#//it's been a super long time so i no longer remember if you ever get to see the inside of the elevator ride down

[alchemistc]

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Tommy's the kind of asshole who checks his phone at the table in the middle of a first date, now.

In his defence, it hasn't been a great first date. And not in any sort of charming way, either.

In his defence, he's been waiting on this text for what feels like longer than it actually has been (four weeks, three days - he feels stupid admitting he's got a rough estimate of the hours too, but the point is he's been waiting. Hoping. Took this invitation to dinner as an attempt to remind himself he was the one who walked out.)

Tommy is absolutely the kind of asshole who glances up from his lap to find his date staring at him with his jaw clenched and doesn't bother to make more of an excuse than "Sorry, family thing, I gotta go."

Tommy's the kind of asshole who drops three twenties on the table and doesn't bother to say goodbye as he winds his way through tables - this place was pretentious as fuck, anyway - and pushes through the rotating door.

He's not even halfway to his truck when his phone displays an incoming call.

The last time he'd seen that name flash across his screen he'd been - well, he'd been a ball of nerves for all of five seconds before a winded voice had asked him to commit some light treason and Tommy had hopped to.

"Evan. Hey."

He remembers Evan had always thought he was so cool, and he sort of wishes Evan could see him now, with sweaty palms and a nervous hitch to his step as he twists around the wire fencing that will lead him to the truck he'd dropped thirty-five bucks to park, in this stupid downtown lot for this stupid date that hadn't distracted him for a minute at the stupid restaurant that only served tapas and hipster whiskey.

His voice is a little tremulous, a little off. "Hi Tommy."

Tommy doesn't waste time. He's done enough of that, and Evan sounds - Jesus he sounds awful. Sad, deep in his bones. Tired. A little out of it. "Everything okay?"

"I did have feelings for you. When I said that. I - It was such a shitty thing to say and I realized I never apologized for it even though I meant to and...and I did. I do, still, really."

It's the kind of opening Tommy couldn't have dreamt up in a million years. It's solid proof that Evan has worked it over in his mind at least half as many times as Tommy, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, how he'd ruined it so quickly when everything he'd been a sad sack about pretending he didn't want had been right there, ready for the taking. When he'd done that devastating bambi-eyed, through the lashes glance up, even though they were the same fucking height, and Tommy had stuck his foot in his mouth so badly he'd knocked out a couple teeth.

"Okay. I -."

Whatever he'd have come up with in that moment escapes his brain a second later when Evan continues.

"Which is why what I wanted to ask you may be, like, super awkward."

Tommy's a little grateful to find his truck is only two spaces from where he is at the moment. Has to bite back the sharp deprecating laugh when he realizes this is another fucking favor, not a goddamn reconciliation. He left a date for this.

A bad one.

But still.

"Okay." Clipped is a good term for the way the word comes out of his mouth. He's already wincing before he's even finished saying it, because if he can tell Evan's hurting from his voice alone, surely Evan can tell from his own tone that he's...annoyed. In pain. Wishing he could rip the memory of Evan Buckley from the spot it's nestled beneath his ribcage, where he can't shake it loose.

Evan's quiet for a long, long moment. They'd been great at getting immediately horny any time there was even a hint of strife. Not so easy to do when they haven't been together now for longer than they ever were. "I was wondering if I could borrow your truck on Tuesday."

And that's - that's a fairly reasonable request, as far as the 118 standard goes. Still makes him want to cry, a little.

"Can I ask why?"

"It's... Uh...?" The pause lasts long enough that Tommy has to check and make sure Evan's still on the line. His next words are quieter, but he can hear the tremble in them. Has to bite down the urge to make himself a shield against whatever it is that has him so emotional. Not his job, anymore. If it ever even had been.

The farther removed he is from all of this, the more he wonders if he really had imagined the connection between them. How the intimate moments felt charged with more than a desire to rip each other's clothes off, how the silly moments had felt like the prologue of a long and happy story.

"It's fine, Evan. I'll, uh - have to check my schedule but I think I can make it work."

He's free Tuesday. He and his truck both are. But maybe... Maybe this has run its course. Maybe Tommy will have to make more of an effort, his next bad first date.

"Eddie's moving back," Evan says, and there's a weird twist to his voice, a quirk around the name Tommy doesn't recognize. He'd always said "Eddie" with the kind of reverence Tommy couldn't fully grasp, a superhero and a confidante all rolled up in the lazy smirk and cow-brown eyes of a man Tommy had no hope of beating out on the Important To Evan Buckley scale. But if Tommy had to put a description to it, Evan kind of spits the name, now. "And until I can figure out a place to stay I need to get a few things in storage quickly. I just thought - it was stupid. Obviously it's short notice, and you shouldn't feel obligated to -."

"My spare room is empty," Tommy says. Tommy lies, more accurately. It's currently storing all the renovation shit he's been accumulating since the breakup turned him into an insane person pretending he knows a damn thing about fixing up a house.

This pause seems to hold a little more weight to it.

"...okay?" And there's - there's something there, in his voice, sun warm and yellow, bacon cooling on a paper towel and eggs still not plated while Evan swallowed and asked the one question Tommy had been hoping he wouldn't ask.

"I just meant - why spend the money on a storage unit, right?"

"Tommy."

"Let me check my schedule. I can get back to you. If Tuesday works, we can just - we can figure it out from there."

"Tommy."

And that's his "you're spiralling" voice. Tommy hadn't heard it often. Too busy trying to be as cool as his shiny new boyfriend thought he was. Too busy choking down the urge to sink a knife into his ribcage and carve out his heart to hand it over.

"I'll let you know by tomorrow morning," Tommy promises, and before he lets his words get away from him he ends the call.

Jesus fuck.

Hell.

What the fuck?

---

Tommy's so frayed with nerves he spends the entire drive slowly wearing a groove into the side of his cheek. By the time he makes it to the quiet street and sees Evan's Jeep parked on the curb, gate open and already stuffed full of boxes Tetris-style, he feels like he might just fucking explode.

It makes the terse, perfunctory head nod from Eddie on his way up the paved path just that much more confusing. That much more frustrating. He's got a set of keys swinging from his fingers, and doesn't even glance behind him as Evan pops the door open with a hip and stacks a box on top of two others already sitting in the porch.

There's clearly more going on here than Tommy is privy to.

"You aren't helping?" It's an innocent question. He doesn't even mean anything by it. Across the yard, Evan goes tense. Halfway down the drive, Eddie goes still, and swivels his gaze to Tommy.

"No one asked me to." By the stoop, Evan tips his gaze down, suddenly incredibly interested in whatever the label on the box he just set down says. He seems small. Not the man who'd guided him backwards up the lawn with so much tongue Tommy hadn't realized where he was until they were already inside. Not the man who'd confidently held a funeral for a long dead cowboy and roped Tommy into it without a care in the world that Tommy didn't believe in ghosts.

"Well, if anyone else was subletting you'd probably have had to give them more than a weeks notice to pack up their shit and leave, so I figured you'd be helping," Tommy says, because whatever the hell is going on with Eddie's face right now has him ready to raise locked wrists to chin height.

Eddie's tongue rolls along the inside of his cheek. "Buck says he's got it."

Knife, meet tension.

Tommy's always been more of a blunt instrument.

"Right."

"Didn't realize 'got it' meant calling in a favor with his ex, but hey, I haven't been around, in a while."

"Do we have a problem, Diaz?"

Eddie levers himself into the driver's seat of a vehicle that very distinctly isn't his truck. "Lot of that going around, at the moment."

That stone-faced look from the funeral is back on Evan's face.

Tommy's fist are clenched. He doesn't have a clue when that happened, or why it takes quite so much effort to shake his fingers loose.

Eddie clocks it. Stares for a long, long moment. Slams the door closed and backs out of the drive a little quicker than advisable, if the glare from the neighbor watering her hydrangeas is anything to go by.

He doesn't quite peel off down the street, but it seems like it takes him some effort to drive like a responsible adult.

Evan doesn't meet his gaze when he lopes across the lawn to meet him at the door.

He's gotta break the silence somehow. "So. Diaz seems pissed at me."

"It's not you."

"Uhuh."

"It's - I said something he -." Evan frowns. Twists a finger up into the slack of the tape along the top of one box. "Same old story. Buck makes it all about himself."

Tommy's missing something.

Tommy absolutely doesn't have the right to pry.

"What the hell does that mean?" Tommy asks, and watches the marble crumble.

---

It takes a day and a half to get everything out of Eddie's. Another half a day to stuff whatever they can into Tommy's bare spare room.

He'd bought a shed and stuffed the contents of his reno-supplies into it indiscriminately two nights earlier, at the ass end of three 24's from hell, and throws up an ironic thanks that Evan hadn't come by nearly often enough to be surprised by the new shed, or the dozen half-finished projects littering the house.

Tommy learns a lot of things that make him want to scream, over the course of the four-day span they squeeze that moving timeframe into.

It takes everything in him not to shoulder-check Eddie on the way out, once the final box is loaded into the bed of Tommy's truck.

He'd given them some privacy, before they left. Hopeful that Eddie would back down from this escalating argument of theirs, hopeful that he'd remember that his best fucking friend had sacrificed a hell of a lot, to allow him to move to El Paso. That he'd lost more since.

Evan hadn't spoken, the entire drive back to Tommy's.

He asks Evan out to coffee a moment before he offers to let him sleep on the couch until he finds something more permanent.

He should be less surprised than he is when they end up naked and sweaty and panting in his bed an hour later.

"We have to stop doing this."

Evan bites a nipple, and Tommy hisses.

"I'm serious, Evan. I can't do casual with you."

That gives him Evan's full attention. "What does that mean?"

"It means when I sleep with you I'm definitely having feelings for you."

He regrets the comment. Evan blows a raspberry into his sternum, and rolls onto his side to take in Tommy's expression. It's gotta be - well, it's gotta be a fucking mess. Just an absolute shit show of terror at having revealed too much. "I deserved that one."

Tommy smooths a hand over his shoulder. "You didn't, actually." After what he's been hearing about his friends and family, lately, Tommy's suddenly very aware of the words coming out of his mouth. "What I was trying to dance around is telling you I want to try again, and I don't want to fuck it up by falling into bed without actually...talking about it."

Evan snorts. Hitches his leg a little higher across Tommy's thigh. Yeah. Too late for that.

"I baked, to stop thinking about you. I baked cookies, and brownies, and three kinds of bread, and a Baked Alaska, and twelve different banana bread recipes, and - and it didn't change the fact that all I wanted to do was talk to you. See your face when you pull that stupidly bitchy look every time I don't know one of your references. Hold your hand and - and just be somewhere with you. Didn't matter where, I just...wanted. And I couldn't have it. So I baked."

"You made a Baked Alaska?"

"Tommy," Evan chides, but there are tears springing to the corner of Tommy's eyes and -

God he'd fucked this up so royally.

"Move in with me," Tommy says, the hysteria bubbling up in his throat, and he swallows it down, and down, and down again, because as the words settle under his skin, he realizes they feel right. What Evan had wanted, all those months ago, he'd wanted it too. He'd just been so fucking sure it would destroy him, in the end.

He's so goddamn tired of denying that what he really wants is for the rest of his life to be storied by memories of the man at his side, right here in this moment.

It's terrible timing. The worst idea. They're both rung out emotionally, grief and anger and insecurities bubbling just under the surface, ready to rise and make their lives miserable the moment they leave this bubble.

They haven't talked about any of it, not really.

"I'm serious. Why be apart, and all that?"

"Tommy."

The way his name curls out of Evan Buckley's mouth is like a favorite song. He never gets tired of hearing it.

Even when it's exasperated and confused. "I'm in love with you," Tommy murmurs, because his streak of insanity clearly hasn't passed. Evan's breath hitches. The worst part is that it's true. In a way he doesn't know how to quantify. He'd do a hell of a lot more than steal government property, for this man. He'd stay, for this man, at the risk of destroying his entire soul.

"Don't ask me because you feel sorry I'm technically homeless." It's an out. Teed up and ready for Tommy to swing. Tommy goes for the bunt.

"Pretty sure that was more of a demand than a question. You can say no."

Evan peeks through his lashes, chin tipped against Tommy's chest. "What if you change your mind?"

Well. That's a sore subject. Should have expected that.

Tommy slips a hand down his side. Gathers up his hand to slide their fingers together. "I won't. Believe me, at this point I've tried."

There's a quirk to Evans smile he hasn't seen in a long time. He's missed it. God, he's missed it.

This doesn't fix anything. Not a damn thing.

But Tommy doesn't want him to spend a single night going forward wondering whether or not he's worth all the trouble the rest of his family seems to have made him feel he is.

They'd been there, before. Right on the edge of something serious. Something permanent.

They can get it back.

"You're being serious," Evan comments, like he needs the confirmation just to make sure he's not hallucinating. Tommy hooks one of his legs, rolls until Evan is half under him.

"Baked Alaska serious," he intones, just to see Evan laugh.

"Where am I gonna put my bike rack?" he asks, after a serious, weighty pause, and Tommy presses in to suck Evans lower lip between his teeth in retaliation.

[seasprincess]

JJ fic. I'm thinking sweet smut. Like almost goofy because that's just who he is, rarely super serious. And he and reader just know each other so well that things can be goofy, even during sex and neither of them care. Unprotected (if you're good with that). Then maybe reader finds out she's pregnant. Worried to tell JJ. But he's so thrilled.

bf!jj

a/n: I loveeed this ask

warnings: smut, pregnancy, unprotected s3x (wrap it pookies), brain rot.

“Have you got a condom?” As soon as the words leave your mouth the blonde, that’s on top of you, head pops up. He looks at you slightly confused. His hands stoping the rubbing against your lacy panties.

“I thought you were bringing them?” JJ says, his blue eyes looking into yours as he suddenly remembers.

He was supposed to bring them.

“Fuck sake.” He sighs as he runs his head, this isn’t the first time he’s had to run out and buy them during this intimate moments. He just a forgetful guy.

“Fuck it.” You say, not even thinking about it twice. You need this. He’s been touching you for too long. “You’ve been edging me f-“

“Edging.” He cuts off with a little snort and a smile. He’s so unserious it’s insane.

“Stop.”

“Sorry.”

You look up at him and lean up, pressing your soft lips against his. Slowly his slips his tongue into your mouth as his hands continue to touch, rub and caress you. He’s being soft today.

But the way he’s fiddling with the zipper of his jeans is not soft nor slow. Of course it gets stuck, and he’s just there trying to rip it open. Trying to unjam it with some huffs and puffs.

While he’s doing that you’re pulling down your panties, the fold air against your core making you flinch a bit. Before you lay back down and he lays back on top of you.

“Are you sure?” He asks as he looks at you. This isn’t the first time you’ve done it without protection but every time he checks. Make sure you’re certain.

“Yes.” You say with a nod of your head. You just can’t wait any longer.

