#(person whos about to say something ridiculous) hear me out

[the-winter-spider]

Invisible | Part 21

Bucky x Reader AU

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: angstttttty

A/N: 🤗🤗😮‍💨😇

The late morning sun cast long shadows on the sidewalk as you and Natasha wandered through the shopping district. The crisp autumn air smelled faintly of roasted nuts and coffee from nearby stalls, and you paused in front of a shop window, gesturing to a soft green dress displayed on a mannequin.

“That is so you,” you said with a laugh, glancing at Natasha.

She barely looked, her eyes skimming the display with vague disinterest. “Yeah, maybe,” she muttered, her tone distant.

Her lack of enthusiasm sent a ripple of unease through you, but you brushed it off, continuing down the street with her by your side. Yet, the silence between you began to gnaw at your nerves.

You bit your lip, hesitating before finally speaking. “Um, Nat” you started carefully, “can I talk to you about something?”

Natasha sighed lightly but nodded, her expression neutral. “Sure. What’s up?”

You hesitated, glancing at her out of the corner of your eye. “It’s about Bucky.”

That got her attention. Her brow quirked slightly, though her lips remained pressed in a thin line. “What about him?”

You sighed, your hands fidgeting with the strap of your bag. “He came home late the other night. Which, I mean, it’s fine—he’s allowed to have his space, obviously—but he didn’t tell me where he was. He said he was out for drinks with Sam, but I had lunch with Sam today, and he said he hasn’t seen Bucky since Sunday. I don’t know, Nat. Am I being ridiculous? Does that sound weird to you?”

Natasha stopped walking abruptly, turning to face you with a sharpness that took you off guard. “I don’t want to hear about this,” she said, her voice flat and unyielding.

You blinked, her sudden reaction throwing you completely. “What?”

Her jaw tightened as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re overthinking it. As always. You’re being dramatic about something that’s probably nothing.”

The words stung. Your chest tightened as you stared at her, confusion and hurt bubbling to the surface. “Wow, okay,” you said quietly, your voice wavering. “Where is this coming from?”

Natasha looked away, her gaze flicking to the street, her lips pressing into a hard line. “I just… I think I need some space,” she said finally, her voice tight.

The weight of her words hit you like a freight train. “From me?” you asked, barely able to push the words past the lump in your throat.

“Yes,” she said bluntly, her gaze avoiding yours. “From you.”

You took a step back, the world around you blurring slightly as the hurt settled deep in your chest. “Nat, I don’t understand. Why? Why are you saying this?”

Natasha exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. “Because I can’t do this anymore,” she snapped, her voice rising slightly. “I can’t understand why he’d fall in love with you and not me! You’re not some amazing ethereal person, where you get two amazing guys falling in love with you! ”

Her words hit like a slap, cutting deeper than you thought possible. “Nat,” you whispered, shaking your head in disbelief. “That’s… fucking hurtful. Do you even hear yourself right now?”

“You asked,” she shot back, her tone defensive and raw. “Do you know how hard it is to stand on the sidelines for years, watching everyone else’s perfect little stories play out? Watching you and Bucky? Watching Steve?”

Her voice cracked slightly on his name, and your breath hitched. “Steve?”

Her laugh was humorless and sharp, her gaze finally snapping back to yours. “Yes, Steve. The guy who’s been in love with you forever. The guy who’s been pretending everything’s fine while you and Bucky play house.”

Your heart twisted painfully in your chest. “I know,” you admitted quietly. “I know, Nat. And I’ve been trying so hard to handle it without making everything worse for him. What do you want me to do?”

Natasha threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know!” she said, her voice cracking. “But you and Bucky can’t just act like this doesn’t affect anyone else. You’re so wrapped up in each other, you don’t see what it’s doing to him—or to me.”

You took a shaky breath, anger beginning to simmer beneath the surface. “You wanted this!” you said, your voice rising. “You’ve been pushing me to admit my feelings for him for years. And now that I finally have, I’m not allowed to be happy? To talk to you about him?”

“You don’t get it,” she snapped, her hands trembling slightly at her sides. “You don’t get how hard it is to watch this unfold. I’m so in love with Steve, okay? And I’ve been in love with him for years, he’s my Bucky! And now I have to sit there and watch him pine over you, knowing I’m just… invisible.”

The raw honesty of her words left you momentarily stunned. “Natasha,” you said softly, your anger draining as guilt and heartbreak filled its place. “I didn’t know it was this bad. I’m so—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “Don’t apologize. It won’t change anything.”

You reached out instinctively, but she took a step back. “Nat, please. You’re my best friend.”

“And I’ll always care about you,” she said, her voice soft but distant. “But I need time. I need to figure out how to deal with this without being around you and Bucky all the time.”

Your breath caught in your throat, your vision blurring slightly. “Okay,” you said finally, your voice breaking. “If that’s what you need.”

Natasha’s face twisted with something you couldn’t quite name—regret, maybe—but she didn’t say another word. She just nodded, turned on her heel, and walked away, leaving you standing alone on the crowded sidewalk as the world continued to move around you.

You stood there for a long time, the sounds of the city fading into the background, as the weight of her absence pressed heavily on your chest.

The chill of the evening air nipped at your cheeks as you trudged home, your mind a whirlwind of emotions. Natasha’s words still echoed in your ears, sharp and biting, leaving an ache in your chest that felt unbearable. As you turned a corner, your eyes landed on a familiar figure walking toward you, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

Steve.

He noticed you immediately, his brows furrowing as he quickened his pace. “Woah, hey,” he said, his voice laced with concern. “Are you okay?”

You stopped in your tracks, blinking back the tears threatening to spill. “No, I’m not,” you said bluntly, your voice trembling.

Steve’s frown deepened, his blue eyes searching your face for answers. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

You crossed your arms tightly over your chest, your gaze darting away. “Why weren’t you at the farmer’s market today?” you asked, your tone sharper than you intended.

Steve sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. “I just… I needed some space.”

A bitter laugh escaped your lips, and you shook your head, the absurdity of it all crashing down on you.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his confusion evident.

You looked at him, your eyes brimming with unshed tears. “It’s not funny. It’s just… apparently everyone needs space.” Your voice cracked as you continued. “I thought I was finally happy, Steve. I have Bucky, and for once, things felt right. But now I’m losing Nat, I’m losing Sam, and now you. Nothing feels right anymore!”

Steve’s jaw clenched, his expression pained.

“Are you avoiding me because of me and Bucky?” you pressed, your voice trembling.

He hesitated, his silence speaking volumes before he finally nodded. “Yeah.”

Your chest tightened, and you took a shaky breath. “How much space do you need?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly, his gaze dropping to the ground.

“Of course, you don’t,” you said bitterly, the frustration bubbling over. “I thought you said you were okay with me and Bucky!”

“Well, I lied, okay?” Steve’s voice rose, uncharacteristically sharp. His hands clenched at his sides as he looked at you, his eyes blazing with frustration and something deeper. “How can I be okay when you shouldn’t be with him? I don’t care what Sam or the universe says—you should be with me!”

His words hit you like a freight train, leaving you stunned and speechless. The world around you seemed to tilt, and for a moment, you couldn’t breathe.

“Steve…” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

But he wasn’t finished. “Do you know what it’s like? Watching you with him? Knowing that he’s the one who gets to make you happy? I’ve loved you for so long, and I tried—God, I tried—to bury it, to be the friend you needed. But I can’t do it anymore!”

Your heart felt like it was being ripped apart, the weight of his confession crashing down on you. And yet, before you could fully process his words, your own emotions spilled out like a flood.

“This is such a shit show,” you blurted, your voice breaking. “Natasha is in love with you, Steve!”

Steve’s eyes widened, his face paling. “What?”

“She’s in love with you!” you cried, your emotions finally boiling over. “And she’s been in love with you for years, and now she hates me because of all this! Because of you, because of Bucky, because of this mess that I never asked for!”

Steve took a step closer, his voice soft but firm. “Please don't cry..Why are you crying?”

“Because I never asked you to love me!” you shouted, tears streaming down your face now. “I never asked for any of this! And now it’s all falling on me—Natasha, you, Bucky, everyone. I hate this, Steve. I hate this!”

Steve reached out, his hand brushing your arm, but you pushed him away, the hurt and anger swirling in your chest like a storm. “I can’t do this,” you said, your voice cracking as you turned and walked away, your tears blurring the path ahead of you.

“Wait!” Steve called after you, his voice desperate, but you didn’t stop.

You kept walking, your sobs echoing in the quiet streets, the weight of it all pressing down on you. The ache in your chest was unbearable, but you didn’t look back. You couldn’t.

The door slammed behind you with a force that rattled the frame, the sound reverberating through the apartment. Bucky, who was setting the table with dinner, froze mid-motion, his brow furrowing as he turned toward you.

“Whoa, hey,” he said, his voice calm but laced with concern. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

You laughed bitterly, the sound raw and harsh even to your own ears. Tears streamed down your face, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stop them. Your chest heaved with the weight of your emotions, the evening’s events crashing down on you all at once.

Bucky crossed the room in an instant, his hands reaching out to you. “Hey, hey, come here. What happened?” His voice was soft now, almost pleading as he tried to pull you into his arms.

But you stepped back, holding up a trembling hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you said, your voice cracking.

The hurt on his face was immediate and gut-wrenching. His hands dropped to his sides, his blue eyes clouding with worry. “Baby, talk to me. What’s going on?”

You wiped at your face furiously, your breath hitching as you tried to form the words. “I know you didn’t have drinks with Sam the other night, Bucky.”

His brows furrowed in confusion, his lips parting as if to respond, but you cut him off.

“Why are you lying to me?” you demanded, your voice rising. “You said you’d never lie to me! Where were you?”

Bucky’s expression darkened, his shoulders tensing as he ran a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t lying,” he said carefully, his tone low. “It’s just—complicated.”

You let out another humorless laugh, the bitterness sharp in your throat. “Complicated? That’s your answer? God, Bucky, we’ve only just started, and you’re already hiding things from me. What am I supposed to think?”

His jaw tightened, and he took a step closer, his eyes pleading. “Sweetheart, listen to me. There’s nothing going on. I swear to you, there’s no one else. There’s nothing else.”

“Then where were you?” you demanded again, your voice trembling with both anger and hurt. “You know how hard this is for me. I trust you, Bucky, I do. But you said you’d never lie to me. So why—why did you?”

