At that point, he couldn’t really stop himself from giving her arm a gentle stroke.
“— Which film was Rose obsessed with at the beginning of secondary school?”
“Easy! Back to the Future!” another one of her friends called out.
The Doctor scoffed, “You’re kidding?”
Rose pulled away, then, unashamed. “Marty Mcfly, hottest fictional character in the world, I stand by it.”
“If I dress up in that puffer vest and the TARDIS gets her act together to disguise as a DeLorean, are we just playing out your secondary school fantasy?”
“Why do you think you had me so hooked with ‘did I mention it also travels in time’?”
“And that is correct!” Grace called, and just on queue, The Power of Love began to play through the speakers. Rose shook her head, and broke into a timid but unabashed smile.
“How many gigawatts to travel in time, Rose?” Grace called.
“One point twenty-one!” she volleyed, unashamed.
“Is that all? I’ll remember that for next time,” the Doctor whispered, and she elbowed him with a smirk.
“Question three — and sorry, Jackie — but why did Rose get two weeks of detention in year eleven?”
“Oh my god no!”
“Two weeks!” The Doctor kept his exclamation hushed, and once more Rose turned back around to face the other side of the bar, but he tugged on her arm to bring her back around, leaving her unable to hide her embarrassment and red hot cheeks.
“For skipping maths to snog Jimmy in the art room!”
“Rose!” Jackie gasped loudly as the room cheered.
“This is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life ever,” she groaned to the Doctor, and he only found her that much more gorgeous as she looked so delightfully mortified.
“That is correct!”
Rose whimpered quietly to the Doctor as the rest of the room erupted into laughter, “Please do that thing again where you make me forget all of my memories.”
“The snog wasn’t that great, then?”
She shuddered. “Far too much tongue.”
“How delightful,” he chuckled, feeling a peculiar sense of victory.
“Question four!” Grace called, and waited for the room to settle. “Which medal did Rose win in the county gymnastics?”
“The bronze!” the Doctor called, surprised but unashamed for calling out himself, and the room roared in cheer and a thunderous applause broke out.
“And quite right!” Cara hailed into the microphone, and Rose bumped arms with the Doctor.
“Was only the bronze,” she mumbled.
“Hey!” he denounced, “The bronze is bloody excellent!”
Her smile was thin and bashful and begged to be attended to; he responded without thinking by pulling her into his side and she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Okay, okay, our last and final question—” somebody at one of the nearby tables began to perform a drum roll as Grace paused to read the card “— What did Rose do on her eighteenth birthday?”
“Get absolutely hammered?” someone suggested, and by the way Rose only hid herself further into his chest and shook her head, he imagined they were right.
“More detail needed!” Grace called.
“My whole family’s here,” she whimpered quietly.
“How PG are we keeping it?” one of the boys from the table they were all sitting at earlier shouted, and they giggled amongst themselves.
“Oh god, was it that bad?” he whispered to her, but she just kept shaking her head.
“More PG than your eighteenth, Liam,” Cara pointed out, to which Liam held his hands up in his surrender.
“Didn’t you throw up at Tottenham Court Road bus stop?”
“That was not me!” Rose called out, releasing her hold on the Doctor. He folded his arms, now very aware that the rest of the room was looking at them. “That was Shareen!”
Shareen gasped somewhere in the crowd. “You little grass!” She slammed her hand down on the table and stood up. “And for that, I’m breaking my silence — on Rose’s eighteenth birthday, she got drunk and performed ‘Steps, Tragedy’ up on a table on Carnaby Street in front of the entire street with accompanying dance moves — and she fell down at the end.”
“And we have the video to play to you all later!” Cara beamed, just as the room erupted into an excited cheer.
Rose shrieked in protest, her cheeks burning red and the Doctor only cackled at the image of Rose drunkenly bearing her heart and soul out to what he knew was her favourite girl band of the 90s, so he could only imagine how animated that performance must have been. People had got to their feet, cheering and clapping as Rose hid her face in her palms and Tragedy began to blare through the speakers. Some chanted along, some were too lost in their own giggling and retelling of old anecdotes, and some flocked to Rose to give her gleeful hugs and cheer her on. But something about it saddened him all of a sudden, watching as Rose was swallowed up by the love of her friends so fierce and unashamed, a dull and remorseful ache somewhere in his chest that he couldn’t quite place but certainly didn’t like.
He turned back around and spotted Laura, now leaning against the back bar, and he caught her eye.
“I’ll take that stronger drink, now.”
She glanced over at Rose, now completely lost to the crowd, then back at him, and nodded.
He didn’t drink often, not at all, so he insisted only on a single, handing Laura a fiver and telling her to keep the change. He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket, and slipped quietly outside and into the pub garden.
The night was pleasant, the stars for once visible over London, but he imagined most might not catch them so clearly amidst the surrounding light pollution. There were strings of warm fairy lights hanging from the brick wall that surrounded the quite large garden, a few pub benches dotted around with even less people quietly chatting amongst themselves over a beer and the odd cigarette. What encouraged him the most was the quiet, the peacefulness that greeted him as he stepped out of the pub, sitting down on one of the vacant tables just under a tree with yet more fairy lights hanging from it.
He sighed deeply, but he found he wasn’t quite fully able to breathe in all the way, like something caged his chest and prevented it from fully expanding. He took a sip of the — what he discovered was — whiskey and shuddered to feel its heat trickle down his throat, settling something that had been rising in his body all night. He looked down at his hands, quivering now although he was not cold, and swallowed thickly.
He was in love, he had known that for a long time. But tonight he had realised how terribly irrevocable it was, how awfully trapped he had made himself in his dreadful and unavoidable addiction to her, how he had known this was going to be devastating and he was going to regret it but yet hadn’t cared. And now here he sat, alone as he always was and always would be, wondering just how he might survive this in the end.
It wasn’t that he worried about the day she would no longer be with him, although that wasn’t a thought he liked to entertain. It was this horrible ache, a dullness in his bones, a contradiction to the life she inspired within him. It was twisted, it was confusing, and it was devastating.
He looked up at the stars, a universe above him that he knew and yet didn’t. Taking another sip of his whiskey, and following another subsequent involuntary shudder, he closed his eyes to the return of that hollowness in his chest. The vacuum above felt infinitely small in comparison, and he knew there was no fighting it’s torture except to grit and bear it for as long as she stayed with him, and even longer than that.
He didn’t shudder when he took a third sip of his drink.
He had been so lost in his thoughts for so long that he only realised the environment had altered when a figure sat beside him. There were less people now he realised, only one or two at a table a few away from his, but none of that seemed to matter when he saw it was Rose who had sat down next to him.
“You alright?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
She shivered, and looked down at his drink. “Bit too much back in there, yeah?”
He couldn't reply at first, but his lie found his tongue at the time that he swallowed. “Na, it’s been alright. Just needed five outside in the quiet.”
Rose grinned, a warm smile he knew well, and shivered once more. The goosebumps began to line her skin, soft hairs rising on her arms, and he glanced down at her things to see the same pattern emerging there. He unbuttoned his jacket and slipped it off, attentively hanging it over her shoulders and she looked down with a smile, pulling it tighter around her.
“Thanks,” she whispered, a soft sound that settled on the air and he closed his eyes to it, trying to still what it did to his hearts. Once more, he breathed deeply, now that he could as she sat close to him, and when he opened his eyes on his exhale he saw her looking down at the table, mulling over something in her mind.
“Are you alright?” he murmured, and she closed her eyes to that.
“Mmm. Just needed to step out — don’t like havin’ all the attention on me, you know that.”
Funny, he thought, if she knew just how much she claimed all of his attention, his thoughts and dreams, his hopes and longings, even down to his physiology and heartbeat, she would flee.
Her legs had started to bounce — anxiously or because they were cold, he didn’t know — but he found himself looking at a mole on her thigh, one he of course had never seen before. He closed his eyes once more in a desperate plea to try and stop the thoughts from drowning him, of how much he wanted to see every piece of her, to know all her moles and the feel of her skin under his fingers, to learn her and know her in a way nobody else did or ever could possibly again.
“Y’know, I remember the first time you met all my family, when we were huddled in my mum’s living room watching the telly,” she grinned, and her voice encouraged him to avert his gaze, and, thankfully, his thoughts. “Said you didn’t do domestics and all that.”
“I still don’t,” he pointed out, and she sniggered. “I have no idea how I keep finding myself in these situations so often.”
“I think you like them, really.”
“I like you, there’s a difference.”
She chuckled, “So if I’m understanding you correctly, the last of the Time Lords bends to nobody’s will except mine?”
“You understood that correctly, yes.”
Her gleeful hum in response was enough for him to let her believe he was exaggerating. After a minute or two, she spoke again.
“I used to come here all the time. Most Thursdays after work. Sometimes it’d be all of us — it was quite central for where we all worked — and sometimes it’d just be me and Mickey.”
He grimaced as she rubbed salt into the wound unknowingly. He was reluctant to admit to himself just how many hours he had spent thinking about them, of their dates in the park and stolen kisses in her lunch break, of nights spent together and mornings in love. He glanced back down at the mole on her leg and knew of course he wasn’t going to know her as nobody else did, he never could even if he did ever give in to his hearts.
“It’s like a different life,” she sighed. “I always thought this sort of stuff would hit you in your thirties, lookin’ back over your school days and realising how much had changed since then. But I’m twenty-one, and it feels like a completely different me and it was only two years ago!”
He was still while she spoke what was on her mind. He didn’t get the feeling that she regretted it so much, and he was a little relieved at that. But he thought perhaps it was more the speed of time passing that stunned her, her perspective of it all shifting and she wasn’t quite ready for it. As a Time Lord, he so wished he could slow it down for her, make it just that little bit more manageable because, truthfully, it terrified him sometimes, too.
“It’s only that you fill your life with so much that it feels that way,” he tried, and she sniffed in the cold. “It feels a bit like time passed you by because, well, it has. You didn’t even see it go, you were far too busy moving and adapting but it passed, at the same rate it always does. But you didn’t.”
She frowned, and gave him a lopsided smile. “I suppose you would give me some nonsensical explanation of time that oddly makes sense.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“Really?” She scrunched her nose. “I thought you were here to protect time.”
“Whoever told you that?”
She rolled her eyes with a more symmetrical smile now, her hands moving to cover her face as she attempted to hide just how funny she found his joke. “If it’s this bad at twenty-one, must be bloody awful for you.”
He inhaled sharply, making her giggle more. “The trick is not to think about it.”
“Take each day as it comes,” she reflected, and he hummed beside her in agreement. “They were right, all those adults. Everytime they said to live each day to the fullest.”
“That they were.”
And then she seemed to sadden again. After a moment, and with a quiver to her voice, she whispered,
“If only it didn’t make time pass faster that way.”
He nodded slowly in agreement, although he protested she be thinking such morose concepts on her twenty-first birthday. She began to pick at the skin around her nails, the nail polish on her thumb had chipped and he knew she must have been doing this all night, then.
“Why don’t you like your own birthdays?” he asked, realising that he never had.
She shrugged. “I used to love my birthdays. Birthday cakes, party bags, trips to the London Fields Lido and all that stuff.”
“Then what changed?”
She hesitated, and frowned. He waited while she thought, but he realised at some point she wasn’t searching for the answer, she was only debating whether to give it to him. Eventually, she swallowed, and spoke flatly,
“I met a Time Lord.”
And there it was. He felt his thoughts click into place, then, that strange sadness about her all day that he hadn’t quite been able to interpret finally making sense. It was, truthfully, his biggest regret, although he should have seen it coming, and he only gritted his teeth at his own negligence.
“Rose—”
“No, but think about it,” she insisted, and for once he found himself wanting to listen to her, to hear her worries about something he considered constantly. She seemed too intent on bearing herself to him here, in this garden, on this night, and he could only let her. “Every day I get older—”
“You’re twenty-one, that’s hardly you getting older—”
“But it is!” she retorted, a strange smile that wasn’t a smile by any means only holding back her tears now and he didn't know how they had got here, but his hearts ached to see her like this nonetheless. Her mouth hung open as if to say something else, but she seemed unable to and only let out a small croak instead.
“Hey,” he murmured, and he took the opportunity to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, curling his fingers as he dared himself to brush her cheek. “I do not want you to miss out on any of this because you’re afraid of getting older next to me.”
“M’not afraid of getting older,” she contended plainly. “I’m afraid of leaving you all alone.”
His breath was uneven as he exhaled, but he didn’t think she would have detected it. He dropped his hand back down to the table, and she sniffed wetly, seemingly annoyed by herself for some reason. She bit down on her bottom lip with her eyes closed before she opened them to find his, holding his gaze firm. He saw all of her, then, the things she didn’t want him to see in her eyes even in this light, and he knew she must be seeing all of him, too.
Because it consumed him to learn that this was how she felt. That she regretted each passing day because it was one less day — not that she got to spend with him, but that he had left to spend with somebody. The dreadful wringing of his chest at that, at knowing how much of her life and how many of her days she was spending in fear for his inevitable loneliness when that was only his worry, his concern. Rose wasn’t supposed to feel any of that, much less break her own heart every day, and he realised he must have been doing a terrible job at keeping those worries and concerns to himself. Rose only ever wanted everybody else to be okay, and now, on her twenty-first birthday, she was furious with her own mortality for getting in the way, stopping somebody she cared for so deeply from hurting.
So he had no alternative, really, when he leaned in to her this time. He just about had enough control to pause, give her the chance to pull away if she so wanted, and it seemed as though time completely stopped as he did. He could hear her breathing shallow, see the goosebumps line her neck and he took that moment, those few seconds, to learn her as he had wanted. His eyes found another mole on her collarbone, and upwards, the pulse in her neck at having him this close to her. A quiet and strained whimper on her lips, a plea, and then the feel of those lips against his.
He had always wondered how she would taste. The time he had kissed her on Satellite Five, he had only done so to take the time vortex from her, and for that his senses were mostly dulled. Now, as time slowly began to resume once more, he couldn’t taste a thing either; all he could do was feel. This overwhelming relief surging through him, his hearts beating as they should to feel this alive, and, for a moment, an assertion that nothing could tamper with his hope.
And then she gasped; her mouth opened and that’s when he could finally taste her. And he did, the tip of his tongue finally tasted home as it explored the texture of hers and everything he was learning about her he already knew. Because she was familiar, she was her, he knew her lips already and running his tongue along them told him nothing new about them but yet wanted more even still, to know how her bottom lip felt between his teeth, and he was a quick learner, picking up on the sensitive spots that would draw her moans and which of them would catch her breath in her throat.
His heightened senses had thus far only proven to be most valuable, until now, because she consumed all of him to a point where it was too much, and he had to break away, just to focus. But she didn’t hesitate to keep going, so keen was she on tasting him too, and she trailed her kisses across his cheek and along his jaw and this was new, feeling her learn him with her own senses, the moans she drew out herself at certain points on his skin.
“Rose,” he breathed, a plea and a promise in itself, and she brought their lips back together once more.
She began to shift without breaking their kiss and he felt her move one of her legs over him, soft chuckles she released onto his lips as she fumbled onto his lap on the most uncomfortable bench he could remember sitting on. But he quickly lost all conscious recognition of the world outside him, outside them, when he felt her hands move to cup his neck before her fingers slowly trailed up and through his hair. Her lips curled when he groaned and a second later so did she when she ran her nails back down. Their kiss was broken when her head rolled back to the feel of his hands on her thighs, sliding up to her waist where they held her hips close to his and in their respite, his lips found her neck and he sucked, just over her pulse, her breath catching in response. He felt her hands loosen as they became less conscious of their actions and more reflexive to her feelings and he felt her pulse drum fervently beneath his lips. With a final nip to her skin, he released her, the darkened bruise forming he could see even under this light, and pride raptured his veins to have finally claimed just a part of her as his. But then the trouble was he wanted to claim all of her as his, if she would let him, and by the way she rocked into his hold when he pulled away only confirmed that she would. As her lips began their descent once more down onto his skin, pressing sweet and messy kisses down the bridge of his nose and to his lips, he realised he couldn’t find the trouble in it at all.
He deftly slipped his jacket off her shoulders and shuddered at the speed in which her goosebumps prickled beneath his fingers, before he dragged them slowly across her shoulders and down her back, as far as her dress would allow. One hand stayed where it was, exploring the planes of her shoulder blades as they contracted with the movement of her hands, and the other travelled south and to the small of her back where he pressed, gently, until she arched into him. That move released another sound from her lips, much lower this time, much deeper and hungrier and his was only lustful in response. She tore her lips from his to bow her head to his shoulder, pausing only to catch her breath with the intent of resuming, so he peppered his kisses this time further down her neck, softening as they pressed across her shoulder until he felt her lips on his neck, her teeth grazing his skin as she matched the mark made on hers. He shivered to know she was doing the same, marking him, and he moaned into her skin as he allowed her to.
“I want you,” she breathed, he was sure she was trying to sound firm but her need strained her request. “But not here.”
He remained still as his surroundings began to settle into their rightful place and he remembered where they were. He was in no way ready to pull back, but he couldn't exactly keep going, so instead he kept his eyes closed as he followed the trail of his hands on her body, slowly tracing the curves and dips of her frame. She didn’t move either, but it seemed she too was focused only on his hands, as she had since stopped exploring him herself. To feel her in this way, to roam freely as he wished while she remained compliant and willing above him, prevented him from asking if she was sure she wanted him, and if was even a little bit more level-headed than he was at the moment, he would ask if she had really thought this through.
But all he could seem to focus on was her words, the sound of her telling him she wanted him. After that, nothing else mattered.
“Doctor,” she whispered again, and he opened his eyes to find that mole on her collarbone beneath him. He swallowed, and with considerable difficulty, and pressed his lips to it before he finally pulled away.
She cleared her throat and started to shift off of him and he spotted the other table glance over in their direction. Right, he thought, scratching the back of his neck and neatning his — he was sure — disheveled hair. Public decency, must remember that one.
Rose was grinning sheepishly by the time she settled down next to him, and for a moment, neither looked at the other. He swallowed, now that he was finally able to, and ran his palms over his trousers to neaten them down just a little. Rose tugged on the hem of her dress to bring it a bit further down her thighs and he swallowed again to see her legs bare, having only very recently felt them beneath his hands, and the tips of his fingers tingled at the memory.
Rose let out a breathy laugh, then, and he glanced over to her just at the time she looked up at him. She drank him in, her eyes flickering across his face, but he couldn’t quite do the same; he found himself transfixed only on her eyes.
“C’mere” she grinned, licking her thumb and rubbing it across his cheek. “You’ve got lipstick all over you.”
He nodded, before he gestured to her. “Funnily enough, so do you.”
She pressed her fingers to the side of her lips and giggled while he fumbled around in his suit pockets for some makeup wipes, and then she brought them down to her neck to press gently into the bruise beginning to form over her pulse.
“Bit more worried about everyone seeing that.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Didn’t hear any complaints from you when I was giving it to you.”
“Nope,” she affirmed smugly. She tugged at the wipes when he pulled them out, taking one and began cleaning up his face. “Think I’ve got some concealer in my bag, anyway.”
“Your bag’s inside.”
“Bugger,” she cursed, and he chuckled. “Reckon you could go and grab it for me before anyone sees?”
He pointed to his neck. “I think we just have to own this one, Rose.”
“It’s a lot easier to own it when everyone doesn’t know you.”
“It’s only you they know.”
“Right,” she beamed, “so you won’t have a problem going and getting my bag then, will you?”
“Bugger,” he cursed, and she chuckled.
He watched her, then, the golden lights shimmering in her eyes as she smiled, her lips still a little swollen and hair messier now. She wasn’t aware of him watching her, he didn’t think, so she was caught off guard when he began to smooth down the strands, running his fingers softly through her hair to bring back a bit of order. As he did, his gaze remained fixed on her, the shy way she kept herself still and allowed him to sort her out, to fix her back up as if she needed fixing in the first place.
“You are…” he tried, but the word was lost on his lips. He had no way of surmising her beauty at that moment, and he supposed that's why people looked to poetry or song in times where words weren’t adequate to suffice.
Perhaps she didn’t need any of that, because she seemed to understand exactly what he was trying to say, or at least the depth of it. She took his hand then, which had since frozen in his quest to articulate just how captivating she was, and brought it to her lips. She kissed each of his fingers deliberately, carefully, attentively, her eyes closed as she spoke the words caught in her throat on his skin and all he could do was listen.
God, she was divine. He felt the way his hearts completely responded to her alone, their slight quickening as her lips brushed his skin and the harder they beat for her when she released him. He was sure they had a song about them, her song, and he could have them converse with her for as long as he lived.
“What are you thinking?” she murmured, and he had been mostly — no, completely — unaware of her watching him. He wasn’t quite ready yet to translate his hearts’ intent, so instead he leaned back into her, touching his lips to the corner of hers to kiss her where he was hesitant to pull back, captured instead by a sweetness that lingered on her skin. When her lips curled beneath his, he finally did pull away; not too far though, just enough for her to hear the words he didn’t speak.
Neither said anything, for a while. Not through their searching for something to say, but simply because this was unlike them to be so close and they were familiarising themselves with it.
He was falling in love with it.
“You know,” she whispered with a smile, “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to say so little.”
“Would you prefer it if I were babbling away instead?”
“God, no,” she chuckled as he pulled away. “Think I can safely say that’s one of my preferred ways you’ve made use of your tongue.”
He raised his eyebrow and her cheeks flushed pink furiously.
“Oh my god, no! I didn’t mean— not that!”
He raised his other eyebrow and, after quickly searching his eyes, she raised hers.
“Wow, okay so maybe that, if you’re—”
He chuckled, and kissed her shoulder before climbing to his feet. “I’m going to go and get your bag.”
“Or—” she grabbed his hand to stop him “— how about we both go back to the TARDIS and pick up where we left off?”
He snorted. “No chance am I missing your drunken Steps performance.”
“Not even for a good shag?”
He stilled to hear her say it, and only then did it occur to him that that was where this was heading. It was sobering, but he couldn’t say in any way it was repellent — not at all — only completely unbelievable.
“Oh god—” she slapped her hands to her face “—you didn’t— that’s not what.. what you— oh my god you didn’t say that’s what you wanted—”
“Rose,” he stressed, although gently, pulling her hand away as he crouched down in front of her. He tried to look at her, peering up from underneath her, but she wouldn’t look back at him. “I don’t think we’d be fooling anybody if I said I didn’t want that, too.”
She nodded firmly, still unable to look him in the eye. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers as they rested firmly in his, still a little nervous was she while he was completely certain.
“But it’s not all I want.”
“Yeah?” she said as she chewed her bottom lip. He nodded, and she paused for a moment, hesitant, before she spoke. “But…”
And then it was lost on her, either the rest of that sentence or her confidence to say it. Her fingers began to fidget in his, and he loosened his hold but not entirely, simply only allowing her the freedom to dwell without letting her drift entirely.
“But what?” he probed.
She looked even further down now, her chin tucked to her chest. “Wither and die, and all that.”
Ah yes, he grimaced. That.
The truth was, of course that’s all he could think about. And he regretted saying that to her every day since he had, because it shouldn’t have been her problem and yet he had made it her problem. By only showing her how much it anguished him, she had taken it upon herself to fix it for him, only to realise that she couldn’t. Nobody could, and for that, she couldn’t simply rest and allow herself to be happy while he only awaited misery. He wondered, then, if that was why she was so hesitant — not because she didn’t want this with all her heart, but because he had given her reason to believe he was petrified for his own survival, for a future of solitude without her but it was specifically that last part that tortured him now.
Without her. How could she possibly begin to resolve her heartache when she worried tirelessly over something she couldn’t control? He had to unburden her, assure her that he wasn’t scared for him, when truthfully he felt sick by his awaited grief. So for that, he bent his head to kiss her knee, and swore to inherit all her anxieties himself and free her of them.
“I know you’re a whole twenty-one-years-old now, but I don’t see you withering anytime soon.”
She didn’t laugh, but he still smiled reassuringly, intent on fulfilling his promise.
“But I will, one day,” she countered, and he fought back a sigh. 
“Are you always this miserable on your birthday?”
“Doctor!” she pleaded, but she was beginning to smile despite herself. “This is serious!”
The worst part was that he had had this exact argument with himself, time and time again, only he was normally on her side himself. But it had all changed when he had heard her tell him she wanted him; up until then, those arguments with himself were a response to the very hypothetical situation she might want him, but now that she actually did, he found himself quite unable to see her side now.
“Alright, alright,” he held up his hands in defeat. “You’re right.”
She didn’t exactly bask in it, but he knew he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon. So he perched himself down next to her, the picnic bench groaning as he settled his weight. A silence extended between them and he watched as Rose played with her ring, fiddling about with it in the interlude as she tried to find her words. But as the silence passed and she remained quiet, he realised perhaps she had nothing to say unprompted, so he asked a question he was sure he never would in the hope that she might finally release herself.
“What do you want?” he whispered.
She hesitated even still, before her breath carried her answer in a sigh. “You.”
He could have her say it over and over again and never tire of it; perhaps that serenely restful truth caused the words to tumble from his lips so desperately. “You have me. Christ knows why you want me out of anyone else in the whole bloody universe, but whatever you want is yours.”
Perhaps it was the slight inflection on just the right word, or perhaps it was all of them together, but he felt her somewhat loosen beside him. Determined though he was, he was misplaced to hear himself say it, something he only ever imagined might terrify her now only somehow consoling her.
“This is… mad,” she shuddered with a smile. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?”
“I can take an educated guess.”
“And you really want this too?”
He shrugged. “Probably— I don’t know, haven’t really thought it through.”
She whacked his arm with a chuckle she couldn’t quite suppress. “Oh my god—“
“Rose,” he whispered, urged perhaps, and she all but stilled completely to hear him say her name in such a way. He turned to look at her but she had closed her eyes, so he took her hand, small and fragile and soft as it was, and started to settle the ache in his fingers by running them across her skin. So warm, even if she didn’t think so in the cool April chill, and the softness against his, coarse and tired, was sublime.
“Why me?”
“Why you, what?”
“You said I could have anyone in the whole universe, well what about you? You’re a Time Lord,” she breathed the name of his race with such wonderment while he only regretted it, but he kept still. “And you’re the last one! You have literally all of time and space to choose from, why would you choose somebody with such a short life span— somebody who you can’t exactly share the rest of your life with or even a substantial part of it. Sixty years, that’s all I have! That’s all we’ll have!”
“This is a bit like talking about breaking up before you’ve even gotten together,” he pointed out, and she grinned again despite herself at that, and it only seemed to frustrate her that he joked when she searched for an answer much more reassuring. But the fact was, it would seem she had thought about this, and perhaps had even used it to convince herself he didn’t want her in return, which was utterly absurd to him. Joking with her wasn’t seeming to do the trick, lightening the mood in the hopes of lightening her worry was proving to serve no end to her own perceived stalemate, and she wasn’t just taking him at his word and allowing herself this.