Slowly JJ enters your cunt, your tight walls sucking him in as you let at a moan. JJ jokes about his size to everyone. Saying how big he is. But they weren’t jokes.

“Fuck mama. So tight.” He says before placing a kiss on your neck. His thrusts picking up. His hand coming to your neck, not to choke you. But to make it easier to pick up his speed. “Such a good girl.”

Your walls clench around him as your eyes screw shut. Whimpers filling the space of your bedroom.

“Please don’t stop.” You breathe out as you instinctively grab onto the duvet, knuckles turning white as you look at him. His stupid face smirking down at you before reattaching to your neck.

His face practically lives there now. Hes always kissing and sucking on your neck.

JJ’s free hand slips between your legs and starts rubbing. Rubbing that sensitive bud of yours. His cock twitching inside your pussy.

It doesn’t take long for both you and JJ to cum. His thrust slowing down as he looks at you.

Both of you panting before the blonde just has to open his stupid mouth.

“That was so skibidi.”

“Oh my god.”

You can’t believe it.

‘This can’t be real.’ You think to yourself as you look at those two lines. The two lines that can either be a blessing or a curse.

You don’t know how long you’ve been sat on the bath mat of your bathroom. I mean you can’t have a baby. Can you? You’re only eighteen living at your parents house dating a guy who only recently learnt the difference between there, their and they’re.

You can’t be parents.

You just can’t.

“Baby I’m here to hang.” The sound interrupts your thoughts. the very guy you were just thinking about. Knocking a tune on your bathroom door.

You sniff and dry your eyes, trying to get rid of any sign that you were crying.

But JJ heard everything.

“Hey, yn? You okay?” His concern is evident in his tone. He cares about you more than you’d ever know.

The bathroom door slowly opens and your eyes meet the blondes. Slowly making his way to you, crouching down and placing his hands on your knees. You’re silent. You can’t speak. Don’t know what to say if you were to open your mouth.

So you just hold the test.

JJ’s eyes follow your gaze to the test. His breath catching in the back of his throat.

You want to know how he feels, is he angry? Upset? Disappointed?

Actually he’s none of them.

“I’m going to be a dad?” He says excitedly. Immediately you look at him. Shocked by this response. He’s happy?

“Yeah.” You say quietly.

“I’m going to be a dad!” He says louder and takes off his hat before standing up. Pacing the bathroom and smiling. Yapping about all the things he’s going to do. How excited he is to have a child.

You should’ve never been worried. You’re going to be parents.

[mechsangel]

dating , ft. itoshi sae

i. acts cold, but he's so whipped

sae isn't the type to shower you with compliments, but he shows his love in subtle actions

remembers everything—your favorite drink, the way you like your ramen, even the fact that you always lose your socks

if you get cold, he'll throw his jacket at you without a word. if you try to thank him, he just shrugs. "don't be dumb. you'll get sick."

if you tell him you love him, his response is always a quiet “i know”. but on rare occasions, when he's really soft, he'll murmur back, “love you too.”

ii. he's not big on PDA—except when he's jealous

sea doesn't like public affection—no hand-holding, no kissing in front of others. but the second someone flirts with you?

he'll casually wrap an arm around your waist, and say in his usual deadpan voice, “they're taken. try harder next time.”

if someone really doesn't get the hint, he'll stare them down until they leave

iii. he shows love through small gestures

sends you texts like “eat.” or “don't stay up too late.” instead of actual sweet messages

if you complain, he'll roll his eyes but later send something like “i guess i don't want you collapsing or something.” (his version of: i care about you)

if he sees you're stressed, he'll silently hand you your favorite snack. he won't say anything, just sit beside you until you feel better

iv. he's secretly super soft when it's just you two

when it's just the two of you, his walls come down

will lay his head in your lap after a long day of training and let you play with his hair

if you initiate a hug, he'l grumble at first but will always hold onto you for longer than necessary

the kind of boyfriend who will pull you closer in his sleep but deny it in the morning

v. he's blunt, but he never lies to you

sae doesn't sugarcoat things. if you ask for his opinion, expect brutal honesty.

“that outfit is terrible. i'm not letting you go out like that.”

but if you look good? he won't say it directly, just smirks and stares a little too long before muttering, “hurry up before i change my mind and keep you here.”

vi. he'll always put soccer first, but you're a close second

soccer is his life, and he won't pretend otherwise

if he's away for games, he won't text much, but when he does it's always something unexpectedly sweet

“scored a goal today. thought you'd want to know” (which is basically his way of saying i was thinking about you)

if you ever doubt your relationship, he'll just look at you and say, “i chose to be with you. that should be enough.”

vii. he's unintentionally romantic

would never plan extravagant dates, but somehow, the small things he does feel more intimate

if you fall asleep on the couch, he'll carry you to bed without waking you up

when he's overseas, he always brings you something back—even if it's just a keychain or a snack from another country

“it looked stupid, so i got it for you” (translation: i saw this and thought of you)

viii. he'll never say it, but he needs you

sae is used to being alone, but with you, it's different

he won't ask for affection, but if you pull him into a hug, he'll sigh and melt into it—like he's been waiting for it all day

you're the only person he lets see his vulnerable side

[blueskilled]

"None so grand as our own, I assure you," Cyrano barked the reply proudly, almost puffing out his chest. "You will find that Blueberry Academy is, in a great many ways, quite advanced compared to the schools of other regions. As a matter of fact, I make it a personal goal to ensure it."

The director turned on his heel and led Silva to the elevator, making a minor adjustment to his hat despite the fact the thing hadn't even budged on his head the whole time. A habit perhaps, or just a tic of pride since he seemed to be absolutely swelling with it, like a balloon being filled up with just a little too much air.

"Here at Blueberry Academy, we recognize the importance of teaching our students independence and responsibility for themselves, so we have implemented our own currency system that works as a reward for the amount of hard work that a student puts in to their studies. Students complete Blueberry Quests and other achievements during their classes in order to receive a predetermined amount of Blueberry Points which they can then spend in the school store, contribute to clubs, and use in other ways to better their experience here. How much they work to earn these are up to the students themselves, but with all thins, busy bees are often put ahead of the game. Though that isn't to say success or failure hinges on ones dedication to BP. Far from it."

As they descended deeper into the school, the world seemed to change around them to fit the new environment, the entire look of the school seeking to compliment its futuristic nature and live in harmony with the aquatic scenes surrounding it. Depending on the student it could be either terrifying or breathtaking but either way it usually got an exaggerated reaction from anyone seeing it for the first time. Just another element of the academy that Cryano had a deep affinity for.

" adjustments...? tu what! what are yu trying tu adjust? isn't that yur jub is it it 'miss briar's? whu's she? i really like her name! "

that liked learning people's names, and everyone was just so nice!! especially in somewhere like unova. sure there were some bad eggs--and even they were okay!! she just probably got off on the wrong foot, she could always be someone's friend anyway--but on the whole this place was great!!

...and way less stressful than kalos. not that she didn't love home...but she hadn't been there in so long. she hoped it hadn't changed too much.

" uuhhh! sure! that sunds fun, and i'm hungry. " she looked at the pass, squinting at it, then turning her gaze back to the other.

" i'm silva! bagatella silva!! nice tu meet yu!! but in the names. what kinda ecunumy dues a schul have? i've never really went tu schul. "

[brattyspence]

hellllllllooooo! i've had this idea for awhile and nobody else has done it when i've requested it ? pretty much spencer is super old fashioned (as everyone has seen in the show) but he kinda takes it to the next level by making a sex tape with reader on a video camera because he doesn't wanna use his phone!! and it could start off with spencer taking pictures of reader on a polaroid camera because she's wearing pretty lingerie and he wants to capture the moment :)) have a great day !!

take a picture, it'll last longer | s.reid

summary: spencer is welcomed home from a case by reader's new lingerie set, and he decides to take a picture to capture the memory.. tags: suggestive fluff, reader wears lingerie, uhhhhhh. taking nudes. not beta read a/n: hi anon sorry this took 12 years to publish and also sorry that it sucks and only hits part of your request. i'm not ready to write actual smut again idt but were getting there. love u and thank u for requesting! word count: 700+ masterlist

You were only half listening to his ramblings as you stepped backwards into the doorway of the bedroom. 

“You wouldn't-” kiss “believe how-” kiss “rare this-” kiss “kind of case is,” he rambled. His fingertips pressed against your hips, guiding you backwards. With a final step, you felt the back of your knees brush the bed, and with practiced ease, you found yourself suddenly hoisted up, falling back against the comforter. 

“Mhm,” you mumbled. He swiftly kicked off his shoes, and then removed with watch with a single motion, tossing it somewhere on the nightstand. You felt the bed dip underneath you as he climbed over you, his nose brushing yours to encourage you to tilt your head back.

“And it was truly-” kiss “a complete improbability that-” kiss “we caught him when we did.”

You were growing impatient with his ramblings. Spencer had been away for four days, somewhere in rural Ohio, and you'd had ample time to clean the apartment, wash the bedsheets, shop for a new matching set, and then finish the day with the longest shower you'd had in recent memory. You were scrubbed and lotioned and done up just for him, and he was taking his time.

“Yeah?” You replied, linking your arms over his shoulders. 

“Yeah,” he nodded, this time trailing his kisses down your jaw and along the side of your neck. “Because statistically-”

“Spence,” you whined. “Come on.”

“I'm getting there,” he chuckled. He let his fingertips trail up and down your thighs for a moment. 

“Taking too long,” you huffed. 

“And when-” kiss “have I ever not made that worth your while?”

“But there's a surprise,” you huffed. You looked up at him, a hint of a pout on your lips, which was only met with another soft chuckle. 

His fingertips trailed further up your side this time, leaving a path of goosebumps in their wake, stopping when they met the lace edge of your bra. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly in acknowledgment. The palms of his hands warmed your skin.

“This surprise?”

You nodded emphatically, pulling your lower lip between your teeth as he thumbed over the fabric for another moment, his eyes still locked on you in thought.

In an instant, he drew your shirt over your head, letting the fabric fall to the floor somewhere. His hands settled back into their spot against your hips, his touch still warm and possessive. 

“You don't want to see the bottoms?” You asked.

After a moment, his fingers looped around your waistband, gently tugging away the fabric of your shorts and again discarding them somewhere to the abyss that was the bedroom floor. He watched you carefully, studying eyes working to remember every detail as he always did. 

“I don’t want you to take them off,” he said, lazily looping his fingers into yours.

“That’s no fun,” you smiled. “The whole point was that you would take them off. 

“Yeah, but… you look so pretty like this,” he replied. He looked away for a split second, and you saw a hint of mischief in his gaze. It was a rare sight for him. 

“What’re you thinking?” You asked, tugging his hand. 

He leaned over you one more time, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek before stepping away. 

“I had an idea.”

You watched him make his way across the bedroom, where he quickly sifted through a drawer. He returned a moment later, instant camera in one hand, quickly configuring the device as he stood at the foot of the bed.

It was a gift, one he’d accepted reluctantly. You’d insisted that he needed something to capture moments with, especially if he would continue to refuse a smartphone. He had always insisted it was useless to him; an eidetic memory could work just the same. 

“That was not why I bought you that,” you giggled, propping yourself up on your elbows. 

“So?” he replied. “Lie back down.”

You huffed, falling back into the comforter. You tossed an arm over your face as he raised the device, angling it towards you, quickly snapping the picture. 

“You're ridiculous.” You giggled. “I thought you didn’t need a camera.”

You listened as the camera dispensed the picture, which he quickly put away for safe keeping.

“No one needs anything. I’m not allowed to take pictures of my beautiful girlfriend?”

“You can do whatever you want,” you smiled, watching him climb up onto the bed. You took his face in your hands as he hovered over you. “I just want you to admit that I was right.”

“You were right,” he sighed. “But you know what they say. Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

[hyukascampfire]

𝐇EART 𝐖ORM

  ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢𝖺𝗋𝗍𝚠𝔬𝗋𝗆  𝖺 𝗋𝖾𝗅𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 𝗈𝗋 𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖼𝖺𝗇'𝗍 𝗀𝖾𝗍 𝗈𝗎𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗁𝖾𝖺𝖽, 𝗐𝗁𝗂𝖼𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗍𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁𝗍 𝗁𝖺𝖽 𝖿𝖺𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝖺𝗀𝗈 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝗌𝗈𝗆𝖾𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝖺𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗎𝗇𝖿𝗂𝗇𝗂𝗌𝗁𝖾𝖽, 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗈𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝖼𝖺𝗆𝗉𝗌𝗂𝗍𝖾 𝗐𝗁𝗈𝗌𝖾 𝗌𝗆𝗈𝗅𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖾𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗉𝗈𝗐𝖾𝗋 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖺 𝖿𝗈𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾.

(📼) “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”

childhood bsf kai & f reader 17.9k smut angst fantasy ⤷ ft. asshole yeonjun & f reader ⸺ angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love it), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any ... 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

ash ⦂ omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.  

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? My heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“Well, that’s how you sounded,” you say. “Whatever.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms. Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket. 