Bucky hesitated, his hands flexing at his sides. “It’s not what you think. It’s…” He trailed off, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment. Then he looked back up, his voice firm. “An ex showed up. Sarah.”

Your stomach dropped. “Sarah?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, his tone grim. “She showed up at the bar that night, I was getting us take out. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to upset you. It was nothing, I swear. She wanted to talk, and I told her there was nothing to say. I left, doll. That’s it.”

The storm of emotions swirling in your chest only intensified. “You didn’t think I deserved to know? You didn’t think it would be worse to find out like this?”

“I didn’t want you to think…” He stopped, his voice faltering. “I didn’t want you to doubt us.”

“Doubt us?” you repeated, your voice breaking. “Hiding it from me makes me doubt us more, Bucky! How am I supposed to feel? You’re the one person I thought I could trust completely, and now…”

Tears blurred your vision again, and you shook your head, your arms wrapping around yourself. “Maybe this is too good to be true,” you whispered.

His eyes widened in panic, and he stepped forward, finally closing the distance between you. This time, you didn’t move away, too drained to resist.

“No,” he said firmly, his hands gently grasping your arms. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that.” His voice softened, turning desperate. “There’s nothing and no one that could make me want anything but you. You’re it for me, sweetheart. You always have been.”

Your lip trembled as you searched his face, the sincerity in his eyes undeniable. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away your tears. “Because I’m an idiot. Because it was nothing to me, and I didn’t want to risk hurting you. But I was wrong. I see that now. I should’ve told you.”

The raw emotion in his voice broke something inside you, and you let out a shaky breath. “I’m scared, Bucky,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “I’m scared that one day, you’ll realize this was a mistake.”

His grip on you tightened, his forehead pressing against yours. “Never,” he murmured. “This is no mistake. You and me? This is the realest thing I’ve ever had. I’m sorry for screwing up, but please, don’t doubt that I’m all in.”

For a moment, the two of you just stood there, your breaths mingling as the weight of the moment settled between you. Then, slowly, you leaned into him, letting him wrap his arms around you completely.

“I love you,” you whispered against his chest, the words raw and vulnerable.

“I love you more,” he replied, his voice steady and sure.

He kissed the top of your head, holding you close as the tension began to melt away. And though the ache in your chest hadn’t disappeared completely, his warmth and the conviction in his voice began to soothe it.

“Let’s go eat,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to look at you.

You nodded, your lips quirking into a small smile. “Okay.”

The room was quiet except for the clinking of your fork against the plate. You were trying to eat, but everything in you felt like it was unraveling. Bucky sat across from you, his brow furrowed, watching you with worry as you pushed your food around.

Finally, you sighed, setting the fork down. “So I was with Natasha today.”

Bucky’s hand froze mid-reach for his glass of water. “Yeah?” he asked cautiously.

You nodded, feeling the lump in your throat grow tighter. “She… she basically told me she needed space. That she doesn’t understand why Steve fell for me and not her. She was so angry, Buck.”

His jaw tightened, and he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “What?” he said, his voice low.

“And then,” you continued, tears welling in your eyes again, “I ran into Steve on the way home, and he said he needs space, too. He said…” Your voice cracked. “He said I shouldn’t be with you. That I should be with him.”

Bucky froze, his blue eyes darkening as his grip on the glass tightened. “He said that?”

You nodded, a tear slipping down your cheek. “I never asked for any of this, Buck. I never asked for him to love me, or for Nat to feel this way. I just—” Your voice broke entirely, and you buried your face in your hands.

Bucky was out of his chair in an instant, rounding the table and kneeling in front of you. Gently, he pulled your hands away from your face and cupped your cheeks, his thumbs brushing away the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Sweetheart, those aren’t tears. That’s just too much salt in the food,” he teased softly, his voice thick with affection.

A choked laugh escaped you, and you looked down at your plate. “Buck, that’s my tears. I’m literally crying into my dinner.”

He gave you a small, crooked smile. “I know,” he said gently. “That’s why I’m here, doll. To make sure you don’t cry alone.”

You sniffled, leaning into his touch, and he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead before pulling back slightly. “I’ve been planning something,” he said, his voice hesitant but hopeful.

You blinked at him, confused. “Planning something?”

“Yeah,” he said, his hands still cradling your face. “The night I ran into Sarah, I wasn't just late because I was waiting for take out, I was on my way back from a meeting.”

“A meeting?” you repeated, your brow furrowing.

Bucky nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Do you remember where we used to go almost every summer as kids with my ma?”

Your heart gave a tiny flutter. “The cabin?” you asked softly.

“Yeah,” he said, his grin growing. I found out who my family sold it to, they use it for a weekend. I thought… I thought maybe we could go. Just us.”

The flood of emotions was too much. Your face fell into your hands again, and sobs wracked your body.

“Whoa, whoa!” Bucky said quickly, his hands moving to your shoulders. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did I—was that too much?”

You shook your head, peeking up at him through your tears. “No, Bucky. Of course, I want to go. I want to go so badly.”

His expression softened, and he pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly. “Then what’s with the tears, baby? You’re breaking my heart over here.”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, your voice muffled against his chest. “Everything is just… too much right now. But this? This is good. I need this.”

He chuckled softly, pressing his lips to the top of your head. “Well, I hope you’re not mad, but I already told Tony we’re taking next weekend off. It’s all set up.”

You pulled back slightly, staring at him in disbelief. “You did?”

He grinned, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. “Yep. It’s a whole shebang. We leave Friday morning.”

A warmth spread through your chest, and for the first time all day, you felt a sense of relief. You leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“I try,” he teased, winking at you.

As you both settled back into your chairs, you pulled out your phone. “I need to tell Natasha… oh, right.” Your heart sank as you remembered her earlier words. Instead, you opened a message to Wanda.

You: Hey. I just wanted to tell you what happened today. I saw Nat, and… it didn’t go well.

Wanda: I heard. I’m so sorry, sweetie. She’s not in the right here, and you know it.

You: I just… I don’t know what to do.

Wanda: Let her have her space. She’ll come around. I’ll talk to her, okay?

You: Thanks, Wan.... Bucky's taking me away for the weekend :)

Wanda: Anytime <3 omg!! So sweet, have the best time babe, you deserve it xo

Bucky reached over and squeezed your hand, pulling your attention back to him. “You good?”

You smiled weakly. “Im good.”

He nodded, his expression softening. “Good. Now finish your food before I have to start feeding you myself.”

You laughed, the tension in your chest easing just a little as the two of you settled into the comfort of each other’s presence.

[anyamaris]

Make Me

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x F!reader

Summary: Things between you and your long time best friend take a turn one day into forbidden territory-will you be able to go back to the friendship that you hold so dear?

Genre/AU: Best friends to FWB, non-idol au, angst/smut

Rating: 18+/M for mature

Word Count: 5782

Warnings: Adult Language, unprotected sex, playful banter/insults, unexpected sex, creampie, mild angst after the deed

A/N: Thank you to my beta readers @pars-ley @colormepurplex2 @yoonguurt you're amazing! @pars-ley for the ridiculously gorgeous banner and @cafekitsune for the dividers!

I was going to do this in a one shot, but I got a bit carried away and this will end up being at least two parts.

Taglist: @lapydiaries @bangtanwritershq @thebtswritersclub @ksmutsociety @frenchkisstheabyss

Dinner parties at Yoongi’s are always a great time, the combination of Sky’s hosting abilities and both of their cooking skills make any event they throw a complete smash.

You glance at the group bantering in the other room as you gather the dishes from the table, laughing at the chaos already starting.  

“Stop, you’re a guest,” Sky tells you, but you just ignore her and continue to help despite her narrow–eyed look.

Giggling, you take off into the kitchen as she sighs behind you.  

“They’re so cute, I knew they’d eventually end up together.” You tell her as she follows you, noting your glance at Namjoon and your long-time friend, Ty.

“Of course, totally called it.” Sky agrees, and you share a secret smile.

Since they first met, Sky has been whispering to you about the inevitability of it, and as always, she’s spot on.

Well, almost always, you think, smiling inwardly.

Her own story with Yoongi was something to behold, that was for sure.

A squeaky, wheezing laugh greets your ears as Sky swats you away from attempting to do the dishes, so you finally give up to go find out what is going on in the other room.

Before the door to the kitchen swings shut, you smirk as you hear Yoongi’s deep voice.

“You’d better leave those, baby, or -”

Shaking your head, you go plop down next to Hoseok, eyes locked on Jin as he rambles on about some incident at the practice room.

“What’s he on about?”you ask Hoseok, leaning over towards him as your eyes just watch the animated man yapping a mile a minute.

“Who knows, I tuned him out a while ago.” Hoseok chuckles as he shakes his head.  

“Did someone bring the WD-40?” you ask as Jin lets out another one of his signature windshield wiper laughs.

“Yah!” he says, eyes wide with fake anger as he turns on you, causing the whole room to erupt into laughter.

You shoot a wink across to Ty, who is curled up with Namjoon on the opposite couch as Jin and Jungkook resume their little argument.

Sky was almost always right, you think again, settling in to enjoy the evening.

You open your eyes to your phone blaring at you, your jaw cracking as you yawn and clear the morning fog from your mind.

You know it’s Jin before you even look; he’d somehow managed to get ahold of your phone and used his ridiculous laugh for his personal ringtone.

You just shake your head as you slide the answer call button.

“Hey, something up? Shouldn’t you be working?” You ask, rolling your neck and rubbing the sleepiness from your eyes.  

“Yeah, I should be but a pipe burst at my place and the whole ceiling came down. Dealing with this for now, but I have a favor to ask…” 

His voice is punctuated by people talking in the background and you can hear him cover the phone with his hand as he answers something.

Probably the landlord and workers, you think.

“Of course you can come stay til it’s fixed, Jin.  You don’t even need to ask.” you tell him, sitting up to swing your legs out of the bed.  

“Ah, thank you! I appreciate it, you know I won’t be a bad roomie.” You can hear the relief in his otherwise tense tone.

“Didn’t want to ask the newlyweds?” you tease, knowing very well Namjoon’s place would be very...unwelcoming to guests at the moment.

His snort just has you grinning as you make your way to peek into the guest bedroom, already taking stock of what you need to do to get it ready for him.

“Seriously, I’m all for them being together but that’s different than rooming there…ugh the noises alone…”

You can only laugh at his tone and nod as you turn to go make a list of things to do today.