So he bent his head to kiss the ball of her shoulder and he lingered there, breathing her in, unable to stop himself from kissing the same spot again. He needed saving from this, he realised, because kissing her seemed entirely unpreventable since he had allowed himself to only minutes ago, and right now she needed his reassurance.
“I’ve seen it all, Rose. Nine hundred years of travelling, I’ve met some spectacular people. But you have something on me that I can’t describe, and I know for a fact it’s irreversibly binding. I know, because I feel it in the way you smile, the sound of your laugh, I know I don’t stand a chance when you say my name as you giggle and I’m a complete lost cause when you touch me in any way. What I’m trying to say is I’ve met so many people in this universe, from so many corners of it across so many ages and none of them have ever given me something so completely tangible to hold on to.” He frowned, realising how he must sound completely bonkers, and he wasn’t exactly the greatest romantic of his time, but he really was limited by his words in describing what she was to him, so he settled instead on one final, simple sentiment. “You’re everything.”
He sniffed, because it sounded so terribly feeble and uninspired, and pulled away. She had been watching him as he spoke his mind, perhaps thinking he was an absolute nutter, but her palm touched his cheek and she leant forwards, brushing her lips to his and only holding on to time, savouring each passing second in this point in time and he felt how overwhelming it was, even to him. All the seconds passed, all the ones following it were immeasurable, literally, and for only a few of them, just one or two, they kissed. When she pulled away, he found himself wondering how he could possibly not chase more of those seconds.
“And don’t even get me started on that,” he breathed, and she giggled delightfully.
“You know, when you told me you were coming tonight, I thought maybe I might be lucky enough to hear you tell me I look beautiful—“
“Which I still haven’t done,” he chastised.
“— I never imagined any of this might happen, not for a second.”
“You didn’t?” he retaliated. “I was spending my day hoping that I could just survive it — and I have to say, there was a moment when your mother was telling me about Bev’s one night stand where I really, honestly, thought I might not.”
“And yet, you stayed,” she grinned, somewhat smugly and a little sweetly. “And you hate domestics!”
“I could get used to them,” he shrugged, and she only looked back at him in surprise. “Well, okay, I could learn how to tolerate them.”
“For me?” she said, still a little in disbelief.
“I told you, anything in the universe, time and space, all of it, is yours,” he assured. “If that includes family gatherings and ‘life admin’ days, then so be it.”
“Christmas dinner?”
“I’m there.”
“Even Mum’s fiftieth birthday bash?”
“Even that.”
“Christenings, baby showers, all that stuff, too?”
“If Charlie pops out any more kids, you bet I’ll be meeting them all.”
Rose scoffed, “Who are you and what have you done to the Doctor!”
“S’what you’ve done to me,” he corrected.
“It’s what domestics have done to you.”
“No, no, it’s definitely you.”
The sound of these giggles in particular, the ones where she was endearingly timid as he all but worshiped her, were entrancing; a new world he had yet to explore lay in their sound and he was a traveller, after all. It was far too tempting, she was far too tempting, and her darkened eyes as she looked at him here and now held a map to a path unknown, a whole universe in itself and he was ready to be lost in this one.
Her eyes flickered to his lips and she licked hers almost straight after, before she met his gaze once more and they were somehow even darker now. He found himself falling before he had even let go; their noses touched and her hand on his thigh sparked, and this was ridiculous, it was completely without sense that it all should feel like this. How many times had he fallen in love, how many moments had passed like this one and yet none of them were like this one, nobody looked as she looked at him, nobody’s touch was as devilishly hypnotic and never before had his hearts drummed so mercilessly for a moment in time to pass and yet remain—
“Rose!”
They both tore away to the sound of her name being called from the door, and all at once it came back: the sounds of merriment inside, the rustle of the leaves above them, the very harsh reminder that they weren’t alone.
“We’ve been looking all over for you, your mum wants to do a speech.”
“Oh, god,” Rose groaned as Shareen trudged over to them. But her steps slowed as she got closer, until she stopped completely just before them, her mouth open as she realised what she had interrupted.
He wished, with everything he had really, to be anywhere else but here.
“Oh my god, are you two—“ she gasped, narrowing her eyes at them before she pointed at their necks. “What! is that a— have you two got hickeys?”
Rose fidgeted excessively, pulling her dress down as much as she could before slapping her hand to her neck. “Shareen— please can you go get my bag?”
She scoffed indignantly and folded her arms. “Concealer ain’t gonna cover that up— what did you do to her!” she teased at the Doctor, and he only hung his head low and desperately willed for this to be over.
“Shareen,” Rose groaned. “Please, c’mon— I got two bloody weeks of detention covering for you when it was both of us skipping science to snog our boyfriends!”
The Doctor scratched his neck and shuddered to realise he was now in a situation akin to snogging his high school girlfriend when he should be in science class. He’d always wanted the human experience but this was not so high up on his list.
“As your mate, it’s my duty to have you completely mortified on your twenty-first — but—“ she insisted, when Rose began to protest “— as your best mate, I’m going to do you this favour and help you cover up the fact that you were out here neckin’ with a bloke none of us have really met before.”
The Doctor leapt to his feet, finally deciding to remove himself from this dreadful situation, but Shareen put her hand on his chest to stop him instead.
“Nope— you stay here, you look even worse than she does,” she smirked, before turning back to Rose with a wicked grin. “Give me two mins, but if your mum finds you in the meantime then I can’t help you.”
“Nobody could,” the Doctor muttered, mostly to himself, but Shareen caught it and giggled in agreement, before she turned to head back into the pub.
“I take it back,” he insisted as Rose got to her feet, too. “None of it, you can have none of it.”
“Nope,” she grinned. She took his tie in her hand and began to fiddle with it, but the look in her eye told him she was doing this deliberately, the little minx, and, worse yet, she knew exactly what it was doing to him. But she released him from it, this torture of being in a very public place when he so very much wished that they weren’t, and stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a chaste kiss, smiling into his lips as she whispered, “No taking it back now, Time Lord.”
And it was worth it, he thought, to see a smile he hadn’t seen before. Well, that and the way she had called him “Time Lord” in a way that sent shivers down his spine. But her smile now was one where she was so completely happy and at ease, and he was quite happy indeed to bear the weight of her concerns if it meant she could enjoy her time alive.
He supposed, then, for her twenty-first birthday, he might have given her time itself.
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yslkook · 3 years
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red card - on the defensive (1)
pairing: jungkook x reader (soccer captain jjk) summary: you and jungkook run in the same circles, and yet after three years, he struggles to get your time of day. you think he’s cocky and he’s going to change your mind. word count: 5.1k warnings: cursing, alcohol/drinking (lots of it), suggestive content a/n: this story is for @cutechim​, it went down in the DM’s and came to life. this is my entry into the blond jk foray!! enjoy<3
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“What should we drink?” Hana shouts over the music to you in the crowd.
“Uh… let’s do jagerbombs,” You shout back, even though you’re both relatively close to each other at the bar. You peer behind you at the group of people you’ve congregated with this afternoon, counting a total of four. 
“Can I have… eight jagerbombs?” You request of the bartender, who raises his eyebrow at you.
“Why am I not surprised,” He says with a roll of his eyes, “You’re all gonna run me dry of my jager.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time it happened,” You mutter. And you’re right- it’s happened at least twice over this summer, when you and your friends made a weekly appearance to this bar. The bartender knows you and Hana by your faces at this point and you’ve jokingly asked why your usual order of jagerbombs or tequila shots aren’t ready upon arrival.
These weekly occurrences were sponsored by your job at a law firm near your university. And by sponsored, you mean that your bank account takes a minor hit on a weekly basis. Since university had let out, you’d made yourself available for as many hours as possible- after all, you needed a way to fund these days and nights out.
While juggling a summer class three days a week for three hours each day.
But you weren’t completely financially irresponsible- you drew the line… eventually. Certainly not after eight jagerbombs though (you’d stopped questioning how you could easily drop that much money on alcohol these days). At least it's summer happy hour and you’re not paying full price.
Besides, you and your friends rotate rounds. Hana will get the next one, and then one of the guys, and so on and so forth. You’d gotten two extra specially for you and Hana, but nobody needed to know that.
You love these summer days, when it’s nothing but you and your friends enjoying the breeze and the vibes of a fun afternoon (that inevitably leads to a night of more recklessness). Nothing can take the tipsy grin off of your face or the arm looped around your best friend’s shoulders, except-
Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook.  You don’t mind Jimin as much (mostly because of Hana, who’s been harboring a not so secret crush that is definitely bordering more on love than a simple crush on him for who knew how long). But still, when all three of them are together, you make your disdain very known and obvious. At least you think you do.
Some of the star players from your university’s soccer team, and the captain himself, Jeon Jungkook. They walk into the crowded, noisy bar as if they own the place and you can already see heads turning. You roll your eyes and tell Hana to get it together when she starts giggling and waving at Jimin.
Your eyes seem to meet the back of your skull when all three of them saunter over towards you and your friends. It’s not that you have anything against them per se, it’s that you find them as a unit quite annoying and you know of their reputations. Or, you think you know of their reputations. Maybe you’re a little judgmental. But who cares, it’s not any of their business.
Most of your perhaps misplaced vitriol is reserved for Jungkook himself and the few interactions that you’ve had over the last almost four years of being in university together. You’ve had a few general ed classes with him freshman year, but after that most of your interactions were solely at parties and any excuse to celebrate. You had mutual friends (somehow) so it was inevitable that you saw him as much as you did.
Every fiber of him annoyed you- he was cocky and arrogant… Everything you intensely disliked in a person. Hana told you that you were being mean and judgmental (not as nicely), but if it meant not dealing with this boy who got a rise out of you for no reason, then it didn’t matter. Of course, he doesn’t take up space in your mind very often. Only when you have the misfortune of running into him.
You didn’t know him, and truly, you didn’t care to. You’ll remain civil though, only if he doesn’t annoy you. Which you doubt will happen.
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Jungkook can sense your iciness towards him and his friends from half a mile away, from across the bar. And the bar itself is pretty big, with an outdoor area and an outdoor dance floor, and two bars inside with tables and booths and a dance floor. Despite the space of the bar, it’s crowded with college students, young professionals, and even older corporate workers who look like they work relatively close to the bar. He knows you and your friends come here often, and if that was why he had suggested to Jimin and Tae that they also come here then that was his business.
He swallows (not nervously). You look so pretty when you laugh, he thinks. He thinks you look pretty all the time, though. He lets his eyes wander to your tight black crop top shirt with cherries printed on it and your high waisted denim shorts. Jungkook’s throat goes a little dry when his gaze reaches your thighs, but he keeps it together somehow. He doesn’t know how, considering how nice that outfit makes your tits look.
“Hey Cherries,” Jungkook says smoothly, “Flattered you got this for me.” And he plucks the jagerbomb that you paid for for yourself and downs it in less than three seconds. 
Your jaw drops. The audacity of this boy.
“First of all,” You narrow your eyes, “Who the fuck is a ‘Cherries’. And second of all, I know you didn’t just drink the drink that I paid for. Right in front of my fuckin’ face.”
“That’s a funny way of asking me to buy you a drink, Cherries,” Jungkook grins, and gazes at your chest for a second too long. You roll your eyes and swat his arm.
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you. I’ll have a tequila shot, pretty boy,” You smirk at him and he smirks right back at you.
“I like a girl who knows what she wants,” Jungkook attempts, only for you to scoff.
“Congratulations,” You say flatly, “You’re lucky I’m not subjecting you to getting me two tequila shots for having to hear that line.”
“You don’t like my lines?” He’s pouty and his eyes are wide, mischief sparkling in them. You dare to think that he’s cute. Apparently all of the boys had dyed their hair blond this summer before the soccer season began and you must admit that it suits him. His hair falls over his forehead effortlessly, small hoops dangling from his ears as he smiles at you.
“Does anyone? Do your groupies?”
“Maybe I’m a little rusty…”
“Oh, I doubt that, Jungkook.”
“Well, you notice whether I have groupies or not, so maybe I’m not so rusty, Cherries,” Jungkook winks at you and you’re tempted to toss your drink at him. But that’s a precious waste of alcohol and perhaps you’re a little dramatic.
You only groan and accept the tequila shot, quickly licking your hand to place salt on and taking a wedge of lime.
“Ready?” Jungkook asks after doing the same.
“How lucky for me, that I get to do shots with our star quarterback,” You say flatly.
“That’s football, Cherries. I play soccer.”
“And I don’t care. Now, take this shot with me.”
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As the afternoon blends into evening, you witness betrayal in front of your very eyes in the form of Hana inviting Jimin and his friends with you to the next bar. The ultimate betrayal.
But really, you’ve heard about those soccer boys. At least you think you have. Perhaps you know everything. Perhaps you know nothing at all.
And so the three boys follow you to the next bar as the night goes on. Nearly everyone was at least tipsy by this point, as you had all done a handful of shots following the boys’ arrival at the first bar.
You find yourself thinking that they’re not so bad, when they make you and your friends laugh easily and when being around them feels… fun. 
It’s easy to blame on the alcohol and the darkness of the crowded bar. It seems like everyone is out and about, the streets filled with college students and young professionals looking to unwind and let off some steam.
You love the feeling of the music pumping through your veins, along with the swirl of alcohol. You’re not ashamed of enjoying a drink (or several) and having a good time.
Even if it almost always results in you crossing the line and being hungover the next day.
“Wanna do shots,” You suggest to your circle of friends, eyes landing on Jungkook without you meaning to. Maybe it’s a hidden challenge and he raises his eyebrows.
“Again?” Jungkook says incredulously.
“Don’t be surprised,” Jimin mutters under his breath to Jungkook, “She’s kinda crazy.”
“I’ll take that as a yes… six shots then?” You say cheerily, ignoring Jungkook’s groan. You vaguely recall that Taehyung doesn’t really drink. How considerate of you.
Hana’s arm is slung around your shoulders, a bright (drunken) smile on her face as you pass shots behind you.
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The following week, on your usual day of happy hour drinking, Hana presents you with a proposition that has you gasping and gagging, nearly writhing on the floor.
“No, for your information, I do not want to pregame at the soccer house. Thanks for asking, try again later,” You say definitively, pouring Hana a drink.
“Jimin invited us! I wanna see him,” Hana complains and pouts at you, “He said they got good alcohol for the pregame-”
“Jimin invited you, because you both like each other or whatever,” You roll your eyes, “I’m content to drink here alone-”
“We both know you’ll fall asleep if I leave you alone,” Hana says flatly, “Besides, Jungkook asked if you were coming.”
“And what do I care if Jungkook asked if I was coming?” You scoff, taking a long swig of the strong drink in your red solo cup. You cringe.
“He specifically asked if Cherries was coming,” Hana says with a near maniacal grin, “Pretend all you want that you don’t like that shit. Now go wear that top with cherries on it that makes your tits look nice. Quit being difficult.”
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In the end, you end up walking the four blocks to the soccer house and you wear the baby pink long sleeved crop top with cherries on it and denim shorts, much to your chagrin (and to Hana’s delight). You’ve only been here a handful of times (maybe two or three) as a freshman for parties and hadn’t been back since.
Everyone knew the soccer house was the place to party to get shitfaced. Usually, the sophomore and junior year soccer players lived in the house while senior year players moved off campus.
You don’t know who currently lives at the house, but Hana quickly fills you in. Apparently Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook lived together off campus (because of course they did).
The soccer house has been part of the campus lore for years. Allegedly, all of the craziest, most reckless things happened at the soccer house and all of the best parties were there. You and Hana never felt that way freshman and sophomore year, instead opting to party hop at the frat houses rather than the sports houses.
How the tables have turned.
“You made it!” Jimin exclaims, outstretching his arms for a hug from you. Which you (awkwardly) return. You need more alcohol to be here, you think.
“Yeah, only ‘cause Hana told me you guys got the good shit,” You say flatly. Taehyung passes a cup of something and you eye it suspiciously but ultimately take a swig of it.
“Pretty good, Tae,” You say, raising your cup to him.
“Oh, I didn’t make that. I’m only the messenger,” Taehyung shrugs with a sly grin, “Jungkook over there did.”
You turn your head, only to find Jungkook staring back at you, lips upturned in a playful grin. It makes you roll your eyes, as most of his antics do.
“Hey, Cherries,” Jungkook greets, standing next to you after a few long strides, “It only took Jimin asking you once to come here, huh? I should be offended, considering how many times I’ve asked you-”
“And when have you ever asked me to party here, Jungkook?”
He only gives you a small smile, almost shy, and it’s a stark contrast from the generally cocky aura that hangs around him. “You just don’t remember.”
You frown a little, wondering what that means. But he gives you another broad smile quickly, shaking you from your reverie. Jungkook leaves you to your devices, being pulled away by some of the younger soccer guys that you hardly recognize. Freshmen? Sophomores, maybe? They look at Jungkook and the older guys with a playful sort of reverence- it’s clear that the team is close even off of the field. 
You briefly wonder what that’s like- having a group of friends like that. Hana’s always been the nicer, more outgoing one out of you both. She’s always made friends easily, with her sweet and genuine smiles. And then there’s you- you struggle to open up to others, always greeting anyone with the sting of sarcasm and holding people at arm’s length.
Sometimes, very rarely, you wonder how you and Hana mesh well together. When she could have a big group of great friends, you used to wonder if you hold her back somehow. It was stupid, and the first time you voiced your insecurity to Hana, she had smacked you upside the head and told you that you were stuck with her.
But still. You can’t help but feel burdensome sometimes. Maybe like you’re too much. Maybe not enough.
Hana pulls you out of your thoughts easily, an arm around your shoulder as she pulls you into conversation with Jimin and a few other girls. 
You down about half the cup of whatever concoction Jungkook whipped up for you and tried to immerse yourself in conversation. There’s a new girl here that you don’t recognize, Sunmi. She’s a transfer and the last thing you want is for her to feel left out. So you make sure to include her in the conversation and ask her questions, too.
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Jungkook is not surprised that you don’t remember how many times he’s asked you to come party at the soccer house. Granted, it’s only been a handful of times over the last three years and change. It’s not like you were a stranger- he’s known you through a few mutual classes through the years, and through Jimin, too. After all, Jimin and your best friend have had this weird on and off, together but not together thing going on since the summer before sophomore year.
Maybe one of these days, they’ll get it together. Jungkook loves Hana for Jimin and vice versa- he’s never seen either smile as much as they do around each other. If only they would just admit how much they like (love) each other and put everyone around them out of their misery.
Jungkook thinks it’s a little romantic. Being so in love with someone that labels aren’t needed. There’s something poetic about that.
But Jungkook doesn’t know why you act like you don’t know him at all. You always greet him with a near frown or a roll of your shining eyes.
He doesn’t understand but he pays it no mind, instead turning his focus to the pretty woman eyeing him from the other side of the bar with her friends.
(She’s not you, but it doesn’t matter. Jungkook pushes you to the back of his mind, instead choosing to focus on the velvet heat of the woman in his bed later that night.)
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With your shift at the law firm starting at 9 AM the following morning, you decide to remain relatively sober for the night (you enjoy a good time, but you try to draw the line when you can. Though there have been times when you’ve gone to work hungover or possibly even still intoxicated. It happens every so often. You’ve never claimed to be the paradigm of a working college student.)
But also, you don’t really feel like being out tonight to begin with. You do enjoy nights like this, but you also enjoy your quiet time. And it seems like this is one of those nights.
At least someone’s having fun, you think dryly, your eyes glossing over Jimin and Hana. You do think they’d be a great match- if only either of them would make it official. This dance that they’ve been doing for years frustrates you and Hana knows it. You’ve voiced it to her many times but she always says it’s not the right time.
It makes you roll your eyes. You briefly wondered if you should host an intervention and scold Jimin for taking too long- after all, if they kept playing games like this then who’s to say one of them wouldn’t move on? But it seems like they both always gravitate to each other no matter what.
He rotates around her axis and she rotates around his. It’s sweet but Jimin still puts a sour taste in your mouth for a reason that you can’t verbalize into words.
Maybe it’s the company he keeps. 
The music is loud in your ears as you dance with your group of friends, two of them in an impromptu dance off that you inevitably get dragged into. You sling your arm around Sunmi and nudge hips with her, getting her to come out of her shell a little bit and dance with her on the dance floor. She sings to the same songs as you do and gives you a bright, happy smile that you can’t help but return.
You buy a round of beers for your friends before the first yawn comes, not even at 1 AM. Hana looks at you quizzically.
You keep checking your phone for the time. Which in itself is pretty out of character for you. But you just need a recharge before the next outing…..
But you suck it up, not wanting to leave Sunmi by herself. You fight through your yawns and nurse your beer, twirling and swirling around with Sunmi.
And then you start to get hungry. Damn, you could go for some tacos right now.
“Hey,” Sunmi shouts over the music, “Wanna get food?”
“Wow, you read my mind,” You grin and chug your beer quickly. You and Sunmi both settle on the bar across the street (with the best tacos). You turn to find your friends and let them know that you’re heading across the street. Jimin and Hana both nod eagerly, Taehyung does, too.
You debate if you should ask Jungkook if he wants food- after all, it looks like he’s busy with a girl currently sending him sultry heart eyes. 
“Hey, we’re going to get food. Wanna come?” You ask, “You, too.” You look at the pretty girl who looks familiar. She probably attends the same university as you and your friends. 
Jungkook’s ears perk up at the mention of food, even with the girl currently standing in between his legs. She looks wary for a minute and before you can reassure her, Jungkook speaks up.
“Sure. I could go for some tacos,” Jungkook says, “Let’s get some tacos, Nari.”
“Are you sure, I mean I don’t want to impose. We can catch up later, Kook,” Nari says unsurely.
Jungkook will admit, this feels weird for a reason that he can’t place. The girl he’s trying to hook up with for the night getting tacos with the girl he might have a slight crush on. 
Weird. But still, there’s no harm in just having tacos.
“Trust me, you’re not imposing, Nari. I barely even like this guy,” You joke, “I’m just a big proponent of tacos and tacos should never be eaten alone. Tell your friends too, if they wanna come.”
“Hey!” 
You ignore Jungkook to reassure Nari and give her a bright smile. Nari looks at you, and then Jungkook before nodding slowly and returning your smile.
Jungkook walks Nari out with a hand at the small of her back, something you don’t miss as you chat away with Nari about anything and everything.
You even shoot Jungkook a wink when Nari isn’t looking. He groans internally- how poetic. His current crush giving him the approval of his hook up for the night (Nari knew what the deal was).
How incredibly awkward. Jungkook is capable of many things, always adapting to situations. But this is a new one and when Jimin and Taehyung catch his eye at the taco shop, they both give him a derisive smile.
Jungkook can only groan internally and eat his tacos.
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Today’s Wednesday night is uneventful- Hana is with Jimin for the evening and they are likely going out with some friends. You had opted out, as you had an early shift at the law firm tomorrow morning. You’ve gone out the night before early shifts and early classes and more than half the time, you regret it the next day.
Does it mean you’ll stop those habits any time soon? Stay tuned.
But today, you just feel tired from a particularly long, difficult morning of class and your half shift that you worked until five PM. You hadn’t felt like cooking dinner (you had taken leftovers to work for lunch) and by the time you finished your homework for your natural language processing class, it was past 9 PM and your stomach was rumbling loudly.
You’ve been craving noodles, dumplings and chicken. So you place an order at the nearby restaurant by your apartment and order some extra for Hana for later or for tomorrow.
It’s only a fifteen minute walk from your apartment to the shop, and you plug your headphones in to begin your walk.
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You sway on the heels of your feet as you wait for your food, saying hello to the couple who owns the small restaurant. They know you by face, from how many times you’ve been here. Your favorite comfort food (besides homemade food made by your parents) exists here. Your favorite aromas exist here and even just the smell of noodles and chicken has your tummy rumbling.
“I thought you would’ve been out,” A voice comes from your right side, “It’s the week before classes start.”
You turn your head at the voice, heart startling a bit. What in the world is Jungkook doing at your secret but not so secret restaurant?
“I could say the same for you,” You remark with a raise of your eyebrow, “I heard Jimin and Tae went out.”
You vaguely wonder if he’s still hooking up with Nari but decide it’s not your business to ask.
“Ah, well… I have work tomorrow,” Jungkook shrugs.
“Me too, they want me in at 7:30 tomorrow,” You complain, “What do I look like? A cog in the wheel that is capitalism?”
“Don’t we all?” Jungkook snorts.
“I didn’t realize you were working this summer, too. Thought you were just doing whatever soccer captains do,” You mutter, picking up your order off of the countertop.
“And what do soccer captains do, Cherries?”
“I dunno. Score touchdowns or whatever,” You shrug and laugh at the pained expression on Jungkook’s face, “And stop calling me that, Jungkook.”
“Whatever, Cherries. I’ve been working at this architecture firm as an intern. Figured it would help with post grad.”
“Oh wow, I didn’t know that was your major…”
“You definitely did, I’m pretty sure I’ve told you.”
“When-” You shake your head, not wanting to argue with him, “That’s cool. I’m working at a law firm, it’s about a fifteen minute bus ride from my apartment.”
“You wanna study law? Makes sense, because you always wanna argue with me-”
“No, I don’t really know if I want to go to grad school,” You trail off, “Hey! I don’t always argue with you!”
“You’re arguing now,” He says smugly, crossing his hands across his broad chest that you definitely do not ogle at.
“Whatever, Jungkook,” You roll your eyes, “You here for classes or anything?”
“Nah, not this summer. Just work and soccer,” Jungkook replies, “Gives me lots of time for other things.” The man has the audacity to wink at you and give you a big, bunny grin. You pretend like your stomach doesn’t flutter.
You roll your eyes, again. 
“How about you, Cherries? Any classes?”
“Yeah, I’m taking this natural language processing class three times a week for three hours each day-”
“Wait, you’re a comp sci major?” He asks incredulously, “Why are you working at a law firm then?”
“I’m working half as IT support and half as the intern,” You reply with a shrug, “It pays well and it’s pretty easy. Half of the IT support comes in the form of telling the lawyers to restart their computers for software updates. It’s so funny, you should see their amazed faces when all it takes is a fuckin’ restart. Makes a girl feel smart as hell.”
“Smart and pretty, huh?” Jungkook says with a crooked grin, “Where you been all my life, Cherries?”
“Shut up,” You say flatly, levelling him with a glare that only makes him smirk even wider at you.
“Cute,” He breathes with so much conviction that it almost makes you flustered. You clutch your bag of food a little tighter to ground yourself. 
“Me telling you to shut up is cute?” You raise both your eyebrows, eager to shield him from the heat in your cheeks.
“Among many other things, Cherries.”
“Share with the class then…”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Shut up, and why do you like calling me cherries so much,” You complain, lips jutted out in a pout, “I only wore that top once and now look. You’re referring to me as a delectable, juicy fruit. I mean I don’t blame you-”
“Cherries are my favorite,” Jungkook says, dark eyes swirling with stars. He unnerves you with his raw honesty and sincerity and he lets the implication of his words hang in between you both, your eyes wide by his statement. 