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face, though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could he ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten around him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

ash ⦂ how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[81folklore]

heaven - PIASTRI - final part

pairings: oscar piastri x private!reader (fc: gracie abrams + pinterest)

summary: on the 2 year anniversary of oscars first win in f1, everyone’s favorite couple has a surprise

type: social media au (smau)

note: well this is it!! the final part to heaven!! this ending has always been the plan and im so pleased i can finally post it, this win has been a longgg time coming and i am super stoked for oscar!!! obviously not the best race (esp for mclaren fans) but we got through it and oscar won!!!! super duper proud of my mclaren boys and i cant wait to see many more 1-2 with them!!

i honestly cant believe this is the last part to this series, this was one of the first fics i ever posted and its crazy how far its come!! to this day i get notifs that people have found the first part to this series and it blows my mind how big this has gotten. i know ive been inactive for a long time but i hope by finally finishing this fic i will find love for creating fics again!!!! love u all🩵

heaven masterlist masterlist

set 2026

youruser

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 11,629 others

two years ago my best friend asked me to marry him, i said yes immediately. how could i say no to spending the rest of my life with someone i love so deeply?

today marks 6 months of him being my husband and i feel so incredibly blessed to be able to call him that, to be able to say that someone i love, loves me back just as much

but today is also the anniversary of my boys first win, which seems crazy now that he has many more under his belt but its true, its been two years since that crazy day in hungary and one that changed us forever

i have grown so much in the time we have been together and im so pleased i was able to do it with you, osc. i love you forever and always!

tagged oscarpiastri

view comments

oscarpiastri my favorite forever🤍

oscarpiastri marrying you was the best decision i have ever made

youruser my boy🌟🌟

comments on this post have been limited

oscarpiastri

liked by youruser, logansargeant and 1,382,003 others

i cant believe i get to call this gorgeous girl my wife, and i’ll be able to do so for the rest of our lives

you had never shone as brightly as on our wedding day, however youve continued to shine ever so bright since and i hope it never goes away, seeing you happy and content makes me feel like the luckiest man alive

thank you for saying yes all those years ago and thank you for trusting me with your heart, ill love you forever and always

your osc x

view comments

youruser i love you so much osc

youruser you mean the world to me

landonorris congrats mate x

logansargeant i miss you guys :(

youruser we miss you too logie!!! we’ll be home soon and we will take you to dinner!!

logansargeant oscarpiastri promise?

oscarpiastri we promise

georgerussell63 happy for you both!

frederikvestiofficial come back soon i think logans withering away

oscarpiastri he’ll be fine for a few more days🙄

logansargeant nu huh!! i cant last much longer☹️

user66 oh my god she looks gorgeous 🥹🥹

oscarpiastri she is

user72 YOUR OSC😭😭😭😭

user6 im never getting over them☹️

user91 THEYRE MARRIED☹️☹️😭😭

user10 remember when yn said they werent getting married yet because they still had so much growing to do,, look at them now☹️

user47 i feel like everyones being too calm, WE DIDNT EVEN KNOW THEY WERE ENGAGED?!?!!?!

user64 LIKE WHY ARE WE NOT MORE SHOCKED

user22 bcs they are written in the stars and we all knew this was going to happen!!! liked by youruser

user30 yn with all the little babes oh i cant do this🥹🥹 liked by oscarpiastri

oscarpiastri

liked by youruser, lewishamilton and 1,392,027 others

17.01.2026

view comments

lewishamilton so happy for you mate, it was a gorgeous ceremony💜

logansargeant my favorite people in the whole world

oscarpiastri we love you

logansargeant 🥹🥹 (i love you guys too)

youruser my boy forever and ever and ever

oscarpiastri 🤍🤍

landonorris you guysss😕😕

youruser love you lan!!!!

youruser

liked by oscarpiastri, yourmum 11,483 others

a story told in many parts💐

comments on this post have been limited

pinned youruser to osc, my best friend, my love, my husband i will love you until the end of time. i will hold your hand through everything and more, until death do us part x

youruser added to their story

story song added heaven by niall horan text reads: my 🏠

seen by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 12,472 others

replies

user72 OH MY FUCKING GODDDDD

user19 I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU TWO 😔😔😔😔

user63 ur literally perfect for eachother wtfwtfwtf

user90 I FEEL SICK THIS IS SO CUTE

user6 oscar is so sweet🥹🥹

youruser the sweetest!!!!

[marauder-misprint]

Hello!! I’m your new follower and honestly your fics are so good 🥺 I love the “these damn stairs” one and I wonder if u could write part 2 because shy reader and gentle super friendly Remus trope is the best heh.

Thank youuu for following ❤︎

Here is part 2 to 'These damn stairs' and there will be a part 3 because I can't just let it end here :) Might be a few days before I'm able to post part 3 because I got some really good requests in my inbox that I want to get to! (part 3 is here)

'It's a date'

Remus Lupin x reader

2.2k words

cw: fluff

Talking to Remus still felt like you had the eyes of the school on you. This meant that it was Remus who talked first. You would give him a small smile or a wave when you passed him on your way to a different class, but it was always him who came up to your desk before or after a class you had together. It was him who still came to sit with you at lunch; your friends warmed up to him quickly and proceeded to tease you about him when he was gone. 

You continued to study with him too. He’d wait for you outside the library before walking with you back to the small table from that first study session. With every passing day, you slowly began to be more comfortable in his presence. You were able to hold a conversation with him. It was a slow growing friendship, but it was growing. 

“You’re sure you don’t mind studying with just me?” you had asked once, worrying that he missed all of the attention that he used to get in the library because he was smart and nice. 

He just smiled at you, leaning toward you to say, “I really don’t mind. I’d rather work with you over anyone else.” 

That left you blushing for the rest of your time in the library that evening. Remus always knew what to say to get that blush to reappear. More often than not, you would leave your encounters with Remus with a pink face and racing heart. 

You were thrown off when you showed up to study with Remus on Saturday and he wasn’t waiting for you outside the library. You considered waiting for him to show up but decided to check inside just in case. You found him sitting at a larger table with his friends. There were open chairs on either side of him with the other three boys on the opposite side of the table. The sight sent your mind spinning as you tried to remember the conversation when you discussed studying today. You didn’t recall him mentioning the rest of the Marauders would be there. Plans must’ve changed. 

You headed toward a different table, your usual before you started sitting with Remus. You didn’t want to interrupt their “Marauders Study Session.” 

However, as soon as he saw you, Remus called you over.

“You know James, Peter, Sirius, yeah? Hope you don’t mind they came today. I’m afraid they need the extra push to get stuff done.”

You do mind but god forbid you say something and make a scene. So you nodded and sat down next to Remus. You attempted to keep your things more consolidated than you usually do. You didn’t want to encroach on Peter’s or Sirius’ space. It took you longer to fall into your studying groove with the entirety of the Marauders at the same table as you; you’re positive that anyone and everyone passing by is confused by it. You felt like an outsider intruding on something sacred. It didn’t help that every time you looked up, you swore at least one of them was looking at you or Remus. You’re a bit uncomfortable. It’s not like you’ve ever really talked to any of them. 

“So, erm, how long has this been a thing?” Peter asked after you caught your eye from across the table. 

A thing? What on earth did that boy mean?

“Excuse me?” 

“We’ve been studying together for a little over two weeks,” Remus said, shooting you a quick smile.

Oh That’s all.

Remus’ answer made the question make more sense. You supposed it was a thing that Remus was studying with one person rather than a herd of girls and essentially playing teacher. You berated yourself for thinking that Peter had meant something more. 

“Right, studying,” Sirius said with a smirk. 

Nope. What?

You pursed your lips together and train your eyes on your assignment. That is what you had been doing with Remus. That’s all you’ve been doing.

“Shut it, Padfoot,” Remus warned. 

He glared at his friends. He had warned them ahead of time to be nice to you, to try not to scare you off. He knows you are shy and more reserved. He didn’t want to cancel studying with you so that his nimrod friends didn’t fall behind on their own assignments. But now, he was beginning to regret inviting them. 

Remus reached for a small scrap of parchment and scribbled on it, “Don’t worry about them” before sliding it into your view. You took notice of it and nodded. He lowered his head to get into your view as well. He raised his eyebrows as if asking that you’re okay. You drew a simple smiley face on the parchment. He nodded and returned to his own assignment. With both of your heads bowed in focus, you missed the shared look between the other three boys. You were able to get some work done. The lingering feeling of eyes on you was impossible to shake. You tried to think of a reason why they would be so interested in you, but you kept coming up short. Well, not completely. You had ideas, but each seemed more ridiculous than the last and one was just downright hopeful. 

“Is it true you started talking because you got your foot stuck in that damn step?” James asked as he closed a book he was using for his Herbology assignment.

“Prongs!” Remus hissed as your face turned beet red. 

“Uh, I guess?” you said meekly. 

You tried not to think about that embarrassing day, even if it did lead to your first real interaction with Remus. It wasn’t a moment you wanted to relive. 

“Must’ve been some fall though,” James continued, despite the glared daggers from Remus. “Certainly got our boy’s attention.”

Remus’ face was beginning to turn red as well at this point. He really, really wanted James to stop talking; it was at the point where he was debating Silencio. 

“Oh? What… what do you mean?” you asked, biting the inside of your cheek. 

Sirius snorted a laugh. “Sweetheart, you should hear how much he talks about you.” 

Your eyes went wide. You weren’t sure what you had expected but it wasn’t that. It took a second for the words to fully sink in. Remus talked… about you? Often? With enough frequency that his friends made note of it? Is that why it felt like they kept staring at you? They were just trying to figure out what Remus found so intriguing about you? 

You turned to see Remus holding his head in his hands. You gently placed your hand on his shoulder.

“Remus?” 

A horrible thought crossed your mind: What if this was all just a prank on you and Remus was collateral? What if he didn’t actually talk about you and now he’d have to admit that? 

He ran his hands through his hair before looking at you. His face was bright red, highlighting each scar that ran across his nose and cheeks brilliantly. 

“Can we talk privately? Before I murder these gits?” he asked you in a low voice with pleading eyes. 

“Yeah. Yeah,” you breathed, standing up and waiting to follow Remus through the shelves.

He led you further than you would’ve expected from the table. You assumed that he really didn’t want the boys overhearing whatever you were going to talk about. With each step, you felt your heart rate increase. Maybe he thought you were going to cry at what he was going to say and didn’t want to do that near them. 

“I think we’re far enough. No hearing extension charm they’re capable of reaches this far,” he said, leaning back against the wall with some kind of effortless allure. 

“Are you okay?” you asked. 

You stood a few steps away from him. If something was going to go down, you wanted to have some space between you. 

“Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m fine,” he said as he watched you with cautious eyes. “Usually their teasing doesn’t get to me this bad.” He let out an awkward chuckle. 

“Are they teasing you about being friends with me?” you asked, your chest filling with dread. 

You wrapped your arms around yourself to brace for the worst. Remus was popular. He was so well-liked. He was so good with people. And you liked to stay out of the spotlight. Some people thought you were a little standoffish, but so be it. You could see where his friends were coming from. 

Suddenly, you felt hands on your shoulders. And you looked up to see Remus’ warm eyes. 

“They are teasing me about being just friends with you,” he said softly. 

You rolled your lips against each other. What did he mean by that? Just friends? 

“Because I do talk about you a lot. I practically only study with you. I go out of my way to cross paths with you so I can see your smile. I hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but I stare at you from across the Great Hall when I don’t sit next to you.” He paused for a moment to see if you had any reaction yet. “And this is going to sound mean, but I’m so glad you fell on those stairs. It brought you into my life.” He waited again. “Please say something, love.” 

“Okay,” you said as your cheeks tinged pink. “So they aren’t making fun of me? This isn’t some kind of prank?” 

“No. It’s not a prank. The only one being made fun of is me because I wanted to wait longer.”

“Wait longer for what?” 

“Listen. I meant it when I said you are pretty. I meant it when I said I don’t want to study with anyone else. I mean it when I say I can’t get you out of my head. I just wanted to wait longer to be sure… sure that you’d say yes. Sure that you like me.” 

You tilted your head.

“Of course I like you, Remus.”

“But as more than friends? Would you be willing to go on a date with me?”

Your breath hitched. Had Remus just said a bunch of sweet things about you? Yes, and it made your face feel hot. But it was the question that really sealed the deal. He wanted to be sure that you’d say yes. 

“I’d really like that.” You broke into a wide smile. “You thought I wouldn’t say yes?” 

Remus let out the breath he was holding and mirrored your smile. He pulled you into a tight hug before answering. 

“I’ve wanted to ask you out since the first time we studied together. I didn’t want to move too fast. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to jump you or something.” 

You laughed into his chest and he slowly let you go. 

“So all of that back there, that was them being tired of listening to you pine?” you asked.

“Seems like it. I told them to be nice to you, but I guess I didn’t tell them to be nice to me.”

“I mean, I’d say it was pretty nice of them to get you a date,” you said teasingly.

“I’m still the one who asked!” he tried to defend himself.

You raised your eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, but would you have asked if they weren’t here?”

“Not today, no. Maybe in another week or so. I told you, I was waiting to be sure.”

“For a smart bloke, you really should’ve known that if you asked me out on the stairs, I would’ve said yes.”

“Wait, what?” He looked down at you in surprise. 

“Merlin, I’ve had a crush on you for a while. It’s part of what made falling into the stair so mortifying.”

“Those damn stairs, right?” he chuckled as you started walking back to the table. Then he cleared his throat. “So, Hogsmeade next weekend?”

“It’s a date.” 

The three boys were working when you returned. When they looked up, they had matching looks of anticipation on their faces. Neither of you said anything as you sat down and started to work. Without speaking, you seemed to agree that you weren’t going to say anything unless they asked. 

“So?” Peter asked. “Did Remus grow a pair?” 

“Always had a pair, Peter,” Remus said dryly. 

“Moony,” he whined before turning his attention to you. “Did he… you know?”

“Well, she might not know. Because if he didn’t, how would she know?” Sirius said. 

You rolled your eyes with a shake of your head. 

“What if he did and she said no? That’d be something,” James mused. “Although I don’t think they’d be so… content? Peaceful? Somber? Pleased-looking?”

“But wouldn’t they both look much happier if he asked and she said yes?” Peter asked.

“Oi! We are right here,” Remus interjected. “I asked. She said yes. You are to stay away from us in Hogsmeade. Now, work. I want to see finished essays.”

“Our boy became a man!” Sirius said, wiping an invisible tear from his eye. “We’re so proud of you.”

“Padfoot. Essay. Now,” Remus commanded before shooting you a wide grin. 

You could tell that he was pretty proud of himself too. 

tags: @allformoony, @oursweetmoony, @moonyswifee

[svt-luna]

hii can i request luna calling the svt members by the wrong name and seeing their reaction

ʚིᵋ ⋆ SVT REACTS TO LUNA ࣪ ! ˓ ౨ৎ ࣪˖ ─── Accidentally calling them the wrong name

synopsis: SEVENTEEN’s reaction to Luna accidentally calling them the wrong name.

new format for the new tier (?) i thoroughly enjoyed writing this one and ever since i have posted the masterlist for svt reacts, a lot of you have been submitting the prompts you want to see next and i am super excited to get started on those! happy reading my lovelies and see you soon 💛🤍

╰ ౨ৎ LUNA-VERSE MASTERLIST ╰ ౨ৎ svt reacts

⍣ ೋ🍒 [S.COUPS]

The practice room was peaceful, which should have been his first warning. Nothing in SEVENTEEN’s world stays peaceful for long.

He was lounging comfortably, minding his own business, when Luna, unknowingly signing her own death certificate, handed him a drink and casually muttered, “Here, Soonyoungie.”

Froze. Blinked once. Twice. Processing… still processing… ERROR 404: LEADER’S EGO NOT FOUND.

ERROR. CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED. SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT.

His entire body stiffened on impact, as if she had just drop-kicked his dignity off a cliff. His brain short-circuited so violently that, for a brief moment, he was no longer Seungcheol, leader of SEVENTEEN— he was just a man betrayed in the cruelest way possible.

Slowly turned his head toward her with the disappointment of a father who just found out his child failed a math test despite having a tutor. His eyebrows knit together in betrayal, his lips slightly parted in sheer disbelief.

This was not just a mistake— this was a scandal.

The sheer weight of his disappointment could have crushed an entire nation.

“Soonyoung?” he repeated, voice so calm it was actually terrifying.

Blinked three times in complete silence as if waiting for a divine explanation to fall from the heavens. He blinked again, as if giving her a chance to correct herself before he officially lost his mind.