Step one, coffee.

“Sure you don’t want to stay with Yoongi and-”

“Don’t even say it, you know how bad it was last time.” he groans.

“Yes, yes, I don’t want to hear the details again about my friend's sex life.  Grab whatever and I’ll have the room ready.  You still have your key?” you ask, setting about your morning routine.

“Yep.  Are you staying in today?” he asks, and you can hear the voices calling for him once more.

“Yeah, I may run out for a moment but other than that I’ll be here.  Go take care of that.  See you in a bit.”

You hang up, letting out another big yawn as you pad over to peek into the fridge.

I’ll have to run to the grocery store too, you put on your mental checklist.

One of the things you love the most about when Jin comes over is cooking together, so you always have to make sure you have some fun things to work with.

Deciding to put off your writing for the day since Jin is coming, you focus on getting some laundry going before heading out to grab some things.

The weeks following Jin temporarily moving in go as they normally do for the two of you.

Early mornings where Jin is waking up as he makes his way out to early practice or the studio, as you are finally closing your laptop after an all-nighter.

Your schedules have a brief overlap, allowing you to catch up with each other about random things over quick shared simple breakfasts before he’s rushing out the door as you shuffle off to sleep the day away.

Completing your most recent chapter ahead of deadline, you find yourself slowly getting back to a regular schedule and can catch up with some more social activities.

Yoongi had taken Sky with him on some kind of work related trip, and most of your friends were busy with their own schedules.

You hadn’t the heart to harass Ty too much with the new relationship, knowing that her infrequent text responses are a good sign that she’s likely quite busy.

Lounging on the couch, you scroll through the most recent conversations.

“Namjoon’s keeping her occupied.” you hum happily as Jin leans over your shoulder to read the text on your phone.

The scent of fresh soap washes over you and you glance behind at the man now hovering over you.

Clad in only a towel around his waist, his damp hair tickles your cheek as you turn to raise your eyebrow at him.

“Is that my towel?” you ask, sighing at the cute little sunflowers now adorning his otherwise naked body.

“It looks good on me.” He winks at you, and you can’t help but push his face away, rolling your eyes at him.

“I left one for you, Seokjin! I just did the laundry! Why are you using mine?” 

Walking around to go grab a water bottle from the fridge, he just takes a long swig before he’s turning to finally answer you.

“Don’t want to share?” he grins, reaching out to lean against the wall beside him.  

“Ugh, don’t pose to try to look sexy, Jin.  Now I won’t be able to use that again, just the thought of your dick tainting my pretty little flowers….” you sigh dramatically, looking back at your messages.  

“Try?!” He scoffs, and you try to keep a straight face while his voice rises, anticipating the incoming rant.

“”Mhm…try.” 

“I’ll have you know, I’m considered very sexy!  You should have heard the staff talking about how handsome I am at the company today-!”

You merely nod, not looking up from your phone as he continues, doing your best to not burst into laughter.

Nodding absentmindedly, his rant finally just turns into muttering as he wanders off to hopefully put on some clothing.

It was always a good day when you got Jin to rant, it just means this is a win for you.

“What do you want to cook?” He asks as he shambles back out, finally drawing your attention as you finish answering some texts.

“Now there’s a question…” you say, hoisting yourself off the couch to go poke around with him in the fridge.

By the end of the evening, you find yourself in your normal spot, lounging with your leg over Jin’s, his arm perched behind you on the back of the couch as you watch the most recent episode of the drama you’d both decided on.

It was nice to have something to look forward to with your schedules being so wacky lately, and by the time it finishes, you’re happy to find that you’re tired while it’s still dark out.

Covering your mouth to hide the big yawn, you extract yourself from your best friend, checking the time.

“I may be able to sleep tonight and get up at a normal hour tomorrow,” you say.

Glancing over, you can’t help but smile at the half-asleep man blinking as if he didn’t fall asleep halfway through the show.  

“Go to bed, sleepyhead.” you tell him, reaching out to ruffle his hair as you make your way to your room.

“Yeah, bed.” he echoes sleepily, but before you can close the door to your room, he calls out.

“Hey, tomorrow the guys want to go out.  Letting you know ahead of time that I won’t be back til afternoon Saturday.” 

You nod, appreciating the heads up. 

“Alright, I almost forgot tomorrow was Friday.  Thanks for letting me know.” you wave to him, closing your door before heading to flop on your comfy bed.

Good, you could lounge around and have some alone time, you think.

It’s not as if Jin being here is a hardship, of course.

But you did miss not having to worry about having pants on in your own home.

Not that Jin would care, but you had some decency.  

It’s not like you wanted to go around flashing your best friend, even if he does use your towel like a jerk.

“So, when are you two announcing that you’ve moved in together and have been having a secret relationship this whole time?” 

Sky’s text from earlier just makes you shake your head, and Ty’s “Just get it over with and we can all be happy couples, girl.” only adds to your exasperation.

“Quiet, both of you.” you murmur, tossing your phone on the comforter as you curl up in bed.  

As if you haven’t had this conversation with pretty much every single person in your friend group, or heard some semblance of this mindset.

At this point, you’d both started to play into it, much to the dismay of your friends.

Have you ever had feelings for Seokjin? 

You surely appreciate his attractiveness, as much as you like to tease him.

He really is very handsome, of course.

But all of them are handsome in their own ways.

Ty and Sky both knew about your secret crush on Hoseok years ago, and that had gone nowhere for the same reason you’d never even attempted to think beyond the basics with Jin.

Especially with Jin.

You’d given up the idea before you let it get out of control or even let on about it.

Your friendship matters so much more than a physical relationship, even if you’ve pondered what it could be like.

This dynamic had been established basically from day one, way back in your first year of college when you’d met their friend group.  

As friends, you two were so open and honest, to the point of hilarity.  

He could match your energy and you enjoyed getting him as riled up as he got you.

You may tease each other and pretend to argue, but you’ve never actually had a true fight.

You knew once that line was crossed, feelings would get complicated.  

There was something special between you two and you treasured what you had right now.

For all you knew, the perfect dynamic of friendship you currently have could quickly turn into a really bad match if you ever dated.

You guarantee that Jin would agree with you, so there was nothing more to talk or think about.

Sighing into your pillow, cursing your friends for making you think about the same stupid things for the millionth time, you close your eyes to get some rest only to hear your phone ding one last time.

“I used your loofah too.”

“GODDAMNIT, KIM SEOKJIN!” 

You launch a pillow at your door as you hear his distant high-pitched laughter and clapping through the otherwise quiet apartment.

“Where did I put my-aha!” 

You glance up at the man currently acting like he hasn’t packed everything he’s needed well ahead of time.

Rolling your eyes as he scoops up his favorite hoodie from the back of one of the kitchen stools, you can only shake your head as you return your focus to your last email of the day.  

“Hey, I saw that.” he huffs, padding to the door to get his shoes on, “Don’t miss me too much, brat. I know you’ll be counting the hours while I’m gone.” 

This draws your attention, eyebrow raised as you give him a deadpan look.

“Oh Kim Seokjin, how I pine for you. Whatever will I do without your presence nearby?”

Your monotone coaxes a laugh from him as he checks himself over once more, then turns to nod at you.

“I know, it’s tough but you’re strong.  You’ll survive this.  Hwaiting!” He raises both fists to you before saluting.

Snorting at his antics, you just shake your head and return to your email to send it.

“Yeah yeah, have fun, catch lots of fish, yadda yadda, don’t get eaten by a shark…” 

Before you can finish, the door is swinging shut, the sound of Jin singing loudly slowly fading down the hall as he leaves.

“Dumbass,” you mutter, unable to keep the smile off your face.  

Closing your laptop, you stretch and look around your now empty apartment.

“Ah, freedom for a night!” You say to the walls, bouncing up to go change into something comfier.  

The plan for the evening is to lounge around and watch some music videos, cooing over your current idol crush all while not wearing pants.

Letting your mind wander, you calculate how long Jin has been staying with you.

A little over a month at this point, you think.  

He’d just gotten the call this week that his place would be ready very soon, so he wouldn’t be here much longer.

Though, it was no hardship to cohabitate with him, definitely not.

Most of the time, it was more comforting knowing someone was around, even if he steals your used towels and laughs like a hyena.

Still…

You love your best friend, but a girl needs her alone time.

When was the last time you even got a chance to release some pent up sexual frustration?

You’re not entirely sure how it’s been for him, but you know for sure that it was a little too weird to even make use of your special drawer next to your bed knowing he could be listening in at any time.  

Not that you’re ashamed of masturbating, but there was also the idea of making him uncomfortable as your guest.

Though, in reality, you know he’s more likely to bring it up at breakfast and tease you about vibrator noises than feel embarrassed over it, like he did last time.

Regardless, it has been a while since you’ve even gone on a date, let alone had any physical encounters.

It’s not necessarily a plan to do anything tonight, but knowing that if you get in the mood you can do so openly.

“Right on the couch!” You announce, letting out a little cackle as you toss on an oversized nightshirt, sans bra.  

Ahh liberation, you think, stopping to contemplate your special toy drawer.

“I'll be back for you later, Dannie.” You pat your little end table as you shuffle out to the couch, plopping down and not giving two shits if your panties are showing.

Smug and content, you settle in for a nice, cozy, intimate evening with yourself…and maybe a few named friends.

Deciding against getting too freaky right away, you find yourself lounging happy on the couch.

A little over an hour has passed since you turned on the newest music on YouTube when you hear the sound of the door being unlocked .

Stiffening, you sit up straight, tense at the unexpected intrusion.

Who else had a key besides you and Jin??

Confused, and grateful you’d stopped singing at the top of your lungs due to the song ending, you feel your heart leap into your throat a moment before the door swings open to reveal Jin.

Blowing out a relieved breath, you place your hand over your heart.  

“Holy shit, Jin!” You almost yell, falling back on the couch, fear dissipating into annoyance.

His big, wide eyes blink absently at you, confusion written all over his face.

“Sorry, sorry, I should have texted.  The trip got canceled at the last minute so we ate before I came back.” He sighs, tossing his bag on a nearby table as he removes his shoes.

“Well that sucks,” you say, glancing at your phone.  “At least they fed you.”

He just nods, finally turning to face you and take in the scene.

“Did I interrupt?” He asks, leaning against the door frame as he scans you.

Unwilling to give him the pleasure of your embarrassment, you just feign annoyance as he gives you a cheeky smirk.