“Well, your taste is questionable because mangoes are very obviously superior-”
You both share a laugh and you’re pleasantly surprised by how the silence that comfortably falls isn’t awkward when you deflect. His name is called shortly after, breaking his intense stare. 
You let out a huff, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose.
“Hey, I’ll drive you home,” Jungkook says, pushing the door open for you to exit the shop.
“You have a car on campus?” You say, unable to hold back the awe in your voice, “That’s awesome. And uh, no, I mean, you really don’t have to, it’s only a fifteen minute walk-”
“It’s a two minute ride,” Jungkook says, “But I mean, if you’re not comfortable, I get it-”
“No, it’s not that,” You say honestly, “I just don’t want to inconvenience you-”
“You’re not, it’s a two minute ride. Now get in,” Jungkook says reassuringly, opening the passenger side door for you. He puts his own bags of food in the backseat before getting into the driver’s side.
You’ve never really been alone with Jungkook, but for some reason it doesn’t feel that strange. It’s easy to keep conversation (really, it’s banter) flowing with him- as if you’ve been friends for the entirety of the last few years of college. As if you hadn’t spent nearly every waking moment thinking of him a certain way.
He’s easy to talk to. It unnerves you, but you roll with it.
“You should come to a practice one of these days,” Jungkook murmurs. You raise an eyebrow. Why would he ask you to come to one of his soccer practices when you had only just started an acquaintance-ship? Isn’t that crossing some sort of friendship line that you both hadn’t approached yet.
It’s months later when you realize that everything Jungkook does and says is because of his kind, golden heart. He’s such a genuine person, sincerity always dripping from his warm, brown eyes. Everything he does, he does with love.
“Thanks for driving me home, Jungkook,” You murmur with a small smile. It makes his heart sputter in his chest and he easily returns it. “Text me when you get home?”
“If you wanted my number, all you had to do was ask. Cherries,” Jungkook says smugly and you gasp, affronted. “Text me when you get inside your place.”
“That’s not- I didn’t-” You stammer, sighing, “I already have your number, stupid.”
“You’re cute when you’re flustered.”
“I’m not flustered,” You mutter, cheeks blazing as you hurry to get out of his car. Which coincidentally smells just like him. “Goodnight, Jungkook.”
“‘Night, Cherry.”
You roll your eyes but give him a small wave and a smile before entering your building. 
cherries: I’m inside. Drive safe jungkook: you worried about me? cherries: no im worried about your nice car jungkook: uh huh… gonna leave now, text you when i get home? cherries: 👍🏾
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It’s about three minutes later (you barely even have time to wash your hands and change into pajamas) before your phone lights up again.
jungkook: im home cherries: me too jungkook: wow you’re funny cherries: pretty and smart too, according to you jungkook: well i wasnt lying 😍 cherries: Uh huhhhhh
You put your phone to the side to put some of the food on your plate, your stomach still rumbling. You turn on the anime you’re currently watching and get cozy on the couch with a glass of wine.
And in the middle of your late dinner, your wine and your show, your phone lights up with texts from Jungkook. It surprises you that he holds the conversation even when you had given him such a dull response. Isn’t he tired of texting you by now?
He keeps you company through your dinner and you barely are even paying attention to the anime you’re watching, only giggling to yourself over Jungkook’s silly texts-
cherries: you’re so distracting, couldnt even finish this episode of fruits basket jungkook: cute cherries: i cant tell u if its cute, i barely watched it bc of you jungkook: no i meant u. Ur cute
Five seconds go by. Then ten. Your face is heated- you’re glad he can’t see you. Maybe you’ll reciprocate someday. But today is not that day.
cherries: shut up
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tags: @kookdbean
218 notes · View notes
tact-and-impulse · 3 years
Text
Reached the halfway point and I’ll continue to fill the rest later! Just wanted to get this ‘jealousy’ one out, @shepherds-of-haven!
notoriety
The letters have become a significant pile on her desk. The first few were embarrassing, then flattering, and now, they’re embarrassing again. She hasn’t touched them for weeks, and they’ve multiplied with her missions. This morning, Caine had delivered a fresh batch, remarking. “Whoa, you’ve gotten so much fan mail! Have you read all of them?”
“I haven’t had the time.”
“But what if someone sent you money?”
“You know, that’s a fair point.”
She’s also been receiving meaningful looks from the more organized Shepherds, regarding the growing mess. So, with a lull in her afternoon duties, she’s taking the opportunity to open each one. Unfortunately, there haven’t been any extra coins, in the rough fifth she’s gone through. She skims the letters’ contents, the flowing handwriting of different hands. After yet another innuendo of her admirable form in battle, she wishes she had a palate for liquor, if only to numb the part of her brain that has to process the words.
Her door creaks, just as she tears the next envelope. Expecting Caine again, she says. “Nothing so far, you can come back later if you want a cut.”
The smooth voice that responds is definitely not the twelve-year-old’s. “Oh? What’s this deal you’ve made with someone else?”
Her head snaps up, to find Chase slouching against the wall. Outwardly, he looks casual, smiling cheekily and shoving his hands in his pockets. It’s the first time she’s seen him today, and she fails to detect a sign that he considered last night any different than their regular trysts. Of course, that’s just fine with her. It’s not like she expected their arrangement would involve feelings, this is what she agreed to.
She clears her throat. “Hi. It’s just that Caine pointed out I could have money in my letters, and I promised I’d give him a percentage if I got any. No luck, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, your fan mail.” He walks over, pulls the nearest chair along, and eases into it. He takes the topmost sheet, scrutinizing it. “Have you run across Floss’s third letter yet?”
It’s a strange pseudonym, but if the purpose is to be memorable, it’s working. At least, the perfume soaking their messages doesn’t have mint. “No, and what do you mean by ‘third’? That noble’s sent one, unless…”
“They’re persistent! By my count, they wrote to you eleven times.”
“Fantastic.” She groans. “One of those envelopes better have a deucalion. And have you been reading my mail?” She isn’t annoyed, merely curious.
“For information, sunshine. I’d like to know who else has their eyes on you. Not that I can blame them, of course.” He winks, but it seems somewhat forced, undermining the flirtation.
“I’m not mad, but if you’ve counted eleven letters, is it bothering you? Trust me, I’m not turned on by the fantasies these writers have.”
“Well, Flossie’s a nosy one, they even recognized your choice of fragrance is from Orlop.” His smile has an edge to it. “Very interesting, since you said you had issues tracking down a single bottle.”
“Yeah, it was discontinued years ago.” Not long after her thirteenth birthday, actually. “My dad treasured his, and I’m not sure whether it was popular among the soldiers when I was little. But Floss could be knowledgeable about perfumes and colognes and things like that.”
“Maybe.” His nimble fingers slide under her chin, tilting her face. But he doesn’t kiss her, he’s...breathing? A slight frown is distorting his mouth. “Only from this close, huh. Rescue any nobles from runaway carriages?”
She laughs. “Not that I can recall. Or you have competition sneaking into my room.” It’s meant as a joke, and it falls flat, his frown deepening.
“I don’t think so.” His thumb traces her lower lip. “I would have noticed.”
“I was kidding.”
He blinks, some of his composure returning. “Oh. Right. Good one, sunshine.”
“Come on, don’t pretend it was. It’s fine if you didn’t think it was funny.” She tries to keep her tone light, to show that she doesn’t really care about his strange reaction. “By the way, you left your scarf, you must have been in a rush this morning.”
“Sorry, Thieves’ Guild was calling.”
Before the crack of dawn? She’s never been one to dance around a subject, and she seizes the opportunity. “Chase? Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Are you jealous?”
Instantly, he removes his touch. His green eyes dart elsewhere, avoiding her. “What? Why would I be jealous of a person you can’t remember?”
“Because…we talked a lot last night, before and after.” She trails off, searching for the right phrasing. That she feels they’re closer, that it wasn’t just physical this time. However, she’s wary of what will happen if she points that out. Definitely the end of their arrangement, and she’s not prepared. Why is that though?
He’s tense, scratching the back of his head. It’s silent for too, too long. Then, the first syllable of her name escapes him, just as the door creaks again.
Tallys takes one look at them and raises her eyebrows. “I apologize, if I’m interrupting. The new recruits are fighting, and we need your help.”
It’s a welcome distraction, and they follow her lead, asking for details. The entire time, they manage not to touch each other. Tallys glances at both of them, attempting to figure out what’s going on without directly questioning. Once they’re out in the sun, Chase breaks off, diving into the fray with exaggerated joviality.
She rolls up her sleeves; she can think about her own feelings later. While she pulls the flailing newbies apart, she knows one thing for sure. They need to finish the conversation and if he doesn’t come to her room tonight, she’ll track him down instead.
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satorinni · 3 years
Text
𝕞𝕦𝕥𝕖
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track 18: feelings?
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Kenma has never really been a people person. Yeah, over the years he’s gotten better with ‘human interaction’ , but he would still prefer to be alone. There were very few people whose company he didn’t mind, and recently he had been contemplating whether you should be added to the list. Though that idea has been teetering in and out of his mind given the fact you two hadn’t actually hung out in person.  Actually, save for the one pants-less interaction, neither of you had ever been in the same room together. But still, he kinda likes you. More than a friend, he’d like to think. Though the idea scared the fuck out of him, he would actually like to take you on a real date. One that didn’t result in your dinner being up in flames. 
Maybe he’d even take you to a cutesy café in Tokyo. Like the one he was currently sitting in. Eating apple pie. Across from a girl. A girl who definitely wasn’t you. 
“Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t just become a model.” After the photoshoot, Etsuko insisted on getting a bite to eat. Something about wanting to catch up because it’s been a whole year. He didn’t really understand why, he knew for a fact Kuroo called her every time something juicy happened to him. Whatever that meant. Besides, he couldn’t turn down a slice of his favorite food.
“Because wearing stupid clothes and standing in front of a camera for hours is not my ideal career, ‘Tsuko.” He took another bite of what was left of his slice. He’s glad he chose to sit in a booth away from the windows, he had already been recognized twice on the way here. It’s why he did his best to avoid walking through the city. Especially dressed like this.
“C’mon, Kenmaaaa, the button up is cute. You look like a businessman.” She snorts through her smoothie straw. 
“I am a businessman. I’m quite literally a CEO.” He gives her a deadpan stare before taking a sip from his own milkshake. “I don’t know how your rooster boy manages to wear this stupid getup 24/7. I’m suffocating in these slacks.” He’d been pulling at the tight-fitting pants all day, but the magazine suggested he look professional for the shoot.
“What’s the matter, Kenma? Too much junk in the front?” Etsuko wiggles her eyebrows at him. She always did have the dirtiest mind. 
“Gross, ‘tsuko.” He squints at her and shakes his head. 
“Speaking of your little fella, when was the last time you got laid, baby boy?” Despite her suggestive tone, Kenma knew she was genuinely curious. She was the one who told him what sex was anyway. Gross, he shudders at the memory. 
“Is that an offer, ‘Tsuko?” He knew it wasn’t, and he knew even if it was the answer would be no, but he was deflecting. 
“Only if you let me post it on the hub.” She winks at him and slurps at her empty cup for emphasis. “Quit deflecting, Kenma, I heard about your lil boo thang.” She cracks up at her own joke and asks the waiter for a refill. 
Kenma scrunches his nose in disgust. “Don’t call her that.” Yeah, you guys weren’t dating, and yeah, you probably didn’t even know he liked you, but still. 
“Look at you, defending her honor, how sweet.” She mockingly shakes her head at every word. “I heard you stole her from little rooster boy.” She leans in towards him, like it was some big secret.
“Of course he exaggerated that, he’s the one who set her food on fire. Besides, she texted me first.” He recounts the way he freaked the fuck out when he saw you texted him. His demeanor was always more calm over the internet, probably why he had millions of fans, but he was still an antisocial wreck IRL.
“Ahh, so she’s ballsy, huh. Who knew little Kenma liked bold girls? Tell me about her.” She leans her head into her palm. To anyone else she would’ve dropped it already, losing interest. But this was Kenma, she was always poking her nose into his business. 
“She’s a med student, same age as me. Friend of a friend, I guess. “ He shrugs. He figured that would keep her dormant enough to change the subject. 
“You got yourself a smarty pants. Cute, but that’s not what I wanted to know.” She raises her eyebrow at him. “Do you like her? Is this just a hump and dump? You gonna marry her?” Her eyes got wider with every question, it kinda freaked him out. 
Damn, he thought he could dodge it, but Etsie has always been super pushy. “I don’t know. I mean I'm definitely not gonna hit it & quit it. I haven’t even hung out with her for real.  And dude, I’m 23, m’not thinking about marrying anyone at the moment.” He held his breath and figured that was enough. He was not ready to admit it out loud yet.
“Ah ah ah, you skipped a question, baby boy.” She gives him a devilish grin and leans in even closer. “I won’t tell a soul.”
Okay, even if she was a bit much, Etsuko never spilled Kenma’s secrets. To anyone. Not even Kuroo. But it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. It was just... Was he ready to admit he had feelings? It's only been a few months, and he hadn’t even spoken to you in person. So what if he texted and called you 24/7? Wouldn’t it be too early? You’d probably be freaked out if he went ahead and confessed his feelings so early on. 
Ah, fuck it. 
“Yeah, ‘Tsuko. I like her. Like a lot. She’s funny as hell, smart as shit, and she gets me. Plus she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever met. Like, prettier than you.” He knows that would probably offend any other girl, but he was only ever straight up with ‘Tsuko.
“EEK!” Etsuko lets out a pig squeal that has other customers staring in confusion. She balls her fists up and starts shaking aggressively. “My baby boy has a crush! EEK! I’m so proud of you.” She leans over the whole table and grabs Kenma’s face, placing a loud kiss on his forehead. 
He flicks her forehead and smiles. “Shut up, it’s not like this is the first crush I’ve ever had.”
“I take pride in being your first crush, little bro.” She places her hand on her chest in mock pain, but the grin on her face exposes itself. 
“When you put it like that it sounds like incest. I was 8, you weirdo. ” Both were true, when Kenma first met Etsuko he developed a crush on her. (Mostly because she was the only girl who he’d ever interacted with.) It only lasted a month anyway; he eventually got annoyed with how much her and her brother were at his house. Now, after 15 years of being stuck with Kuroo, Kenma could only ever see them both as the siblings he never had. 
“Still, I was your first love, Kenma.” She looks off dramatically into the distance, as if she was having a flashback.
“You’re gay.” The smirk on his face gives off his slight amusement with her stupidly dramatic antics. 
“Now, “ She slams her hands on the table, causing more people to stare and the silverware to rattle, “Aren’t you going to ask me about my lovelife?” 
“No, I don’t care.” He snorts at the hurt look on her face. 
“Well, my girlfriend is doing WONDERFUL, Kozume Kenma, thanks for asking.” She crosses her arms and sticks her nose in the air.
“Yeah, whatever, you’re paying.” He pulls out his phone to see if there are any texts from you. On cue, the notification on his phone displays your name. He grins down at the unopened text, not even bothering to hide his happiness from Etsuko. 
Mid-rant about how he should pay because he’s got all the money, she stops and stares at him. A soft smile appears on her face, a swell of pride shoots through her. She only ever saw Kenma as a baby brother, and was genuinely happy for his growth over the years. 
Suddenly, Kenma’s phone flashes with your contact, a facetime call from you. 
“I gotta take this.” He moves to sit up, but looks up at Etsuko at the last second. 
She grins and nods towards the door. 
“Go get em, tiger.”
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𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘: kozume kenma x medstudent!f!reader
𝕥𝕒𝕘𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥: send an ask to be added!
𝕤𝕪𝕟𝕠𝕡𝕤𝕚𝕤: enroute to being a neurosurgeon, y/n l/n doesn’t have time for fun, let alone dating. after her friends set her up on a blind date gone wrong, she comes face 2 face with none other than her date’s best friend. her world flips on axis, and suddenly she has no idea how her brain works, or love-at-first-sight.
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𝕒/𝕟: this was probably rlly poorly written LMFOAD
taglist!
@katsuki-bakuhoee @sirachano0dles @qwir-0 @sailorstrawberi @calumsfringe @oppositesunchild @akioaly @aikochan4859 @drownedbytears @buttermasterbillie @vvenusblue @bluefaeriefury @ktzuki @mirikusashes @tsukibaby @toaster-stick @woohoney @just-snog-already @adorable-punk-superheroes @nikanikabitch @starrywriteshaikyuu @acabbaybee @theblueslytherin @sakusasupremacist @waywardcowboyllamavoid @rintaoreo @immxnty @noliamallpayne @sadcosmicdoggie @aizumii @c-o-n-q-u-e-r @sunahyejin @zaedynnn @triskoof @bakugouswh0r3 @ilauvcoldpizza @tina-98 @izzy28901 @kookie-doughs @black-rose-29 @moonlightaangel @kakamihasatmblr
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bullshittierlists · 3 years
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MAJOR SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA V3 (and probably the other games, too, just to be safe)
So, just as a heads up, I made this list a few months ago, I think in the middle of chapter 4. I was going to update it, but I realized that any feelings I had were just made stronger and the list was still relatively accurate. Here are my thoughts:
I see no god up here other than me
Kirumi Tojo - As you may know about me, I can typically tell who my favorite characters are going to be before I indulge myself in a series. This has especially rung true throughout Danganronpa, I was able to correctly guess Taka and Gundham as my respective favorites before actually seeing them in action. Let me tell you that Kirumi surprised me. I originally guessed K1-B0 as my favorite and while he’s still up there, he is nowhere near Kirumi. I realized she was my favorite the moment chapter 2 ended. Not only were her execution and plan wonderful and brilliantly done, her last-ditch plea to convince everyone to let her live sold her for me. Not only did this plea make sense, it almost worked and I kinda wish it would’ve. Her motive was almost completely selfless and she worked damn hard to escape. Her execution was the only time I cried during this game because I wanted so badly for her to escape, but I knew that all of her efforts were futile. I know her biggest criticism is that her plan from hiding Ryoma’s body was completely unnecessary, but I like to believe she was just nervous and overthought the whole thing. I mean, this had to go perfectly in order for her to save her country, of course she’s going to add a few too many steps.
Miu Iruma - Okay, I know this is going to sound fake, but I actually really love the dichotomy of her character. The way that she acts so self-righteous but is actually quite self-conscious really stood out to me. Of course she’s funny and hot, too, but I feel it’s important to really appreciate the way her character was written. It amazes me that she was written to be the least likable character in the entire series and still ended up being one of my favorites.
You’re the best
K1-B0 - Yes, I type out his name every time. As I already mentioned, he was my original guess for favorite character, but it obviously didn’t work out that way. He stayed in his position of first for a while, but I always knew it wasn’t meant to last, I just didn’t know which character would take his place. Even besides my doubts, I still love K1-B0, I just wish more could’ve been done with him in the earlier chapters. There are several opportunities for him to be a really funny character and have good interactions with Kokichi and Miu, but he just comes off as annoying. I feel like he only really started to be utilized after Miu died with Monotaro and I really enjoyed their dynamic, I just wish we could’ve had some of this side of K1-B0 before this point.
Kokichi Oma - This spot probably isn’t as subjective as I’d like it to be. Every time Kokichi was on screen, I would get visibly annoyed, but I knew I was in for a treat figuring out his deeper intents behind what he’s saying. The only reason I really like Kokichi at all is because he’s fun to analyze. It gets boring to analyze Nagito because his motivation is pretty much just a mix of “hope” and “he’s crazy.” Kokichi’s character trait of lying makes it so fun to individually analyze each of his lines to figure out whether he’s telling the truth and why or why not. Other than that, I guess he has some funny dialogue with Miu sometimes.
Gonta Gokuhara - I really don’t know. I know this is way too early to be unsure about characters, but I just know I couldn’t put him any lower, but I also couldn’t put him any higher. He’s just such a sweetheart, but that’s about where the substance ends. I adored every time he was on my screen, but everything that would’ve been fun to analyze about him just leads back to Kokichi. I still really enjoy his presence, though. I’d like a big Gonta hug.
Kaede Akamatsu - I’ll just say it, I think she would’ve made for a better protagonist. I’ll talk about this later, but Shuichi’s character development doesn’t really feel like it goes anywhere and the twist doesn’t feel worth it because of that. I think the twist should still have been incorporated, but with the roles reversed. Either way, we got what we got, and what we got was tears from Clair de Lune. But seriously, she really is a great pianist. I’ve been trying to learn the piece for ages and it’s still too complicated for me. I mean, it’s in 9/8 for God’s sake. Good for her, regardless.
Tenko Chabashira - Tenko’s a weird case. I didn’t actually care for her that much until quite literally a few lines before she died. Fun fact: I spoiled this entire series for myself before I ended up playing it and I’m still mad at myself. This meant that I was just waiting for all of the deaths to happen, especially Tenko’s. I was fully aware that every line could be her last during the seance, but I wasn’t aware that she would pull on my heart strings before she went. When she tells Himiko that she’ll do the seance in her place so she can talk to Angie, I literally almost started crying. Before this, Tenko was just kind of annoying, but not too bad, but this moment really solidified her spot for me. She really just wanted to help Himiko and I wish she had chosen a better target for her affections.
Hey, I think you’re pretty cool, I like you a lot
Shuichi Saihara - Time to elaborate on what I said for Kaede. I actually really enjoyed Shuichi’s character development throughout the first three chapters. Before coming to Hope’s Peak, he was afraid to hurt people with his detective skills. Kaede notices this and helps him through it, passing the reins to Kaito once she passes. Shuichi convicts Kaede and later Kirumi, much to everyone’s detriment, but they’re all okay with it (Nobody was really super sad about Korekiyo to begin with, lol). Then, starting in chapter 4, everyone just kinda flips on him. Shuichi + the rest of the gang - Kokichi all believe that Gonta is innocent and Shuichi tries to prove this. Instead of supporting him, everyone (especially Kaito) tries to... stop him??? from proving it??? They’re all just in agreement that it wasn’t Gonta, but don’t want to proceed with the investigation to figure out who it was instead. It’s really frustrating and made my overall experience much less enjoyable. This is bumped up a few notches in chapter 5 with Maki. I understand that she was part of the whole case, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying that she won’t let me prove Kaito was the victim. It just feels like the character development was all for nothing and every student feels like a human obstacle (except K1-B0, of course). Still relatable and emo, though.
Rantaro Amami - I would make the joke everyone expects, but I’m on my laptop and I don’t know how to get to the emoji keyboard.
Ryoma Hoshi - I genuinely don’t have anything to say about Ryoma. He’s my halfway point because I don’t have anything particularly for him and I don’t have anything particularly against him, either. Go off, funky little cat man.
Kaito Momota - He got on my nerves in chapter 4, but he was a genuinely sweet character that I really enjoyed talking to. Any time he would talk about the stars, I would swoon because he’s just such a natural romantic. Not really my type, though. Very average.
Monophanie - Legally you can’t ask me why the monokubs are where they are. She’s voiced by Natalie Hoover (Sonia) and I guess that’s my only reasoning.
Monotaro - I really just liked his interactions with K1-B0 in chapter 4. Other than that, I greatly disliked his and Monophanie’s presence in Gonta’s execution. 0/10 worst use for monokubs.
Monodam - A nice, non-distracting addition to Korekiyo’s execution. But he had so much potential and just threw it all away. Apparently I’m a basketball dad from a high school movie now.
I remember you
Angie Yonaga - Many times, I’ve found myself asking who I ship from the series and this love triangle comes to mind. Of Angie, Himiko, and Tenko... I only really like Tenko. I don’t hate Angie’s cult stuff as much as everyone else seems to, but she didn’t have nearly enough of a presence for me to latch onto outside of the cult stuff, which was funny, I will admit.
Maki Harukawa - I was so excited the whole game for her to get cool. I knew she was going to get cool, I just didn’t know when or how. But then, it was chapter 5 already and she hadn’t gotten cool in my eyes yet. I was really meh on her by that chapter anyway, but her being annoying really knocked her down a few pegs. She got a couple extra points for surprising me during the case, but not enough to bump her up any spots.
Himiko Yumeno - I was rooting for her to be crushed under the rock at the end. She was fine before chapter 3, but then they tried to develop her with the Akane treatment and it didn’t work for me at all. She just got on my nerves during the third trial and continued to contribute nothing throughout the rest of the game. During chapter 5 and 6, it’s like the writers just completely forgot that she was there. This would’ve been fine if they weren’t the last couple of chapters and she was one of about 6 people left alive. She had a role to play and didn’t play it in the slightest. The most she was utilized after chapter 3 was as Miu’s replacement post-chapter 5. Someone needed to fill the dirty jokes quota and I guess Himiko was chosen. #GiveTenkoABetterLoveInterest2021
Monosuke - The only thing I remember him doing throughout the entire game was distract me from Kirumi’s exectuion. Not a fan.
You are the worst. Literal scum. Leave this planet and never return
Korekiyo Shinguji - Okay, listen. He’s not that bad. His design is actually one of the best, in my opinion and I love his dedication to his craft. However, he just creeps me out whenever he’s on screen and I’d prefer not to be around him. It’s not even the sister thing, I honestly think that’s funny and a nice change of pace, but his overall demeanor is creepy. Not to mention he’s played by Todd Haberkorn and he’s been in one too many roles recently. Hopefully I’ll get over it, but as for now, that loses him points.
Tsumugi Shirogane - I know, not exactly an unpopular opinion. She’s just annoying and downright pisses me off a lot of the time with her “plain” shtick. I already knew she was going to be the mastermind, so most of the game was just me waiting for her to reveal it. I swear, I almost couldn’t take it every time she said something like, “What if there isn’t a mastermind?” “What?? There’s a mastermind????” Just stfu Tsumugi. You all are lucky I don’t have the energy to talk about 3-6 right now.
Monokid - Hate the tongue sprite, that’s literally the only reason he’s down here. He’s also kind of annoying, but made the best addition to an execution out of all of the monokubs. His death was one of the few things that surprised me in this game and it was a welcome twist. I was sick of him by this point, but was still incredibly shocked when he was pushed into the execution. Then, his severed head rolls out to all of the students looking on in shock at Kaede’s death. Masterful. Still hate the tongue sprite.
There we go. Definitely my least favorite cast out of the whole series, but it’s still fun to love on and hate on a lot of the characters, as per usual. There are just a few too many in the middle tier (metaphorically speaking) that are either uninteresting or just don’t get their time to shine. Maybe they’ll eventually grow on me more, but I doubt it.
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Christmas Delights
Pairing - Jack Kline x Reader
Summary - The holidays are approaching, and knowing that Jack hasn’t ever really seen just how excited people get for the holidays, you decide to take him on a special supply run. 
Word Count - 1,767
Warnings - None! Except it’s November 1st, and I’m already posting a Christmas story. 
“Now what’s the rule?” 