Luna did a double take, realizing that it wasn’t Hoshi next to her.

Luna’s fight-or-flight response activated instantly. Her soul packed its bags and fled. Her eyes widened in terror, hands clumsily flailing as she tried to backpedal. “WAIT—NO, THAT’S NOT—”

S.Coups let out the biggest sigh known to mankind, one that carried the weight of ten years of suffering. Dramatically placed a hand over his heart as if she had stabbed him with betrayal, head tilting back like he was experiencing Shakespearean-level heartbreak.

“Wow. Of all people, Soonyoung?” Shook his head. Scoffed. Whispered, “Unbelievable. This… this hurts, Jiyeon.” (Used her government name. This was serious for him).

Looked away, shaking his head like he had just learned his best friend was actually the villain in a plot twist.

Stared at an imaginary camera, The Office-style, for a solid five seconds. Contemplated his entire existence.

Luna, desperate to fix her mistake, waved her hands wildly. “It was an accident! I am tired! I thought you were Hoshi—”

He sat up dramatically, eyebrows raised, fully prepared to drag her. “No, no. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s not like I was the one who stayed up last week comforting you when you had a breakdown.”

Stood up. Pacing. Muttering under his breath like a man scorned. “I should’ve known. The signs were there. I ignored them. That’s on me. I didn’t know you’d be the one to betray me.”

Luna, on the verge of a breakdown herself, groaned, “OH MY GOD, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. You’re being dramatic…”

Hands on his chest, clutching his pearls.

“AN ACCIDENT? YOU SAW ME AND STILL CALLED ME SOONYOUNG!”

Collapsed back onto the couch with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Whispered to himself, “I didn’t raise you like this.”

Would never let her live this down. Ever. Would bring it up during the most inopportune moments just to see her suffer.

“Hey, remember that time you called me Soonyoung?”

“THAT WAS SIX MONTHS AGO.”

“And yet the wound is still fresh.”

⍣ ೋ🪽[JEONGHAN]

Yoon Jeonghan is the biggest menace known to man— let’s start there. He’d get even… a hundred percent.

Oh, Luna messed up. She messed up big time. But she didn’t know it yet. Jeonghan knew it, though. Oh, he knew. And the moment the words left her mouth, he had already decided that she would never know peace again.

It was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary. Luna was scrolling through her phone, multitasking between replying to messages and absentmindedly talking to Jeonghan, who was sitting next to her. It was casual, relaxed— dangerously so.

And then, like the heavens themselves decided to bless Jeonghan with the greatest gift of all time, she absentmindedly called him “Joshie.”

Jeonghan’s brain registered the betrayal instantly, but his face remained completely neutral.

Not even a twitch. No dramatic gasp, no offended expression— just pure, calculated silence.

This was an opportunity.

Slowly turned his head toward her with an expression so unreadable it was actually terrifying. Blinked once. Twice. Then, with the smoothest, most even voice known to mankind, he said, “Who’s Joshie?”

Luna froze. Her fingers hovered over her phone screen, eyes darting to him as if she had just realized she was standing on a landmine with no escape. Her soul did ten backflips and crash-landed into the abyss.

“Wait—I didn’t mean— I was texting Shua—”

“No, no, it’s okay.” He smiled.

Oh no. Not the smile. The one that hid a thousand schemes. The one that meant he had already won.

“Joshie, huh? Wow. That’s crazy.”

Leaned back on the couch, arms crossed, nodding as if this was the most fascinating discovery of his life. Whispered under his breath, “Joshie… Joshie… I didn’t know we were at that stage in our relationship.”

Luna knew she was doomed. “I swear, it was just a slip—”

“No, I get it.” Jeonghan put a hand on his chest, mock hurt dripping from his voice. “Five years. Engaged. And yet, I’m just another Joshua in your eyes.”

Luna groaned, already wanting to crawl into a hole. “It was an accident! My brain lagged! I was texting Joshua!”

“Oh really? You were texting Joshua?” He tilted his head. “Or should I say… Joshie?”

Oh, he was milking this. He was squeezing every last drop of suffering out of this moment. He grabbed his phone, pretending to text.

“What are you doing?” Luna asked, voice full of dread.

“Oh, just letting Joshie know the good news.”

“WHAT GOOD NEWS?” Luna wanted smack the back of his head.

Jeonghan smirked, showing her his screen. He had typed out a message to Joshua that simply said:

“Hey, Joshie, just found out Jiyeon thinks about you when she looks at me. Any thoughts?”

Luna lunged at him. “DELETE THAT RIGHT NOW.”

Jeonghan, laughing like a supervillain, dodged easily. “Oh, no, no, no. This is my leverage now. You think I’m letting this go? Absolutely not.”

Would bring it up at the most unnecessary moments.

“Hey, can you grab me some water? Or should I ask Joshie instead?”

“Wow, you look so pretty today. Does Jisoo think so too?”

“Should I dye my hair like his? Maybe then you’ll remember my name.”

Luna knew one thing for certain: She had just given Jeonghan a lifetime of teasing material. She had lost this battle. And the war.

Oh, but Jeonghan wasn’t stopping there. No, no. This was only the beginning. The next phase of his plan? Calling her every random girl name imaginable just to see her reaction.

It started casually. Too casually. Luna had just finished brushing her hair when Jeonghan, lounging on the bed, casually glanced up and said, “Looking good, Minji.”

Luna snapped her head around so fast she almost got whiplash. “What did you just call me?”

Jeonghan, with the most innocent expression known to mankind, blinked at her. “Minji. That’s your name, right? Or is it Jisoo? Or maybe… Yuna?”

Luna’s eye twitched. “Yoon Jeonghan, I swear—”

“Oh, relax, Soojin. You’re so aggressive today.”

Luna yeeted a pillow straight at his face. Jeonghan, laughing like the menace he was, dodged it with ease.

This became a game to him. He’d throw out random names at the most ridiculous times.

“Could you pass me that remote, Jihye?”

“Wow, thanks for making dinner, Seulgi. So sweet of you.”

“Hey, Hyejin, can you scratch my back real quick?”

Luna, now fully fed up, stomped toward him with the wrath of a thousand suns. “Call me one more name that isn’t mine and I will actually smack that stupid smirk out your fucking face.”

Jeonghan grinned. “Okay, okay. I got it, babe. You win.”

Pause. A beat of silence.

And then, with a smug smirk, he added, “Sorry, I mean… babe… or should I say… Somin?”

Luna full-on lunged. Jeonghan barely escaped with his life, laughing like a villain as she chased him around the room.

At first, Luna had been playfully mad, but after the hundredth time, the joke started to sting a little. It wasn’t like she actually thought Jeonghan meant anything by it, but hearing random girl names instead of her own, over and over, started to feel a little too real.

One evening, when he lazily threw out, “Thanks for the coffee, Hani,” expecting her usual exasperated groan, Luna just… stopped. She didn’t glare. She didn’t throw a pillow at him. She just stood there, stirring her drink with her lips pressed together, shoulders slightly hunched.

Jeonghan instantly noticed. His smug grin dropped as he watched her fiddle with her mug, not looking at him.

His teasing brain might be the size of a galaxy, but he wasn’t stupid.

It’s crazy how fast the tables had turned.

“Oh no…” Jeonghan muttered under his breath, moving closer. He gently poked her cheek. “Baby? Nana-ya?”

Luna pouted, looking down. “I don’t like it when you call me other girls’ names.” Her voice was soft, almost sulky, and Jeonghan felt his soul leave his body.

Immediate panic mode. “Oh, no, no, no, my love, my pretty moon, my one and only Jiyeonie, come here.” He was already cupping her face, rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks. “You know I was just messing around, right? You’re the only one I’d ever call mine.”

Luna sniffled. “Then why do you keep calling me other girls’ names?”

It’s crazy how fast the tables had turned pt. 2.

Jeonghan physically recoiled. He had never felt so villainous in his life. “I am so sorry. I will never do it again, Nana-ya.”

But before he let the joke die completely, he made sure of one thing. He leaned in, locking eyes with her, tone suddenly serious. “Say my name.”

Luna blinked. “Huh?”

“Say it. I need to know you still remember it.”

She rolled her eyes, but Jeonghan was relentless. He leaned in even closer. “Say it, Jiyeonie.”

Luna sighed, but there was a small smile creeping onto her lips. “Jeonghan.”

“Louder.”

“Jeonghan.”

He tilted his head. “One more time, for the people in the back.”

Luna huffed, pushing his face away. “Yoon Jeonghan, you absolute menace.”

Jeonghan grinned, finally satisfied. “That’s right. That’s my name. I love hearing you say it. And I’ll make sure you never forget it again.” He kissed her forehead, finally letting the bit go.

Luna sniffled again, but the pout was gone, replaced by a reluctant smile. “You’re lucky I love you.”

From that day forward, Jeonghan never called her another girl’s name again.

And Luna? She never made the mistake of calling him the wrong name ever again.

⍣ ೋ🦌[JOSHUA]

Joshua Hong, the human embodiment of kindness and patience, did not even flinch. The moment Luna slipped up and called him the wrong name, he merely blinked, absorbing the mistake with the grace of a saint.

“Han— Oh, wait— Shua! I meant Joshua, I’m so sorry!” Luna gasped, eyes wide with immediate regret. She clasped her hands together in a desperate plea for forgiveness, already bracing herself for potential teasing or dramatic reactions.

But Joshua, ever the composed and forgiving soul, simply smiled. Not a hint of annoyance, not a single trace of offense— just pure, unbothered tranquility. It was almost unnerving how unaffected he was.

“It’s fine,” he assured her effortlessly, brushing it off. The way he said it so genuinely made her feel even worse.

Luna, still feeling guilty, shook her head. “No, no, it’s not fine. I feel terrible! I don’t know what happened, my brain just—”

Joshua held up a hand to stop her, chuckling lightly. “Really, Jiyeon-ah. It’s no big deal. I know you didn’t mean it. But—” he tapped his chin thoughtfully, tilting his head as if reconsidering.

Here it comes. The condition.

Despite being deemed “normal” he was far from that.

Luna perked up, desperate to redeem herself. “But what? I’ll do anything!”

He shrugged nonchalantly, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Buy me a coffee, and we’ll call it even.”

Luna blinked. “That’s it? Just a coffee?”

Joshua smiled again, this time a little amused. “Yep. That’s all it takes to heal my broken heart.”

She groaned, but she was already reaching for her phone. “Fine. But I’m getting you the most expensive one on the menu to make up for it.”

He laughed, “I won’t stop you. Oh, and while we’re at it… you do remember my name now, right?”

Luna dramatically sighed. “Joshua Hong. Hong Jisoo. I will never forget it again.”

And she didn’t… that coffee was expensive.

⍣ ೋ🐱[JUN]

Jun was mid-bite into his orange when Luna completely and utterly betrayed him.

“Hey, Shi-shi, can you— oh. Wait.”

Silence. Heavy. Unforgiving. Eternal.

Jun did not speak. He did not blink. He simply put down his half-eaten orange slice, wiped his hands with a napkin, and slowly turned to face her.

His eyes? Empty. His soul? Possibly ascending.

Luna tensed, feeling the weight of her mistake. “Junnie, I—”

Without breaking eye contact, Jun calmly raised both hands… and formed Hoshi’s signature tiger claw gesture.

Luna’s jaw dropped. “God— please no.”

Jun nodded, his expression still unreadable. Then, in the most monotone voice imaginable, he said—

“KWON TI—” He cut himself off mid-sentence, exhaling sharply through his nose as if the sheer effort of speaking was too much.

Luna smacked her forehead. “OH MY GOD, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS.”

But it was too late. Jun slowly, methodically, stood up. He adjusted his posture, squared his shoulders, and became Hoshi.

“TIGER POWER,” he whispered, barely above a breath.

Luna covered her face with both hands. “MOON JUNHUI. STOP.”

He did not stop. Instead, he gracefully spun in a circle, did an exaggerated tiger pose, and let out the most deadpan, lifeless “HAEYA.” the world had ever heard.

Luna was losing her mind. “WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS??”

Jun finally blinked, looking at her with complete and utter indifference. “I don’t know. Why is Hoshi like like this?”

Luna groaned, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at him. Jun, still blank-faced, caught it with one hand and did another slow-motion tiger claw.

“Fear me.”

She did not.

But she did immediately vow to never make that mistake again.

⍣ ೋ🐯[HOSHI]

Hoshi was in the middle of passionately explaining his latest choreography idea, hands flailing, eyes sparkling with excitement, when Luna casually shattered his entire existence.

“That sounds amazing, Channie! You’re such a genius with choreo— oh, wait… SHI-SHI. I MEANT HOSHI.”

The room went dead silent. Hoshi froze mid-motion, arms still dramatically outstretched, mouth slightly open as if the betrayal physically knocked the wind out of him.

Slowly— painstakingly slowly— his arms dropped to his sides. His eyes, once full of light and passion, dimmed like a dying star.

Luna, sensing immediate danger, waved her hands frantically. “No, no, no, no! I didn’t mean it! My brain lagged! HOSHI, YOU KNOW I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!”

But it was already too late. Hoshi placed a trembling hand over his heart, inhaling sharply through his nose as if she had physically stabbed him.

“You…” He swallowed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You think… Dino made this choreography?”

Luna panicked. “NO, NO, I—”

He dramatically took a step back, clutching his chest. “AFTER EVERYTHING I’VE TAUGHT YOU. AFTER EVERYTHING WE’VE BEEN THROUGH.”

“SOONYOUNG-AH, PLEASE.”

“DO I MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?” His voice cracked for effect. “AM I JUST A DANCE MACHINE TO YOU? A BACKGROUND CHARACTER? A… A REPLACEMENT??”

Luna was suffering at this point. “OH MY GOD, IT WAS A MISTAKE, STOP BEING DRAMATIC.”

Hoshi gasped like she had slapped him. “DRAMATIC?? ME?? YOU THINK I’M BEING DRAMATIC??”

She groaned, rubbing her temples. “Yes. Because you are.”

He threw his head back, arms spread wide. “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS.”

Then, out of nowhere, he dropped to the floor in slow motion, one hand reaching for the heavens like he was in the final scene of a tragic musical.

“SOMEONE CALL KWON SOO— I MEAN, LEE CHAN. SINCE HE’S OBVIOUSLY THE NEW PERFORMANCE LEADER.”

Luna let out an exasperated scream. “Kwon Soonyoung. GET. UP.”

But he did not. Instead, he rolled onto his side, curling into the fetal position. “Leave me here. I have no reason to get up. I am but a forgotten relic of the past.”

Luna, now at her limit, bent down and grabbed his face. “KWON SOONYOUNG, IF YOU DO NOT STOP THIS NONSENSE RIGHT NOW, I AM NEVER BUYING YOU TIGER MERCH AGAIN.”

Immediate silence.

His eyes flickered with conflict. His lips parted. He hesitated.