“Never seen a girl without her pants on before, Jin? I understand.” You shoot back, turning back to your TV, using the remote to pretend to look for something to watch.

He snorts, huffing out a laugh.

“You know, if you missed my handsome face that much, you could have just told me.” 

“Ha!” You retort, rolling your eyes, “There goes my plans to masturbate on the couch to porn, not to you.”  

Instead of laughing or walking away, the frustrating man just waltzes over, plopping himself down beside you.  

“Oh by all means, don’t let me stop you.”  He gestures to the TV, never taking his eyes from you.

Oh here we go, you think, narrowing your eyes at him.

Eyeing the arm he tosses casually across the back of the couch behind you, you fight the urge to elbow him in the gut.

It always starts like this with you two.

Your mouth is faster than your brain half the time when he says infuriating things, and vice versa.

It's the majority of the reason you get along so well, but also the reason for some serious competitive moments.

The self congratulatory look on his face says it all; he thinks he’s already won and you can’t have that.

“The last thing I’d want is to embarrass you by showing you something you’ve never seen before.” Your eyes are locked on the television as you try to ignore his gaze.

He chuckles, relaxing as he gestures to the screen, “Oh please, as if Namjoon hasn’t ruined computers downloading-” he starts but you cut him off.

“Oh I don’t mean porn, Jin. I mean you seeing a woman experiencing pleasure in your company.” 

It’s almost adorable how his lips twist up and purse, and you can’t help but gloat inwardly as the barb hits its intended target.

Before you can bask in the early victory, he’s leaning in close and you can’t help but shiver at how his warm breath tickles the shell of your ear.

“Perhaps if you had better taste in men, you wouldn’t have to rely on that little stash of fake dicks in your drawer so much.” 

Swallowing, your eyes narrow at his comment even as his fingertips dip into the strands of your hair to tease at the nape of your neck.

He chuckles softly, blowing gently into your ear as you seethe, your mind reeling because that one is a little too close to home, and he promised to never bring that up again.  

You can feel your cheeks stain as you struggle to not let him win this one.

“That one hurt, didn’t it?” He teases and you just nudge him with your shoulder as you turn to glare at him.  “If your taste ever improves and you need a real man to show you-”

He winks and you just snort at him, unwilling to concede that his little touches and nearness is affecting you much more than his taunts are right now.

You can’t stop yourself from leaning in closer to him, reaching up to brush back a strand of dark hair from his brow.  

“Oh don’t worry, Seokjin.  I’ll make sure to call Hoseok.” 

His eyes fly wide open at your words, head snapping back as he blinks at you in his typical dramatic way.

“HOSEOK?” He yells, and you can’t help but start giggling as he goes to grab you, dodging him and rolling off the couch before bouncing up to stick your tongue out at him.

“What’s wrong, Jin? Jealous?” 

You dance over near your door to put some space between you, giddy at watching the vein in his neck pulse and his jaw clench.

You don’t know why, but sometimes invoking Hoseok’s name just gets the best reaction out of him.

His eyebrows shoot up as he slowly stands, and the stern look on his face has your stomach doing somersaults.

God, why is he so hot? You think off handedly, trying not to admire the width of those goddamn shoulders.

“Are you scared?” He retorts, ignoring your question, eyeing you as you go on the defensive.  

You let out a huff, pretending to toss your hair as you eye him from head to toe.

“Scared? Of you? Unlikely, I could have you pinned in an instant.”  

It’s his turn to scoff at you, and he raises a hand and gestures at you, beckoning you over.  

“Come here and prove it then.” he taunts, giving you his signature smirk.

There’s a beat of silence as you stare one another down and you tense before you toss out your next words.

“Make me.”

The tension in the room builds as his eyes seem to darken, hardening yet dancing with excitement as he lowers his head.  

The squeal you let out echoes through the room as he finally springs towards you, your heart thumping wildly as he rushes at you.  

Barely evading him, you dart into the kitchen, putting the island between you as he chases, feigning back and forth before sprinting back into the living room, then down the hallway.  

“You can’t outrun me-!” He calls out, and you can’t refute that fact, but you’re sure as hell going to try.

Laughing and shrieking, fear and excitement coursing through you, you can feel him gaining and you make the mistake of looking back over your shoulder to check.

Unfortunately, this causes you to overshoot the door to your room, allowing him to all but slam into you as he wraps his arm around your waist from behind. 

Lifting you and spinning you as you kick your feet, you can feel his hot breath on your neck as he tries to catch his breath. 

“Make you, huh?” He pants, forcing you around so you’re facing him.

You can’t stop letting out little giggles and yelps as he cages you against the wall, grasping one of your wrists to hold you in place. 

As if his body pressing you against the wall isn’t enough to keep you there.

Catching your breath, you try to stop laughing as you suck in air.  

“Mmm, yes make me.” you quip, looking defiantly up at him.  

His dark eyes flit back and forth across your face, then down at how he has you pinned to the wall, then back up again.

His throat bobs as he swallows heavily and the reality of the position you’re in suddenly hits you.

His body pressed against you, arm over your head, the bulge in his pants stiff against your thigh.

Breath hitching, tamping down on the arousal that slams through-you just blurt out with a laugh,

“Kim Seokjin, are you hard?”

The rosy tinge that creeps up his neck fascinates you as you wiggle your hips a little, causing him to gasp and he loosens his hold on your wrist in shock.

“Thinking about Hoseok gets you going, eh?” You tease, taking advantage of the moment to slip under his arm and rush into his room with a cackle.

Your head is spinning at just how much you want to find out what would happen if you explored this avenue, your body reacting to everything much faster than your brain can talk any sense into it.

Your name echoes through the apartment in a deeper tone than you’re used to him using, almost in warning as you leap onto his bed to scramble away from him and possibly find something to use for bartering.

Maybe his plushie-?

Shit, my ass is completely exposed, you think a brief moment before you feel his hand clamp around your ankle like a vice.

The thought that this is an extremely dangerous situation for you both flits through your mind as he yanks you down the bed towards him and easily flips you over, his weight landing on you as he pins you down.

“You’re such a little shit, you know?” He states simply, battling with your arms as you attempt to tickle him, finally managing to restrain you by holding your wrists down on either side of your head.  

Assessing your current position, you can’t see any path to freedom as you wriggle beneath him, your tangled limbs combined with his full weight on you not allowing for a way out.

Snickering at his comment, you only nod happily as he stares down at you in a mixture of frustration and…amusement?

Something has his eyes gleaming as his chest heaves against yours.  

Countless times you’ve played this little cat and mouse game, and countless times you’ve found yourself in positions much like this with Jin.

But for some reason, tonight feels different, as if there’s a tight rope you’re both walking and one little slip up will have you both falling into unknown depths.

It’s as if time stands still as the tension in your stomach coils, both of you studying one another as if silently daring the other to push.  

“I know.” You say, your voice huskier than you’re used to hearing it.

Shifting, you swear you can feel the pulse in his erection against your inner thigh and you involuntarily clench as your mind battles with your rising lust.

“You’re not wearing a bra.” He states, definitely not a question.  

“I’m not.” you reply, acknowledging how your nipples have been responding to his chest rubbing against yours.

“I won…but you’re cheating.” His voice is softer now, yet there’s an edge to it that has you wanting to rub your thighs together to ease this tension.

If only he wasn’t pinning you down.

“Lies.” You claim, but your body rebels eagerly as you wiggle beneath him.

A small struggle ensues until you manage to push your legs open so that his very sizable cock is pressing right where you want him most.

What am I doing? 

The thought is fleeting as much more important needs are making themselves known.

The breath leaves Jin in a woosh, followed by a soft groan as his hips jerk forward against you.

Heat spreads through you as the entire situation teeters on the limits of just playing around, and you know that if one of you doesn’t give in then this could be a very complicated predicament.

Yet, the “giving in” you desire most right now isn’t putting a halt to things. 

Heat pools in your lower abdomen as your buried, forbidden longing claws its way to the surface to make itself known.

“Admit defeat.” You finally say, even as your hips lift against him.  

You can’t help but relish the way his eyes roll, his lips pursing as he lets out a grunt at your tactics.  

Silence fills the room as you both search one another’s eyes, asking something that you can’t form the words for. 

“Is that what you really want?” He inquires softly, head tilting as his eyes flit back and forth as if implying something much more than simply giving up.

Only a moment ticks by before you nod once, your heart beating in your throat, then he says one simple thing that changes everything.

“You win.”

His mouth is on yours before you can take another breath.

The hands gripping your wrists disappear and your arms are snaking around his neck, his fingers slipping behind your neck as he rubs his thumb against your pulse.  

A low keening noise leaves your throat as his plush lips dance over yours, his tongue slipping along the seam as you open eagerly for him.

Fuck he can kiss, you think dizzily, even as his free hand slips down to tug at your shirt hem.  

Time stretches and compacts as you both tear at each other’s clothing in a frenzy, only parting lips to tug one another’s shirts over your heads to toss them away.

His scent overwhelms you, his own natural scent of nectar mixed with the cedar and fig of his cologne. 

It’s a fragrance you’ve always loved but now it’s spiraling you out of control as moisture pools in the fabric of your panties.

You breathe a wanton moan into his mouth as his large hand cups your tender breast, kneading and brushing the pad of his thumb across your taut nipple.

“Brat.” he groans as your back arches at his touch, his lips skimming down the column of your throat.  

Your fingers tangle in his hair, tugging harshly as your other hand traces a path down his spine.  

“Prick,” you retort, even as his teeth nip at your collarbone.  

“Shut up.” he grunts as your legs wrap around him.

“Fuck me,” you respond in kind even as his hand leaves your neck to slip between you, yanking desperately at the button of his pants.

His only reply is freeing himself finally, kicking off the rest of his clothing then assisting you as you tear at your panties, not even caring if they’re ripped in the process.

You’ve both gone beyond the point of asking at this point.

You cry out in euphoria as he only takes a moment to look down between you to position himself before he’s thrusting deep within you.

Your blended moans are swallowed as his lips crash against yours once more, his tongue plunging into the depths of your mouth as he stretches you deliciously.  

Tears prick the back of your eyelids at the insanity of it all, the heady mixture of pleasure and relief, the almost sacrilegious act you’re both committing.

You don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more than you want this right now, with him.

The thought has your head spinning, pushing the implication of it away as you rake your fingernails down his back, his deep moans followed up by soft whines barreling you inevitably to a rapid climax.