You let out an annoyed sigh as Dean held the keys to the Impala in his grip, waiting for your response before he gave them to you. “Don’t do any damage to Baby whatsoever or there will be hell to pay.” You answered. 
“Continue . . .” Dean said, gesturing for you to do so. 
“Don’t mess with any of the music or radio presets.” You added, crossing your arms over your chest as Dean still held the keys out of your reach. 
“And . . .” He said. 
“Oh my god, are you serious? Jack and I are not going to do anything -”
“I’m ready!” Jack interrupted you, joining the two of you in the kitchen, his bright smile easing up your mood instantly. It was so easy to make him excited. Even if all you were doing was going on a supply run, he was eager to go. “Are you ready to go?” He asked you, moving to stand at your side. 
You glanced over at Dean who was still looking at you, this time with a little smirk on his lips. “I promise all right!” You said, snatching the keys from him, and grabbing a hold of Jack’s hand. “Come on, let’s go.” 
Jack looked confused at Dean’s amused look and your words, but let you lead him out the kitchen and into the Impala. As soon as the two of you were alone, you felt your annoyance vanish as Jack began to tell you all about the latest book he had been reading. You had taken it upon yourself to catch Jack up on popular culture, and he was taking to it well. So well in fact that there had been times when the two of you had stayed up talking late into the night about his favorite things. You couldn’t count the amount of times you had woken up on the couch with your favorite blanket thrown across your body after you had fallen asleep talking to him. 
There was no denying that the two of you were close anymore, and because of that, you liked to team up, whether it was hunting or going shopping. So when it was your turn to go into town and get supplies, you asked him to come with you. He agreed at once. He loved to explore the towns that you were near and human behavior whenever he got the chance, so you knew that he would enjoy this trip in particular. “Wow . . .” He said when you pulled to a stop, staring out the window. 
The whole street was covered in flashing lights and decorations ranging from wreaths to fake snow around some of the lamp posts. All of that seemed to pale in comparison to the large tree that stood in the center of the square. That wasn’t what was holding your attention though. 
Jack’s eyes were wide in wonderment as he gazed around, attempting to take everything in from the car window. The smile that lit up his face was brighter than any of the lights flashing outside. It made a smile form on your own face, his excitement contagious. “What is all this?” Jack asked you, tearing his gaze away from the window to look at you instead. 
“Remember how I told you that the holidays were coming up?” You asked him, then nudged his shoulder. “Humans tend to go all out for that sort of thing. Wanna take a closer look?” You asked, gesturing outside. 
You didn’t need to ask him twice. Jack almost leaped out of his seat, and you struggled to catch up, trying not to giggle at how excited he was. As soon as you met each other at the front of the car, he took your hand in his own. “Thank you for bringing me here.” 
“You’re welcome.” You replied, a genuine smile on your face now as you looked at him. “Now let’s go check it out before Dean thinks we’ve been gone for too long.” You said, tugging him forward and towards the Town Square. 
While the holidays hadn’t been your thing in a few years, it was a whole different thing experiencing them with Jack who had never seen something like this. Instead of being filled with memories that upset you, it was as if you were seeing everything from a whole new perspective, just like Jack was. He asked question upon question for you to answer, and you loved how happy he seemed to be. 
Happiness was a rare commodity for hunters after all. 
“Did you celebrate the holidays when . . .” He trailed off, and you knew exactly what he meant. 
You stirred your hot chocolate with your tiny spoon, poking at your marshmallows while you contemplated your response. “We did . . . what I remember was nice. A lot of family time. Relatives you saw once or twice a year all sitting around a table and catching up . . . looking at the Black Friday ads . . . all the old traditions you know? Along with some of our own.” You added. 
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Your own?” 
“Like . . . my mom did this thing that I thought was weird as a kid. I thought that everyone put a star on top of the Christmas tree.” You gestured toward the large tree at the end of the street, sparkling bright in the night with its large star on top. “It was what I always saw on TV, and that seemed to be what friends always had talked about. My mother on the other hand, insisted on a ribbon. A very large ribbon that took up way too much space and distracted from the tree all together. Of course now I realize it was more common than I thought, but still. It was our own.” 
When you glanced back up at him, you noticed that he was smiling at you this time, in a way that made your heart do all sorts of funny flips and flops. 
“What?” You asked, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks. 
“I like when you talk about your family, and it makes you happy. You aren’t usually when you’re talking about them.” He answered, his words honest, and unaware of the brief stab of pain they caused. 
It was hard to remember the good things after having to watch them die so brutally, so when you talked about your family, he was right, you weren’t happy a lot of the time. Now that he had mentioned it, you didn’t want it to happen again. You didn’t want a guilty emotion to ruin such a fun night for Jack. “You want to go for one more walk around before we leave? Dean’s going to think we’re up to something if we stay out too much longer.” You asked, changing the subject. 
You couldn’t miss the concern that flashed on Jack’s face at your clear avoidance at the subject, but you were relieved when he didn’t pry, picking up your now empty cup and putting it in the trash can behind him as he took your hand once more. “I’d love to.” 
As the two of you walked around the tree once more, the memory of your earlier conversation faded to the back of your mind, Jack’s warm body next to yours as you nestled your head against his shoulder, happy and content again. 
____________________
Over the next few weeks, the days began to melt together as they often did when your little ragtag family were working on cases. It seemed that you were finally getting a break though after you woke up at a reasonable time without Dean or Sam banging on your door to get packed. Taking your time, and enjoying the deep sleep you had just woken up from, it took you a few moments to notice the present on your bedside table. 
As soon as you did, you sat up so fast you almost had a head rush, tears flooding to your eyes. 
There, taking up almost your whole nightstand, was a large bow. It was misshapen in some places, and covered with cartoon drawings of penguins, Santa Claus, elves and reindeer, but there was no mistaking what it was. 
Or who had made it for you. 
You grabbed the bow and ran out of your room, hurrying past Sam who was reading, Castiel who was watching television, and almost colliding into Dean who was carrying a large plate of pancakes. “Hey! Watch it!” He called after you, his mouth full of food. 
Ignoring him, you didn’t stop until you found yourself in front of the place you knew that Jack liked to frequent and opened the door, biting your lip to control your tears when you saw what waited for you. 
“Surprise!” Jack yelled, excited. “Merry Christmas!” 
He had decorated the whole room with different colors of string lights, some large and oddly shaped and some small with flashing lights. There were also various plants, and ribbons hanging around in red and white, but the main feature of the room was the tree. It was rather small for a Christmas tree and leaned sideways somewhat, but you didn’t care. It was perfect. 
And waiting right at the top was a large space set aside for what you were sure was the bow in your hand. 
You couldn’t control yourself. You ran to him, throwing your arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his lips. Almost as soon as you had done it, you realized your mistake and pulled away as your cheeks flooded with heat. “Jack, I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking I’m just . . .” You gestured around the room. “This is so sweet of -”
This time you were the one surprised with a kiss. Jack tugged you back into his arms and was kissing you a lot more thoroughly than you had ever expected him too. Not that you were complaining. His lips were soft and smooth as they moved with yours and it felt like butterflies had erupted all in your stomach as his hands caressed your back in such a gentle touch. You couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh and try to move closer, feeling happier than you had in ages wrapped up in his arms with his lips pressed against your own. 
The kiss had to end at some point though, and the two of you were breathless by the time that it did. There were matching smiles on your face as you looked at each other, and then Jack spoke up. “So, do you like it?” 
Your smile widened as you answered him with another kiss.
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zayray030 · 3 years
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Don't Mess With Shiratorizawa's setter
Summary: Semi didn't appreciate having his boyfriend ogled by a bunch of boys. It was time to set things straight.
Relationships: Semi Eita/Shirabu Kenjirou
If those absolute assholes did not shut the fuck up in the next five seconds someone was going to get whacked by his chemistry textbook and then stabbed with a whisk.
And that was the least descriptive killing method that the Shiratorizawa team had for killing the asshole, homophobes that sat on the table in front of them, shit-talking Shirabu, whilst said boy had gone to get a book
“Satori, I need your help to help restrain myself from injuring these boys. I would much rather not inform my father that I have regressed to methods such as punching to let out my anger,” said Ushijima, the usually stoic teen having a demeanour of complete rage surrounding him.
“You're funny, big guy if you actually think I'm going to stop you from killing those brats.” came Tendou’s tight response.
“Semi-San? Are you okay?” asked Goshiki. The poor boy was probably the only thing stopping the team from committing first-degree murder but they could tell it was all being reluctant.
“If one more thing about my boyfriend comes out of those prejudistic assholes and it has to do with the size of his ass, or his clothes, or anything to do with sex then I will personally admit to being guilty at the trial.” Semi threatened darkly and Goshiki resisted the urge to shudder. His Senpai was scary when it came to their setter.
“As his best friend I allow this,” muttered Kawanishi, equally as dark. He did not appreciate hearing that shit come from those boys. Shirabu might be a brat but he was his best friend dammit and nobody was allowed to say anything about him.
Okay, so like let's fast forward a couple of hours ago before the Shiratorizawa boys volleyball team had begun to discuss torture methods on how to kill the idiots talking about their bratty yet adorable setter.
~A few hours ago~
Semi was going to go into cardiac arrest. He was sure of it. That was the only excuse for why his heart had begun racing to the point he was sure he would have to go to his doctor as quickly as possible.
Or maybe it was because seeing his boyfriend (yes! Boyfriend! God, he was never going to get tired of saying it) of three months in an adorably oversized, pink pastel sweatshirt and shorts so short you couldn't see them below the sweatshirt. Along with this ridiculously adorable look, his salty boyfriend had a pair of golden round glasses on and his cheeks were flushed.
Semi Eita would gladly die right here and now and be quite happy with his life. After all, this image of his boyfriend was enough to check everything off his bucket list.
The rest of the team seemed to have the same thought, all of them just staring at his boyfriend as if he was an angel and if they weren't used to his normal saltiness they would have all assumed him to be an angel. Even Ushijima seemed to find his boyfriend angelic cause the normally stoic teen seemed to have his jaw unclenched. And in Ushijima language that practically meant his jaw was dropping.
All except Kawanishi seemed to have trouble thinking as they stared at Shirabu. Kawanishi, the little fucker, had had the nerve to just simply waltz up to the work of art and hug the smaller boy. The boy replied with the same energy as a tame cat turned savage and he aimed consistent kicks at his best friend's ankles.
“Put me down you savage.” the boy hissed and Kawanishi snorted before finally releasing the boy.
“I'm going to ignore the hypocrisy just this once.” said the taller boy.
When Shirabu merely touched he turned around and threw a smug look at Semi, the expression rare on his normally deadpan face. The look screamed, ‘Ha, I get privileges as his best friend that you don't get and you're his boyfriend, bitch.’
Okay, so Semi might be over-exaggerating but it was clear that the second year had it for him, especially after he had started dating Shirabu.
It wasn't that Kawanishi wasn't supportive of his best friend. In fact, he had been ecstatic when the two setters had announced their relationship cause it meant that Shirabu wouldn't be talking about the older boy constantly and asking whether he liked him or if he would be kicked out of the team for being gay and if the team would tell anyone and if it would be like with his dad.
He was glad that his best friend was no longer second-guessing himself but he had seen Kenjirou at his most vulnerable and he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to see him like that. If Semi wanted to earn the right for him not to be a prettier brat than even Shirabu then he would have to earn the gingers trust.
(Who knew that that time would come in like, the next two hours.)
“Eita,” Kenjirou said, usually monotone voice happy as he walked over to his boyfriend. He'd gained more confidence over the course of their relationship and had started initiating things first now.
Semi had to suck in a deep breath when the small boyfriend wrapped his arms around him. ‘The sweater is as soft as it looks.’
“Baby,” he answered back, with his usual smirk and internally cheated when the boy blushed and puffed out his cheeks. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Tendou clutch his chest and he couldn't blame him, Shirabu was adorable.
“Loser,” he mumbled, face still burning and stud on his toes to peck his cheek. The boy quickly turned around, cheeks flushing and walked away, making a show of making everyone follow him. Semi followed, with a giddy grin on his face. He so wasn't going to get used to that.
Everyone, although still slightly shook at seeing their feral setter in such adorable attire, followed the shortest player.
“So, Kenjirou~” began Tendou, leaning into his Semi’s boyfriend. Out of a fit of jealousy and not really thinking about it, he pulled the younger onto his lap and shot Tendou a glare. His boyfriend however seemed more reactant to the surprising touch, if the immediate blush didn't say anything.
The redhead on the other hand simply smirked at the reaction before turning to the boy with uneven bangs.
“I didn't know you couldn't look so cute!” he teased. Wrong thing to say, which was made clear when Taichi immediately tensed and winced.
“Problem?” Shirabu answered testily and Tendou knew he accidentally stepped on a nerve far too raw to be touched.
“Well, I wasn't going to say it's bad. Just different. Which suits you.” he says, trying to salvage the situation and make the air less tense and awkward.
That wasn't enough for one Shirabu Kenjirou however, and he continued to scowl, turning back to his text.
“What Satori is trying to say,” and Ushijima, ever the peace-loving farm boy he was, decided to help Tendou with indirectly apologising to their underclassmen. “Is that you do indeed look different. But you also look cute and content. And I feel like that should be enough.” his normally blunt voice softened a degree as if to not scare the boy that idolised him so much.
Kenjirou just blushed and everyone present wished that they had the ability to sneakily take pictures on their phones.
Semi simply cuddled Shirabu’s back and continued to work on his assignment, adamant on both ignoring his boyfriends best friends glare and cuddling with his boyfriend. It was peaceful and quiet, and everyone in the Shiratorizawa volleyball team felt themselves relaxing a significant bit.
However, that all changed when Shirabu got up to grab a book from the shelves to help him on one of the essays that he was stuck on and too stubborn to ask help for.
“You know you can always ask, right?” asked Reon, apparently one of the fastest to recover but nor completely. He at least had the human decency to not stare at Shirabu as if he was an object.
“Hmph,” replied Shirabu, already moving away. Everyone around the table chuckled at the sheer stubbornness before returning back to their studies.
Or at least that's what they would have wanted. Instead, they began being subjected to a bunch of immature boys talking about Shirabu.
“That ass looks tight.” one of the guys jeered, annoying voice lowered down enough so the librarian couldn't hear.
“I know right? Always knew that little brat was a slut.” another continued.
“Think we could corner him later and see if he is as tight as he looks?”
“I doubt he is. But, why the fuck not. Would love to see him put in his place.”
A small snapping sound came from the table where the volleyball team were at and Eita realised it was because he had snapped the pencil in his hand. And it had been his favourite one as well.
And that's how we got put in this situation.
“Bet you his volleyball teams already had a go at that ass. There's no other way he could have possibly made it on to this team without having to bend over for them.”
Semi stood up after hearing that. No way were they going to insinuate that his boyfriend, the guy who worked his ass off day and night to stay on as first string and to also keep up his grades, was only on the team because they were fucking him. No fucking way.
Nobody tried to stop him as he walked over to those boys. Taichi even looked excited at the thought of Semi beating them up.
“Hello there.” he greeted, flashing them all a bright smile.
Immediately, they all stiffened. He could faintly hear an ‘oh shit’ but his grin just became sharper. They wouldn't be feeling regret in the first place if they had kept their damn mouths shut.
“So I couldn't help but hear you guys talk about my boyfriend, Shirabu Kenjirou?” he questioned sweetly, but everyone could see the venom on his eyes, daring them to say anymore. Seems like some of the students at Shiratorizawa had death wishes.
“Oh yeah? And what about it? You gonna invite us to fuck his tight ass?”
Everybody stared at the boy, all wondering how in the great Lord's name he had managed to get into Shiratorizawa.
“No. I'm giving you an opportunity to shut the fuck up before I beat you into the next century,” he replied sweetly and he could see a few boys scooting away from the one who had been oh so stupid to try and provoke Semi. At least some seemed to be getting their survival instincts back.
“Oh yeah? And what are you going to about it you fag-” the boy never got to finish his sentence and he doubted the boy would ever be able to speak again, out of fear or physical inability who knew, as a fist connected into his mouth. The boys around them didn't say a peep but their eyes widened and they all huddled together scared. Good.
“Here's out it's going to go, k buddy boy? You are going to never look, talk or think about my boyfriend or me again? If I ever hear you say any of those words I will find you and show you the true power of the Shiratorizawa volleyball team.” his voice had gotten deeper and he could hear one of the boys whimpering.
When the boy who's collar he was holding nodded in fear he let him go and he fell into a crumpled heap on the floor.
“That goes for the rest of you,” he added back to the boys behind him who were trying to escape. Immediately they all nodded, all in fear. Immediately he flashed them all a grin that caused the fear in their eyes to grow. “Perfect! Hope to never see you assholes ever again,” he said brightly before making his way back to his table.
When he finally got there he was swarmed with quiet congratulations however Taichi stayed silent. After everyone finished praising Semi he spoke.
“If you hurt my best friend I will make you wish for death. Currently, I am holding you in high respect. Fuck that up and you'll be lower than those assholes.” and that had to be the most passion the normally dead inside boy had used.
“Got it,” Semi said, giving him finger guns. The look of utter disgust on the redhead's face made him let out a small laugh.
“What's gotten you so happy in a library?” came a voice from behind him and when he turned around it was his own personal angel.
“Nothing, sunshine,” he said, pulling the younger in between his legs and wrapping his arms around him. “I'm tired. Can we go back,” he whispered into the ear, hands grasped tightly onto his hips.
He could hear Shirabu tsk but his boyfriend complied. “Fine. Let's go you lazy, cute, jerk.” he huffed, cheeks blazing.
Semi just chuckled, bending down slightly to give the boy a kiss on the cheek.
He quickly packed their stuff up and waved bye to their friends. After that Shirabu went up to the librarian and asked to check out the book he had gotten for their studies.
Once they were outside Shirabu turned to him, face a mixture of gratitude and annoyance.
“You know you didn't have to do that, right?” asked Shirabu, raising an eyebrow at his boyfriend.
“If somebody tries to talk shit about the people I care about they will get the shit beat out of them. A fair system if I do say so myself,” said Semi, not even bothering to beat around the bush.
Shirabu stared at him and it was clear the boy was about to have a go at him before he yawned. “We'll finish this off when I don't feel dead on my feet, clear?” threatened Shirabu.
“Pfft, sure darling. Meanwhile, I'm going to take you to your dorm. And don't bother trying to argue with me.” he added when he saw Shirabu opening his mouth in protest.
The copper blonde shot him a glare before walking ahead. Semi merely chuckled, before going after him, slinging an arm around his waist.
By the next day, it seemed everyone had found out about the library incident. Semi managed to get away scot-free since there wasn't any evidence against him and soon the whole school learned not to fuck with the people on the Shiratorizawa team.
Well unless you wanted to die young.
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Text
Significant Strides in Relations
Author: Merlyn Bane
Word Count: 10.3K (shut up, don't @ me okay)
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi manages to catch the attention of his attache on a diplomatic mission.
Warnings: Adult Content™. Strong language, smut. Virgin!Obi I guess. Unprotected sex--wrap it up!
A/N: Did I come back from the dead just to post some completely self-indulgent bullshit? Yes I did. This is like 3.7K worth of smut with like 5K worth of justification and like 1K of Skywalker bullshit at the end and I'm not sorry about any of it. I would also just like to blame @no-droids and their Open Door series for giving me a Thing for Obi-Wan in the first place.
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(gif found on google, not mine)
You want to fuck the Jedi.
And, yeah, sure, you feel a little bit bad about it. You know enough about the Order to know that that's something the Jedi don't do--if the poor man knew the direction your thoughts had taken, he'd probably be scandalized. You can clearly imagine his face turning, just, scarlet, especially because you do mean fuck. 
Obi-Wan Kenobi is visiting your planet on a diplomatic mission that you haven't been briefed on the particulars of, and you've been assigned to him as an attaché during his stay--tending to his needs, making sure he's comfortable while he's here. It's a function you've performed many, many times as part of your duties to the royal family, but Kenobi has been...particularly pleasant, to work with. The Jedi is kind, treats you like an equal even though you're technically working for him for the time being, and he's funny. You hadn't realized the Jedi were allowed a sense of humor, but Maker, this one is sarcastic, constantly teasing with a playful glint in his blue eyes that is...not helping you with the whole 'wanting to irredeemably corrupt him' problem that you're currently having. 
You show up at his quarters just before breakfast to collect him as you have for the last two days and he's already there waiting for you, opening the door just as you're coming to a stop in front of it.  Kenobi gives you a gracious smile as he steps into the hallway with you, letting the door slide closed behind him, and you return it before turning to start making your way to the dining hall. He falls in step next to you and despite the fact that he really isn't walking that close to you, you swear you can feel him there. "Good morning, young one." 
You snort softly, scrunching your nose up as you give him an unimpressed side-eye. "Young one? You realize I'm within five years of you? I think you spend too much time with your old padawan and not enough with your peers, Kenobi."
The Jedi chuckles next to you, looking suitably sheepish as he grins over at you. "My apologies, my lady," he says, and you can tell that he's teasing you lightly. You roll your eyes but don't correct him--no, instead you internalize it, and his innocent my lady gets cataloged away with the rest of the impure thoughts that have been plaguing you since you saw him in the great hall upon his arrival. "I meant no offense."
"None was taken."
The conversation sort of just...drifts off, and you take the time to study his features out of the corner of your eye while he's looking ahead. The Jedi is...handsome, and frankly you think it's very unfair of the Order to lock all of that up under a chastity vow. The lines of his face are classical, look like they could have been carved from marble--only accentuated by the scruff of the beard lining a jaw you kind of want to sink your teeth into. 
And, Maker. His eyes. The clearest crystal blue, like twin glaciers, piercing directly into your soul every time you meet them but...gentle. Always gentle. You know he's as talented a warrior as he is a negotiator, you've heard the stories, but you would never know it from his pretty eyes. 
"What are your plans for the day, Master Kenobi? Since there won't be any official matters taking place today." It's the third day of the week, and on your planet it is considered inappropriate to do such work then. Most of your people will be in services today, to include the royal family. You probably should be, but you had offered to stay behind and continue to assist the Jedi--you've never cared for such things, anyway, and you certainly think he makes for better company.
Kenobi turns his head just enough to give you a small smile before he looks forward again, humming softly as he considers his answer. "I will likely confer with the Council this afternoon, update them on how the negotiations are going. Perhaps I will take some time to meditate, as well. You may have most of the day to yourself." It's quiet for a moment, then: "And you may just call me Obi-Wan, if you wish."
Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan--
It does not escape your attention that this isn't an offer that was even extended to your employers, who he's supposed to be here on the sole purpose of brokering an agreement with. They've still been using titles with each other, you know they have. Fuck. "Obi-Wan," you repeat, hoping that it escapes his notice how much you find that you like the way it feels on your tongue. Obi-Wan. "If you find you have the time, later, maybe I could show you around a little more. There are some places on the palace grounds I think you might enjoy."
The Jedi hums again, and you can see that he's still smiling when you look over at him. "I will certainly keep that in mind."
You reach the dining hall only a few minutes later, and go your separate ways once you've gotten your food. You find a seat at one of the far tables tucked into a corner that's already populated by a couple of your fellow staff members, making sure to sit so that you're facing him so he can get your attention if he needs it. You're being elbowed almost the second your ass hits the seat, the girl to your left clearly desperate for whatever gossip she thinks you have as she leans in and whispers at you in hushed tones. 
"Maker, you've got a dreamy one. You're so lucky, I was assigned to--"
You're not even listening, not really--tuning her out while you tuck into your breakfast. You suppose you don't have any real right to be so annoyed with her, truthfully, given that you've been having similar thoughts about him yourself all morning and for most of the last couple of days, but you find that you are anyway. The girl doesn't even seem to realize that you're ignoring her, continuing to chatter at you until one of the other people at your table manages to redirect her attention, if not the subject. 
 You tell yourself that the reason your attention stays focused on the Jedi is in case he needs you for anything but you're not very convincing, even to yourself. Your mind wanders while you eat, formulating scenarios that all seem to end with Obi-Wan between your thighs. Most of these thoughts are generally nonsensical, idle flashes and half-strung together images, but some of them come through with alarming clarity. 
I want to suck his cock.
The Jedi suddenly chokes on whatever it is he's just eaten. 
You instinctively shift to stand up to try and help him but his companion is already there, smacking his back with more force than you think is probably necessary and laughing loudly enough that you can hear him from your table. Skywalker, you think his name is. He's still chuckling when they settle back down, despite the thoroughly unamused looks Obi-Wan is shooting him. You snort quietly to yourself and Skywalker turns his head to look at you like he can sense your eyes on them. Your eyes meet for a second, two, and then to your horror he winks at you.
Your stomach sinks. No. No, no. No. He's just winking at you because he caught you looking over at them, right? Jedi can't. Jedi can't read minds, right? Surely not. The younger Jedi raises an eyebrow at you, the edge of his lip curving into what can only be called a smirk, and you really. Just need the ground to open up and swallow you whole right here. Maker. You're going to have to work with Obi-Wan for the next couple of days--how the fuck are you supposed to look him in the eyes, now, knowing that he's heard you this entire time? 
 Breakfast passes both entirely too quickly and not near quickly enough, and before you know it, both Jedi are getting to their feet. You curse quietly under your breath and stand yourself, disposing of your tray before you manage to make yourself walk back over to join them. You still have a job to do, regardless of whether or not you want to dig yourself a nice deep hole to die in right now. You do your best to force a smile once you reach them, really trying your absolute hardest to pretend that none of...that, had just happened. Like you haven't been caught lusting over Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi by the man himself. 
Skywalker is the first to speak, that Maker-forsaken grin still plastered firmly in place on his face when he does. "Hello,"
You think he's having entirely too much fucking fun with this, frankly. 
Obi-Wan seems to agree with you, if the look he gives his companion then is anything to go by. You swallow, doing your best to reign in your composure as you raise a hand to wave at him in response before turning back to the man you're supposed to be assisting. "Are you--" you pause, clearing your throat before continuing. "Are you ready to return to your rooms?"
Maker. Maker. Why did you have to say--
"Quite," Obi-Wan answers before you can stutter out an apology, giving Skywalker what can only be described as a warning look before he turns back to follow you. Your gaze stays all but permanently affixed to the floor as you start making your way down the hall, the only thing indicating that he's still beside you the sound of his boots on the tile. 
You can feel his eyes on you when you reach his door but you still can't bring yourself to meet them, clearing your throat awkwardly and folding your hands behind your back in a bid to stop yourself from picking at your thumbnail from the nervous energy that's suddenly coursing through your body. "I. I hope you have a pleasant rest of your day," you manage to stutter out, taking your leave before he can say anything to stop you.
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You end up having a couple of hours to yourself to stew in the privacy of your own room before anyone comes for you. 