Then, with the speed of lightning, he shot up, completely fine. “Wait, wait, let’s talk about this. Let’s not make rash decisions, our pretty Jiyeonie.”

Luna smirked, crossing her arms. “Oh, now you want to listen?”

Hoshi gave her his most innocent smile, eyes twinkling. “You love me, right? You wouldn’t do this to me, right?”

She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine. But if you ever pull that overdramatic mess again, I’m actually switching performance leaders.”

Hoshi gasped, grabbing his chest again. “THE THREATS NEVER END.”

But they both knew he’d never let her live this down.

⍣ ೋ🐈‍⬛[WONWOO]

Wonwoo was sitting comfortably on the couch, book in one hand, coffee in the other, completely immersed in his own world. The atmosphere was peaceful, quiet, and perfect— until Luna unintentionally shattered the moment with her casual betrayal.

“Hey, Kyeomie, can you pass me my phone?”

There was a brief silence. A very brief silence.

Wonwoo, without even looking up from his book, reached over, grabbed her phone, and handed it to her.

Luna took it absentmindedly before her brain caught up. The realization hit her like a truck. Her eyes widened. Her whole body stiffened.

“…Wait. I just called you Kyeomie, didn’t I?”

Wonwoo, still not looking up, calmly turned a page. “Mm-hmm.”

Luna gawked at him. “And you didn’t even react?!”

He finally looked up, blinking at her with his usual unreadable expression. “Was I supposed to?”

She threw her hands up. “YES?? MOST PEOPLE WOULD BE OFFENDED. OR CONFUSED. OR LITERALLY ANYTHING.”

Wonwoo simply shrugged, sipping his coffee. “It’s not a big deal. Names are just words, anyway.”

Luna stared at him in disbelief. “‘Names are just words’— DO YOU EVEN HEAR YOURSELF?”

He blinked again, completely unfazed. “Yes. I think I have good hearing.”

She groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “You’re impossible.”

Wonwoo just went back to reading. “And yet, you’re still here.”

Luna dramatically flopped onto the couch next to him. “I feel like I just committed a crime, and you’re making me suffer by not even caring.”

Wonwoo smirked slightly, not looking up. “Would you rather I make a scene? Roll on the floor? Fake cry? Because I can.”

She squinted at him. “You would not.”

He turned another page, his expression neutral. “You’ll never know.”

Luna huffed. “Fine. But if I ever hear you accidentally call me by the wrong name, I’m holding it against you for life.”

Wonwoo chuckled lightly. “Duly noted, Kyeomie.”

Luna smacked his arm. Wonwoo, still expressionless, took another sip of coffee.

SERVE WELL, MY LOVE! (ok… bye.)

⍣ ೋ🍚[WOOZI]

Woozi was in the studio, hunched over his computer, headphones on, completely focused on fine-tuning the latest track. The glow from the screen highlighted the intense concentration on his face, fingers flying across the keyboard as he adjusted the sound levels.

Luna, sitting on the couch behind him, casually stretched and yawned. “Hey, Hannie, do you want me to grab you a coffee?”

Woozi, without hesitation and without even turning around, simply nodded. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

A solid five seconds passed before Luna’s brain processed what she had just said.

Her eyes widened in horror, her entire body freezing as if she had just committed the ultimate sin.

“Oh my god. I CALLED YOU HANNIE!”

Woozi didn’t react. He was still adjusting the track levels, completely unfazed. “Yeah, you did.”

Luna scrambled forward, gripping the edge of his desk. “YOU DON’T EVEN CARE??”

Woozi let out a small sigh, finally pushing his headphones down to rest around his neck. He turned slightly, giving her the most unimpressed look known to mankind. “Jiyeon-ah. I barely care about my own name, why would I care about someone else’s?”

She gaped at him. “WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN??”

He shrugged, already turning back to his computer. “It means names are just sounds. You could’ve called me ‘Chair’ and I still would’ve said yes if coffee was involved.”

Luna groaned, dramatically throwing herself back onto the couch. “Why are you and Wonwoo like this? Are you two in some secret society of people who just don’t care about anything??”

Woozi, clicking through his project file, didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah. It’s called ‘Minding Our Own Business.’”

Luna sat up, pointing at him. “Well, you better mind this— if you ever call me the wrong name, I’m going to throw your guitar out the window.”

Woozi actually paused for the first time. He slowly turned his chair to face her, his eyes narrowed slightly. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Luna smirked. “Oh? So now names matter?”

He let out a deep sigh, rubbing his temple. “Fine. I acknowledge my name. Happy now?”

She grinned. “Very.”

A beat of silence. Then—

“…So, are you actually getting me coffee, or was that just a slip of the tongue because you thought I was your boy toy?”

“Shut up.” Luna groaned, but she was already grabbing her wallet. “You’re lucky I respect you.”

Woozi simply smirked, pushing his headphones back on. “I know.”

⍣ ೋ🐸[THE8]

Minghao was peacefully sipping tea, one leg crossed over the other, while flipping through an art book.

The afternoon was quiet, the vibes immaculate, the energy balanced— until Luna casually shattered his Zen.

“Hey, Junnie, can you pass me the remote?”

Without even looking up, Minghao reached over, grabbed the remote, and handed it to her.

Luna took it absentmindedly before her brain short-circuited. Her eyes widened. Her soul left her body.

“OH MY GOD. I JUST CALLED YOU JUNNIE.”

Minghao calmly turned a page in his book. “Yeah. You did.”

Luna blinked. He didn’t even flinch. “And… you’re just okay with that?”

He shrugged, taking another slow sip of tea. “I mean… I knew what you meant.”

Luna dramatically grabbed his arm. “BUT I MESSED UP YOUR NAME. AREN’T YOU AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT OFFENDED? I WOULD BE.”

Minghao stared at her for a moment, then let out a deep sigh. He slowly set his cup down, closing his book with deliberate care.

And then, in the most monotone voice possible— “Wow. I’m so hurt. This betrayal cuts deep. I may never recover.”

Luna squinted. “Are… are you being sarcastic?”

He pressed a hand over his chest, shaking his head in fake sorrow. “No, no. This is real. My heart aches. The pain is unbearable. I feel lost, abandoned, nameless in this cruel world.”

Luna smacked his arm. “XU MINGHAO. BE SERIOUS.”

He exhaled heavily, looking at her with fake exhaustion. “Jiyeonie. If I got worked up every time someone messed up my name, I’d be dead by now. Do you know how many times people have called me The8 in casual conversation?”

She winced. “Okay, fair. But still! Jun and Minghao aren’t even close!”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Actually, we’re both Chinese. We both have great fashion sense. We both—”

Luna groaned, covering her face. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE JUSTIFYING MY MISTAKE.”

He smirked. “Well, someone has to. You’re spiraling.”

Luna crossed her arms, pouting. “Fine. Then I guess you won’t care if I call you something else.”

Minghao tilted his head, intrigued. “Try me.”

She smirked. “Alright. From now on, I’m calling you ‘MingMing.’”

His entire body froze.

Luna’s smirk grew wider. “What? I thought names were no big deal?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Luna. Don’t test me.”

She grinned. “Oh, I’m definitely testing you. MingMing.”

Minghao groaned, grabbing his tea and downing it in one go. “I take back my calm. This is my villain origin story.”

⍣ ೋ🐶[MINGYU]

Mingyu was standing in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, diligently preparing a snack for himself and Luna.

His concentration was at 100%, tongue slightly poking out in focus as he carefully spread peanut butter onto a slice of bread like it was a Michelin-star meal.

Luna, casually scrolling through her phone on the barstool, absentmindedly called out, “Hey, Cheollie, can you grab me some water?”

Mingyu instantly froze.

Like— spatula still in mid-air, peanut butter dripping onto the counter— frozen.

Slowly, dramatically, he turned around. His big, brown, puppy-dog eyes were already shimmering.

“…What did you just call me?”

Luna, still oblivious, blinked up at him. “Huh? I just asked you to get me—” Her entire soul left her body as realization hit her.

“OH MY GOD. I SAID CHEOLLIE.”

Mingyu gasped so loudly it could’ve shattered glass. His giant hands clutched his chest like he had just been personally victimized.

The betrayal. The sheer pain.

He dramatically staggered backward, hand reaching out like he was in a tragic drama. “Lu-lu-ya… do you… not love me anymore?”

Luna groaned, already burying her face in her hands. “Gyu-Gyu, please—”

“DO YOU THINK I’M JUST SOME OTHER MEMBER TO YOU?” His voice cracked.

Luna lifted her head, about to argue, but was immediately silenced by the way he was pouting. The biggest, saddest, most pitiful pout she had ever seen in her life.

He pointed at himself, looking devastated. “I thought… I was your favorite tall, handsome, ridiculously talented member… But now… I’m just ‘Cheollie’ to you?”

Luna sighed, getting off the stool and walking up to him. “Gyu, you know that’s not true. It was just a mistake! I was distracted!”

“A mistake?” He whispered it like it was a personal attack.

Luna groaned. “Yes! A mistake! Do you think I don’t know who you are?! You’re the biggest person in the room at all times, how could I confuse you with Seungcheol?!”

Mingyu sniffled dramatically. “But… do you still care about me?”

Luna rolled her eyes, knowing what Mingyu needed, she placed her hands on his cheeks, squishing them. “Gyu-gyu. Look at me.”

He blinked, bottom lip still trembling slightly.

“I care about you more than life itself. You’re my favorite golden retriever. My favorite disaster chef. My favorite snack stealer. My favorite giant baby.”

He sniffed again. “Really?”

“Really.” She nodded firmly.

Mingyu’s pout finally turned into a grin. “Okay! Then I forgive you!”

Luna sighed in relief. But then—

He suddenly gasped again. “WAIT. BUT WHAT IF YOU CALL ME ANOTHER MEMBER’S NAME AGAIN?!”

Luna groaned, walking away. “I’M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN, KIM MINGYU.”

He followed after her, grinning. “Lu-lu-ya. JIYEONIE. Do you pinky promise it won’t happen again?”

“PINKY PROMISE ME RIGHT NOW.”

⍣ ೋ⚔️[DK]

The apartment was filled with laughter as Luna and Dokyeom battled it out in a heated game of Mario Kart.

Dokyeom had just shoved a banana peel in Luna’s path, sending her character spiraling, while he zoomed past, cackling like a madman.

Luna, frustrated but determined, leaned forward, gripping her controller. “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that, Wonie!”

Everything stopped.

Dokyeom’s character crashed into a wall. His controller slipped from his fingers. His head turned towards her so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

Luna barely had time to realize her mistake before Dokyeom let out a bloodcurdling scream. “WONIE?!”

He clutched his chest, stumbling off the couch like he had just been shot. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the floor, face twisted in sheer agony.

“Oh my GOD. She just— she just called me wOniE— AM I NOTHING TO YOU?”

Luna blinked, still gripping her controller. “Wait, what? No, hold on—”

But Dokyeom was already rolling around on the carpet like a man in distress, hands in his hair, eyes wide with betrayal. “I THOUGHT WE WERE CLOSE. I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING SPECIAL. YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP, GONE IN SECONDS.”

He suddenly gasped, sitting upright with horror. “WAIT. DOES THIS MEAN I’M JUST A BACKGROUND CHARACTER TO YOU?”

Luna groaned, rubbing her temples. “Dokyeomie, please—”

“NO NO NO. DON’T TRY TO FIX IT NOW,” he wailed, dramatically flopping onto the couch like an abandoned Victorian bride.

Then, suddenly— “Wait… does this mean I’m as cool as Wonwoo?”

Luna sighed. “That’s what you’re taking from this?”

He immediately sat up, beaming. “You think I have Wonwoo’s energy? That means I’m cool. A RAP GOD. A LEGEND.”

Luna gave him a deadpan look. “Or it just means I was distracted and called you the wrong name.”

He gasped again, placing a hand on his forehead. “THERE IT IS AGAIN. THE DAGGER TO MY HEART.”

Luna finally snapped.

“OH MY GOD, LEE SEOKMIN, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I DON’T KNOW WHY YOUR MAKNG A DEAL OUT OF THIS— NO ONE CALLS YOU YOUR REAL NAME ANYMORE! I JUST MESSED UP. YOU’RE LOUD, YOU’RE DRAMATIC, YOU HAVE THE SUNNIEST SMILE, AND YOU LAUGH LIKE YOU’RE CLINICALLY INSANE. HAPPY?”

Dokyeom blinked. Then grinned. “Yeah, actually. Thanks for noticing.”

Luna groaned, throwing a pillow at him.

Dokyeom caught it effortlessly, hugging it to his chest. “But just so you know… this moment will haunt me forever.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “I bet you’ll forget in five minutes.”

Dokyeom dramatically looked out the window, voice soft, melancholic. “I shall never recover from this wound…”

Five minutes later, he was giggling at a TikTok Luna showed him.

The recovery time was miraculous.

⍣ ೋ🍊[SEUNGKWAN]

Luna and Seungkwan were in the practice room, taking a break after a grueling vocal session. Seungkwan was lying flat on his back, dramatically fanning himself with a random piece of paper, while Luna scrolled through her phone, mindlessly sipping on her iced coffee.

“Hey, Hoshi, can you pass me my water bottle?” Luna asked without looking up.

The silence that followed was loud.

Too loud.

Seungkwan slowly sat up. His head turned toward Luna with the precision of a horror movie villain.

His eyes— wide. Unblinking.

The bombastic side eye that could reduce a person to dust.

Luna finally glanced up, instantly freezing when she was met with Seungkwan’s expression.

Oh. Oh no.

His voice came out deadly calm. “What. Did. You. Just. Call. Me?”

Luna gulped. “…Hoshi?”

Seungkwan’s hand flew to his chest like he had just been personally assassinated. “HOSHI?! HOSHI?! OUT OF ALL PEOPLE? YOU CALLED ME HOSHI?!”

Luna shrank back, gripping her iced coffee like it was a lifeline. “Kwanie, I swear, it was a mistake—”

“No. NO. I SEE HOW IT IS.” He stood up, arms crossed, shoulders squared, already launching into a full rant. “First of all, how DARE you confuse me with Hoshi? Do I look like I bounce off walls 24/7? DO I LOOK LIKE A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY?”

Luna blinked. “I—”

“Second of all, if you were going to mistake me for someone, WHY HIM? WHY NOT JOSHUA? OR JEONGHAN? OR EVEN MINGYU? ANYONE BUT HIM.”

Luna, still in shock, just stared. “…Are you fighting with Hoshi right now?”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT,” Seungkwan snapped before dramatically pacing the room. “But since you asked— YES, I AM. HE ATE THE LAST BAG OF CHIPS THIS MORNING AFTER I TOLD HIK IT WAS MINE AND THEN HAD THE AUDACITY TO SMILE AT ME LIKE HE DIDN’T JUST COMMIT A CRIME. AND NOW YOU’RE OUT HERE CALLING ME HIS NAME? I FEEL SICK TO MY STOMACH.”