Before you can even fully realize it, you’re clamping tightly around him and breaking the kiss to scream his name loudly as your climax rips through your entire being.

Your name drips from his lips as sweat drips from his brow, his face contorted in beautiful ecstasy as you pry your eyes open, needing to see him as his hips snap against yours.  

“Again, let me see you-” he gasps out, lowering his forehead to yours, his eyes locked on yours.

You can only nod as you swallow harshly, cradling his head as you grasp at his shoulders, unable to look away as his wordless cries grow louder and more desperate.

His lush lips part, his cheeks flushed gloriously as you urge him with your eyes, with your hips, with your cries to let go for you; with you.

His hips stutter as you feel yet another orgasm tear through you, his moans reaching a crescendo as he thrusts forward one final time, emptying within you in a hot flood.

He buries his face into the crook of your neck as his entire body quakes, hips stuttering erratically as he collapses fully onto you.

Your fingers comb through his now damp hair, a layer of sweat clinging to both of you from the exertion as you both attempt to regulate your breathing.  

You can feel his heart racing against your naked breasts, and time extends as you both lay entangled in a spent heap.  

“Jin-” is all you manage before he’s shushing you, lifting himself before his mouth is covering yours, silencing whatever it was you are about to say.  

As your sanity slowly returns, you open your mouth to say something, anything. 

Grateful, you surrender to his wordless command.

It’s not as if anything you could say now would make any sense after that.

Darkness surrounds you as you open your eyes slowly, the fog of sleep clearing as you feel a heavy weight pressing on your chest.

Reality slams into you as the crown of Jin’s head becomes slightly visible in the dim room.  

Your heart thumps as you gaze at him, cheek pressed against your left breast as he breathes softly in his sleep.

The ache between your legs is far too welcoming as you study his gorgeous pouty lips, his dark lashes only highlighting how handsome he is, especially like this.

You tentatively reach up to caress his cheek, gently tracing his eyebrows, his cheekbones, his lower lip.  

He snuggles you at the touch, his lips twitching in an almost smile as he smacks his lips happily in his sleep.  

Oh fuck this is so dangerous, you think, panic washing through you.  

What the fuck did we just do?

Feeling dread wash over you, all you can think to do is slowly extract yourself from the slumbering man, pausing every so often as he stirs until you can slip from the bed.

Before you can collect your thoughts, you need to get away from him…now.  

As you shut his door softly, you place your hand over your heart as your mind races.  

The last thing you expected was to be sneaking out of Jin’s room with his semen leaking down your thighs.  

Scurrying to the bathroom, you barely manage to suppress the frustrated scream bubbling up in your throat.

Did you just ruin your perfect friendship?

[faiell]

I don't have much to add. OK well I lied I have 2 things, semi-related, just in addition, not really making a point for or against anything that was said.

I don't think it's been brought up yet, and sorry if this is like, too blunt or snobbish, but. I'll just say it. This is personal experience, but being a person with nice stats makes forming connections in community easier. Why? Well, just because if people have heard of you, and are familiar with your work or your blog, you can be much more confident to take that first step and reach out to someone, whether it's via DMs or askbox or whatever. And yeah this is something that readers don't usually have access to, which sucks. I mean, I think people should just reach out and talk to each other anyway. I'm for sure not going to treat anyone differently based on whether they've written fanfiction, much less well-read fanfiction lol, that sounds ridiculous. But being an artist whose art gets shared does make it easier for me to have the confidence to go bouncing into other people's messages the way I do.

I don't think fandom community, as a whole, is dying, or even close to death. Buuut there are definitely fandoms out there that are pretty dead, even for very well-known ships for well-known series, and if you're into a rare-pair... it can be very lonely. And in those situations, I just want to yell that stats literally don't matter. Those 10 kudos across an entire pairing aren't gonna feed the family, yanno? What matters is, if you're looking for connection over a rarepair, you've gotta be loud and bold, and never shut up about them until you find the people who have also been trying to hear your yelling over all the other noise.

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[fingertipsmp3]

I really do think I need to work on the fact that whenever I don’t get enough sleep and/or am prematurely awoken by something I act like a fucking banshee

[lunarcry]

isnt he so cute

[list4r]

“Eat it or no tv for you.”

“No!”

“Oh cmon you eat this every day, why not now?”

“I don’t want it! You didn’t do it right!”

“It’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ain’t no right way to do it baby.”

Toji narrows his eyes at the little girl who refused to eat the sandwich he made for her. Correction: the fifth sandwich he had made because “he didn’t do it right.” If he had known this is what having a kid would be like he would’ve studied the basics of sandwich making for toddlers. Ridiculous.

“Well can you tell me the way you want it? I’m not sure what the right way is.”

“I want it like how mommy does it!”

“Well mommy is at work.”

“Then I don’t want it.” The face she makes remind him of you, she’s basically a carbon copy of you personality wise. That tiny face scrunched up when she hears or sees something she doesn’t want. It was amazing how easily she could get anything she wants, Toji was wrapped around her tiny little finger.

“Okay I’ll do it again.” He repeats the same routine of grabbing the bread and putting the peanut butter then the jelly on it. Thinking maybe he cut it wrong he decided to cut it in fours. A bad idea by the way because he is immediately hit with the hysterical cries of his toddler.

“Wait hey hey no no- don’t cry. What’s wrong? Did I do it wrong again?”

“I’m telling mommy you starving me and being a meanie daddy!”

“I’m not a meanie daddy, that’s not nice to say.”

“Uh huh!”

“Nuh uh…. Brat.” Toji scoffs as he looks around to find anything to soothe the crying child. “You want chicken nuggets? Pretty sure we got the dino ones you like so much.”

“I want- *sniffle* sandwich.”

“I made you like a 100 of them but you didn’t want them.. I don’t know what you want me to do-“

The sound of your keys turning in the door cut off his words, Toji lets out a sigh of relief. “Baby.. thank god you’re here.” He greets you with a kiss and helps you out of your outerwear, a routine you two have developed over the years.

“Why is she crying Toji? Awww what’s wrong sweetheart?” You pick up the child, holding her close as you wipe the tears off her cheeks.

“Daddy won’t feed me!”

“Wha- don’t lie to your mom like that. She just didn’t want what I made her that’s all.”

Turning to him you raise an eyebrow “what did you make for her?”

“What she always eat for lunch. Fuckin nasty ass peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

“Don’t call her food nasty in front of her. How did you make it?”

“Like how any normal person makes it.” Toji shrugs, wondering why such a question was asked.

“You have to do it a certain way or she won’t eat it.

“So she said. So I put the peanut butter-“

“No it’s the jelly first Toji.”

“What the fuck? I didn’t know there was a certain way.”

You place the child back down, gathering the ingredients. “It’s always jelly first then the peanut butter, on separate breads too don’t mix them and don’t put too much. Then cut the crusts off and cut them into three rectangles.” You say as you perfectly demonstrate how to make the sandwich. “If you don’t do it like this she won’t eat it. Learned it the hard way- here you go sweetie.”

“Thank you mommy!”

Toji scoffs at the scene, earning a giggle from the little girl happily munching away. “Tch… yeah okay I’ll remember that next she demands it.” He pretended to be annoyed but the happy giggles from his little girl cause his mouth to turn on both corners. Honestly he has a lot to learn about his dad business but having you by his side definitely makes things easier.

“Seriously, ain’t shit easy about raising a child.”

“What can I say? I’m just the best”

“Hm yeah she definitely gets her attitude from you.”

[tiza0925]

okok hear me out but Akaashi dating reader and she has a spit kink 👉🏻👈🏻 you don't have to write anything about it but i would love to hear about it from you! (i love your works sm 💗)

…i think you’ve just woken something inside me, anon 🫠

Intimate | 18+

Warnings/Tags: nsfw, afab/female!reader, praise kink, jealous!reader, dom!Akaashi, raw sex, multiple orgasms, slight dumbification, squirting, pussy slapping, petnames, little bit of choking, overstimulation, creampie, spit kink ♡ SET IN A TIMELINE WHERE ALL CHARACTERS ARE AGED-UP AND OVER 18

Pairing: Akaashi Keiji x Female Reader

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

You’re not a jealous person, you swear.

Your relationship with Akaashi is the most secure relationship you’ve ever been in—not once has he ever given you a reason to doubt him. 

To not trust him. 

He’s shown you nothing but respect, kindness—god, so much love and patience—ever since you two started dating. 

But—

Your jaw ticks as you watch a random girl get a little too close to him—watching how she laughs a little too much and looks at him with stars in her eyes. 

You can’t blame her, though—you look at him the same way—he’s good-looking and deserves to be appreciated for that. 

But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t get to you whenever you see other people do it. 

Especially this particular girl who seems to refuse to leave his side ever since you two arrived at Kuroo’s house party. 

Because apparently—she’s close with Bokuto. 

Which means she knows Akaashi. 

But you barely hear Akaashi talk about her so it’s either he doesn’t see her as close as she thinks they are—

Or he’s hiding something from you. 

But that would be ridiculous—it’s Akaashi. 

He wouldn’t.

Right? 

You take a sip from your drink, then you turn to the person who’s currently talking to you—you think her name is Yachi—and you give her a slightly apologetic look as you walk away and straight towards him. 

And the girl that’s seemingly too giddy with whatever Akaashi is saying. 

It’s why you come up to his side with a small smile at the other girl, your arms around his waist, and Akaashi stops mid-sentence to look at you with a slightly concerned look—his one eyebrow raised as he asks in a soft murmur, “You okay?” 

You hum, a small smile threatens to pull at your mouth as he wraps one arm around you, holding you closer, and you nod. “Just tired.” 

He gives your waist a small squeeze, his voice a soft rumble against you. “Wanna go home then?” 

You blink up at him, then you quickly glance at the girl that was talking to him—and you feel a slight bud of satisfaction in your chest when you notice how annoyed she looks—and you nod, blinking up at him all sweetly. “Please?”

You end up in the passenger seat of his car a few moments later—looking out the window—as he drives you two home.

It’s quiet—comfortably so—as you watch light posts and buildings until—

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” 

You hear him ask that, his voice calm and quiet, and your eyes widen with surprise as your heart flips. 

You blink, turning to look at him—his eyes remaining on the road ahead—and you frown. “What?” 

“Suddenly wanting to go home and hugging me like that,” Akaashi then turns his head a little to give you a look like he knows something. “What was that about?” 