You groan quietly when you hear the knock at your door but haul yourself to your feet and make your way over anyway, pushing your hair out of your face. You frown minutely when you find one of your coworkers standing there. Kaljova--she's assigned to Skywalker, if you recall correctly. She seems vaguely concerned with the state you're in but is kind enough not to comment on it, giving you a polite smile instead. "Master Kenobi has asked for you," Kaljova tells you, and has the grace to pretend to not notice the way your face falls with it. 
"Do you know what he needs?" you ask her, blessedly managing to keep your voice even. You reach down to grab your cloak from the table by your door and tie it around your shoulders without waiting for her to actually answer, stepping out into the hallway and letting your door close behind you. 
She shakes her head, shrugging a little bit. "Master Skywalker didn't say, I'm sorry."
You shake your head, sighing softly but giving her a small, reassuring smile. "It's okay. Thank you for letting me know."
She returns your smile and nods once before she turns around and leaves you to your own devices again. You groan quietly, pinching the bridge of your nose as you work up the nerve to actually make your way to the visiting diplomat wing where you know he's waiting for you. It takes you a couple of minutes but you do manage to make your feet move eventually and they carry you there far faster than you'd have liked them to. 
You swallow harshly and close your eyes for a second before reaching up to knock on his door, bracing yourself. Maker, he probably wants to talk about it, clear the air or whatever, and you are just...absolutely not even a little bit equipped to deal with that right now, frankly. You're able to school your features as the door slides open but just barely, and you stop breathing altogether when you look up and meet those pretty blue eyes. 
And he seems...surprised to see you. 
That kriffing--
"You...didn't send for me, did you?"
Obi-Wan shakes his head, looking more confused if possible, and you just sigh quietly, giving him an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I think there was a...miscommunication." And I'm going to kill your fucking padawan. "I'll just--I'll just go." You raise a hand in a very awkward not-wave and turn on your heel to go, but then.
The Jedi gently grabs you by the elbow, and everything stops for a moment. 
Goddammit.
"Wait," Obi-Wan says, softly--like he's trying not to spook you. You take a deep, stuttering breath, and sigh it out, relaxing where you stand as you give up on getting out of this. "I believe...it would be a good idea, if we talked."
Yeah, that's. That's pretty much what you figured, unfortunately. 
"I'm very sorry, if I made you uncomfortable, I...I didn't know you could--" Didn't know you could hear me. 
"I know," he tells you, just as gently as before, and you reluctantly turn just enough to be able to face him. His eyes are soft when they regard you, and you find your breathing evening out despite yourself--wondering idly how much of it is actively his doing. "Just...come inside. Please."
You can't find it in yourself to deny him so you nod, letting him lead you into the room and trying to pretend that you can't feel your heart stop when the door slides shut behind you. Obi-Wan seems to notice you not knowing what to do with yourself because he gestures to one of the chairs in the sitting area, sitting down in the one opposite it once you're settled. It's quiet for a moment as both of you seem to search for the right words. 
"I would like to begin by apologizing for Anakin," he says finally, and you snort as the words register.  He gives you a wry smile in return, and continues. "He means well, but he can be...thoughtless, in his humor, at times. Particularly when it is at my expense."
"He sounds like he must have been a joy to train."
That earns you an almost startled sounding laugh out of the Jedi, which manages to get a real smile out of you. "I fear he may have also misled you, to an extent." He tells you, not quite meeting your eyes now as he scratches at his beard. You give him a questioning look and he sighs softly, leaning back in his chair. "We...can hear thoughts, but only if we go looking and it is considered very inappropriate to do so without reason."
You feel your eyebrows knit together in confusion, then, and you tilt your head at him. "But you…?"
Obi-Wan winces, and nods. "You may have...projected, this morning, inadvertently. It was...rather loud, and my guards were not as firmly in place as they probably should have been."
Oh. So you'd shouted it at him, then. Great. "Oh."
"I had...gotten a sense of the direction of your thoughts, before that, but you were acting very professionally so thought it best to pay it no mind."
That's...very kind of him, actually, to have simply ignored it even though it must have made him uncomfortable, especially when he so easily could have just told you to knock it off or requested a different attache. You clear your throat, finding yourself picking at your thumbnail again. "I appreciate that."
"You needn't be embarrassed, you know." the Jedi murmurs softly, and you look up to meet his gaze despite yourself. He smiles at you a little bit, then, and it brings something very warm into those blue eyes of his that almost makes you just a little lightheaded. "These things happen. You're only human, you can't be expected to have complete control of your thoughts all the time."
"You do," you point out, just because you feel the need to. "Jedi do. So I'm told."
"We spend our whole lives learning to try." he amends, and there's something so human in the way that he grins that suddenly, all you want to do is lean over and kiss him. "It is a constant exercise, not a skill that can be mastered."
"Still. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable this week."
"Uncomfortable might not be the right word for it, speaking truthfully," Obi-Wan admits, so quietly that you're almost not even sure he's really said it at all. And--Maker, is he implying what it sounds like he's implying? You know your eyes must be just about bugging out of your head with the shock but he mercifully either doesn't notice or pretends not to, scratching at his beard again as he seems to consider his next words, and you...really need him to stop doing that. It's becoming hard enough to maintain your focus as it is. "There were times where I was perhaps...tempted."
You stare at him, blankly, blinking slowly as the words process. Tempted tempted tempted-- "I thought Jedi couldn't…"
Obi-Wan clears his throat, and suddenly he's the one looking unsettled. "Technically, the Code prohibits intimacy, attachment. It...says nothing about the act itself."
Oh. Oh.  
You're still staring at him, just completely dumbstruck, so the Jedi seems to decide to take it upon himself to continue talking and fill the space. "For most of us it ends with the same result, functionally, but. Technically." 
Maker, get it together. You feel like you're on a several second delay, having great difficulty processing this new information, let alone giving him the verbal response to it that he's clearly waiting for, now. "Have you--"
"Almost. Once. When I was a padawan myself. My master and I were stationed on Mandalore at the time, assigned to protect the Duchess." 
You're grinning, now, you can feel it tugging at the edges of your mouth. Maker, you suddenly need to know this story like you need to breathe. "What happened?"
Stars, you swear you can see the tips of his ears turn red. "Qui-Gon caught us. It has...certainly dissuaded me from making any attempts since."
You laugh. You can't help it. Suddenly you're laughing so hard it nearly hurts, grasping your middle with one hand while wiping tears from your eyes with the other. You would feel worse about it if Obi-Wan didn't look so amused himself. "Oh, you poor thing." you snort before your brain can catch up with your mouth, and you feel your own face heat when you realize the implication of what you've just said to him. Way to go, Ace. 
Except...he's still grinning at you, amusement dancing in those blue eyes, and all the air seems to rush out of the room when they lock on your own. Kriff. "Are you suggesting that I'm missing out, then?"
He's teasing you, the bastard, and all of sudden it makes you feel bold. You lean forward in your chair, then, resting your elbows on your knees as you encroach on his space and pull your lower lip between your teeth.. "I'm not suggesting anything, Master Kenobi," you all but purr at him, "but should you be interested in finding out for yourself…"
The offer hangs in the air between you, then, like a lit fuse while you just stare at each other, both waiting to see if the other will make the next move.  
"And what might this...demonstration...entail?"
"Nothing you aren't completely on board with," you tell him immediately, because if this happens--Maker, if--it is absolutely imperative to you that he enjoys himself just as much as you do. Which...gives you an idea, actually. "I make sure my partners have a good time. Haven't done my job if they don't."
Fuck, the Jedi's eyes are blown. His pupils have nearly overtaken those pretty blue irises and it makes your breath catch with how much you want to ruin him. You can feel the tension rising in the room between you, feeding on and feeding into your arousal in a vicious cycle. He swallows, and you watch his Adam's apple bob with it and narrowly resist the urge to bite him. "Oh?"
Kriff, you need to leave before you fuck him right here and ruin your plans. You give him a small, soft smile and stand, padding over to him. His eyes track each movement, his head tilting back to gaze up at you when you come to stand between his knees, and you can see how ragged his breathing's gone at the sudden proximity. You reach out and let your palm wrap around the line of his jaw, your fingernails scratching lightly through the coarse hairs of his beard, and the Jedi's eyes fall closed before you even lean in. He gasps when your mouth brushes against his own, the faintest whisper of a kiss, and your smile widens. "I think, that you deserve to be seduced properly, Obi-Wan," you breathe. "I'm not going to fuck you, Baby, not just yet. When you really want it--then I'll give it to you."
 It takes several seconds before he's able to get words out again, and when he does you can barely hear what he's saying from the rasp in them. "I think, my lady," he pants, "that you are being exceedingly cruel."
You chuckle softly, letting your thumb brush across his lower lip before you straighten up and take a step back, ignoring the almost whine that escapes his throat when you do. "Perhaps."
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For the rest of the evening, you act as normal--as if none of the events of the day had taken place. You meet with Obi-Wan and escort him to the dining hall for dinner as usual and go your separate ways once your trays are piled high. You do your best to resist the urge to glare daggers at the other Jedi, particularly when he grins and waves at you, but you are able to content yourself with the sharp look Obi-Wan gives him for it as he sits down. Dinner is uneventful despite Skywalker's best efforts, and passes quickly. You give Obi-Wan this time to...come down, essentially, to gather his wits back about him before you really set your plans into motion in the morning. You had left the Jedi absolutely wrecked this afternoon, and not only do you think it would be just a little unfair to begin your seduction in such a state, you're a little concerned that you might actually kill him if you overwhelm him so much all at once. So, you give him time to breathe. 
Or at least, that is your intent. 
The sudden drop almost seems to have the opposite effect. Obi-Wan's composure is, outwardly, as impeccable as always. No-one but you and Skywalker--you're sure--would be able to tell that anything's up. The only reason you do is because you still can't take your eyes off him so you notice the way his haven't left you, either. And, Maker, the way he looks at you. You almost want to give in, drag him back to his rooms now, but. You meant it earlier, when you said you thought he deserved better than that. The concept of virginity as a special thing is not one you've ever particularly put much stock in, yourself, but you know that this is, will be, a big deal for him whether he's willing to admit it or not. You want to give him at least this much. He might not be allowed true intimacy or emotional attachment, but that doesn't mean the sex has to be careless. You meant it, when you told him that you take care of your partners.  
The next day, you start slow. Obi-Wan is actually fairly busy with the diplomatic mission he'd been sent here on in the first place, which makes that relatively simple. The only time you really get with him that morning is when you're escorting him to and from meetings, so you spend that time finding excuses to touch him. Subtle things, like adjusting already-straight the collar of his robes. 
"Good morning, Obi-Wan," 
The Jedi steps out into the hall with you and lets the door close behind him, returning your greeting with an easy grin that makes your heart skip a beat. "Good morning. Where are we off too?"
"You have a meeting with the Chancellor, first. It'll be long and likely boring assuming Skywalker behaves himself, but productive." You give him a soft smile, stepping forward and looking up at him from under your lashes. He watches you intently, almost seeming to stop breathing for a second when you reach up and adjust the tan collar of his robes, your fingertips brushing lightly against the skin of his throat when you do. You let the moment linger a second longer than it needs to before you step back to a respectful distance and nod down the hallway. "Shall we?"
Brushing his hair out of his face when it's fallen into his eyes.
Obi-Wan looks about as tired as you expect him to when he comes out of his meeting a couple of hours later but he has a small smile for you when he sees you waiting for him in the hallway anyway. Skywalker follows him through the door seconds later but barely pays either of you any mind, grumbling something about breakfast as he follows Kaljova down the hall. The two of you stand there for another moment, glancing at each other and chuckling at the younger Jedi's irritation, and you notice idly that some of his blond hair's managed to fall out of place. You reach up to brush it back out of his eyes and bite your lip when they zero in on your own, and you find yourself leaning in further before you can stop yourself only for you to jump apart when the door slides open again. The Chancellor gives you both a polite nod as he takes his leave, completely unaware of what he'd interrupted, and you have to shake your head to clear it once he's out of sight. You can still feel the Jedi's eyes on you when you turn to make your way to the dining hall.
It continues this way, more or less, until lunch, when you decide to kick it up a notch going into the afternoon. You remember what he told you about being able to pick up on your feelings, at least in a general sense, whether he went looking for them or not so you decide to lean into that and let your mind run wild with the things you want to do to him. You're careful not to project any particulars at him this time but you can tell that he definitely takes notice when you start letting your thoughts wander. 
You're still sitting in the dining hall at your separate tables, and you smirk lightly when his eyes snap up, watching them narrow when he realizes what you're doing. You maintain that eye contact shamelessly, pulling your lower lip between your teeth as you try to imagine what's waiting for you underneath those robes. Skywalker's glancing back and forth between you and grinning but Obi-Wan ignores him completely, raising an eyebrow in your direction that you merely shrug at. You see him shift slightly in his seat after a little while of this and decide to lay off a bit--for now, at least. 
Obi-Wan has to consult with the Jedi Council after lunch so you decide to have some mercy on him immediately leading up to that and take a break from your little game. You're sure he's still aware of the arousal boiling low in your belly while you walk him back to his rooms after lunch but you're not actively focusing on it now, letting yourself relax and the Jedi by extension. 
It's during dinner that evening that you really kick it into high gear. 
You're not even fully sure this is going to work, since you've only ever done it once and by accident, but watching Obi-Wan converse with Skywalker at their table, you know you want to try. So you focus your attention on the Jedi, and hone in on the thought of what you think it might be like to kiss him until you see him stiffen and you know he's got it. You keep going, feeding him different images that only grow more explicit as you grow bolder. Sucking and biting bruises into the skin of his throat and chest while you grind down against his cock. Looking right into his pretty blue eyes while you stroke that cock, watching him come apart when you finally take it into your mouth like you've wanted to do practically since you laid eyes on him. Riding him, burying your hands in his hair and swallowing his moans while you bounce in his lap. 
Obi-Wan grits his teeth across the dining hall, gripping the edge of the table he's sitting at tightly and pointedly not looking at you while he tries to regain control of his breathing. Skywalker is staring at you, wide-eyed and slack-jawed in total shock, and you only smirk back at him in response as you let the projection drop. You didn't necessarily want the other Jedi to see those things, truthfully, but you don't know how to control the projection well enough to block him out and he's been enough of a dick about the whole thing this week that you really don't feel all that badly about the fact that he looks like he kind of wants to bleach his brain, now. 
You simply go back to your meal once you've dropped the projection, though you can't help the small grin that stays plastered on your face. The next few minutes pass that way, but then.
But then.
Well, projection goes both ways.
It feels sort of like a tickle, at first, at the edge of your mind--easily ignored. Then it turns into a gentle prodding, and when you look up to confirm your suspicions, his blue eyes are locked firmly on yours and it takes your breath away. He's...being remarkably gentle with you, knowing that no-one's ever been in your head before like this, waiting for you to relax and let him in in a complete roll reversal that shocks you. You barely manage to contain the gasp when you do, because he's suddenly pushing images back at you. Obi-Wan thinks back to how your fingers had felt in his hair this morning, and then reimagines that feeling with you in his lap, tangled in his hair while you kiss him. Then, fuck. With his head between your thighs. He stops and focuses in on this one, imagining as many details as he can manage as he pushes it to you. Your hands pulling on the blond strands while his grip your thighs, holding you open as his tongue laves through the folds of your cunt. 
The moment feels like a tipping point, and both of you know exactly what is going to happen once this meal is over. 
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You're so pent up and aroused when it's finally time to leave that you're lightheaded with it but somehow you manage to get to your feet anyway, and thankfully you don't end up having to deal with Skywalker at all because Obi-Wan is out of his seat first this time and meets you halfway. There's something in the air between you, something tense and charged, and you know you need to get him back to his rooms now. He seems to be on the same page because he wastes no time in following you out of the dining hall, and his strides are longer enough than usual that you actually struggle just a little bit to keep up. 
And there's something so…juvenile about this, rushing off and sneaking around, but it's...fun. You feel almost like a teenager again, truthfully, so eager to get him alone somewhere private so you can get your hands on him that you're all but running down the hallway to get there. 
You're on the Jedi the moment the door closes behind you but he's right there with you, pulling you in for a kiss that's all enthusiasm and little finesse but heats your blood anyway. Your fingers tangle in his hair as you tug him closer and he moans with it, his own hands finding your face and framing it gently. You run the tip of your tongue along his lower lip and press forward when his mouth opens into it on a gasp, licking into his mouth until he has to pull away to breathe. 
Maker, he already looks a mess; beautifully flushed with his hair all askew and his pupils blown wide. It makes you want to do, just, unspeakable things, but you know you still have to take your time and ease him into it or this will all be over too fast and you can't have that.  
"Go...go sit on the bed," you murmur, putting a hand on his chest as you step back and take a second to try and get your wits back about you. "Take your boots off. And your cloak."
And, Kriff, he does it immediately, nodding at you with that just fucking wrecked look in his eyes before he turns to do exactly what you told him, laying his cloak over the back of one of the chairs and padding over to the bed where he sits on the edge before leaning over to take his boots off. You watch him the whole time, almost high on the heady feeling that comes with this hyper-competent Jedi Master doing whatever you tell him to. 
You take your time in joining him, partially to tease and partially just because you need those extra few moments. His eyes track every movement as you remove your own cloak, laying it next to his as you toe your shoes off, and you give him a small smile as you make your way over to the bed. Obi-Wan's breath hitches when you climb up onto it and seems to stop altogether when you carefully settle yourself on his lap, his hands fisting at his sides until you reach down to take them gently and guide them to your waist. "You can touch me," you purr, running your nose along the line of his jaw and grinning to yourself when his grip suddenly tightens with it. "It's encouraged, in fact."
He snorts quietly, so breathily that you almost miss it, and starts rubbing circles into your sides with his thumbs. "Noted," he rasps, and you grin wider before you press a kiss just under his jaw. The Jedi shivers with it and the reaction emboldens you so you continue downward, pressing kisses along his skin until you reach the collar of his robe and then you're working at the belt of his robes, eager to get at more of his skin. Obi-Wan seems to still have enough presence of mind to help you, shrugging out of the first two layers once you're able to get them open and discarding them to the side carelessly. You reluctantly have to pull back so you can yank his undershirt over his head but then his whole torso is exposed for your viewing pleasure, so you decide you're alright with the short interruption. 
"See something you like?" Obi-Wan quips breathlessly after a few seconds of you shamelessly studying every line and pane of his chest and you only smirk at him an answer, leaning back in his lap to get a better view and darting your tongue out to wet your lower lip. 
"What are the odds of anyone seeing you without the robes?"
His eyebrows knit together momentarily like he doesn't know what you're asking, but he seems to put the pieces together when you suddenly duck back down and lick a broad stripe along the line of his collarbone. His hips jerk up with a broken moan before he's able to manage an answer, his head tilting back and further exposing his throat. "Un-unlikely," he gasps out, and you're grinning again as you start pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses lower until you find a spot on his pec that pleases you and you stop and suck. The Jedi gasps raggedly, his fingers digging into your waist as he tries to ground himself, but you don't stop until you know a bruise will bloom there. "Something to remember you by?" he hisses, and you chuckle softly as you trace the round little blemish with the tip of your finger. 
"Oh, Baby, I don't think you're going to have any difficulty with that with or without a few little...reminders." 
Obi-Wan moans again, low in his throat, when you start pressing a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down his chest, gasping out and trembling the first time you let him feel teeth. His hips buck again and then it's your turn to gasp when his cock rubs right up against your cunt--already so, so hard. And, Maker, it is not a small bulge. What's he hiding under all of those neutral fabrics? You leave a meandering line of bites and hickeys all the way down his chest, ignoring the way he whines when you shift back off of his lap so you can continue down to his stomach. He leans back on his palms, then, watching you intently with dark eyes that make your pussy clench between your thighs, and his breath catches in his throat when your hands find the ties of his trousers. "What are you--"
"Told you I wanted to suck your cock," you remind him, biting your lip as you start undoing them--slowly enough to give him ample opportunity to stop you if he wants. "That alright with you?"
The Jedi nods mutely, suddenly seeming at a loss for words, and you smirk as you sit back on your knees and start pulling them down his thighs until he springs free, and--
Kriff--how fucking dare the Order deprive the galaxy of this magnificent cock? 
He's not the longest you've ever seen, per se, but he's thick enough that you almost wonder how you're going to take this thing and beautifully flushed, with defined veins that you just know are going to feel incredible inside you. You lean in to lick a stripe right up the underside of it before you can stop yourself and Obi-Wan cries out at the sudden stimulation and shakes, falling backwards onto his back. You moan softly at the response you pull out of him and lean up until you're able to take the head into your mouth, watching as he squeezes his eyes shut and grips the bedspread until his knuckles go white and unravels. "Watch me," you tell him, taking him in your palm and pumping slowly while you wait for him to respond, "Wanna see those pretty blue eyes."
He forces them open just like you told him to, keeping them trained on you as he bites down on his lower lip and takes a shaky breath and you take him into your mouth again, satisfied. He cries out again but a little quieter this time, and you hum around his cock as you start bobbing up and down on it slowly, almost teasingly so, holding his hips down as best you can so you control the pace. You definitely want to feel him come down the back of your throat at some point, but this isn't the time for that. You have every intent of him coming buried deep inside you tonight. 
It becomes something of a game, figuring out exactly what he likes. Hollowing your cheeks to make your mouth tighter around him and moaning until he gasps. Teasing the slit at the top with the very tip of your tongue until you swear you hear him curse. And then you take him to the root.
And, Maker, he swears when he bottoms out and it shouldn't be so insanely hot hearing those words come from this ordinarily so well put-together Jedi but it is. You realize how close he's approaching his end so you reluctantly pull off of his cock, then, ignoring the whine that escapes from high in his throat when you do so. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand while you try and catch your breath, which is not made any easier by the way he's looking at you. You know you must look just as wrecked as he does, now, all flushed skin and swollen lips, but if you didn't know better you would genuinely think the man was about to eat you alive. "I think, my lady," he rasps finally, after several seconds of staring at each other, "that you may be slightly overdressed."
Kriff. You glance down at the tunic and trousers that you are, in fact, still wearing, before looking up to meet his eyes again. You maintain that eye contact as you sit back up on your knees, pulling your lower lip between your teeth as you slowly start undoing the laces holding the top closed. Obi-Wan watches each movement like it's the most mesmerizing thing he's ever seen, pupils blown so wide they've almost completely obscured the blue. He groans quietly when the tunic slips from your shoulders, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip when your breasts come into full view. "Is that better?"
He shakes his head mutely, swallowing harshly as he seems to try to gather the words. "I want--may I--kriff, lay back. Please." His gaze follows you closely as you slowly lower yourself down onto your elbows, intensely curious what he's about to do. The Jedi takes a deep breath like he's steeling himself and then he's shifting forward until his body stretches over top of yours, kicking his trousers the rest of the way off in the process, and it's your turn to gasp when you feel his lips brush against the underside of your jaw. He's holding himself up enough that you can't necessarily feel him press against you, but Maker, you can certainly feel the heat coming off of him and his warm breath against your throat. "I believe it's my turn," he murmurs by way of explanation, chuckling softly when your next breath comes out ragged.
"You don't--you don't have to do that," you moan, and Stars--you mean it, you do, especially this first time, but you will be just absolutely fucking inconsolable if he changes his mind right now especially after he went and put the fucking image in your head during dinner earlier. 
He doesn't grace that with a verbal response but you're hardly complaining because he starts trailing kisses down the side of your neck instead, and Maker he must have been paying attention when you were doing this to him because you swear he's replicating the technique. "Tell me what you want," he murmurs lowly into the skin of your throat before nipping at it experimentally, listening to you gasp as he keeps talking. "Tell me how to please you, Darling."
His fingers find your nipple before you're able to even begin trying to formulate words and you cry out at the sudden stimulation, arching up into it. "F-Fuck, you're doing a pretty kriffing decent job already," you pant and he chuckles again, running his tongue along your collarbone like you'd done to him and moaning when he gets another ragged gasp for it. "Maker.  U-Use your m-mouth,"
You think for a second that he's going to make some smartass comment about how he already is, but mercifully Obi-Wan seems to know what you're asking him for and decides to be kind about it. He continues exploring your breasts with his hand while he returns his mouth to your throat, licking and sucking his way down the column of it until he reaches your sternum where he stops to suck a bruise into the skin. He gets you so worked up by the time he reaches your breasts that you almost don't realize how close he's gotten until those blue eyes are flickering up to meet yours and he's taking your nipple into the blazing hot cavern of his mouth. You open your mouth on a wordless shout and start to writhe under him but he's right there, both hands coming down to your hips to hold you in place as he laves his tongue around the stiffening peak. Obi-Wan focuses his attention on your breast until you're whimpering and then switches to the other, moaning around your nipple when your fingers tangle in his hair. 
"You like that, don't you?" you purr down at him, watching the Jedi through half-lidded eyes as he moans again in an affirmative. You pull, then, gently--experimentally, seeing if it's something he'll even like, and then he. Fucking bites you. "Fuck, Obi-Wan!" 
"About as much as you liked that," the asshole grins at you impishly as he pulls away from your breast, leaning in to kiss you before you can call him on it. His hands find the top of your trousers once you relax into it, and he leans back to look at you as his fingers dip into the waistband. "May I?"
He starts pulling them down as soon as you nod your consent, sitting back and watching as every inch of skin is revealed until he's removed them completely and he tosses them to the side with the rest of your clothes, leaving you totally bare in front of him. Obi-Wan just...sits there for a moment, taking you in, and you let him, relaxing back against the mattress and smiling up at him. 
"Beautiful," he breathes finally, returning your smile with a small one of his own before he's shifting down, keeping his eyes on yours as his lips brush against your hip. He reaches forward and runs one finger through the lips of your cunt lightly, almost teasingly, watching you gasp and try to grind down into it. "Would you like it if I tasted you here, Darling?" Obi-Wan hums, continuing to press kisses along your hip and the insides of your thighs while he waits for an answer and, Maker, the coarseness of his beard against the sensitive skin there robs you of all conscious thought. All you're able to manage is a nod because you're so strung out and you need him there right now but that seems to be enough for him because he starts leaning in, one hand on each of your thighs as he licks a broad stripe right through your cunt. 
Stars, you can't even form the words right now to talk him through this like he'd asked, but he...doesn't actually really seem to need your help, here. The Jedi focuses in on your clit right away, swirling his tongue around the little bud before he sucks it into the wet heat of his mouth and you nearly sob at how good it feels. "D-Doing so good, Baby," you manage to get out, and the words almost come out as more of a mewl as he hums around your clit, sending jolts right through you. 
You whine in protest when his mouth leaves your clit but his thumb replaces it soon after, rubbing slow circles around it like he's trying to drive you insane on purpose. And then, Maker, his tongue dips into your entrance, licking up inside you while all you can do is sob your pleasure into the air. He keeps going this way for several minutes, steadily working you higher and higher with his tongue buried in your cunt and his thumb strumming your clit until your thighs start to tremble and you feel that coil inside you start to wind tighter. Obi-Wan moans between your legs as when he realizes you're approaching your end and steps up his ministrations, his thumb picking up speed until your back arches underneath him. The orgasm burns its way through you, slow but intense, until you're nearly cross-eyed and delirious with it and he keeps working you through it until you're shaking with overstimulation and pushing his head away. 