Luna looked down at her coffee, suddenly feeling like she wasn’t supposed to be part of this conversation.

Seungkwan wasn’t done. “DO I EVEN LOOK LIKE A HORANGHAE PERSON?” He did a halfhearted, barely committed tiger hand gesture. “DO YOU SEE HOW UNNATURAL THIS LOOKS?!”

Luna covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.

Seungkwan saw and gasped dramatically, pointing a finger at her. “OH, SO NOW YOU THINK IT’S FUNNY. YOU RUINED MY DAY AND NOW YOU’RE LAUGHING?!”

Luna finally broke, wheezing into her hands. “Kwanie, I am so sorry, please, you have to understand—”

“Nope. You can’t take it back.” He huffed, grabbing his water bottle and plopping onto the floor, pouting with the intensity of a child denied a toy. “You and Hoshi can go live happily ever after. I’ll just be here. Alone. In pain.”

Luna sighed, sliding next to him. “Come on, Seungkwannis, you know I love you. You’re my favorite chaos gremlin. My sass king. The most talented, dramatic, beautiful man I know.”

Seungkwan side-eyed her but didn’t respond.

Luna nudged him. “I’ll buy you chips.”

Seungkwan immediately brightened. “Two bags. Minimum.”

Luna grinned. “Deal.”

Seungkwan flipped his hair. “Good. Now never let that happen again. Ever. Or I’m telling Jeonghannie the time you broke one of his Legos and dragged me to build it with you before he returned.”

“NO YOU WON’T!”

⍣ ೋ🐢[VERNON]

The SEVENTEEN members were lounging in Seungcheol’s place after a long day of practice.

Vernon, as usual, had his earphones in, bobbing his head to some obscure rap track, completely in his own world, while Luna scrolled through her phone, mindlessly swiping through social media.

Luna, still distracted, was trying to get Vernon’s attention. She noticed him humming along, eyes closed, completely absorbed in the music. She decided it would be a good time to ask him to pass her the remote.

“Hey, Gyu—” Luna started, before quickly realizing her slip-up. She blinked, realizing she’d just called Vernon by Mingyu’s name.

Vernon, lost in the groove, didn’t hear her the first time, nor did he realize what happened. He didn’t even look up from his phone.

Luna paused mid-sentence, watching him, then tried again a little louder. “Hansol-ah? Nonnie!CHWE HANSOL!”

Still no response. Vernon was deep into his zone, tapping his foot and nodding to the beat, fully disconnected from reality.

Frustrated, Luna tossed her pillow at his head. The pillow hit Vernon’s earphones and bounced off his cheek.

Vernon, now a little startled, took off his earphones, looked over at Luna, and gave her a nonchalant wave. “Sup.”

Luna blinked, trying to figure out how to navigate this now— awkward—situation. “I was gonna ask you to hand me the remote but I just called you Mingyu by accident… but I swear it was a mistake.”

Vernon shrugged, leaning back on the couch. “Cool.”

Luna stood frozen for a second, mouth slightly open, trying to process how Vernon didn’t even bat an eye at the fact that she called him the wrong name. “That’s it?”

Vernon nodded, still casually texting. “It’s cool. I mean, I didn’t even hear you. I was busy, you know, doing stuff.”

Luna narrowed her eyes. “You had earphones on. You literally did not hear a word I said. You didn’t even realize it was a mistake.”

“Yeah, but you’re fine,” Vernon replied, glancing up with that same deadpan expression. “It’s cool.”

Luna stared at him for a few moments, completely unsure of what to do next. She could either laugh at how ridiculously nonchalant he was or strangle him. She chose to raise her hands in defeat.

“You know what? Fine. I’m just going to go take a nap.”

Vernon nodded once, still scrolling through his phone. “Cool.”

As Luna walked away, she turned back to see Vernon still bopping his head, completely unbothered. She muttered under her breath, “Is that the only word he knows?”

On another day, Luna would tell the members that Vernon was the king of nonchalance— he was literally unbothered by everything, no matter how chaotic.

He could sit through a hurricane and still ask for snacks afterward.

⍣ ೋ🦦[DINO]

Luna and Dino were hanging out and chatting about random things. Luna was sitting on the couch, scrolling through her phone, while Dino was sitting next to her, fiddling with his headphones and occasionally laughing at something on his own.

Out of nowhere, Luna looked up, wanting to ask Dino about his upcoming solo photoshoot. In her distracted state, she blurted out, “Hansolie, when is that shoot of yours?”

Dino immediately froze, his eyes widening in mock disbelief. He turned slowly toward her, his lips forming a pout. “Excuse me? Did you just call me Hansol ?”

Luna’s face went pale. She had meant to call him by his name, but in her moment of confusion, she slipped up. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, Channie, I—”

Before she could finish, Dino crossed his arms dramatically, tilting his head to the side with a theatrical flair. “Wow. Really, Noona? I can’t believe you. You’re calling me Hansolie now? The disrespect.”

Luna burst out laughing, immediately apologizing, but Dino wasn’t done yet. “I’m your baby, Noona! You can’t just go around calling me the wrong name! I am your baby, remember that!”

Just as Luna was trying to control her laughter, Jeonghan walked by, overhearing the commotion. With his usual mischievous grin, he interjected, “That’s my line, Dino-ya. You’re not the only Jiyeonie’s baby.”

Dino snapped his head toward Jeonghan, eyes narrowing. “Oh, please, hyung. I already have noona. What do you want from me?” He deadpanned, rolling his eyes as Jeonghan laughed at his response.

Luna, still trying to calm down from laughing, now had to deal with two drama queens. “You guys are so extra! Dino, stop pouting. It was an honest mistake!”

Dino poked out his bottom lip and stared at her, unrelenting. “It was an honest mistake, but that doesn’t mean you should forget that I’m your baby!”

He then pointed at Jeonghan dramatically. “And this guy, here, needs to stop acting like he has a claim on me!”

Jeonghan, still smirking, winked at Luna. “Well, Dino, I don’t know. You’ve got that baby face, but I don’t know if you’re the real deal. I might just have to claim you back. Remind me again— who’s a baby are you?”

Dino scoffed, dramatically flipping his hair back. “I’m done!”

Luna was trying to hold back her giggles, but it was impossible now. She rubbed Dino’s head gently and apologized once more, “I’m so sorry, my Dino, really. I didn’t mean it. You are my baby.”

Dino brightened up immediately, his pout disappearing as he leaned into her touch. “I knew you’d remember eventually. But seriously, Noona, don’t forget my title again.”

Jeonghan, not one to let the moment pass without making a joke, tapped Dino’s shoulder. “Dino, you didn’t answer me. Do you know whose baby you are? I think you might need a reminder.”

Dino turned to Jeonghan, narrowing his eyes as if he had just had enough. “Are we really going to do this again, Jeonghan? Can’t you just let me have this? You don’t have to butt in every time I get some attention.”

Luna leaned back on the couch, arms crossed as she watched the two of them bicker. “You know, this is the kind of chaos I was trying to avoid. You two are literally like children.”

Dino didn’t seem to mind, though, as he grinned widely at her, now fully back in his playful mood. “Well, I’m just your baby. I can’t help it!”

Jeonghan grinned, his eyes sparkling mischievously. “You two are going to make my head explode. Honestly, you’re both my babies. I’m claiming you both.”

Luna sighed, looking between the two. “You know what? I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to the kitchen. You both stay here and fight over who’s the real man-child.”

As Luna left the room, Dino, who had forgotten about the situation, suddenly shouted after her. “Hey! Don’t forget about me, Noona! I’m your baby!”

ೃ⁀➷ comment or message me to be added to the tag list :)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ SUBMIT A REQUEST AND ASK ME ANYTHING!

: ̗̀➛ requests are always open ♡ - lunaఌ

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[livelaughlovesubs]

hellooo, i love your writing but im not used to sending asks so forgive me if anything is said poorly or if i do it wrong somehow, but i was curious if your up for writing obey me characters still?

if you are, could i request just ravaging asmo, like to the point where hes crying and not forming coherent sentences, and then just completely switching up after and giving super sweet aftercare? this is sort of inspired by the dazai aftercare post except i want the smut lmao

feel free to refuse or completely ignore this request if you dont feel up to it!

also could i be 🫶 anon? i looked through your anon list and im pretty sure that ones not taken!

remember to take care of yourself and take your time! i hope you're doing well! :)

-🫶

Hello hello~ don’t worry, you are doing great :] Also this will be my first time writing for obey me, bear with me alright? (I only got to chapter/ lesson 22 when I used to play it)

Dom!reader x sub!Asmodeus - reader is gender neutral

Warning: pegging (I use dick), hair pulling, marks, mind break, overstimulation, multiple rounds, a little exhibition?

Creaking sounds lingered around your ears, alongside the breathy moans of the male underneath you. These heavenly noises bounced off the walls, loud enough to seep through the cracks of the door. You were almost worried that other people would hear him, it would be pretty embarrassing at breakfast tomorrow. Though, asmo certainly wouldn’t mind, he’d even brag and show off his hickeys to everyone. How did you know? Because if he had any ounce of shame, he wouldn’t be screaming his lungs out like this. No one can tell you this little slut here doesn’t want his brothers to know he was getting used like a fleshlight.

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes for a moment and slowing down, gathering some energy. What time was it, how long have you two been going at it? The stamina of a demon really was scary, to think he was still able to stay awake after was felt like an eternity. He was exhausted too, but he still wanted to keep going. “Haha..” you chuckled as you gazed at his messy face, smiling in amusement at the lewd display in front of you. Asmo was such a charming man, his hair had an indescribable colour that was unique to none other than him. Truly a marvellous gift from god himself. And now, it was sticking to his forehead, all wet due to the layer of sweat covering his skin.

His angelic face was fated to be his weapon for temptation, such a beauty was truly irresistible, befitting of his title as the avatar of lust. Those gorgeous golden eyes were shining like stars, lightening up each time you trusted deep inside him. You almost felt guilty, for defiling that innocent appearance of his. The saying of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ was like tailored for him, for this devil with the most saint-like appearance you’ve ever came across. Everything he did was erotic and inviting, causing you to want to ruin him more. Until any traces of that natural pureness he had were wiped away by lust.

“AaahhGg~..! Oh, y/n, right thereeee mhHmm!!” Asmodeus moaned out your name, his voice sweet and coated with honey. His back was facing you, and he arched his body into a crescent shape. Hips and ass high in the air, while his face was being pushed into the very pillow he was hugging. One of your hands were tangled in his rose-tainted hair, switching up from stroking his locks to yanking on them whenever you saw fit. Each time you’d rough him up, he’d whimper shamelessly, grinning from ear to ear as he shakes his butt for you.

He was so beautiful right now. So very stunning. That once cheeky face now all decorated with tears and drool, all blushy like a maiden fresh in love. His eyes rolled back sometimes, as well as him sticking his tongue out and trembling in pleasure. Despite the impaling realisation that he would pass out if this continued any longer, he didn’t yield, only begging you to give him more. Who were you to deny your darlings wishes? You wanted to give him everything he wanted, even if it will cause him back pain for the days to come.

The other hand was on his hips, helping him holding his body up to meet your trusts. Your pace was a steady one, but pretty slow. That’s because your body was sore as well from pounding him for hours. Asmo didn’t mind it, because you were still so good at it, even if you were tired. Every time you drove your length inside him, it hit his abused and used prostate with such accuracy that he can’t help but cry out in bliss. “AhhNnGg! Harder~ ooOOhhH!!” His hole was all red and swollen, it was so puffy, yet he was still able to clench around you. You could feel his insides squeezing your dick, not letting you pull it out of him.

“Such a dirty boy, how did you survive so long without me?” You teased, pulling on his hair suddenly, ending with him throwing his head back with a yelp. “AhH! i- heh, I guess I wasn’t re-really living mHmm~ before meeting you then.” The demon answered, still capable of smiling at you, even if the said smile looked like the dumb grin of a cheap prostitute. “My my, your choice of words are still as romantic as ever. Can you handle another round, asmo?” His dick twitched at your words, leaking some more precum onto the puddle of semen beneath him. “HnGg, of co-course..! Ahh~ y/n, fuck me <3”

A smirk spread on your lips, and you let go of his light brown hair. Instead, you used both hands to hold his waist tightly, enough for it to bruise. “Then I won’t hold myself back.” You said, as a kind of warning. Asmo looked over his shoulder and your eyes met, the desire in his pupils were evident on his body as well as in your eyes. Another giggle slipped from your lips before you moved backwards, then snapping your hips against his in a fast pace. “AhGGhhH! Mo-moRRe!!” While the devil groaned out a series of encouragements for you to continue rutting into him like some beast, he could feel another orgasm approaching. His stomach curled so intensely, and electricity was coursing through his body.

The expression on his face was so dumb, so fucked out of it that he looked like he lost his mind. As if he succumbed to pleasure, him, the very fundament of lust. “Ah.. damn it, you are such a pretty boy asmo.. heh.” You complimented him among all these ruthless thrusts, it was a gentleness he didn’t know he needed to spill over the edge. “NgHHh! Uh-uhMm, I’m cu-cummINNgG <3!!” More tears rolled down his messy cheeks as his orgasm washed over him, this time he didn’t look as sane as before. No, he looked like he was drunk on the ecstasy and pleasure. It was so good, so so so good he couldn’t fathom it! It crashed down on him and his poor, slim body in waves, it was more than what he could handle!

Hearts were sparkling in his pupils, and his hands clutched the pillow so hard that it ripped. He even accidentally switched to his demon form, so his horns, wings and tail popped out. At this point he couldn’t think nor speak properly anymore, only repeating the same phrases like a broken radio. Whines and gasps of pleasure continued to fill the room of the boy, and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth like some dog in heat. Ropes of cum spurt out of his dick, dirtying the sheets below him. His thighs quivered, some of his slick also ran down his inner thighs. After helping him ride out his high, you slowly and gently pulled the cock out of him. Then, you also released his hips.

Two imprints of your hands were left behind, and you couldn’t hide a sadistic smirk. To your surprise asmo whispered to you in a meek voice, “keep.. mhm, holding me..” He was just a twitchy something now, limping on his bed while his brain was still processing all the sensations. It was simply too much, he was going to take a while until he’ll be responsive again. Even so he still craved your touch, he did have an adorable side to him didn’t he?

“I’ll, if that’s what you want.” You replied and grabbed his tiny waist again, this time you leaned down and pressed your body against his. After waiting and taking a break for a new minutes, you kissed his neck softly, before mumbling quietly, “wanna go wash up now, love?” Not once have you left his side while waiting patiently, giving him some time to reorganise. “Hmmm… can’t we stay like t-this a tad longer?” Asmo pouted and sighed, already feeling sore and the aftermath of the long session. God, he was still stumbling over his words! Just how hard did you fuck him? He will definitely walk funnily tomorrow, if he can even stand on his own two legs. “We can still cuddle after taking a shower. Come on, you go first while I clean up.” You suggested, knowing that he was totally out of energy.