Oh. 

Was it that obvious how you felt? 

You blink. 

Silent. 

Then you swallow hard, playing dumb as you look away, murmuring, “…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

But then you hear him let loose a low, caustic laugh—as if he doesn’t believe you—and you feel his hand, heavy and large on your thigh, with the heat seeping through your pants and skin, as he gives it a small squeeze. “Alright.” 

It’s how you end up with your face stuffed into a pillow, back arched, and ass out the moment you two arrive back home—

“Oh fuck—”

And you’re cumming around a thick cock with your moan getting muffled into the cushion. 

“Look how well you take me,” His voice comes out a low drawl, sounding so nonchalant as if he isn’t fucking you deep into your cunt with a harsh grip around your waist—holding you in place as Akaashi makes you take all of him with your orgasm throbbing through you. 

Your mind goes numb, and you whine when he drags his dick against your G-spot, overstimulating you. 

“Keiji—fuck—please—”

But then he pulls out—leaving you empty and pulsing around nothing—causing a trickle of your juice to leak out, and you let out a sudden cry when Akaashi leaves a harsh slap against your wet pussy with his hand. 

“Turn around.” 

Fuck. 

You listen almost immediately—moving to lay on your back, breathing heavily, and Akaashi smiles down at you from the bridge of his nose, admiring you for just a moment—

Then he’s hooking your legs over his shoulder—and your eyes grow wide when you feel the head of his cock slide over your drooling pussy, bumping your clit that has your head going dizzy, and then—

“Do you think she’d be able to take me as well as you do?”

Then he starts to ask that—in that taunting, calm voice of his—and your cheeks grow hot at the mere mention of that girl, jealousy pricking the edges of your vision and—

You whimper when he pushes his cock back inside you, filling you and making you feel so full as he rolls his hips against yours, building that sweet buzzing ache in your pussy again. 

Akaashi watches the way your cunt swallows him so perfectly—his girth opening you up as you cream all over him—and he wets his lips, his smirk turning lecherous. “You think she’d look this pretty around my cock too, baby?”

He’s not blind.

He can pick up on the small signs of jealousy from you with just a small look, word—even the way you act.

He’s observant—and he clearly didn’t miss the way you were eyeing that girl from earlier.

You suck in a large breath, feeling him in your damn throat as he fucks you languidly, and your voice is breathy when you bite out a response. “Why don’t you go and find out for yourself then.” 

Akaashi leans down and god—you sob out a moan when he nearly bends you in half, shoving his dick so deep into you that your entire body goes limp. 

You’re practically shaking as his lips hover over yours, and his eyes—all half-lidded as he observes you—grow alight with something darker and amused as he hums lowly. “I don’t think I will.” 

He pulls out, the tip of his dick catching your hole, then he immediately thrusts back in with one, harsh slap of his skin against yours—making you gasp as your juices gush out. “Nobody else can get messy like you do, baby.” 

His smirk comes slow and syrupy, his hooded eyes observing you—how your eyes are glossy with tears threatening to spill out—and he goes to pull on your lower lip with his mouth, kissing you so achingly soft despite the harsh fucking. “Nobody else feels this tight around me.” 

You moan against him, your arms numbly wrapping around his neck as you take his cock pushing in and out of you—your pussy swallowing him whole like it needs his dick in there. 

It’s so fucking needy that even when you feel him digging into your lungs with his cock—you still want more of him, that swelling ache in your clit just begging for it.

And god—he gives it to you. 

He fucks you with one hand coming to thumb your sensitive clit—rubbing it in slow circles with your juices coating it until you’re clenching around his cock, squeezing him and throbbing as you cum for a second time. 

“Shit,” Akaashi groans, driving into you as his head gets foggy with lust, and heat overwhelms him as you make a mess on you both—clear liquid squirting out of your poor little pussy with every rock of his hips, and tears finally spill down your cheeks with oversensitivity. 

“Don’t cry, angel,” Akaashi soothes you, his voice throaty and heavy, and his hand that was on your clit comes up to wipe your tears—spreading your fluids all over your face and getting you dirty as he calmly shushes you. “You asked for this.” 

You know. 

You just didn’t anticipate how intense Akaashi will be to make sure you know that you were being irrational for feeling jealous—to fuck you until you felt all loose and dumb from his dick that you can’t do or say anything but whimper and cry for him. 

God—

You suck in small, gasping breaths as he slides his hand down until he’s rolling his thumb over your bottom lip, and—

And then his pupils grow wide and dark, there’s a small tick at the side of his lips that looks carnal, and your heart leaps into your throat as he forces your mouth open as he presses down onto your lip—your heart thundering in your ears as you watch with shiny eyes, unsure what he plans to do until—

Until he also opens his mouth as well, and your mind grows heady with submission with your tongue out for him, your pussy clenching him so fucking tight as he lets a small, pearly glob of his saliva string down onto your tongue. 

And fuck—he lets out a low groan of approval, making your chest swell at how satisfied he looks as you please him. 

“Swallow.” His voice is so deceptively soft.

But you listen and swallow. 

With no hesitation. 

And it should feel gross with him spitting in your mouth like that—making you feel like some whore under him—

But instead—it does things to you. 

It makes things so much more fucking intimate. 

You keep eye contact with him as your throat bobs with an obedient swallow, your body moving with every thrust of him inside you, and Akaashi can’t help but lean down to kiss you so deeply that you shudder against him—

“Such a good girl for me—shit,” His hand comes to the front of your neck, his calloused fingers wrapping around it and giving it a little squeeze, making you moan as you sloppily kiss him back, your vision growing blurry. 

Then he leans back, hand still on your throat, and his chest rise and falls as he continues to fuck your abused pussy, your fluids making a mess, and he turns his head to brush his lips against your calf. 

“I want you to cum on my cock again, love, you do it so well for me.”

Then he brings his other hand to press on your lower stomach, making you keen with a wet moan—and you feel so fucked out and dumb in the head as another orgasm steadily pulses through you. 

“And say my name when you do, love,” Akaashi breathes out lowly, his dick in your guts as he pushes his hand down a little more, “Because nobody else gets to do that except you.” 

More clear liquid gushes out of you, spraying and squirting all over him as your legs shake with another orgasm for that night—his name on your tongue, making his head spin as he fucks you through it. 

And then he’s spurting out thick loads of his hot cum into your sore pussy, shoving it further into you with every push of his cock inside your walls—making sure you know that only you get to be marked like this by him. 

end.

Masterpost

[brokenmenswhore]

first | poly!marauders

pairing: poly!marauders (james, remus, & sirius) x fem!reader

summary: virginity loss trope :)

warnings: smut (MDNI 18+), language, gender swapped dorcas cus i said so 🤷🏻‍♀️

────── ☾ ──────

“That’s ridiculous,” you said, body halting as the staircase began to shift beneath you, “and completely untrue.”

“Oh come on, you never do anything interesting! For your sake, it has to be true,” Sirius teased.

You turned to him, mouth open in offense. “I’m plenty interesting.”

“But not interesting enough to lose your virginity to Meadowes in the library during fourth year?” Remus raised an eyebrow.

“No! It didn’t happen!” you protested, “now please, let it go.”

“How would a rumor like that even get out if it isn’t true?” James asked genuinely.

“Probably because everyone knows Meadowes has the hots for her. Bet you he started it himself,” Remus answered, distaste evident in his voice.

“Are you three done now?” you asked, whispering the common room password and letting the boys in.

“So if it isn’t true, how did you lose it?” Sirius pressed.

You looked at him stunned, eyes wide in disbelief that he would ask you something like that out of the blue.

“Absolutely not,” you said, raising a finger toward him, “I’m not playing that game.”

“Oh come on!” Sirius raised his hands and smiled, “you’re no fun.”

“Yeah, now I’m curious,” James continued on, “if not Dorcas, who?”

You sighed, placing your books down and tucking a piece of hair behind your ear, turning toward them exasperated. “Why does it matter?”

“You know seventeen of the girls I’ve slept with by heart,” Sirius replied, “I’d say it’s only fair.”

“Sirius, you told me about seventeen of the girls you’ve slept with. Willingly. Without me asking. Ever,” you said, earning a laugh from James at your disgust.

They followed you up the stairs to your dorm, empty from everyone sneaking off to a party in the Ravenclaw common room that you were supposed to be getting ready for, but alas, you were late and distracted.

You sat down in front of your vanity mirror, ready to start applying makeup, when Remus placed a hand on the desk in front of you, leaning his face in close to you, his hair falling slightly in front of his face. He was completely in your personal space.

“Come on, Y/N, tell us who got to fuck you first.”

Remus’ voice was low, and his breath fanned your face as he spoke. You locked eyes with him, a sigh leaving your chest that you weren’t aware you were holding in. You were nervous to have him this close.

“No one has. Sorry to disappoint. Now drop it, will you?”

Remus didn’t move. You continued to look up into his eyes, your voice a little shaky, and you didn’t know what to do. You moved to get up, but Remus caught your chin between his fingers, pulling your attention back to him. “Meaning what?”

“Did you not hear me? Cus you’re like 6 inches away from me, so if you didn’t, you need to get your hearing checked,” you said, annoyed at your current predicament, just wanting to make the embarrassing conversation end. Remus finally let you stand, but Sirius and James were right behind you, stopping you from leaving the room. You opted to sit on your bed.

“You guys are insufferable.”

Sirius cleared his throat. “So you’re-“ he trailed off.

“A virgin, yes, wow, how crazy of me. You know, it’s not that weird, you all just have a personal body count higher than everyone at this school combined. And everyone else’s body count includes you. Can we please just forget about this?” you begged.

“Such attitude,” James teased, “from such a good girl.”

“Oh, so I’m a goodie two-shoes now that you’ve all discovered I’ve never had sex?”

“Kinda, yeah,” James giggled.

“Fuck you guys,” you sighed, partially lighthearted and partially annoyed, “it was my choice. You think I couldn’t have screwed Dorcas Meadowes in the library if I wanted to?”

No one had a response. Sirius’ nostrils flared, and Remus sighed. They almost seemed… jealous? at the thought of you and someone else.

You four were ridiculously close, anyone could see that, and you would be lying if you said you haven’t thought about them in that way, but you were best friends, and you didn’t want to risk ruining that.

“You ever think about, like, just doing it?” Sirius asked.

“What?” you replied.