The Jedi goes willingly when you push him back into a seated position once you've managed to regain your bearings, and Maker, he's a sight like this; his hair just hopelessly disheveled from your fingers in it and your slick coating his chin and kiss-swollen lips. You take a moment to just look at him, committing this image to memory for all of those nights after he leaves when you know you'll look back and picture this with your hand between your thighs. His hands find your hips as you crawl into his lap and settle there, squeezing gently and letting out a soft moan when you lean in to kiss him. Obi-Wan is the one that licks into your mouth this time, mimicking the way your tongue had tangled with his at the start of this until you're moaning into it. 
He gasps into the kiss when you reach down between you to take his cock in your hand, stroking it slowly while you shift in his lap and Stars, you swear the Jedi underneath you stops breathing entirely when you line him up and the head of his cock presses right up against your entrance. "Maker, please," he begs then on a broken moan, pulling out of the kiss to catch his breath but leaving his forehead pressed up against yours. He opens his eyes to hold your gaze intently as you start to sink down onto him, crying out at the fucking stretch of it. You take your time taking his cock, both for his benefit and your own, and the slow intrusion into your cunt has you shaking before he even bottoms out. 
"Fuck, you feel so f-fucking good," 
And it does. You have to take a minute to adjust once you've taken him to the root before you can move, gripping his shoulders tightly in an attempt to ground yourself, and his hands tighten on your hips in response. The Jedi looks like he might implode if you don't move so you take pity on him, sweeping him into another heated kiss as you roll your hips forward and swallowing his ragged gasp that escapes his throat. You keep the pace slow at first, steady, working yourself open and easing him into the motion and the way your pussy feels wrapped around his cock, and you manage to keep that pace for a few minutes until it becomes too much for both of you.
Obi-Wan's hips buck up at the same time your hips rock forward and you choke on a loud cry, throwing your head back when the head of his cock suddenly hits you right in the sweet spot. He seems to realize that you liked it because he does it again and again, his hands suddenly becoming vices around your hips as he starts thrusting up into you. You keep bouncing in his lap as best you can with his hold on you, meeting him thrust for thrust and Maker, nothing you'd imagined has anything on this. You bury your face in the side of his neck in a pitiful attempt to muffle the sounds that are leaving your throat, sucking and biting at the skin you find there and enjoying the moans you get out of him in return.  
You suddenly find yourself on your back with the Jedi above you, swallowing down the gasp that tears out of you as he claims your mouth in a searing kiss. Obi-Wan starts thrusting again immediately as he lets instinct take over, leaning forward on his elbow next to your head to give him better leverage. You nibble on his lower lip as you bring your legs up around his waist, gasping into his mouth when he fucking growls at the feel of your teeth and knotting your fingers in the strands of his hair again. His free hand comes up to cup the side of your face, holding you in place while he kisses the breath from your lungs. 
You're not going to last much longer, if the way your cunt is already starting to tighten around him is anything to go by. He shifts his hips just slightly, down and to the side, and you almost scream when he manages to find an angle that has the head of his cock hitting your sweet spot straight on at the same time as the warm skin of his torso brushes against your clit on each thrust in. Fuck, fuck, fuck, how did he get the hang of this so fast? He's going to kriffing kill you, if he keeps this up. "Stars, Obi," you sob out, "I'm gonna--"
The Jedi presses one last firm kiss to your mouth before he's pulling back to watch you fall apart, his hand leaving your face and moving down your body until he's stroking your aching clit with his thumb again, rubbing it in fast, small circles like he's learned you like it as he continues fucking into you like it's the last thing he'll ever do. "Right behind you, Darling," he grits out, his voice coming strained and wrecked and you know he means it. It only takes one, two, three more thrusts before you just fucking shatter, crying out into the air and trembling as the orgasm obliterates you. He follows not half a dozen thrusts later, burying his face in your neck and gasping as he fills you with everything he has, his hips still pumping lazily as he comes down. 
Eventually, the Jedi collapses down on the bed next to you, reaching over to brush some of the hair out of your face and giving you a dopey grin that's such a wild juxtaposition from his usual composure and his reputation that it makes you giggle, unable to help yourself. He raises an eyebrow at you playfully but it only makes you laugh harder, shaking your head. "Maker," you breathe, finally, because you can't seem to string together anything else. Obi-Wan chuckles next to you and reaches over to pull you back into his chest, burying his face in your hair while he tries to catch his own breath. "You are...a very quick study. Maker."
You can't see him grin, but you can hear it in his voice when he speaks again. "I'm glad you're pleased," he teases, and you only roll your eyes before letting yourself fully relax against him. Your eyes start to droop but you don't have the energy to fight to keep them open, and you end up falling asleep right there in his arms.
He lets you.
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You wake up the next morning almost unbearably warm, and when you go to try and sit up, you find that you can't. You freeze as a half-baked realization suddenly comes over you, hesitantly cracking your eyes open.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Oh, kriff. 
You fell asleep here last night. In the Jedi's bed. With the Jedi. He, it turns out, is the reason that you can't move. Obi-Wan's got both arms wrapped tightly around your middle, holding you against his chest with his legs tangled up with yours, and Maker you would never have pegged this man for a cuddler but you couldn't be more wrong, apparently. It does, however, create quite an interesting problem for you.
This is his last morning here before he leaves to return to Coruscant. He and Skywalker are supposed to leave early, before even breakfast. Skywalker will, doubtlessly, be coming around to see what's what's holding his old master up, and soon--and you are still here. 
Where you are. Definitely. Not supposed to be.
You don't know how much time you have but you know that it isn't much. You have got to get out of here before Obi-Wan's pain in the ass prior padawan shows up, and the Jedi looks so peaceful like this that you kind of wish you could just let him sleep but you really don't want to just sneak out on him after last night. So you sigh, reaching up to shake his shoulder gently. "Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, we have to get up."
It doesn't take much to wake him, thankfully, and he lets go of you to prop himself up on his elbow as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. "What's wrong?" he asks, his voice still hoarse from sleep as he peers down at you, not quite as surprised to see you there as you'd have maybe expected him to be. 
You don't even get a chance to answer him because there's suddenly a knock on the door, and both of your eyes widen at it. Skywalker. "Obi-Wan?"
Fuck, fuck, fuck, where the fuck are your clothes? You're out of the bed before Obi-Wan even has a chance to stop you, frantically trying to find your clothes and put them on. You toss his trousers at his chest when you come across them and that seems to be what finally spurs him into motion, standing up so he can get them on as he calls back to the other Jedi. "What is it, Anakin?"
There's a moment of confused silence, then: "Cody's landing the transport now."
Obi-Wan opens his mouth like he's about to tell his old padawan that he'll be out momentarily, but doesn't get a chance to get the actual words out before you both hear the hiss of the door starting to slide open. Thank the Maker, you just manage to get your tunic back on before Skywalker comes into sight, and you do your best to try to look fucking normal as his eyes flicker between you but your heart fucking stops when you glance to the left of you and realize that Obi-Wan still isn't wearing a fucking shirt. His entire chest is exposed, which means that all of the marks you left scattered across it are also exposed. Fuck, fuck, fuck--
"I'll just. I'll just see you on the transport."
Skywalker is gone before either of you can react, the door sliding shut behind him. Your next breath leaves your lungs with enough force that it's almost a wheeze, and you have to bend over and put your hands on your knees for a second while you try to process what the fuck just happened. Obi-Wan blinks next to you, looking directly ahead for a second or two more before he suddenly starts chuckling, and you stare at him incredulously. "I'm sorry," he says finally, "That was just…"
You're laughing too, then, shaking your head as you step back over to him, ducking down to grab his shirt from where you can see it on the floor. You place the fabric in his hands and lean up on your toes to press a light kiss to his cheek, giving him a small smile. "Until next time, Master Kenobi?"
He gives you a small smile in return, and surprises you a little bit when he leans in himself and presses a soft kiss to your lips. "Until next time."
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Mercifully, no-one questions him when Obi-Wan finally makes it to the transport. He intentionally doesn't look at Anakin even though he can feel the other man's eyes on him as he finds his seat and sits down, straightening his robes. He finds it difficult to keep the smile completely off his face so he just ducks his head instead in the guise of settling in for the flight and studiously ignores the way Anakin is still staring at him. 
"How was your trip, General?" Cody asks, leaning around in the pilot's seat to look back at him once they've left the planet's atmosphere. Obi-Wan opens his mouth to answer but Anakin's there first, suddenly grinning ear-to-ear in a way that makes him distinctly uncomfortable. 
"Oh, the General had a wonderful time." the younger man drawls, looking him right in the eyes as he does, and Obi-Wan wonders not for the first time if Qui-Gon died and left Anakin in his care as some inhumane form of punishment. "Made significant strides with relations and learned a lot, I'm sure."
"Oh, well, that's good, Sir." Cody responds, and Obi-Wan really dearly hopes he's as unaware of the insinuation as he sounds. Cody really does not need to know these things. Anakin does not need to know these things. "I'm glad your mission was productive."
Anakin opens his mouth like he's going to say something else but closes it abruptly and grins instead when Obi-Wan glares at him and shakes his head slowly in warning. "Thank you, Cody." Obi-Wan says instead, leaning back in his seat and letting his eyes close as he tries to relax. Maker, he can still feel the effects of the night before, his muscles are more sore than he would have expected and he finds that he's very aware of the bruises you'd left behind and it's...strangely pleasant. 
He's not allowed to have emotional attachments, but. He kind of does hope that he'll see you again one day anyway. Until next time, Master Kenobi. 
65 notes · View notes
leahseclipse · 3 years
Text
Detention time
Pairing: Dean Winchester x fem!reader
Summary: They're high school students, Reader gets a detention and Dean, not wanting to be alone, joins them.
Warnings: Some insults, but nothing bad. Just two baddies idiots fooling around in school.
Word count: 2.4k
A/N: My very first spn fic,,, I'm really excited about this!!!!! Although, a person with whom I talk of spn, would be surprised that my first fic isn't with Sam as he's my fav 😂, don't get me wrong, I love Dean too, but Sam- 👁️v👁️
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"y/l/n, detention." A male voice announced which had basically become the anthem of the class considering how many times it was told, to her, or even, by the other troublemaker of the class, known as: Dean Winchester.
They both were called the detention duo, whether they'd have detention the same day or not, they'd always somehow have one in the same week.
But that day, only y/n had gotten one. The reason? Calling the teacher a moron, incompetent -and a bitch-, but she didn't hear it.
She'd probably have a nice trip to the principal, along with a possible one week exclusion.
She was...well known for her original words that would definitely be followed by a detention as soon as it was told.
Let's say that...she had her own behaviour that would make her ‘unique’.
This could kind of be seen as a show to the class, mostly from y/n's side, as all the teacher could say was a bit of complaining, and the famous sentences well known, to annouce the detention.
It was definitely funnier when coming from the teacher y/n just called a moron.
For Dean, it'd depend.
Sometimes it would be because he had called them a pussy, or just because the teacher had decided that he had annoyed them too much for its liking.
He'd even have the talent of getting detention when he was out of class. 
So, thinking it'd be fun to bring back the detention duo, Dean decided to add his own spice to the party, doing it with another one, who hated him as much he hated y/n. 
Dean would usually annoy him on purpose, but that time he just did it without realizing it, it had basically become a habit that he wouldn't even think of doing it, he'd already be doing it.
Not really any of the class could have predicted it, even if it hadn't become surprising coming from him at some point.
The hour had almost gone by calmly, and just a few minutes before the end were left.
But when Dean's remarks, and the lack of these because he wasn't doing anything was enough to the teacher, soon the whole class knew what was coming.
And, as if Dean hadn't fallen deep enough, he finished his answer with 'bitch'.
The final touch.
"Winchester, since I guess that you seem to have free time, and have disrespectful behavior, you'll be joining Saturday's detention, with a small trip to the principal beforehand?"
"Sounds good."
Result; both found themselves on a Saturday, each sitting at a spot across the room, not really knowing what to do. 
As much as they were known as a duo, and possibly friends, y/n didn't like him a lot. 
She was...kinda friend with his brother, Sam, but never really talked with Dean, even if they’d both been in detention quite a few times.
But Dean, just…being Dean, actually wanted them to be friends. He had tried multiple times to, somehow, have a chat that would last longer than one minute, which failed until now.
Today might be a good shot, and he's gonna try again, even if she might not be open to it.
Detention were a loss of time, they'd give either give you a stupid paper -which, by the way, wasn't even checked-, so whether you'd do it or not, they didn't care. 
Or, in this case, they'd just have someone watch over you, they would have a glance, go out for a bit, come back later, or literally at the end of the detention…which could be the case right now.
They had left god knows where, leaving the "detention duo" to themselves, which didn't change much.
Whether the guy watching them was here or not, the room was so silent that you could hear a door opening from across the hall, even the first floor.
“You’re still going to be on silent mode, as usual?” Dean asked, glancing at the girl. “You could at least say hi, be polite, you know?”
“Fuck off Winchester.”
“I said polite, not asshole mode.”
“Since when am I supposed to talk nice to you as if we were pals?”
“You don’t necessarily have to be friends with someone to be nice, it’s just basics.”
“Well, I don’t really give a fuck about your basics. What about that?”
“Woah, chill. I was just trying to be nice, which you aren’t.” He muttered.
“Oh, because you’re nice? Aren’t you sitting in detention with me right now for calling the teacher a bitch?”
“He deserved it, and you kind of did the same thing as me, let me remind you of that.”
“He also deserved it, but, did I deserve to be annoyed by you though?”
“No, but my plan was totally different, I didn’t want to annoy you, on the contrary.”
“Hm, it seemed like it to me.”
“It’s just you seeing things that way instead of what they really are.”
“Oh really? You’re kidding, right Winchester?”
“Why would I be?”
“You’re always here, saying shit, that at some point it’s kind of complicated to know if you’re being serious or not.”
“I hate to admit that, but you’re...right, but just in a way, not completely. I can be serious if asked to.”
“Oh, because you can be? I never found you serious once.”
“Are you saying that I’m a fool?”
“I never said that, you just assumed it yourself right now.” She spat.
“No, I was just trying to guess what you meant when you said that you didn’t find me serious, that is all.”
“Oh, you should have told me. I thought you were trying to ask me how I was seeing you, and I just told it."
“Did anyone ever tell you that you can be...quite indirect sometimes? No?”
“I’m just pointing out the truth, what I think. What’s wrong with that?”
“What is wrong, is that it’s not necessarily what people want to hear from you, especially when they’re being nice, like with me.”
“I didn’t notice you were trying to be nice, you’re such an ass with teachers and some nerds that I didn’t even think there was an ounce of sweetness in your head.”
Touché. 
“Well uh...people can be...nice, just because they’re, not really nice to some, and can seem...a bit intimidating, it doesn’t mean they can’t be nice to others.” Dean blurted out, desperately trying to find arguments.
“You’re a dick Winchester, face it.”
“I wouldn’t go that far to the point of being categorized as a dick, but okay, I can be...mean.”
“You forgot one adjective.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You sure?”
“...annoying.”
“There ‘ya go.”
“Is there anything else to add to the list of defaults you’ve noticed about me, or are you done?”
“Unless you want a four page long essay, I’m done...for now, at least.” Y/N said, tapping her pencil against the table. “Why? Do you want more? I can keep going, I have one week free.”
“No, I’m uh...I’m good.”
“Hm. I got nothing to talk about then, too bad.”
“There's a lot of stuff to say other than me.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know. What we like, what we hate about these teachers, or even random stuff we have. I know you like to talk about me, but we can switch the subject.”
“Me, liking to talk about you? You’re kidding. You just annoyed me, and I responded to you.”
“You seem quite enthusiastic and well informed.”
“No, I was not.”
“If you say so.”
“There’s no ‘if you say so’, as I said, I was just splitting out facts.”
“...that, again, seemed to be interesting enough for you to waste five minutes.”
“I regret answering you in the first place now.”
“No, you don’t. You love talking with me, I know you do. You should feel honored to have Dean Winchester talking to you, I don’t do that with many people.”
“Honored what? You’re not a star, you’re just the school’s brat.”
“You’re not as innocent as I am, I could call you a brat too, but I’m staying polite.”
“Oh, because you were being polite? I didn’t notice, you should have told me, I would have tried to take things differently.”
“I’m being polite, since the beginning of the conversation. You just didn’t notice, as you said.”
“Okay, you were a bit more polite than usual.”
“That’s a great compliment, coming from you.”
“Probably the only one you’ll receive.”
“The only one? You sure? I’m kind of...handsome. So, you should have some things to tell.”
“Am I supposed to see it as a joke or not?”
“...it wasn’t a joke.”
“I thought it was, because you're mostly an ass to me, not a handsome guy.”
“I know you don’t make jokes usually, but I think it’s one, no? Come on, you can’t say I’m not as handsome as all of these actors you see at TV and all.”
“What am I supposed to say in that?”
“That you find me nice, and all, you know. I know you got lots of things to say.”
“No, and even if I did, why would you deserve to hear them?”
“Because it’s...about me? You had a lot of...not really nice stuff, so it shouldn’t be a problem to say the opposite, if you happened to think that way.”
“Do I look like I want to waste the week I have to say that?”
“Maybe.”
“No, I don’t.” 
“Come on, I’m not asking for a whole week, just like...a few days?”
“That’s even worse.”
“Okay, one day.”
“Less worse, but not better.”
“You don’t even have one day to spare for your favorite classmate? I’m charming, funny, nice...sometimes, I’m cool to hang out with, I got a nice brother, and plus, as we’re both Winchesters, it’s even funnier. I’ll pull him out of his books and drag him outside.”
“If I do agree, do I get to drag him outside too? I have to warn him though, I won’t be delicate.”
“You get to drag him outside, I’ll even let you do it, from start to end.”
“Then, I guess I can spare some time out of the free week I have.”
“Yeah, we don’t give a single fuck about the assignments.”
“Sam will help us on the last day.”
“True, we can threaten him too.”
“For once, you have good ideas.” She pointed out.
“What can I say? I’m a Winchester, so that’s pretty logical for me to be talented, creative and smart.”
“I said that you have good ideas, that’s all. I didn’t ask for you to brag about yourself.”
“You tempted me, and...by the way, since we’ll be stuck together for a week, might as well become less formal?”
“You mean...with our names? Me calling you Dean, and you calling me y/n?”
“That’ll be a great start.”
“It’s a bit weird though. I’ve always been calling you Winchester, it’s weird to call you Dean all of a sudden.”
“See it as a small privilege, not that many people get that chance.”
“Do any other people get the chance of getting annoyed by you?”
“I’m not annoying, just like to chat a lot. Come on, y/n, it’s not that hard to call me by my name, you gotta get used to it to preserve your privilege.”
“You’re lucky that the only knives we have here are plastic ones, and totally harmless. I would have already stabbed you by now.”
“You’ll be way too sad without me here.”
“Not at all Dean.”
“I doubt so, y/n.”
“I’ll have Sam with me to replace you.”
“Nah, not even Sam can. I’m Dean Winchester, no one can replace me.”
“I spent a lot of time with Sam, and it was as nice as when I’m with you.”
“You mean, book talk? That’s not what I call fun.”
“It’s more interesting.”
“It’s boring.” Dean said.
“Boring is what I say when I happen to be with you, which is right now.”
“Nah, you had fun.”
“Yeah, 1%.”
“I’m sure it’s a bit more than that, we've been here for one hour already.”
“Okay, 1,000001%. Is that better?”
“Not really.”
“I was being nice by adding all of these zeros.”
“It made it just a bit worse. It should have been 50% at least.”
“50% is a bit too much, would have given 20% maximum.”
“I guess it’s better than 1%.”
“I’m being generous, I gave 19% more.”
“I better get a piece of paper to remember it, it’s quite rare coming from you, I’m honored.”
“Watch out, I might get back on my decision to waste my precious time with you.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going to be extra nice.”
“I’ll make sure to have my phone and record it, I might not believe it when I’ll happen to think about it a bit later.”
“I said that I was going to be nice, that applies for you too.”
“Fine, Dean.”
“See, it took one hour for us to get along, and for once, it wasn’t a bad detention. You even ended up calling me Dean.”
“If you say so, and yeah, it was better than usual. We should try to get another, but outside of the class, like being late three times when we get back next week, and maybe add something to not just get detention.”
“Yeah, ‘could be nice. Our parents are going to be pretty pissed off at that.”
“To be honest, did we ever care about that?”
“Not once, as long as I can recall.”
“Exactly.”
“It might get us kicked out at some point.”
“I never liked studying anyway, I won’t mind getting out of here.” She admitted.
“Who likes that?”
“Sam.”
“Oh, he’s always been a nerd. But, a nice one, and not really annoying.” 
“Yeah, he’s kind of like us, but...a bit more strict. Bet 10 dollars he’s going to lecture us.”
“Bet.” Dean answered.
“Okay deal. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“They’re going to annoy us for that.”
“They said we’re out for a week, we’re just leaving early.”
“I guess it’s okay then.”
“Hell yeah it is. We have one week to waste ahead of us.”
“I’ve never enjoyed an exclusion that much before.”
“That’s normal, I wasn’t there to make it fun. Now we’ll spend these together, it’ll be a nice one instead of a useless one.”
“Let’s get to it then.” Dean announced, as he crossed the door after her, sneaking out to walk in the direction of the hallway.
Guess that detention wasn’t that bad after all.
*
47 notes · View notes
jae-canikeepyou · 4 years
Text
| muse | j.jh
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pair: jaehyun x fem!reader
genre: art student!jaehyun + art student!yn
a/n: thought this on a whim whilst reminiscing my art portfolio, so we’ll see how you’ll like this with yuno in it. not the best i’ve written but hope you enjoy reading 💞😉 ~j
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with jaehyun, there were three things that happened uncontrollably. one was he caused your heart to skip; two, your chest to feel all giddy; and three, your stomach to capsize. why you may ask? it was his very presence in the art academy which had heads turning and lips to whisper words of awe. he was labelled and called a prodigy.
be it in any medium of art, he was blessed to have such a talent that his parents thought it’d be a waste if not enhanced or put attention to. even your professors favored him and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t jealous. despite his princely looks, he could sometimes be a total snob. he’d be in a good mood the first hour and then changed completely in the next. oh the duality, you couldn’t understand him at all.
though question marks continued to fill your head, let’s just say you had a tad advantage compared to girls who were overly thirsting for him; he was your classmate, a major in fine arts. sometimes you unconsciously found yourself sniffing his perfume each time he helped you with the shading of portrait drawings you worked upon. he was that close. as much as you loved seeing him almost every day, you hated at the fact you still didn’t know the ways to calm your loving facial expression towards him.
it was a funny sight —at least to your friends— that they could see how elongated your nose grew every time you deny your feelings for him. yet as time passed the possibility of your admiration might turn into romantic feelings instead. there wasn’t a need to prove to you since your friends have pointed it out already.
but you yourself wasn’t too sure about it.
“please,” hyejin popped with a huge round of an eyeroll at your oblivion. legs crossed as she chewed her bubblegum. “y/n, admit that you like him. it isn’t that hard to say out loud.”
other students, including your studio tutor held in their giggles in the midst of the silence within the room. true enough hyejin was the mood maker.
her words made you stop painting the colours that were meant to accentuate the highlights of the subject. “i’m not like you who’s very expressive in words.” you replied, taking few peeks at your surroundings in case anyone eavesdrop.
hyejin wasn’t supposed to be in the studio today. she was a literature student where writing poetry was her forte. but because your tutor appreciated her effort to promote the visual arts department in the school paper, her going to the studio with you became a normal thing.
“it doesn’t have to be in words. like, i don’t know? paint some canvas and pour out your feelings through colours? yellow’s joy or purple’s dazzling or red is love-” she stopped as you gave her an annoyed gaze. “i’m sure he’ll get it. he’s not called a prodigy for nothing.”
“painting is not done on a whim, hyejin.” you emphasised, not noticing the stress put upon your work. “it takes time and thinking and creativ-”
“yeah yeah,” she made her bubble burst, which by the way irritated you since it gave off the impression that she wasn’t listening to you at all. “abstract seems so random though. no thinking there.”
you pointed the brush at her, yet careful enough that it doesn’t touch her nose. if another word comes from her mouth, you wouldn’t hesitate staining it. “sis, shapes are used instead of virtual reality, so abstract still needs thinking. you just express it differently.” hearing this, hyejin paused for a while before deciding which reaction to give, and with that you were satisfied into silencing her for a while. “now you know how i feel when i don’t understand shakespeare’s ‘love looks not with eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind’.”
she let out a scoff, “pfft, you’re the cupid in that quote. you can’t even see that you like mr. prodigy so much.”
jaehyun gently opened the door and handed a paper slip to the tutor, which apparently was a doctor’s certificate. due to his arrival, hyejin elbowed you so hard that its force caused you to jolt in your seat then knocking two of the glassed jars placed on the narrow deck of your easel.
the tutor looked at your direction, and lowered his specs at the noise. flustered than you ever were in your entire life, you took the dust pan. you tried your best to not match eyes with jaehyun who was now smiling from second hand embarrassment. at farthest decibel your ears could handle, you could hear hyejin sneering with huffed laughs.
“i’m gonna kill you.” you mouthed from a table away and gave her a warning look. you gestured the phrase, followed by a scowl to refer her teasing tongue.
“i’ll help, y/n.” jaehyun offered, but you assured him it was fine. “what’re you working on?” he asked as you both walked back to the tables, he took out his tools and unfinished work.
this time was the season of cramming hours into a tight schedule, there were many initial stages/assignments due and portfolios to be completed. you guessed it was natural for you both to update each other regarding progress. “just giving more highlights and tweaks, then i’ll start on the portraits.”
he only pressed a smile, a breathy chuckle as a response while he focused on his art. “do you still need my help on shading?”
“i think i got the hang of it. thanks.” you damped the brush with water.
“alright, if you need me, i’m just here.”
your eyes shot down to your pockets, quickly answering the phone to quiet down the “supposedly” soundless vibration. and you wished you didn’t fished out the device if you knew that the message was from hyejin.