“Nuuu! I want to stay like this! Pleaseeee? Pretty please??” He blinked at you, looking at you with puppy eyes, knowing that this trick always works on you. “Ugh! Fine, fine, if that’s what my princess here wants.” You sighed, acting annoyed at him doing as he pleased. “Hehe~” the devil laughed satisfied, resting his chin on the pillow as he enjoyed your touch. Next thing he knew you kissed his cheeks, while tugging his still chaotic hair behind his ear. While you did those things, you said with a little smile, “You did well asmo, I’m so proud of you.”

Huh. Where did that come from? Out of nowhere his face heated up again, and that right after you thought he had calmed down. “Aww, you are so cute y/n!” He responded immediately, though a hint of nervousness was laced and hidden behind his voice. Was the avatar of lust perhaps flustered or embarrassed about your words? Pff. You laughed in his face, before giving his forehead a peck. “Ahh~ I love you, my prince.”

[wbbfannnnnn13]

Almost, Always // Chapter 2

A/N: I regret my decision starting with angst, but it's too late now. I'll fix things eventually, maybe, who knows, but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon so just hang in there I guess...

Wc: 1k+

Chapter 2: The Weight of Leaving

Azzi pressed her forehead against the cool window of the plane, watching the city lights shrink below her as they climbed higher into the night. She wasn’t sure if she had ever felt this empty before, like she’d left something essential behind, something she couldn’t get back.

She wasn’t sure whether that made her want to cry or laugh bitterly.

With a sigh, she turned her phone over, thumb hesitating over the photos app before she gave in. She hadn’t planned to look, but muscle memory took over, and before she knew it, she was scrolling through years’ worth of pictures, snapshots of a life that had been intertwined with Paige’s for longer than she could even remember. There were the recent ones, from All-Star Weekend, their smiles bright for the cameras even though they had felt miles apart.

She kept scrolling, the years unraveling in reverse, pulling her back to a time when everything between them had felt effortless. When love had been something unspoken but understood, something that didn’t require hesitation or doubt. When it had felt invincible. She hadn’t even realized how much she had been searching for it, for proof that what they had was real, until she saw it—a picture buried deep in her camera roll, untouched by time but heavy with meaning. One she hadn’t seen in years.

USA Basketball, high school.

They were just kids back then, standing side by side in their oversized red, white, and blue warmups, arms slung loosely around each other’s shoulders. It had been one of those group shots taken at training camp, but somehow, even in a crowd of future stars, it was Paige she had been looking at. Paige, with that wide, reckless grin. Paige, already radiating a confidence that was impossible to ignore.

Azzi’s breath caught in her throat as the memory hit her, as vivid as if she were reliving it all over again.

Azzi had always been the quiet one. The observer. The one who kept her head down, focused on getting everything right. That’s what she had been doing—going through the shooting drills, locked in, following every instruction to the letter. And then she heard the laugh.

Loud, uninhibited, so sure of itself.

She turned her head instinctively, catching sight of the girl responsible. Paige Bueckers. The name was already everywhere, the kind of player people whispered about before they even saw her play. And even though Azzi had tried not to get caught up in the hype, there was something about her that made it impossible to look away.

Paige was different. She didn’t take herself too seriously, not like the rest of them, not like Azzi did. She cracked jokes between drills, threw behind-the-back passes like she was born doing it, moved like the court belonged to her. And yet, somehow, she wasn’t arrogant about it. She was light, effortless in a way that made Azzi feel like she had been holding her breath for too long.

It wasn’t until later, when they were cooling down after practice, that Paige came up to her.

Paige plopped onto the bench beside Azzi, still catching her breath from drills, and nudged her with an elbow. "Okay, so do you just not talk, like ever, or is it just me?"

Azzi raised an eyebrow, barely looking at her. "I think that says more about you than it does about me."

Paige gasped, pressing a hand to her heart like she’d just been wounded. "So it’s personal. Wow. I thought maybe you were just, like, super locked in or something. But no, you just don’t like me. Got it."

Azzi smirked, shaking her head. "Or maybe I just don’t feel the need to fill every silence like some people."

Paige chuckled, shaking her head like she wanted to say something back but couldn’t quite find the words fast enough.

Azzi rolled her eyes, finally looking at Paige. "I talk. Just not when there’s nothing worth saying."

Paige leaned back, nodding thoughtfully. "Right, right. You just have super high standards for conversation. Apparently, I didn't make the cut."

Azzi huffed, crossing her arms. "I feel like you’re just trying to see how many words you can get out of me."

Paige gasped dramatically, pointing at her. "Wait. Was that a full sentence? With personality? Somebody alert the media."

Azzi shoved her lightly, but Paige just laughed, that easy, infectious sound that made it impossible to stay annoyed. And maybe it was then—maybe in that exact moment—when Azzi realized she had just met someone who was going to matter. Someone who could make her laugh without trying, someone who made everything feel just a little bit lighter.

And she had.

Azzi swiped away from the photo, setting her phone down as her chest tightened. The ache wasn’t just in her heart; it was everywhere, her ribs, her throat, the back of her eyes. A dull, relentless pressure, like she was carrying something too heavy but couldn’t put it down. It was almost cruel, how the memory of Paige could make her feel so full and so hollow all at once. That had been the beginning. The first time Paige had found her, pulled her in, refused to let her disappear into the background. They had been inseparable after that. Years of growing together, pushing each other, becoming each other’s safe place.

And yet, somehow, Paige had spent all this time running from her. Pulling away just enough, hesitating just long enough, making Azzi question whether she had imagined everything they had built. Like loving her in the dark had been enough, for Paige, at least. And maybe that was the worst part, knowing that Paige had been given every chance to prove otherwise, and still, she had chosen silence.

Azzi clenched her jaw, staring out the window, her reflection barely visible against the night sky. She should be relieved, shouldn’t she? She had walked away, finally, after years of waiting for Paige to catch up. But relief felt nothing like this. This felt like free-falling, like opening her hands to find they were still empty, like hoping for something that had never really been hers to hold. Maybe she had spent too long hoping Paige would finally stop hesitating, stop second-guessing something that had been undeniable from the start.

But how long could you wait for someone before you had to accept that waiting wouldn’t change anything? That love, no matter how deep, couldn’t force someone to be ready for it?

Azzi didn’t have an answer.

And she wasn’t sure if Paige did either.

[kamfor334]

manifested my desired appearance!

hi guys! I know I haven’t posted in a while, this is just a little post about my manifestations, I manifested my desired appearance!

to be honest, when I think about this experience one thing is that this reminded me how EZ manifesting really is. When I first started to manifest my desired appearance, I thought it would be harder, and I would have to put in a lot more work. But, now looking back, this helped me realize that manifesting is simple, and instant. We are constantly manifesting naturally, and it isn’t that complicated or hard.

how it happened

It’s kinda funny how, people always say manifestation is instant (cus it is) but you genuinely to remember or realize until you see that you ACTUALLY have your results so quickly, and before you even realize. Tbh, I didn’t even really count or keep track of “how long it took”, since I find that constantly checking for results kinda deters me or messes with my mindset. I realized I had manifested my desired appearance when I was looking in the mirror today, low-key surprised me. My hair is thick, longer, my curls look the exact same as the photos from my vision board. My lashes are thicker, longer, my lips are pinker, plumper, ect, ect. I also noticed my body. I didn’t change my height (cause I didn’t want to) but, I look super cute!

After this, now I wanna manifest clear, soft smooth skin a lot more persistent, because me skin has been getting clearer and softer, but I’m not at my desired goal, however, I have seen a noticeable difference in my skin 🤭

also, people commented on it. I’ve been getting lots of comments on my body by my friends, telling me my body is tea, complementing my waist ect. And another thing I can remember is going to the convenience store with my mom, and this lady complementing my hair, and my mom pointing out my long, soft hair, and literally telling me word for word that I have4b hair 🤭

what I manifested

you don’t have to read this if you don’t want to but, I just wanna talk about what I manifested 🤭

White, straight teeth, pretty smile.

longer, thicker manga like lashes, wide, black beady doe eyes.

plump, pink, soft lips

more prominent dimples

Slimmer, oval face shape.

4b, defined healthy curls hair.

longer hair.

pear shaped body, slim, flat, soft waist, round plump bubble butt, r plump, round thighs and hips.

slim arms, collar bones, back and neck.

how did I did it!

well, for one, I said affirmations when ever I could, and whenever I had doubtful thoughts I would counteract it with a affirmation and try to take a deep breath and remind myself manifesting is easy, simple and instant, and that I literally already have, before I even fully realize.

I created a vision board. with pictures for visualization, written affirmations. I really like this form of manifestation cause you can look at it before bed, read it in your free time, visualize and affirm while you look at it.

looking in mirrors. I know a lot of people say not to look into mirrors when manifesting a physical change, but for me it helps. For some reason, looking in mirrors makes affirming a lot more fun and makes me feel more confident, like while I’m looking in the mirror I’ll say “I’m so pretty. ☺️” “I’m literally so beautiful, it’s so mesmerizing.” “I have such a cute, small waist” and is makes acknowledging my affirmations as truth lot easier, and it makes me feel so confident to admire myself. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to tho, or if it doesn’t work for you.

That’s it! I love youuuuuu

sorry this is long, I was just really excited to share my results. 😭

remember that manifesting is literally so easy and simple, we literally do it all the time without even realizing, and manifesting is instant.

[revelboo]

Last night I dreamed about you (not a strange dream)Basically, in my dream, you were famous to the point that all two stories here on Tumblr were physical books/available on Kindle. One day, on my birthday, I received a gift from my friend: The hardcover editions of "give up/give in" and "everything is alright". Man, what a good dream. The covers were SO BEAUTIFUL, glossy and probably the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Like, I woke up sad, because they were so perfect that I wanted them to be real. The last thing I remember doing in the dream was finishing reading both books on the same day because i was so excited!

Anyway, thanks for making me go crazy over Transformers again! I've been following you since the first 'chapters' of Everything is Alright (I think I found your account when you were releasing the 5th or 6th).

Hugs from a Brazilian fan 💗🇧🇷(And sorry for any words I may have misspelled. I'm not very confident about my English writing 🙂)

Haha nooo this stuff is just purely just my bored rambling nonsense. It’s not even beta read or edited really- it’s super rough. I’m glad you like it, though. I hadn’t been active in the fandom in ten years or so myself before I started writing these snippets.

Give Up/Give In Pt 14

Earthspark Megatron x Reader

• Landing, he waits for you to get clear before transforming so he can kneel and offer you his cupped hands. “Where are we?” You ask, settling yourself in his palm as he stands and walks up to the massive, hidden door recessed into the mountainside. And grimacing, he tries to think of a nice way to explain that he doesn’t trust Ghost. That he likes having his own place to recharge where he doesn’t have to constantly worry or look over his shoulder. Not even Optimus knows about this place and he can appreciate that his old friend also hasn’t pried, respecting his privacy. But letting himself in, he’s suddenly painfully aware of how empty the space is.

• “it’s just a place I can escape to for quiet,” he says, but there’s an edge to his tone that makes you think that’s not the whole answer. You don’t push, though, looking around. There’s a berth against a wall. A storage locker, and what might be a shower area in a corner, but it’s spartan and doesn’t really look like a place someone lives in. No photos, no mementos collected over the years. It’s not a home. “It’s not much, is it?” He asks as if reading your mind and you flinch, because what do you know about Cybertronians? Maybe uncluttered and empty is their design aesthetic.

• Wishes he can tell what you’re thinking as you look around. Do you find it lacking and lonely? It’s never mattered to him before, but now it does. Dorothy’s home is full of things. Odds and ends that humans tie memories to. What do you make of his hideaway without those human things? “It’s fine. You’re sure I’m not in the way here?” You ask, looking up at him and his spark warms that you’re worried about imposing on him. Just like you hadn’t wanted to impose on the Malto’s. Pulling the air mattress and blankets Dorothy had let him take from his subspace, he sets it up on a corner of his berth. The box of water and packaged MREs go beside it and he turns to find you watching him.

• “I like the company,” he says, nudging the box with a servo. Is he lonely recharging here alone instead of in the Ghost facility with the Autobots? He’s not given you a lot of details, but you get the impression he doesn’t trust Ghost and that Dorothy isn’t entirely sold on them either even though she works for them. Aware that you don’t have all the information, but okay with that for now since you don’t want to hound him. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” he adds, letting you avoid the real world a bit longer. To take the time to get yourself together.

• If you’re here, he can keep an optic on you. Live up to his promise. Knows you’ll want to leave him eventually and go back to your life, but he’s not about to make you until you’re ready. And until then, it’ll be nice to have someone to talk to. Someone that doesn’t only see the monster he’s trying to leave behind. “Thank you,” you say and he reaches out a servo, one corner of his mouth twitching when you lay a hand on it. Because your trust? It means everything and he wants to be worthy of it.

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[evis-gossip]

His mission. Part 2: Wake up

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x reader

Categories: Light angst, fluff, mostly hurt/comfort, almost sick fic

Warnings: Protective! Ghost (almost possessive). Talk of commas and unconsciousness. No use of Y/N. Allusions to long hair and small body. Hospital setting. Ghostie’s in his feels, I fear. MC speaks briefly of loosing their family and so does Simon.

Word count: 1k words

A/N: Guess what? We’re back babes. I did a little more research for this one and so it’s a little longer. MC is explicitly female in this one, sorry babes. I acknowledge that so far it has been faily platonic, but it's gonna start getting romantic soon. I can't help but want to eat this man up.

Part 1: He had you - Masterlist

Simon hadn’t moved and inch away from your bed.

Johnny had just brought him a change of clothes, jeans and a jumper. Simple, but most importantly, not tactical gear. Nothing bulletproof, cammo, sharp or particularly practical. Just something comfortable that’d make you feel easier in his presence. In any other case he wouldn’t have cared about clothes, but he did now. He wanted to look presentable for when you finally woke up.

Believing you would wake up at any second, he made Soap stand watch over you while he changed in the hospital rest room. And when he came back at super speed, fully believing you must’ve woken up after the less than 5 minutes he was gone, he was utterly disappointed when you didn’t. He had your safety first thing in his mind, but he just wanted you to wake up already. He had so many questions. Like for starters, what was your name? He wanted to know everything about you, but he couldn’t know anything without even enough to utter your name and went right back to sleep, then that would be enough to get someone to find intel on you. At least then he could let you rest while he studied your history. They even tried your fingerprints. But no such luck.