“Do you ever think about just saying fuck it and asking someone, like, I don’t know, one of us, to just take your virginity?”

Your breathing caught in your chest. You stared at Sirius, a million thoughts coming to your head but you couldn’t articulate any of them. You had no idea what to say.

“I mean, I’ve thought about losing my virginity, yeah, that’s normal,” you explained.

“To one of us?” Remus asked.

You could lie. You could act disgusted at the question and walk away now, or, you could tell the truth, and risk ruining your entire friendship. You could also tell the truth and potentially gain everything you wanted.

Your voice became small, your eyes watching your hands fidget in your lap, “maybe.”

The boys all exchanged a look between one another.

James was the only one who was able to pull himself together. “W-who?”

You titled your head up at him. “What?”

James sat down on the bed next to you. “Which one of us?”

You could physically see all the boys tense up, ready to be filled with either pride or jealousy. Sirius and Remus were staring daggers at you, anxiously awaiting your answer. James kept his eyes on you as well, trying to make you feel less intimidated and tense than Sirius and Remus were.

Your eyes darted between all of them, “I-“

You were evidently nervous, and Remus felt bad. He knelt on the ground in front of you, taking your hands in his own. It was the most intimate gesture you’d received from him yet. He kept his voice soft. “Angel, you don’t have to tell us, but we really want to know. I promise none of us will be too hurt. Please,” he almost begged.

You sighed. You weren’t worried because you only thought about one of them, you were worried because you were embarrassed to tell them the truth. You took a deep breath. It was now or never. “All of you.”

They were not prepared for that answer.

Remus and James stared at you and tried to process your words. Sirius was more of an “act on impulse” and “speak without thinking” kind of guy.

“Fuck off,” he said, “all of us?”

“Mhm.”

“Like at the same time?” he pushed.

“Sirius-“ Remus warned.

“No, no, I wanna hear you say it,” he said, attention back on you, “I wanna hear you say that you’ve thought about losing your virginity to all three of us. At the same time. I wanna hear you say that you’ve thought about us fucking you.” He was standing dangerously close to you now.

“I- I have,” you said, blush evident in your cheeks.

Sirius growled. “Remus, move.”

“Excuse me?” Remus snapped back.

“Move.”

Remus sighed and moved out of the way so that Sirius was standing directly in front of you. “You stop us if there’s anything you don’t like. Understood?”

You nodded your head, but that wasn’t enough.

“Words, baby.”

“Yes,” you retried.

Sirius gave you a small smile before grabbing your face in his hands, tilting your head up and leaning down to give you a long, intimate kiss. Once you had settled in, he deepened the kiss, his carnal desires taking over. He slowly leaned you back on the bed, your legs still hanging off the mattress, as he placed one knee next to your waist, holding himself up as he continued kissing you. When your back hit the mattress, you held the back of Sirius’s head to keep him in place.

You felt one of the boys behind Sirius, pulling your pants off and leaving your lower half nearly exposed.

Sirius flopped down on the bed next to you, still kissing you as you ran your fingers through his hair.

James slowly kissed up your thigh, throwing both of your legs over his shoulders as he kissed your underwear right above your heat. You gasped, but Sirius didn’t let you break the kiss.

“Sirius, come on, give her a break,” James pleaded, “I wanna hear her.”

Sirius groaned into the kiss before breaking it, looking down to James in between your legs. “Well, go on then.”

Sirius was still feral and needy, pulling your shirt over your head and ripping off your bra, immediately going to grab and kiss at your breasts. You were embarrassed at the exposure, but everyone was moving on your body so fast that you didn’t have time to think about your body being on display.

James pushed your underwear to the side and kissed your folds, causing you to squeal. This was an unfamiliar feeling, but you were growing wetter and wetter by the minute. He pushed your folds open with his tongue, licking and flicking at your clit. You whined and threw your head back. He continued his actions, peeking up at you from between your legs, watching you come apart as he ate you out like a man starved.

“Take it easy,” you heard Remus say from behind your head, “you gotta remember she’s never done this.”

James moaned into your cunt as a response, sending a shiver up your body, causing your legs to shake slightly. He kept sucking and licking circles around your bud, and you couldn’t help but grab the hair at the back of his head, pushing him closer into you.

“Good girl,” Sirius cooed from beside you, touching every exposed part of your body that he could.

As James’ tongue quickened, your whines grew louder, but you tried to tame them and save yourself further embarrassment. Remus noticed and was not happy. He grabbed your face and forced your neck to look backward at him. “Are you holding back?”

“N-no,” you said anxiously, not sure if it was the truth.

“Ah, but I think you are,” he started, “and we don’t accept that. Let us hear you.”

“But I’m emb-“

“I don’t care if you’re embarrassed. Stop holding back. Now.”

Remus’s demanding and controlling demeanor only added at the pleasure James was giving you with his mouth. You did as he said. James continued to quicken his pace, whines and moans falling from your lips.

“Does that feel good?” Remus asked.

“Yes, Rem, I-“

“No fair!” Sirius suddenly exclaimed, “if you ask her all the questions, you get to hear her moan your name. Selfish prick.”

“Are you gonna let this be about her or what?” Remus retorted.

“I am! I should be asking you the same thing, why do you always get to be in control of everything?”

They bickered back and forth for a few minutes, but the entire time, James remained focused on you. He watched from between your legs as his tongue made you squirm and moan, and he had you nearly seeing stars.

You desperately tried to tell him you were going to come, but Remus and Sirius were too busy bickering for James to hear you. You tapped at his head to signal him, and he got the message, sucking at your bud until you finally came. Your chest rapidly rose and fell as James continued to lick you until he had tasted every last drop of cum from your hole, standing up and placing a wet kiss on your lips.

“What, did you just give up?” Sirius asked when he saw James standing.

“No, idiot, she came,” James replied, “you two dickheads were too busy arguing to notice.”

Remus’s nostrils flared. “You just let us keep arguing?”

“She tried to say something!” James defended you, and partly himself.

“Baby, you ok?” Remus checked in.

“Mhm,” you nodded.

“You got a little more in you?”

“Mhm.”

“You want me?”

“Mhm.”

Remus pulled his pants and boxers down and climbed on top of you, pulling your underwear completely off of you as he placed his knees on either side of your waist.

“You sure?” he asked, wanting to confirm your consent.

“Yes,” you responded.

“And you’re sure you’re okay with it being me?”

Instead of responding with words, you tilted your head up and kissed Remus, assuring him that you wanted it to be him. You would have been okay with any of the boys, but Remus was always so in control, it made sense that he would be your first. Your relationship with him was always a little less silly, and a little more intimate, than your relationship with the other two.

“Are you ready?” he checked, lining up his already hard cock at your entrance.

“Yeah,” you replied, “just- please be nice, okay?”

Remus smiled, “of course, baby.”

You nodded at him and locked eyes as he slowly pushed into you, a long gasp leaving your lips as he filled you up. His cock was bigger than you thought it would be, and it was taking you a while to adjust to his size.

“Shit, Rem,” you breathed out, “you should have warned me that you’re that fucking big.”

Sirius growled next to you, your words driving him crazy. He couldn’t help but pull out his cock, stroking it slowly as he watched you.

Remus gave you plenty of time to adjust before you nodded at him, signaling that he could move. He started slowly, pushing in and out of you as an excruciatingly slow pace. It burned, and you almost told Remus to stop, but after a few minutes, the pain subsided, and the pleasure took over.

A particularly filthy moan left your lips, and Sirius cursed under his breath. James appeared behind your head, stroking your hair as Remus’s head dropped to your shoulder as he began to pick up the pace.

“Shit, baby,” he moaned, “you feel so fucking good.”

“You look so fucking good,” Sirius breathed.

“Thank you, Siri,” you cried out, causing Sirius to cum in his hand, the nickname making him lose all control.

“What a good girl,” Remus spoke, his thrusts quickening until he was causing your body to jolt upward with each hit from the force, “you’re doing so well.”

James placed a kiss on your forehead and you reached up to grab his hand for leverage. You squeezed his hand, the pleasure between your legs becoming almost too much.

“Relax, baby, you’re being such a good girl,” James said.

Remus’ breathing quickened. “You’re so tight, angel, if you keep squeezing my cock like that I’m not gonna last,” he warned.

“I c-can’t help it,” you told him.

“I know baby,” he replied.

“I d- don’t know how to m- make it stop,” you said.

Remus giggled, “you don’t have to make it stop. It feels good for me.”

“Oh,” you whimpered, “that’s good.”

Remus giggled again. You were so cute, even in the middle of losing your virginity. Remus leaned down and kissed you, your lips moving in harmony as he began to pound into you. Any sense of kindness and mercy he had for this being your first time went out the window when you kissed.

Your moans grew louder and louder, and you tried to cover your mouth with your hand to quiet yourself down.

“Ah ah ah,” Sirius tsked, pulling your hand away, “none of that.”

“Rem- Rem- I-“

“I know angel, let go.”

Your high crashed over you again, your hips bucking upward to meet Remus’ final few thrusts before he came inside of you, the feeling of you squeezing him becoming too much for him to hold on. Remus stayed inside of you for a moment, watching your face as you calmed down from your high, a slight shake in your legs.

“What a good girl,” James praised, kissing your forehead.

“You okay?” Remus checked in, pulling out of you and standing in front of you.

“Mhm,” you hummed, “‘m okay.”

Sirius leaned down to kiss you again. “Everything you imagined?”

“Mhm.” You were too tired to formulate complete words or sentences.

“You wanna skip the party?” Sirius continued.

“Mhm.”

“You wanna cuddle and watch a movie?”

“Mhm.” You shifted so your head was resting on Sirius’ lap as he began to stroke your hair.

Sirius smiled. “And then maybe round two.”

[togenabi]

pick me up

roronoa zoro (opla) x reader

♡—zoro never paid your jokes or pickup lines any mind. that is, until something happens that makes you stop.

word count♡— 3.2k

genre♡— mild angst, fluff, straw hat!reader

content notes♡— opla zoro, fem!reader, reader wears a dress and tells very bad jokes, creepy dude oc, don't be creepy be cool yall, reader pulls off a heist with nami, zoro gets jealous, alcohol consumption, no use of y/n, barely proofread

also on♡— ao3

author's note♡— this is a request from anon! I'm sorry if I tweaked a few things, I'm not the best at angst hhhh I hope you still like it!

“Okay, okay. Wait. I got it this time.” You say, already trying to keep from laughing. 