[18:45] hyejin: damn it y/n, confess already! 🤪
[18:45] you: if you could shut up maybe i will?? i could hear your voice haunting me 🙃
[18:46] hyejin: if there’s no progress today, i’m so gonna take action & tell him myself 😌
[18:47] you: ugh anything but that pls 😣
the thing with being associated with the arts was that time immediately had gone passed when you’re so concentrated. everything else faded away and in that momentum, it was just the art and you. jaehyun felt this once he picked up his brush or pencil. voices in his head whispered and guided him what to do with the creativity still yet to be shown in the world.
among all the students he bonded with, there was one whom perked his interest..
you.
as mentioned, his current surroundings blurred whilst he was sucked into another dimension of concentration. but you went there with him and appeared clear. seemed a scene out of an alternate reality in his perspective, or dramatic to some people. he was intrigued.
since knowing you, he expected to sought this mutual interest deeper. if he was the beautiful, detailed canvas everyone saw in an exhibition, you were the opposite; abstract, unpredictable and rough, someone who was overlooked because others couldn’t understand the depths and entirety of you.
finishing the last layer of the painting, you stretched to sooth the numbness. the professor reminded about the last few minutes before wrapping up the class and, he handed the room keys to you. for this tutorial, students have the choice to stay behind or leave. hyejin left with the others, leaving you alone with jaehyun. whether she did that on purpose, she’d do anything to let you be alone with him.
“oh? you’re done with yours?” jaehyun shifted sideways to take a better view of your work. he looked satisfied with the way his dimples hollowed. “hm. my advise is effective.”
“yeah, you’re a life saver.” you sighed as you looked at how completed the artwork was, then trailing your eyes to him again.
“i’m proud of you.” he winked, only to blush afterwards when his stomach growled. “i wish you didn’t hear that.”
coincidently, you tossed your wallet in the air. “good timing, i’m just about to head out to the cafeteria. want anything? my treat because you helped me.” you extolled with your mood in completely positivity. jaehyun became your inspiration and for now you weren’t able to bring yourself to tell him that.
hopefully soon though— when you have the courage.
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the sleepiness in your eyes only needed ten percent more to push your lids down, the queue was unexpectedly long at this hour. it was only until minutes later had you known that another department organised a party nearby. the wait for the order would be troublesome; that’d be in the fact there were girls right behind, their gaze burning into your skin as if you were an enemy of theirs. and somehow you knew,
they might be jaehyun’s admirers.
they whispered to each other, words audible enough for your hearing and you pretended to be listening to music.
and how you wished you should’ve.
“do you know why jaehyun took fine arts?” one asked.
an intrigued response caught you walking on a tight rope. this can’t be good. “sounds like you know the reason.”
“it’s been spreading around recently..” there was a pause that had you wondering even if you knew you shouldn’t believe in any of rumours from them. “i heard the studio has this session to draw the human body and the figures. like y’know.. no clothes?”
sigh, there wasn’t even any classes for those this semester, you thought.
few giggles were heard before they spoke again. “you’re saying he’s perverted?”
“maybe? i wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.”
“isn’t that kinda hot? his eyes starting into-”
you nearly dropped jaehyun’s food and trip over an extension wire hearing that. breathing slowly and steadily, you convinced yourself that what you heard was false. he wasn’t the type of guy they assumed he was.
as much as you wanted to prove them wrong, it wasn’t your place to speak out when the friendship you have with him was not to the level of best friends. so you rushed back to the studio, not noticing your blown-away hair and burning face. what was amusing after hearing the tea, you didn’t know why you reacted in that manner. did you leave because you couldn’t stand eavesdropping any longer? or did you run due to the fact the fantasies they had were about to enter your mind?
the door was opened with a force that jaehyun looked up from his work, smiling at your quick purchase. “whoa careful there. you didn’t have to run.” he chuckled and went to your table. he took his favourite spicy cake and placed it on top heavily. the force he exerted with his hands was the total opposite to when he dealt with art. somewhere in you, you’d say it was a 0.1 percent a turn-off.
“hey, it’s food. handle with care, it’s a blessing.” you said, munching on your share of the dishes.
jaehyun clasped his palms together, bowed his head and closed his eyes. he faced you and you sat there with a confused look. “thank you y/n, you’re an angel for treating me.”
soon after, you received a message from your professor about taking out some of the tools needed for tomorrow. holding the sandwich wrap between your lips, you took a closer look at the right keys before unlocking the storage room, opening the door afterwards.
it was at least the size of two toilet cubicles, not even close to a room’s walk-in closet. the thin cabinets against both sides of the wall were two feet, and the remaining space in the middle could fit a person’s leg, stretched out. the new set of canvases were placed on the top shelf. for someone like you, it wasn’t possible to reach them on tiptoes. you grabbed a chair and stacked two tins of paint for your feet to stand upon.
if you still couldn’t reach them.. eh, bummer. disturbing jaehyun who was enjoying his meal would be rude. you weren’t that type of person to suddenly feel as if you were already close to someone. the icky and dusty feeling on your fingertips nearly had you gagging.
“jaehyun?” you called out, apparently you’ve given up in trying another attempt. “i need a hand.”
there was a long pause as to why he didn’t respond immediately. maybe you should’ve have disturbed him? but you soon rolled your eyes when a mannequin’s hand was thrown to you. his snickers was supposedly an adorable thing to hear, this kind of wasn’t, because you desperately needed help now. “jeong jaehyun!”
he hummed right after you mentioned his name the second time. “i’m just messing around. but does that mean you’ll treat me again? i helped you.” his voice sounding with excitement.
you nodded, your anger long forgotten but he could tell there was conflict in your head. “i’ll consider it, so help me before i smack you with this plastic hand.” your tone slightly straining since you didn’t feel him entering the room.
“yeah. coming.” he said, giggling at your impatience. as you tried to reach out for the canvases again, the light behind you slowly dimmed.
that was weird. “hey, it’s getting dark in here.” you said.
before he could say anything, the door slowly closed and that made you raise a brow. he noticed this too and looked into your eyes when the light within the room soon disappeared. “ah sorry, i must’ve kicked the door stopper.” even in the dark, you could tell he was flustered from his actions. “i’ll open it.”
however his groans and vigorous sounds from the door knob stated otherwise. “what?” you heard him raise his voice.
“what’s wrong?” you hopped off the tins and grabbed the knob, twisting it clockwise then anti-clockwise. “it’s jammed.”
you both panicked because the night wasn’t getting any younger. there were things to finish and deadlines were drawing closer. before, you thought of procrastinating even when necessary. but procrastinating like this wasn’t part of the plan.
how was it possible for the knob to be jammed? the door wasn’t closed in an impact that would cause its components to be broken. sure jaehyun was reckless and couldn’t control his strength but that really wasn’t the issue here.
the actual issue was that you were going be stuck with him for who knows until when. stuck in a sense there were just enough space for two people. jaehyun fumbled his pockets in search of his phone, an annoyed groan told you it was bad news. “call someone. my battery just died and my powerbank’s outside.”
quickly you fished out your phone, only to find that it had the same fate. “ugh i have 10% left.” you slumped your sides to the shelves like there was no hope. “i’ll try to text hyejin.”
“hm i hope she’s not too far from the campus.” jaehyun leaned against the shelves opposite from you, his expression definitely amused with your reaction. a scoff of disbelief escaped your dry lips, sliding the phone to the shelf as you put your hair on one side. “that doesn’t sound good. what did she say?”
for all the things hyejin could do to help you get out of there, she’d rather sit and tease every single nerve of your body. “she said ‘you both just made your own seven minutes in heaven! i’m laughing out loud right now.’”
and for the things you thought jaehyun would disagree with your friend, he didn’t. it surprised you when his held-in giggles came bursting out from his chest. “it’s exciting. don’t you think?” he chuckled. “this is something you see in movies.”
“okay. tell me, what’s exciting about being locked-”
“we can ask each other questions. or any topic you’d like to talk about. i wanna know more about you.” he suggested, shutting you up because if he didn’t, you’d be quite a complainer. jaehyun bent to a squat, later stretching his legs until the soles reached the sides of your hips. “i rarely get the chance to talk to you properly and i guess this is the day, so scoot over.” he gestured you to move aside a little.
“gee i wonder why?” your voice came out sarcastically. “i don’t ignore people unlike a certain someone.”
“just sit down, will you?” jaehyun seemed to take the fact to heart.
you complied and sat exact the same as he did. the tiled floor sent cool to your legs but it didn’t really matter. jaehyun began by asking how you got into art; what motivated you to choose this field. “it’s just a childhood dream of mine to keep expanding my creativity. i wanna teach kids the joy in paint, that we’re not limited to using tools. i started painting with my hands and fingers when i was five.”
“really? i’m the same, except i was three when i painted.” his dimples deepening.
though you did answer him, you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him the whole story. you were just par in the arts, an average joe and always felt like your professors tied your wings together to express what you really wanted. every proposal you presented were rejected. if lucky, it still wasn’t good enough. not enough to reach jaehyun’s standards and world.
his shoes hit your hips again, the nudges were light and made you look to him. “your turn.” he said.
your eyes wander the dark room, the thin light from the sides of the door showing the outline of his face. “is it good? being called something you never wanted to be? did you know you’re gifted as a kid?”
“do you want my honest opinion?” he brought one leg to his chest, forearm resting on it as he start to ponder. hearing the soft shuffles from you in agreement, he gulped his dry throat to say the one thing he longed to say.
“i don’t like it.”
beyond speechless. you thought maybe he’d like the feeling of being center of attraction, or praised to have a skill that was out of this world. while you’d like to know what it felt like, it already told you enough that he wouldn’t want to be referred to as a prodigy. “not even a single bit?” alarmed, you squinted your eyes and he shook his head.
“i used to like it at first.. now i don’t,” jaehyun admitted but his face had changed the moment you asked him the one thing he never wanted to look back. “..because i was set apart from kids my age and they view me differently, nor have they ever treated me like every kid in the block.“
he continued how parents would tell him he was ‘inspiring’ or ‘i wish i had a kid like you; dedicated, and talented’. the claim have made him proud, yet this caused insecurity to most of his friends, and they distanced themselves from him. what was once the same ground they stood upon, it had quaked the earth and caused a wide gap. jaehyun hated the feeling of isolation by the will of others. though he had tried many times to reach out to them..
the gap continued to widen.
“there’s not much of a difference now.” he whispered yet audible enough for you to hear. ”i still have less friends. countable with fingers.. on one hand.”
probably the reason why he looked like a snob then.
“i see. so am i?.. part of your ‘friends’?” he heard you ask when reality hits you that you shouldn’t have said your thoughts out loud. closing your eyes for a bit, you heard the shift in his weight, he didn’t answer right away. it was as if he was still finding the words.
but he sat right beside you. “you’re already one when we both entered this classroom. i had a hunch you’ll be one i’ll treasure.”
if anyone was told the way he did just now, it would definitely make them smile. that was his honest opinion and you couldn’t help but smile at his words. he seemed to notice this too and let out a chuckle that was always music to your ears. “should we try to open the door again?” you changed the topic to avoid the awkward smile creeping your face. your hands gripped the knob and jaehyun tugged the hems of your jeans.
“y/n, if you do it further we’ll be damned if hyejin couldn’t open from the outside.” he stood that he was already behind you. “i’m not stopping you from trying though.”
“f-fine.” you leaned against the door, soothing your legs that experienced paresthesia. jaehyun pat your head like he always did whenever you unintentionally embarrass yourself, be it art or not whatsoever. “i just can’t seem to stay still.” oh gosh i don’t know what i’d do if i’m alone with him.
“yeah clearly.” he shrugged.
you had a scowled face and glad he didn’t see it. “the place’s so cramped-” you continued, walking to the chair you once stood on, only to lose balance when the shelves you held for support gave in to collapse from the weight it carried. with weight, the whole furniture wobbled to fall.
in a split second you felt yourself being lifted off the ground, a strong arm wrapping around your frame and saw yourself at the opposing side of the room. jaehyun closed into you as he managed to stop the some items from falling. the entire body of the cabinet covered and trapped you both in a tight place. the furniture tilted right behind him. one small move, the items could injure two and he didn’t want to risk that.
he could feel your breath touch his shirt and with the way you held his clothes, you definitely didn’t see this coming. “are you okay?” he thought there was a possibility of squishing you.
“uncomfortable, but i’ll manage.. somehow.” you honestly replied because there was no point in lying to him.. physically speaking, he’d know what you feel since he himself was also in discomfort. anyway, with your answer, this marked the third silence as there was another one creating yet another gap in the conversation.
okay y/n. you told yourself. you made everything awkward than before. first was you asked whether you were friends, which you already were. second was your stupid and careless behaviour that led to the position you’re both in now.
“what about you?” you asked after seeing the huge frame towering over both of your bodies, mostly onto his. so maybe that was another unnecessary question to ask.
jaehyun gulped and fixed his one of his palms that he gripped on the shelf behind you. you could see his adam’s apple move up and down, struggling to breathe. he pushed backwards to be able to see your face. tilting his head down, that movement alone made you look up. “uncomfortable, but i’ll somehow manage.” he smiled even though you knew he wasn’t.
“you know you’ll earn zero marks if you copy my answer.” you giggled, remembering the professor’s words at the beginning of the semester.
he flicked your forehead as he agreed with the obvious statement. “i heard him. anyway, it’s my turn to ask.”
“are we really playing the game now? can we at least try to figure how to get out of this position?” you began to whine and threw your head back where you hit your head, and you didn’t care how shameful you felt. you knew you wouldn’t stand any longer, your legs started to weaken because of stress— stress from everything jaehyun managed to make you feel, that included the little smiles and especially his hand around your waist.
jaehyun didn’t know why he put his palms behind your head before the incident happened but he knew he had to, with the way you flustered so much. he figured that you weren’t used to situations like these.
however a memory slipped into his mind that you were always your usual self with other guys around. he noticed how you held or hiccuped a breath whenever you both conversed. you and him weren’t particularly close to begin with, just enough to pass as friends and maybe it was his love for art that brought that gap closer to you.
right now? perhaps too close. literally.
“why not? it gets more fun.” he tried to hide the smile creeping his lips; at the sight of how irritated you were beneath him and he actually considered your plead to get you both to safety. but maybe he’d like to enjoy a little bit before doing so. “besides, there’s no way we can move properly with a lot of things blocking our surroundings.”
on both sides, the two of you were encased with large items and materials that were affected by the impact. “tsk.” you tilted your head to avoid looking at him. “at least try to push the huge cabinet?”
he did as he was told and from the grunts and exhausted voice, jaehyun gave up trying. “i don’t think i can. something’s probably caught in the gap between the wall and the furniture.” he tried to look over his shoulder to see if he was right.
“i thought prodigies don’t give up.” your voice sounded challenging to him.
“within the spectrum of our skill, we don’t. but outside our gift, we have the choice to.” jaehyun flicked your forehead again. “we get tired too.”
there was less force against your torso, he was trying to push the furniture again and you bubbled out a giggle. “wow you aren’t as cool as i thought you were.”
jaehyun wanted to hit you as you were being too playful at the wrong time. but as he brought his hand up, you closed your eyes shut to brace for the sharp impact. he sighed and his stomach growled in the most embarrassing way yet. “ugh, it’s because i haven’t eaten enough. i don’t have any strength left.” his stomach then growled louder.
maybe it was due to your bodies against each other’s and the heat starting to roam around the room. jaehyun clicked his tongue at the continuous mimicking of yours. “c’mon y/n i can’t be the only one doing the work here. help me push this heavy thing behind me.”
“uh no? do you think i could even help? don’t make me uncomfortable than i’m already am.” you moaned at the pain starting to grow along your spine. arching your back to avoid the discomfort from the shelves wasn’t really a good idea.
“ah you’re uncomfortable?” he implored with a smirk, his voice quite menacing as he leaned in to squeeze you between the cabinet behind you and himself.
for the whole time jaehyun knew that you didn’t mean whatever you said. he loved how you surprise him everyday and tonight he found you quite cheeky, and adorable too. by quite, it meant that you were like a child wanting to go home. a huff from him felt like the gust of wind. “‘i don’t have any strength left’.” you copied his words. seeing his lips pout, it was alright to give in. “will you treat me food if i help?” you returned the question because you treated him.
“you’re lucky you’re cute.” he suddenly said, with a soft chuckle, you knew he was smiling. it had gotten you speechless that it was hard to tell whether he said knowingly or not. “we can buy what the other wants after we get out of here, okay?” his attempt to get the wood off him yet again failed.
you clapped your hands quite hyperactively and squealed as if he asked you out on a date. “oh yay! okay. i wouldn’t want to be rained on for another hour anyway.” you teased, in which he exhaled heavily from his nostrils.
“i’m not that sweaty.” he grumbled, almost vibrating with the exertion of his energy.
“just perspiring.” you added.
he hit your head with his, for sure you’ll have a prominent bruise and that would make you a victim for hyejin for the next few days. or tonight, if she would get you both out. “that’s the same meaning.”
it took less than two minutes to take the weight off his back. jaehyun saw everything in slow motion— he was falling backwards and you, frontwards. “whoa!” for a moment you thought you hit yourself on a wall. that was for a brief second before the impact was replaced by a warm hug.
you checked if he was okay, he became your safe fall and again he saved you when you didn’t ask for it. “i didn’t expect.. i’m sorry.” you pressed your lips realising you were in between his legs.
he hissed at the pain and sat tiredly on the floor, using all of the fabrics of his clothes to wipe the sweat. “it’s okay.” he patted your back.
“right.. this is awkward. i better get off..” you chuckled and dusted your clothes awkwardly but what he said next really caught you off guard.
“do you want to do it?” he queried, taking you back as your head shot up and hit his chin with your forehead.
you blinked several times. “d-do what?” is this another question i won’t be able to answer?
there was a shaky grip on your waist, your heart hammered and you were afraid that he would hear it. “y’know what i’m talking about.” he put the hair strands away so he would be able to see your face under the lines of slim light.
“i don’t?” you choked on your own saliva. what was he talking about?
jaehyun’s breath made you freeze on the spot, along sudden silence. he giggled softly. “such a waste, you even have a perfect body.”
then the conversation from the two girls at the cafeteria entered your mind right when you thought deep. hold on, the rumours can’t be true..
he stood up shortly, cornering you by the door and the lights revealed his eyes, smiling shyly. “you have perfect proportions.” as of now, you were a little nervous. you couldn’t process what you were hearing from your crush’s lips and looked away where you could see hyejin’s figure closing the studio’s door.
finally hyejin’s here. i have to tell him. “uh jaehyu-”
“can you be my model?” he held your hands.
oh shoot it is true?
“i need someone to pose for my next art portrait and you’re the only one i can ask.”
‘well aren’t you quite the deep thinker~’ you could imagine hyejin’s voice telling you off at the back of your mind. you shook your head and shut your eyes for her imaginary presence to go away, making you miss seeing jaehyun’s expression turn to a small pout.
suddenly you felt like your soul left your body. what were you thinking y/n?! erase the thought! cleanse your mind from what you heard from the girls!
now you stopped being an embarrassment, you looked at him. however, before you could answer, the door swung open, causing you both to fall over and adjust to the lights above you. hyejin looked down at the two of you, her bubblegum popping with brows raised. “girl, i texted you back and said i’m opening the door. didn’t you see- oh, did i come at the wrong time?”
jaehyun quickly got on his toes, ears turning red while you covered your face in embarrassment. “this is a misunderstanding hyejin!” he stuttered and fixed his collar. you dug for your phone to check the message, but it died long before.
she blew another bubble and popped. “mhm, i can see that.” she winked at the both of you and turned to leave.
“hyejin!” you whined and clung on her legs.
“i’m leaving!” she singsonged and shook her ankles like you were a bug. “i’m giving you more alone time with your muse!”
“oh my g- you!” you chased her down. “quiet!”
she laughed cheekily and managed to exit the studio, sticking out her tongue and pointed behind you. ‘walk home with him!’ hyejin mouthed, and you couldn’t be more annoyed with her because that was indeed true. what was once a wishful thinking became reality. she knew you more than you did yourself.
as you sighed heavily, it got you hitching a breath that jaehyun might’ve heard and saw the whole thing. you turned around and he was packing his stuff, yours included. the artworks were left untouched since you both would be back here tomorrow. he gave your bag and you chose to not talk because you didn’t have the audacity to do. “so, uh. what were you saying earlier?” you hoped he would forget what he just saw.
“oh y-yeah. lemme just-” he took a deep breath and looked into your eyes. “..rephrase it- wait i’m your muse?”
of course he wouldn’t forget, it just happened. damn you, hyejin! you slouched on a nearby chair and wore your hood. “i was hoping you wouldn’t find out so soon.”
“i’m flattered. thanks.” his dimples hollowed. “i was asking if you could be my reference for my next art piece..” he trailed off recalling that you declined. “..though you shook your head quickly than i thought.”
“huh i did?” your voice affirming. “oh gosh i think i did.. i’m sorry i was hearing hyejin in my head when you said that.”
jaehyun’s eyes widened when all he heard was pure honesty from you. “so will you do it for me?”
“as long as i wear clothes while at it.” you consented with your arms crossed and began to feel heat spread your whole body at the thought of the rumour.
walking along the hallway, only the sounds of shoes grazing the carpet echoed the area. you didn’t know what else to say. he brought you to the nearest convenient store where the campus’ one was closed at the hour. the food you bought turned cold and you couldn’t afford to get sick because of it.
he pulled the chair for you to sit on. “you heard them as well.” he placed his bag down. he was aware of the rumours found around and was shocked to know you knew them too. “they’re not true.”
you propped your chin as he went back to the topic. “i know.” you agreed to his words. “they don’t describe you at all.”
jaehyun sat comfortably, a smirk appearing. “me being your muse fits the description-”
this guy.. “please don’t bring that up.” you pleaded with hands clasped.
“i’m teasing.” he chuckled. “i don’t mind if you refuse want to be my model.” he said. “but i assure i’m not like other artists who paints their naked model. i have a better plan for you.”
he was trying to convince you into his world and you were slowly getting into it. “that’s like saying you really want me to.” you took your wallet and he followed suit.
“what’s wrong with wanting to paint my new muse?” he slid his chair closer to the table; closer so he could see your reactions to his honesty.
when he said that, you never turned away so fast in your life. your chest never thumped so loudly and your eyes fluttered while he continued to press onto his question. 
an assuring smile showed on your lips and he mirrored it, already knowing your response. “nope, nothing wrong at all.” you shyly accepted his request.
jaehyun then stood to get the orders, his fingers warning you that the late dinner would be on him. your heart experienced blossoms and giddiness you hoped it’d stay forever. who knows? maybe being each other’s muse could turn into something more after tonight.  
198 notes · View notes
lofitojii · 3 years
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Part [II] Guardian Angel
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Summary: You are a new sidekick to the number two hero of Tokyo, Hawks. You team up with another sidekick, Bakugou, in an ongoing investigation on a serial killer. Unexpected interactions happen that flip the whole case around causing new, confusing feelings which alter your relationships in ways you never saw coming.
Word Count: 4.6k
Warning: Minor Swearing 
Guardian Angel Master List
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[ tag list: @criminal-strawberry @underratedmage ]
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“Kid? Where are you? Are you okay?” You heard Hawks come in through the ear piece. You were desperately trying to keep up with Bakugou who was blasting from roof to roof, keeping a drastic distance between the two of you. You wanted to fly after him but you thought that if you let the distance grow and just let him get there the way he wanted, it would lead to receiving information from him. It was a long shot but at this point, you didn’t really know what to try. It was clear he wasn’t going to talk to you until you got back to the agency. 
“I’m fine. We’re almost back to the agency,” you replied, trying not to scream into the ear piece as your pace increased. Bakugou made it there before you, standing outside the front doors waiting for your arrival. You were surprised to say the least, thinking that he would’ve rushed off inside to tell Hawks what happened, but he just stood there. 
“Finally. Thought those wings made you faster,” Bakugou joked, leading the two of you through the doors. 
“Ha-ha, very funny,” you returned, scowling at Bakugou who seemed pretty pleased with his little joke. 
You and Bakugou stood in the elevator, letting the silence linger to the point where it became awkward and frustrating for you. You couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Who’s Dabi? Why are you choosing to leave me in the dark about this?” Bakugou didn’t look over, didn’t move, flinch, react in any way. He was just silent. You were trying your best to not get worked up over the situation but it was rather infuriating that your own team mate was withholding information from you. 
Bakugou let out a say, mumbling slurs of frustration under his breath. “Dammit. Hawks has history with Dabi, that’s why this is so big. Now if you’ll stop talking to me and just let Hawks fucking tell you? Okay?” Your cheeks flushed red, your whole attitude becoming rather embarrassed over anything.
“Should’ve just told me that in the beginning,” you muttered in a low tone, crossing your arms over your chest, trying your best to choke but the unwanted and unneeded tears of embarrassment. You were just very emotional, your feelings being the weakest part of you. Anything and everything made you cry, and normally you were okay with that. You never had an issue with expressing yourself, you just never understood timing which always tends to heighten your emotions. 
You walked into Hawks’ empty office, assuming he was just running behind. This was the second time you’ve shown up before him. “Better than me by a slight hair, it seems.” You looked over your shoulder, seeing Hawks approach his desk from the front doors. “Okay first, Y/N, I hear you encountered the suspect? Is that right?” 
“Yes sir,” you replied. 
“Well? Spit it out kid!” 
“Bakugou had mentioned that he saw him near me when I was patrolling street view. It was hard to see through the crowds of people without bringing all the attention towards me and I ended up bumping into him. He knows my hero name and I played dumb when he said I reminded him of you.” You were nervous that this was going to lead into you getting into trouble on your first day. You really didn’t want to upset your new boss, nor did you want to disappoint your teammates. “His name is Dabi.” 
“Fucking… Bastard,” Hawks growled, slamming his fist onto his desk. “You’re okay though, right? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” He nervously lifted his palm to his cheek, rubbing his scruff as he tried to scramble is unwarenting thoughts.
“I was watching from above the entire time and he helped her up. I couldn’t hear anything but I would’ve jumped in if she was in danger.” Bakugou added in what he saw, your heart fluttering at the thought of Bakugou jumping in to help you. And no, it’s not because of any sort of weird unsaid feelings you have for him, but because this whole time it seemed as if he hated you. 
“Hawks?” You asked, trying to keep calm while controlling your emotions all at once. “Who’s Dabi?” 
“An old friend.” 
“What is up with you boys and being so damn dramatic? What good is keeping secrets?” You finally lost it, upset about the fact you had to pry more from both of the men in front of you. “We’re fucking partners here. I am in this case too. Why are we side stepping around the main suspect like it’s some drastic back story? He’s alive, right? He matches the description, right?” You were annoyed at the fact you had to get literal with the people you worked with but you understood why they wouldn’t say anything. Emotions and feelings are what hold us down as humans, our personal anchor keeping us grounded under water. “I’m sorry if this is harder than it seems but people are dying here guys and if it happens to not be this guy, he knows SOMETHING about what’s going on. So now, who is Dabi and why is everyone being so quiet about him?” 