He should be grateful the doctor hadn’t proclaimed you comatose, just unconscious, just resting. But to be honest with himself, he was getting greedy, he wanted more. He needed to know what the hell was it that made you feel so safe in his presence? Why did the old bloke feel so protective over you? Maybe because your delicate features made you look so angelic, or because you had felt so soft and small in his arms. But he forbade himself from thinking those thoughts over an unconscious woman he knew nothing about. He didn’t even know how old you were and still he wanted to haul you up in his arms.

Simon hadn’t slept in almost a week. Ever since he found you, he hadn’t slept a wink. He spent all that time looking into you face, inspecting every feature, every freckle. And he was a soldier, he could keep himself awake for 72, no caffeine, imagine with. But after all that time, sleep was starting to catch up with him. Your steady heart beat on the monitor was starting to lull him to sleep.

He didn’t notice his head falling to the side of the bed, nudging your knee, right next to your limp hand. Not the most comfortable position to fall asleep in. Delete Created with Sketch.

When he woke up, something was tickling his forehead. He opened his eyes with a groan to find out that something were your fingers lightly trying to graze his skin. He sat up so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash. When he looked into your face, you’re eyelashes were fluttering so slightly he might as well have dreamed it. He wanted to caress you face gently and brush away the strands of hair, but instead took your fingers in his hand and traced your fingernails, willing you to wake up.

As much as he had eagerly will you to arise, he now had to face the reality of it. What if you didn’t even speak English? That was a very real possibility. And what if you had amnesia and didn’t even remember your name? He eagerly watched you wake up nonetheless, swallowing his own questions for later. Your head tilted to the side and your eyelids scrunched tighter one last time before you opened them with a whine.

“Hey luv” he smiled softly, not like the beast baring his teeth he’s used to being “Hmm, brit, eh?” “That’s right” he sighed looking at your face. That was the first thing he ever heard you say, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find your voice otherworldly. He’d do anything to keep you talking. You looked so peaceful and far better than how he found you, but he needed to know " What’s yer name, luv? Can’t find yer family wit’out it” You tilted your head to your side, avoiding the question completely, tears filling your water line “Sh sh sh” He cooed gently as got closer, cupping your face tenderly “Yer don’t gotta talk if yer ain’t ready” Simon looked into your eyes and felt himself fighting to stay above water instead of drowning in them. You whispered your name before breaking into tears. “They’re all gone. ‘Is only me now” You sobbed your heart out, leaning into his arms and Simon found himself finally gathering you up to his chest again. He kept repeating in his head that it was all to calm you down, but truth was, he enjoyed having you so close, even if you were crying hysterically.

He rubbed your back soothingly softly beckoning you to calm down. He understood. He didn’t have anyone else left either, but he was not about to let you feel the same way he did, not when you just woke up after being held hostage for god knows how long. He’d be there for you. When your crying slowed down to soft sniffles, he laid you down on the bed again, right before nurses flooded the room to check you up after waking up. A little more conscious than the previous time, you scurried away from them and crawled to the safety of Simon’s warm embrace. And he held you tight. It was conflicting really. To feel so protective over someone so vulnerable. Almost possessive. Like an incessant need to keep you all to himself.

He was glad you had woken up and started to talk. He was even more pleased when you fell back asleep clutching the fabric of his jumper, nuzzling into his chest again. This time he did not put you back in bed, but instead pulled the blanket over your small frame and sat back, letting you sleep peacefully in the cradle of his arms.

Thank you for reading and let me know what you think!!!! <333

[deadbeatbirdmom]

One of the themes in RWBY is about the current generation being failed by the previous one. We see it a lot with the mess that is the Xiao Long-Rose-Branwen family.

Every single member of Team STRQ failed Yang and Ruby, to a greater and/or lesser extent.

(read more cut because this gets long, although I make no promises that I'll cover everything, and please forgive any typos, I'm very tired)

Raven abandoned her daughter and her husband (yes, husband, according to 'The World of RWBY' book by Daniel Wallace, written with input from CRWBY), and the rest of her team. Yang wasn't old enough to remember her, and may well have still been a baby at the time. The reason why seems to have been for Raven to take the leadership of the Branwen tribe of bandits, although I think it was more complicated than that, which would fit with Raven being such a complicated woman.

Summer. Yang's super-mom. The mother who stepped up. I deeply respect that. She had the best of intentions when she left on that super secret mission with Raven, presumably to confront Salem. To protect her family, and hopefully so she'd never need to leave them again. Unfortunately good intentions pave the road to hell, and she ended up never going home to her girls. That truly tore the family apart, and it never really recovered. Yang's abandonment issues aren't only from Raven leaving, and a lot of Ruby's issues come from trying to live up to the memory of Summer while being held to impossible standards.

Tai didn't react well to the loss of Summer. To quote Yang: he shut down. Yang had to pick up the pieces and keep things together. Alone. Because Tai was always busy with school, and Ruby couldn't talk yet. It's striking that Yang refers to her dad by name in Alone Together when talking to Weiss about it. Most kids don't do that when referring to their parents. Your mileage may vary about what that means, but to me it sounds a lot like resentment. Don't get me wrong, Yang loves her dad. But it's entirely possible to feel both love and resentment.

I do empathise with Tai. I'm all too familiar with grief and loss and depression. I'm sure he did his best, and as far as we know he did keep his kids fed and clothed, and gave them treats from time to time like the boba tea mentioned in the RWBY Beyond episode. But the fact remains that Yang ended up doing more to raise Ruby than she ever should have or would have if at least one of her mothers had stayed. Yang had no reason to lie to Weiss about that.

And Tai definitely failed his daughters. Even without anything else, there's the incident when Yang and Ruby were left alone when clearly too young to be unattended, and Yang went in search of Raven, with Ruby pulled in a wagon. That they weren't devoured by Grimm is thanks to Qrow, and possibly Raven for getting Qrow there, because I don't know how else he found them in time besides good luck for once (or very bad luck for the Grimm).

Does that mean Raven might have given Yang more than one save, or wriggled out of her rule about that by getting Qrow to do the saving? Does she secretly have a bond with Ruby, and that was Ruby's save? Whatever the case, Raven failed them too, because Yang wouldn't have been looking for her if she hadn't needed a mother, and Raven was well aware she no longer had one.

I do think it quite likely that by this point Raven had become the Spring Maiden, so might not have felt able to return even if she wanted to - it would have risked endangering the girls if someone learned Raven was a Maiden and tried to take the power for themselves.

Did that near disaster give Tai a wake up call? Did Yang only raise Ruby until then? We don't know for sure, but as someone raised by a single mother for a while, I can tell you that single parents can't work and raise children without help. There doesn't seem to be any extended family around to have done so, probably all killed by Grimm in the dangerous world that is Remnant... Plus there's Ruby's words to Yang when they're reunited in Volume 9: "If you thought we wouldn’t come for you, then you must’ve forgotten who raised me." I really don't think Ruby is referring to Tai there. Especially with referring to just herself and not both Yang and herself with 'who raised me.'

Childcare exists in Remnant, at least in Argus (there's a mention of needing to collect Jaune's nephew from childcare in Volume 6). I can't imagine it's unheard of in Patch. Yet Tai doesn't seem to have used it. To be clear, if any of the rest of Team STRQ had been left as a single parent they'd have needed help with childcare too, you can't both work and raise children at the same time. That goes for Summer too, even super-mom would need help. Maybe Tai's teaching job didn't pay well enough for him to afford it. Maybe he feared reaching out for help would mean losing his daughters, and I have no doubt that he loves them, and not just because they're all he has left of their mothers.

The way Tai talks to Yang during her training session in Volume 4 does make me wonder if he associates her far too closely with Raven, because while there are similarities Yang is very much her own person and also influenced by Summer far more than by Raven. We don't see him interact much with Ruby, but I wouldn't be surprised if he similarly associates her too much with Summer.

It doesn't help that Yang and Ruby so closely resemble their mothers - and they do, despite Yang's hair and eyes being different to Raven's, apart from when her eyes turn red. That must've given Tai quite a shock the first time it happened... Anyway, my point is that Raven is like a dark reflection of Yang. Or Yang a bright reflection of Raven, I'm not sure which. The physical resemblance of mothers and daughters can't have helped Tai with constant reminders of them, especially as they grew older and the resemblance more striking.

Qrow... I'm sure Drunkle Qrow did his best to help out, but at the time his mindset on his Semblance would have limited him to fleeting visits rather than living with Tai and the girls. He simply loved them too much to want to risk Misfortune hurting them.

That and Qrow was raised by bandits, a rough upbringing where he was made to feel like a bad luck charm. I'm not entirely certain he'd have seen the problem with Yang having to raise Ruby. There is a story in the Yang official manga anthology where Qrow acknowledges kid!Yang has every right to be angry about being burdened with the responsibilities of grown ups, but how canon those anthologies are is ambiguous.

One thing for sure: both Yang and Ruby were familiar with Qrow being drunk, and having to deal with that, although never as bad as it got in Volume 6.

And yes, Ruby does talk about Qrow teaching at Signal, and having taught her to fight, and that Tai taught Yang, but that does not mean they were a happy family living together while that happened. Sorry, this family has been haunted and broken ever since Summer disappeared, and the cracks appeared when Raven noped out of there to be a bandit queen.

I've mostly talked about how Yang was affected. But Ruby was too. Sure, she had more of a childhood than Yang did, because to some extent Yang made sure of that. Chances are Ruby got good at pretending things are fine when they aren't. That and Ruby is quite possibly socially awkward for a reason: she was at least partly raised by a child only two years older than she was. Yang did her best, I've no doubt about that, but there's no way she knew what she was doing.

Why does Yang seem comparatively normal if she at least in part raised herself? Because she's good at blending in and wearing masks. She'd have to be to avoid raising suspicions with her teachers about the situation at home, because Tai couldn't have been the only one who afraid about the kids being taken away. One of Yang's worst nightmares must've been about being taken into care by social services and separated from Ruby. Presuming of course that Remnant has social services. It surely has to have something because of the likelihood of those orphaned by Grimm attacks, in addition to the more usual family breakdowns.

In conclusion: this is such a messy family, and as has been noted by @one-real-wrimonkey that's part of what makes them so interesting (sorry, I hope you don't mind being tagged).

[fluentmoviequoter]

I have a (The rookie) Tim Bradford x shyreader request please?

Tim and shyreader just recently start dating and one time when Tim, shyreader and his cop friends are at a restaurant “Denny’s” (I always order pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages with Coca Cola) and Tim cop friends are meeting shy!reader.

Tim is surprised when Lucy and shy!reader have secret new best friends handshake and everyone finds it cute while Tim is being sad and surprised puppy asking himself when did this happen. https://youtube.com/shorts/WUON5Q4HDuc?si=4cot1jSQiyi5F-zI

Such a cute request; thank you! 0.7k+ words of fluff (I couldn't figure out how to make it longer without it being super boring. I hope this is okay!)

Secret Relationships, Handshakes, and Pancakes

“It’s been a month,” Tim points out.

“Five weeks and two days,” you correct softly, looking at Tim’s hands rather than his face.

“That’s worse.”

You glance up at him, unsurprised to see that he’s looking directly at you. He hides his smile and lifts his brows.

“Breakfast with a few of my friends can’t be that bad,” he assures. “I don’t even like spending time with them, but I’m still going.”

You push your hand against Tim’s chest before you ask, “Will Lucy be there?”

“Yes,” Tim answers, wondering why you’d ask about her. He’s told you stories about all of them, but this is the big day (Angela’s words) when you finally meet them.

Nodding, you agree to go, then wrap your arms tightly around Tim’s waist. He uses your grip on him to get you out of the door and into his truck. It’s not that you don’t like spending time with Tim or don’t want to meet his friends, but it’s hard being around new people when you’re shy, and you don’t want to make a bad impression and lose Tim forever.

“It’ll be right out,” the waitress says after taking drink orders.

“Thanks,” you whisper to Tim.

“For what?” he replies, lifting his brows innocently like he doesn’t remember ordering for you.

“Tim!” Lucy calls as the door to the restaurant opens behind you.

You smile and turn, then stand and hug Lucy. She pulls back and offers her right hand, which you take in yours. Tim watches as you shake her hand, then flip your fingers to hold her wrist before sliding your palms against one another. Laughing as you hook your fingers with Lucy’s, then snap, you almost forget that other people are around.

“Um, excuse me?” Angela interjects as she stops beside you. “I want a handshake.”

“It’s reserved for best friends,” Lucy argues. She winks at you as she sits beside you.

Angela groans, then smiles and introduces herself and Wesley Evers. You shake their hands before you lower to your seat. Tim’s eyes are on you, but your neck is already warming, so you keep your gaze forward.

“I was under the impression we were all meeting you for the first time today,” Angela tells you, looking pointedly at Lucy.

“We met at the station,” Lucy explains. “I recognized her from one of Tim’s pictures.”

“When did you see my pictures?” Tim interrupts, momentarily distracted from his internal wondering of how you and Lucy hit it off so quickly.

“Anyway,” Lucy deflects, “Nolan is running a few minutes late, but he’ll be here soon.”

“Did you come up with the handshake yourself?” Wesley asks you.

“I did,” you answer softly. “But it was Lucy’s idea.”

“Were you on the clock?” Tim inquires over your head.

“No,” you and Lucy answer together.

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose and looks down to ask, “How long have you been friends?”

“About a month,” Lucy answers.

Their conversation is interrupted by the waitress returning with drinks for the table. After Angela thanks Tim for remembering her favorite, Tim gently taps his elbow against your arm. You turn toward him and interlace your fingers beneath the table.

“So, while I was fighting to get you to talk to me, hold eye contact… you were hanging out with Lucy and making secret handshakes?” he accuses.

“Bet you’re wishing you’d picked up Nolan,” Wesley tells Lucy.

“Wasn’t the goal of breakfast to let us bond?” Lucy defends for you. “We just bonded early.”

“He’s mad that you stole his girlfriend’s limited attention,” Angela explains. She meets your eyes and smiles. “No offense.”

“None taken,” you promise. “Sorry I didn’t tell you, Tim.”

Tim sighs and murmurs, “I suppose there will be even more handshakes now.” As Angela cheers, he reaches across the table for a straw and uses his arm as cover to whisper, “I’m the only one who gets secret kisses, though.”

You nod, fighting the shy smile growing at his words.

“Hey, Nolan,” Wesley calls. “Lucky for you, no one else has to talk once John gets here.”

Tim takes your hand under the table, and as his thumb brushes over your knuckles, you know your relationship is better than all the secret handshakes in the world. But then he orders for you, and the women at the table act like it’s the sweetest thing anyone has done since Fitzwilliam Darcy walked to propose to Elizabeth Bennet. You turn to hide your face against his arm.

“Wait, handshakes?” Nolan exclaims a moment later. “I love handshakes!”

“No you don’t,” Tim warns, his hand warm against your back.