Hawks let out a deep sigh, exchanging looks with Bakugou before finally making eye contact with you. “You’re right, you’re right.” It was obvious that this was a heavy subject for Hawks, seeing it cause resurfacing pain. You didn’t need him to tell you how he felt about it because you could feel it, your own emotions mimicking the lingering feeling that was swarming around the open office. “About 7 years ago, a little bit before I ended up starting this agency, Dabi and I were.. Uh well we were close. Like best friends close. I was raised by these guys who were only told to train me like a hero from when I was a young age so when I met Dabi, it was exciting and new. He was there to receive ‘treatment’ whatever that meant and over time…. Well he’s not the same Dabi I knew before. He escaped the facility after lighting half of it on fire and ever since then, I haven’t crossed paths with him again.”
“So then what does he have to do with this case? What, he disappears for 7 years and comes back with a set plan or murders to get your attention?” The story was confusing to you and you knew there was more than what Hawks was telling you. The question was whether to pry or to wait for him to feel comfortable enough to tell you himself. 
“You came in contact with him,” he pointed out. “You tell me.” You knew what he meant, putting together the conversation you had with Dabi prior to knowing the history. You knew this was rooted deeper than what was being placed in front of you. When Dabi had mentioned Hawks, you assumed it was because of the wings, when in reality it was something completely different. What is Dabi trying to play here? Your thoughts were swarming with multiple possibilities as to what he was trying to do and you knew you couldn’t rely on two closed off men with little examples on how to share and express how they’re feeling tell you what’s going on, you knew you had to do it yourself. 
The room went silent, lingering with the tension that was building up within Hawks and Bakugou. They all had history, Bakugou keeping his side a secret, knowing you would half to pry it out of him sooner than later. For the time being, you had come up with an idea that you knew would be risky, but it was worth the effort to let them know. “I have an idea and before I tell you, I need you to know that whatever happens, I’ll be okay.” 
“You’re fucking crazy,” Bakugou cursed, Hawks still confused at what you were talking about. 
“I can go undercover. We don’t have anything stated that I’m linked to you yet. If I go undercover, I can find out more about this situation. Plus, if Bakugou and another one of the sidekicks team up with me, I’ll have back up if it gets too dangerous.”
“No way,” Hawks rejected. “There is no way in hell I’m going to let you interact with the demon again.” 
“Hawks please,” you pleaded, trying your best to explain the situation in a way he would understand. “I know he’s dangerous but…. I don’t know. I have a feeling that there’s more to this than what we’re thinking and if I can get an inside look-”
“No Y/n, he’s way too dangerous. I can’t let you put your life on the line like that. Not before you get a chance to show people what you’re made of.” 
“This is what heroes do,” you responded immediately, clenching your fists as you started your statement. “If going undercover means putting my life on the line, then okay, that’s why I became a hero. Everyday, we’re put in situations that could potentially get us killed but we were trained for this. That’s why we put ourselves out there. I will not claim the title of hero if I don’t put my own life on the line for those who might lose theirs. Please Hawks…” The worry in his eyes made you uneasy but you weren’t ready to back down. You knew what you had to do in order to help stop innocent people from dying. 
Hawks let out a deep sigh, strain completely audible in his tone. He looked up at you, then away, and then back at you again. “Why did you have to pull the hero card? I’m agreeing to this but I have a few conditions: 
1. Bakugou is to keep an eye on you the entire time. He is to be within a reasonable distance so he has enough time to help out if needed. 
2. Tokoyami will be the skyline view, coming in at second backup. And lastly,
3. If he touches you, hurts you, seems to be thinking of doing either of those things, you are to retreat immediately. If you fail to do so, I will have to step in and it will ruin our investigation. 
With all this being said, we will call this ‘Mission Hidden Angel’ and for safety reasons Y/N, you’re going to need to come up with a new hero name.” You saluted your boss, following your action by a bow. 
“Understood.” 
“You’re an idiot,” Bakugou spoke up, getting up from his seated position. 
“Maybe so, but this is the only thing I can think of. We can’t just take him in on assumption. All we know is that he’s the one person who’s consistently been spotted near the crime scenes which makes him a viable suspect. We just need a solid confession and we have our guy.” You placed your hand on Bakugou’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring gentle squeeze. “I’m counting on you.” 
Bakugou’s reaction was something you weren’t expecting. You thought for sure you saw his cheeks flush red but he pulled away, turning his back towards you before making his way out. 
“Whatever.” And with that, he left you alone with Hawks in his open office. You let out a deep breath, rebalancing yourself as you shook off Bakugou’s cold attitude. Hawks motioned for you to sit down, which you agreed to. 
“Are you sure about this Y/N?” Hawks seemed very hesitant about the idea, which you knew before you had even mentioned it. The history he has with this Dabi guy is more than what he had mentioned, you knew that deep within you. You could not be fooled by the light hearted joking or the awkward tension that filled the room when Dabi’s name was mentioned. “He’s dangerous. I mean yes, he’s linked to this case but he has multiple charges he’s facing. Anywhere from arson to a single murder. If we catch him on this, we can put him away for life, but with that, there’s a risk. He’s literally killed before based on emotional reaction.” 
“I know,” you sighed, waving your hand in reply to the comment. “But aren’t all villains dangerous?” 
“Yes but…” Hawks paused, his attention be drawn to the stack of papers on his desk. He shuffled through the stack, slipping out a packet and placing it in front of you. “This is all that I have on him.” 
“Hawks… Come on,” you frowned, flipping through the flimsy stack. “You’re kidding right?” He rolled his eyes, getting up from his spot behind the desk and making his way towards a bookshelf. 
“Nothing gets past you, huh?” He commented, pulling a file out from in between two rather large books. He threw the file in front of you, letting it hit the desk with a rather large thud. “This is my personal research. After he disappeared… I had to know what was going on and why he ran.”
“What was your relationship with him?” It just kind of slipped out like word vomit. You knew it was a long shot asking, but you couldn’t help yourself, you had to know.
Hawks was silent for what felt like forever, the only noise you could hear was the slight buzzing due to the caused silence. “We were friends, best friends actually. We hung out everyday at the facility we were being trained at.” 
“And he ran away before he could explain himself?” You asked, trying to piece the story Hawks was refusing to tell you. 
“He didn’t even say goodbye…” Hawks was in pain, from the loss of a friend and the discovery of a villain. His heart ached for the one person he felt close to way back then. Hawks was quick to recompose himself, sitting back down in his seat. “This is why I agreed for you to go undercover. If it is Dabi, then it’s gotta be more than just him acting out. I’m going to assume there’s an even bigger issue behind this all, Dabi being a puppet.” 
“And what if he’s not?” 
“Well then it’s no longer the Dabi I know.” 
‘Well then it’s no longer the Dabi I know,’ played repeatedly in your head on your way home that night. It had been a rather long day, a lot taking place within the few hours you worked on your first day. You had made quite the impact on the new people you worked with, meaning you had even bigger shoes to fill. You didn’t mind, nor did plan on back down. What you had ahead of you was much greater than what the surface was displaying. 
The way Hawks had talked about Dabi led you to believe that he was being affected by this more than anyone else. You didn’t want to believe that this Dabi guy was evil but as for now, you had to have your guard up. Something about him seemed… How do you put this… He gives off this pleading aura, and that’s what you wanted to find out. What exactly was he looking for? What was his aura trying to tell you? 
You had a hard time sleeping after reading up on Dabi’s file. You had stayed up until the early hours of the morning trying to obtain all the information that you could about this mysterious man you were about to investigate in secret.
“Birth name: Touya Todoroki. CLASSIFIED INFORMATION. Age: 24. Experimental duration before incident: 2 years.” They were trying to enhance his quirk? What the hell kind of experiment is that? “Birth Father: Pro Hero, Endeavor. CLASSIFIED.” The information you were reading made you believe that his own family didn’t know who he was, possibly assuming the death of the child when he was taken in for experiments. The more you read, the more it broke your heart. You could see why Hawks was so upset. You didn’t even know the guy and you felt the pain as if you did. 
You placed the rather large file on your side table, flipping the lights off so you could try to get a little rest before your long day of work the following day. As you drifted off into your REM state, all you could think about was the intense research Hawks did on one guy, knowing he had to go against a few rules to obtain some of the information. You wondered who all knew about this guy? Was it just you and Hawks? Or did your whole team know? 
The following morning, you were told to meet in the 18th floor conference room as soon as you entered the building. You were the first to arrive, being greeted by the rising sun that shined through the glass windows and the smell of brewing coffee that had to be coming from the break room next door. You decided to pop in for a cup yourself, being greeted by a literal man bird who was pouring himself a cup. “Good morning,” you greeted, slightly frightening the man in front of you. 
“Sorry, you scared me there. I didn’t think anyone else was here yet,” he replied, awkwardly laughing off his sudden reaction. “You must be Y/n. It’s nice to meet you, I’m Tokoyami, the other sidekick.” 
“Nice to meet you! Tell me, does Hawks just take likings to us bird people?” Tokoyami laughed, somewhat agreeing with your statement, joking alongside you. Finally, someone who wasn’t arrogant or rude. You let out a sigh of relief as you casually came up with small talk with your new coworker, taking a seat next to him in the conference room. 
Your small chit chat was cut short when Hawks bursted through the door, wearing a completely different hero outfit than yesterday. It was still the black and gold trim top and jogger style pants but this time he had a black coat matching the whole color scheme. Something about this new look made him appear more attractive? 
What the fuck? Y/N that’s your BOSS!
“Thank god you’re here,” Hawks huffed, out of breath like he had just run a marathon. 
“Are you okay? You’re like… extremely out of breath.” 
“I got an email this morning saying the new costumes were ready and I’m really excited to give you yours. Oh you’re going to look so cute!” He seemed to be a little overly excited about this, but you decided to humor him by acting just as excited. 
You pulled the outfit out of the bag he had placed on the table, revealing a whole new design. Black leotard with black leggings, black and gold knee high boots, the coat being solid black with a plaid white design. “They came up with all of this in a day?” You asked in disbelief, admiring the material in front of you. 
“Sure did! Now go change! Here Tokoyami, you got a new one too. We’re all gonna look so bad ass.” 
“Wait…” You confronted Hawks. “If we all match, isn’t that going to throw our investigation?” 
“Go change and come back and we’ll talk about the investigation. It’ll be fine!” He ushered you out of the room, closing the conference room door behind you. You let out a sigh, hoping Hawks had an idea that wouldn’t ruin the whole thing before it even started. Reluctantly, you made your way towards the locker room, changing into the new outfit Hawks had been so very excited about. It was very flattering, hugging your curves in all the right places. The holes in the back were designed to expand with the growth of your wings which you had tested out a few times in the locker room. You expanded them to their full 19 ft length, giving a few light flaps to test the stretch in the coat and shirt which complied greatly to your actions. 
You exited the locker room, being met with Bakugou who was stanced up on the opposite side of the wall. He was also dressed in a new outfit, similar to Hawks’ design, only being trimmed with orange rather than gold. “You look nice,” you commented, Bakugou replying with a grunt. 
“Uh your outfit suits you,” he stuttered, refusing to make eye contact. You felt your cheeks flare at the compliment, being flattered at the fact he complimented you. Bakugou could tell he caused your fluster, immediately reacting by walking back towards the conference room. 
“Hey wait up,” you asked, slightly jogging to keep up with him. “Thanks for waiting for me.” 
“As if,” he huffed. “I was sent to come get you. You’re the only one who wasn’t there.” You walked into the room together, taking your seat next to Tokoyami once again. Hawks covered his mouth, swelling with glee as he took a look at everyone in the room. 
“Wow you guys look so good!” 
“We got it, we got new costumes. Can we get on with the damn meeting already?” Bakugou spat, obviously annoyed by Hawks’ meaningless commentary. 
“Right, sorry mister bossy,” Hawks cleared his throat, taking a seat at the head of the table. There were a few others you had yet to meet that had joined the meeting, assuming they were either sidekicks or pro heroes. “Mission ‘Hidden Angel’ starts today. We are sending Y/n undercover, leaving her to investigate Dabi on her own. He has no idea she is linked to our agency so it’s the best option for us. The key to this mission Y/n is for you to get some sort of confession out of him. The necklaces or keychains I gave you are actually recording devices that will record up to 500 hours worth of time. Y/n is the only one who has come into physical contact with Dabi and it seems like he has taken quite the liking to her. Our job in all of this is to protect her. Your ear pieces are reprogrammed so that way we will be able to hear everything Y/n says and does without having an interference with our communication. Tsukuyomi and Bakugou, you are first responders to Y/n. Mirko and I will be on stand by if we need to make a quick escape.” 
“Okay but the costumes?” Mirko, the rabbit hero, spoke up, asking the question you had been uneasy about the entire meeting. “It’s obvious she works for you if she’s dressed like that.” 
“Heh-heh,” Hawks chuckled, pulling out yet another brown paper bag. “This is your disguise. The plan here is to get you to meet him again outside of your hero outfit.” The meeting was straightforward and to the point. You knew Hawks was going to go in depth with this case, knowing the history he shared with Dabi. You knew this was going to be one of the most important cases in your time, you didn’t want to let him down, knowing it was linked to a very big part of his past. “Alright. We leave after lunch. Please eat something this time guys. I don’t want anyone passing out this time cause they forgot to eat today.” 
You were about to follow the others out of the room when Hawks grabbed your arm, silently pleading for you to stay behind. He waited until the door closed before offering for you to take a seat. “I’m sorry but after I gave you that file…” 
“I haven’t told anyone,” you reassured before he could even ask. “I assumed it was personal information. I’m surprised you let me read it.” 
“You’re about to be involved with an old friend of mine. He’s dangerous, yes, but he has a kind heart. I wanted you to know the Dabi I knew rather than the one I talked about yesterday.” Hawks didn’t have to tell you how he felt, you knew he was blindly trusting you with one of the biggest secrets he has kept hidden for so long. 
You placed your hand on top of Hawks, trying your best of your ability to comfort him. His attention went from your hand to your eyes, a moment of silence filling the surrounding air. “Who are you?” he asked, completely unaware of what he had just said. “I mean.. Like.. Who is Y/n, ya know?” 
“To be honest, I don’t remember a lot before I was placed into foster care. I grew up in the local group home in my hometown, growing out of the system. When I was finally out, it was my chance to really figure out who I was so I took college courses and found out my quirk is a lot stronger than I anticipated it to be so I became a hero.” 
“How are you so caring, though?” You were taken back by the sudden question, unsure of how to approach such a broad question. 
“Um… How do I put this… Growing up, I didn’t have anyone. I wasn’t close to anyone in the home and so when I would go through something hard, I had to take care of myself. Now that I’m older and was forced to figure out who I was at such a young age, I told myself that instead of being angry at the world, I would put that energy into making sure people were okay. I want people to know that at least one person genuinely cares, because I do, I really can’t help it. That’s why I feel the need to know everyone on a personal level. It’s a blessing and curse to be honest.” Hawks hadn’t said anything once you had finished, he just… stared. It wasn’t blank, you could visibly make out how he was feeling. 
“It’s an honor to have someone like you on the team.” His smile was so genuine, so welcoming and warm. This was a new side of Hawks, it was like he was introducing himself to you all over again. “Well,” he said, standing up from his seat. He took a small bow, signaling for the door. “Shall we go, m’lady?” 
“Bout damn time.” Bakugou stood there as the door opened, looking annoyed just like always. “Can we go?” 
“Yes. I have to go change into this disguise really quick.” You waved at Hawks who was yelling in your direction to be safe and good luck with the mission. Bakugou stayed quiet as he escorted you to the locker rooms, waiting in the same spot as you exited. The outfit Hawks had picked out was something that you would’ve picked out yourself. “I think I like this better than my hero costume.” 
“Whatever. Can we go now?” 
“Bakugou?” You asked, noticing the change in his tone. Something was off and you knew he wasn’t going to tell you what it was. You could feel the energy shift around you, intimidated by the side of Bakugou you had yet to encounter. “Are you okay?” 
“I’m fine,” he lightly responded. 
“No you’re not.” 
“Listen,” he turned around, the loss in his temper vigilant. Before you knew it, your back hit the wall, Bakugou towering over you. You could feel his hot breath tickle your cheeks, your anxiety level rising by the little distance he had created between you. “I’m good. I’m fine. I’m doing fan-fucking-tastic. We have a mission that I would like to get over with.” 
“Whatever Bakugou,” you sighed, trying to push him away. He didn’t budge, keeping his dominant stance over you. 
“I have one mission today and that is to keep you safe. If you fuck this up, I’m going to be pissed.” Something about that statement seemed so off to you. Like the way he worded it was different than how he normally communicates with you. 
He released himself from you, making his way back down the hall without saying another word to you. You were frozen in place, trying to piece together what was going through Bakugou’s head. 
“What are you about, Bakugou?”
......
A/N: what do you all think of adding clothing references? this is a test run for it so let me know!!! also, i started a tag list :) dm or comment if you want to be added!
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Y/N’s hero outfit // Y/N’s disguise
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hotchley · 3 years
Text
“i’m not a five foot hundred pound girl”
yes i’m using his most iconic quotes as the titles, in my head it was a smart idea
morehotchcontent2020 day one: dad hotch (a lazy day at home with jack)
tagged: @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety
“don’t give me that look young man, i told you when i bought them that i was going to hide them. you need a break. and i know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”
jack opened his mouth to protest.
“cheat day,” hotch said with a grin before jack could even formulate an argument.
when upcoming exams cause jack large amounts of stress and sadness, hotch takes it upon himself to make their saturday a little more hopeful and a lot more relaxed
note: I am on season ten, but am aware of certain events in later seasons which may be poorly referenced because i don’t know the actual context, it’s not very relevant to the plot so just go with it it’s fine.
warnings: implied/referenced child abuse
read on ao3!
“You’re up early,” Hotch commented, when Jack entered the kitchen at nine in the morning on a Saturday. He wasn’t trying to be annoying, or make his son feel angry, but he was curious. And a little concerned. He wasn’t an idiot. And just because he’d retired, did not mean he’d forgotten how to profile. Or hear. Jack had been stressed recently. And last night, he’d been pacing his room.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Jack said by way of explanation.
Hotch made a non-committal sound. It was one of those moments where he just felt so out of his depth. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, putting his book down.
Jack shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean compared to the things that you must’ve been subjected to as a child, it’s nothing.”
Hotch winced, remembering how he’d wanted to keep certain aspects of his childhood from Jack, which had worked until Jack started high school and wanted to know why there weren’t any photos of him with his family around. Hotch had wanted to lie, but too much had happened and it wasn’t fair of him to do that. Instead, he’d spoken to Jack’s therapist, who said that as long as he kept it appropriate, it would help Jack learn to open up as well.
“Buddy, you know I never want you to feel like that. My childhood was decades ago. If something is bothering you, then it’s bothering you. And you can talk to me about it. But you don’t have to. I just wanted to know, that’s all.”
“I just- it’s the exams. There’s so many of them and there’s so much content and I feel like I don’t any of it and it’s stressing me out because I saw the kind of qualifications you need to get into the FBI and I don’t want to disappoint you but I just feel like I’m going to fail and then everyone will be mad at me because I’m supposed to be smart, and then I won’t be able to do anything in life and I’ll just be a failure,” Jack said, voice cracking on the last words.
“Oh Jack. You could never disappoint me. Ever. I’m your dad. That love isn’t conditional. It never has been and it never will be. All I want is for you to do your best,” Hotch said, setting his mug down and moving closer to his son. He didn’t extend his arms, not yet sure whether or not Jack wanted comfort.
Jack was like his mother: he never learnt to hide his emotions because he never felt he had to. But Aaron was no longer Agent Hotchner, he was Jack’s dad. And that meant no profiling. And whilst he was aware that there was a difference between actively profiling someone and knowing their tells, sometimes the line blurred. He didn’t want it to blur.
“But what if- what if I do my best and it isn’t good enough?” Jack whispered.
Hotch couldn’t take it. He hugged Jack, just about managing to cradle the back of his head. When had he gotten so tall?
“Buddy. Your best when you’re under pressure and in test conditions is never going to be the same as your best when you’re relaxed. But what you do then will be your best in the moment. And that’s enough. I promise,” Hotch soothed.
Jack let out another muffled sob, and the two of them stood there whilst Jack finally let the stress that had been building inside him for weeks now, out. Hotch let his son cry. He needed this. They both did. Jack needed to know he was good enough, and that nothing was going to change that. Hotch needed to know his son still trusted him. Hotch wasn’t an idiot. The anniversary of hard times was coming up.
“I’m sorry for ruining your jumper,” Jack mumbled when he pulled away, wiping at his eyes.
Hotch looked down at it. It was well-worn now, as he had realised that wearing jumpers round the house was so much more comfortable than a button-down, and he no longer had any reason to be parading around in a suit, because all he had to do now was be a dad.
“You haven’t ruined it. You’ve added character,” Hotch joked.
Jack laughed, but it sounded forced.
“I meant what I said,” Hotch said, tone serious.
“I know. I just—I don’t know. Needed to hear that.”
“Do you know what else you need?” Hotch asked.
Jack shook his head. “But I bet you’re about tell me, aren’t you?”
Hotch nodded, walking over to the cupboard full of baking things- yes, he had taken up baking after he retired, and no, he wasn’t proud of himself for googling things to do once you’ve retired from the FBI- and pulling out a packet of chocolate chips.
“Don’t give me that look young man, I told you when I bought them that I was going to hide them. You need a break. And I know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest.
“Cheat Day,” Hotch said with a grin before Jack could even formulate an argument.
Every month, Hotch and Jack were entitled to two cheat days each. And on those days, they were exempt from doing any cleaning, cooking, homework, whatever tasks needed doing because they needed a break. All they had to do was remember to take their medication and eat. They also had the power to call one for the other if they deemed it necessary. And sometimes, they would do it together.
Jack rolled his eyes, already feeling a little better now he knew he was getting pancakes. “Fine.”
Hotch smiled. “Why don’t you get out of those jeans and into some pyjamas then?”
Jack ran up the stairs to do just that. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d put them on in the first place, but studytubers always said that it was better to study in real clothes so you would actually be productive. That was why he’d woken up early; he could cram more.
When he came back into the kitchen, now dressed in that old worn pair of Captain America pyjamas that still fit him and were the comfiest thing he owned, his dad was already plating up the pancakes. He’d put extra syrup, extra whipped cream and an obscene amount of various candies on the plate he pushed towards Jack.
“We’ll eat, and then we’re going to watch one of those comfort films you love. And then we’re going to do something relaxing, have pizza for lunch because Dave sent me this new recipe, then you’re going to take a bath and have a nap because you clearly need sleep. And then for dinner, I’m thinking mac and cheese. From the box but with the extra cheese, the way you like it,” Aaron said with a grin.
Jack smiled at him, a small lump forming in his throat. Oh.
“Thanks dad,” he whispered, not trusting himself to say any more than that.
After they ate their pancakes- Jack ended up finishing Hotch’s, who had claimed that he finally needed to start listening to the doctor- Jack went to the living room to pick his film, whilst Hotch went upstairs to grab the pillows and duvets from their rooms so they could be as cosy as possible.
It was halfway through Anastasia- they had already watched the original versions of Beauty and the Beast, as well as part of Cinderella before he’d changed his mind- when Jack couldn’t take it any longer. He stopped the film and turned to face his dad.
“Is everything okay?” Hotch asked, eyes bleary as he’d accidentally started napping.
“Dad, I love you. That’s not conditional,” Jack said.
“I know that buddy,” Hotch said.
“And you also know that I was the only senior that got dropped off by their parent this year, right?”
Hotch nodded. “People weren’t rude about that, were they?”
“No. You know why? Because you’re my dad. And I love you. So you don’t need to call a cheat day just because you want to spend time with me. You can just ask. I won’t ever say no,” Jack said.
Hotch rapidly blinked away tears. “I didn’t want to make you feel guilty. And I’m supposed to be your parent. That means not dumping my problems on you.”
Jack laughed. “Dad, we don’t- we’re not normal. We don’t have the same relationships as the other families and that’s fine. I like that. I like that I can just throw a book at your head and you’ll read it to me. And I like that you let me take the bus home from my therapy sessions, no matter how much it hurts you. I don’t like seeing you upset, but I appreciate you being honest and teaching me it’s okay to cry. You’re not dumping your problems on me, I’m asking.”
Hotch pushed Jack’s fringe off his face. “When did you get so wise?”
Jack grinned. “I had some pretty good role models. There was Uncle Spence telling me about constellations, there was Uncle Der telling me about dating, Aunt Em and Uncle Dave who told me what Megan Kane said to you- which was actually pretty funny- and let’s not forget Aunt JJ and Aunt Penny just being cool.”
Hotch raised an eyebrow slightly.
“I’m joking. I got wise because I had you. I know you feel like you failed, but you haven’t. I wouldn’t be here if you had. You know that. So spill, old man, before I call Aunt Penny and tell her that you’re going to make mac and cheese from box.”
Hotch’s mouth turned downwards. Jack was right. It was morbid, but George Foyet would have killed Jack if he’d found him. There was no doubt about that. “I just- I want to give you your space, and let you grow up and become an adult, but I’m scared that when that happens, you’re going to leave and not come back because you’ll stop looking at me like a hero and realise I destroyed everything good in your life. I mean, I’m doing that right now. You’re stressed about exams and I’m making it worse by rambling about my own stupidity.”
Jack’s suspicions had been correct. “Dad, I stopped viewing you as a hero when you had to have surgery for your scars and almost died. That was the moment I realised you were mortal. The moment I realised you were flawed was when Aunt Jess started ranting about how you handled a situation the wrong way. I’m not leaving any time soon. But when I do, I’ll always come back, because this apartment is my home.”
“You’re so much like your mother. She always knew how to calm me down,” Hotch said.
“It’s a gift. Now, that’s enough emotion. Can we please finish the film and make the pizza? I’m getting hungry.”
Hotch smiled, that soft smile, reserved only for his son, and pressed play. Jack shifted so his head was resting in his dad’s lap. Almost subconsciously, Hotch started running his hand through it, mimicking the motions of years ago, when they were running late and there wasn’t enough time to brush it properly.
They ended up burning the pizza because Hotch claimed he didn’t need his reading glasses but then set the temperature to 475F instead of 450F. Jack found it funny, and when he went upstairs to wash his hands as Hotch answered the door for take-out, he texted Uncle Dave, and got a serious of words his dad would give him the Hotchner Glare for in response.
As they sat on the carpet, some old romcom Haley and Aaron had loved as teenagers on in the background, Jack was grateful that his dad was who he was. Yes, there were still nights where Jack woke up screaming and there were mornings where Hotch would have dark circles under his eyes, shaky hands and an aversion to touch, but there were also moments like these where they were just a father-son duo, eating slices of pizza and laughing at some stupid joke they were telling.
Jack’s friends were all out shopping, watching movies, going on dates, falling in and out of love in the blink of an eye, and being teenagers. Hotch had worried for so long that he’d taken Jack’s ability to be normal and do things like that away.
It was that evening, when he saw the way Jack’s eyes light up at the sight of the boxed macaroni and cheese, not burnt but with extra cheese, that he realised he hadn’t. It had been Jack’s decision to stay in that weekend.
Because there was nowhere else he would rather be.
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