“Why were the kids having trouble in pirate class?”

Zoro only side-eyes you with his arms crossed, vehemently unimpressed. 

“Because they were overbored!” 

Watching for his reaction intently, you keep your eyes focused on his face... Nothing changes. 

You tsk, but aren’t seriously discouraged. This is how he always reacts to your jokes, after all. “I’ll get you one of these days, Roronoa Zoro.”

The swordsman only sighs, leaning back into his seat to take a nap. “You do that.”

“Don’t listen to him, love.” Sanji says from the other side of the kitchen as he cleans the counter. “I thought that joke was good.”

“You’re lying, but I appreciate the sentiment, Sanji.” You grin at him. Focusing back on the book you were reading, you miss the amused, challenging look Sanji sends Zoro.

Everyone hears Luffy approaching the kitchen before he enters. “Guys!” He bellows. “We’ll be reaching land soon. Be ready to leave in fifteen minutes!”

The majority of the day is spent restocking supplies. You were all split up into pairs, but before you left, Luffy pointed to a restaurant with a flashy, illuminated sign on top that reads: ‘Bistro of Light’. How cringey of them.

“We should meet there for dinner! You don’t mind taking a break, right, Sanji?” Luffy asks eagerly, and you think that no one could say no to him when he’s so enthusiastic. Sanji nods, and you all go through the town until the sun starts to set.

The inside of the restaurant is just as ridiculous as the sign outside. Chandeliers of every color hang on the ceiling. Huge fish tanks and fountains lined with lights almost blind you. You laugh when looking at it all causes Zoro to wince. 

“Hey Zoro,” You call for him. “You know what’s faster than the speed of light?”

“...”

“My heartbeat when I think of you!” You wink at him, proud of the joke even when he only sighs and looks away.

Usopp walks up to a receptionist standing behind a desk. “Hey. Table for six, if you would be so kind.”

“I’m afraid we’re at full capacity at the moment.” They respond. “You’ll have to wait, is that alright?”

Everyone shares a look. Except for Luffy, who looks dead set on eating here, you all feel unsure about waiting.

“When’s the next table going to be available?” Usopp asks. “We’re actually a really big deal. It’s gonna be really embarrassing for you guys if you don’t let us in.” The person frowns, face screaming, ‘is this guy serious’?

But before they can reply, a booming voice enters the restaurant. A tall man, dressed in a pristine white suit and wearing jewels on every finger, pushes you out of the way to yell at the receptionist. You stumble, but thankfully Zoro is there to catch you.

“What on earth is going on here?! Why are there so many people crowding the entryway?!” He fumes, angrily gesturing to your group. 

“If they’re not going to eat, then I strongly suggest—” The rich man freezes suddenly, his eyes trained on you.

You keep your face as emotionless as possible, but you die laughing inside when Nami swipes a brooch from his jacket while he’s distracted with you.

“Ah,” The man says. His tone softening a considerable amount as he walks over to you. “I thought I had the best jewels in my treasury, but you're the most radiant gem I've ever laid my eyes on.” It takes everything in you to not back away. Zoro tenses beside you.

“Why haven’t these guests been guided to a table?” He asks, turning back to the receptionist.

“We’re at full capacity, Sir.” Oh. He must own the place. It makes sense that the owner is as gaudy as everything else in here.

“That won’t do.” He looks back to you, and you swear you could feel your skin crawl under his gaze. 

“I am Helios. Welcome to my establishment.” The man introduces himself with a flourish, bowing to you. His jewels and gold accessories glint in the light. “What might your name be?”

Reluctantly, you introduce yourself. Had this been a normal situation, you would have turned around and walked away from him the second he saw you. But, you could feel the crew going hungry, and you’re sure Nami will want to snag another ring or two—so you play nice.

Helios smiles, repeating your name. He was probably trying to sound romantic, but he’s not doing anything for you. Not when Zoro says your name much better.

You keep Zoro’s voice in mind, remembering how nice it sounds. It’s easier to smile at Helios that way. Time to lay on the charm, “I was really looking forward to having dinner here. I don’t suppose you could help us out?”

“Follow me, my dear. You deserve to dine upstairs. The view is simply spectacular at this hour.” Helios holds out his hand to you, but Luffy—bless his soul—grabs it to shake it zealously.

“Thanks so much for letting us eat here, Mr. Helios!” Luffy claps him on the back. Helios looks dumbfounded, and the crew does an impressive job keeping their composure. 

Helios tries to walk beside you as he guides you all upstairs, but Zoro is steadfast on your right, and Nami smartly positions herself on your left. Luffy and Usopp tug the restaurant owner along, chatting his ear off. You almost feel bad for him. 

Nami murmurs, her voice carefully silent so only you can hear. “Treasury, huh?”

You smile. “Of course you’d be curious about that.”

“Think you could get us to his mansion?” She dares you, eyes aglow at the promise of a good heist.

“I know I can.” You pause walking to check your reflection on an ornate, sun-shaped mirror. After fixing your hair, you grin at your friends. “I’m irresistible, after all.”

Maybe if you weren’t busy buttering up your host, you would have noticed that Zoro wasn’t eating properly. Normally, you would force him to eat. You would pile food on his plate, telling that joke about fake noodles being impasta that always cracks you up.

Zoro frowns at the meal in front of him. The fish seems to frown back. Sighing, he decides to just order another drink. But no matter what he consumes, a bitter taste always blooms in his mouth afterwards. 

The glass in his hand almost cracks when he hears your voice sucking up to Helios again. “So, you own this place? Do you live around here?”

Helios leans far too close towards you, but you grin and bear it. “Would you like a private tour, my gem?”

You place a hand on his arm, he may read it as affection, but you hold him so he keeps that distance. “That sounds wonderful.”

Zoro huffs under his breath. He needs another drink. 

Thankfully, Helios serves good booze at his manor. Zoro almost didn’t want to drink any of it, but he needs alcohol in his system if he has to watch you flirt with this idiot so Nami can rob him blind. Whatever she steals better be worth all this, or else he might punch something. Or someone. Preferably Helios.

You share a look with Nami and give her an imperceptible nod. With that signal, she passes by and pretends to lose her footing. Wine seeps into your clothes, staining the fabric and sticking it to your skin. Did she really have to pick red wine? You liked this shirt.

“Oh, my dear!” Helios gasps. “You should get cleaned up. I’ll have my servants draw you a bath and bring you fresh clothes.”

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve watched where I was going.” Nami loops her arm through yours. “Let me help you with that.” 

And so, with another fake smile sent Helios’ way, you rush with Nami to find the treasury.

“Be quick.” Nami says once you enter the luxurious bathroom prepared for you. 

As tempting as the bubble bath is, you only take a few wet towels to tidy up. You step into the curtained area, about to strip when Nami holds out a hand to stop you.

“Wait.” She says, her tone serious. A teddy bear holding a rose is propped up on a shelf behind you. Tapping its eyes, Nami scowls before throwing the bear into the trash bin.

“A camera?” She nods. “Seriously? What a creep.”

You and Nami inspect the room. It’s not clear if there are other hidden cameras, but she stands guard in front of the shower curtains just in case.

“Hey,” She starts. “Did you notice Zoro acting weird tonight?”

You frown as you change into the dress Helios prepared. “What do you mean?”

Nami hums in thought. “He’s just…” A dumbass, she wants to say, but doesn’t. “He seems extra grumpy.”

That causes you to laugh. “I guess I should prepare more jokes for him when we get back.”

She winces. “...I’m not that sure he likes those.”

“Hm… Maybe not, but,” You pause to think. He may not laugh loudly as Luffy does, but he never shot you down for being bubbly around him. “Zoro would have told me to shut up by now if he didn’t, right?”

“Huh.” Nami says. “You got a point.”

You push the curtains aside, grinning at her. “Come on, let’s break into that treasury.”

“Of course, my gem.”

“Oh my god, if that sticks I’m going to be so mad.”

The treasury was a vault full of everything from jewels to ornamental weapons. Nami playfully crowned you with a diamond tiara, and she put on dangling emerald earrings that looked stunning on her.

After filling your bags and pockets with the most you can carry, you and Nami head out to find the others. You run into Usopp on the way back to the lounge.

“I see you two cleaned up well.” He jokes. “Luffy and Sanji are in the kitchen. I was just on my way there.”

“Where’s Zoro?” You ask.

“With Helios. You know him, still drinking.”

“We should leave soon.” Nami insists. “We risk getting caught the longer we stay.”

“Right.” You hand Usopp your bag, his eyes widen comically when he feels how heavy it is. “I’ll just go say goodbye, I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

Before you even enter the lounge, however, you hear Zoro speak your name. Are they talking about you? You press your back against the wall, straining to hear their conversation.

You almost wish you didn’t.

“She tells the worst jokes and doesn’t know when to quit it. Thinks she’s hilarious but she’s really not.” Zoro speaks in that deep voice that would usually be comforting to you—but his words now pierce through you painfully.

“What exactly is your relationship with her?” Helios asks, and Zoro is silent. It feels like your heart crumbles for every second he doesn’t answer.

You’re friends! You’ve been dreaming of more but, you’ve always been friends.

…Aren’t you? Doesn’t he think so?

“I don’t know.” Your heart fully shatters. What does he mean he doesn’t know? “She just sticks to me a lot. It can get annoying.”

“Well. That’s unfortunate, but it’s nothing to sob over.” Helios kisses his teeth. “I don’t care about her attitude. All that doesn’t matter as long as she has that pretty face.”

You wait for Zoro to say something. Anything. You want him to cut Helios where he stands.

But he doesn’t. The silence drags on. The air feels like it’s pushing you down, crushing your lungs. You have to get out of here.

You burst into the kitchen, trying your best not to cry. Nami immediately rushes to you, holding your shoulders to steady you. “What happened?”

Letting out a shuddered breath, you whisper, “You were right.” It’s impossible to think straight right now. “I want to leave.”

You look to Luffy, still shaken up. Your captain’s expression is serious as he nods. “Go ahead, we’ll get Zoro and catch up.” Not needing to be told twice, you head out the door.

Before she follows you, Nami hisses at Sanji, “Talk some sense into that dumbass, won’t you?”

The entire walk back to the Going Merry is silent. You’re grateful Nami doesn’t immediately press you for what happened, but you know that you should answer her questions. You finally get the words out in the safety of her cabin.

You sit cross-legged on the bed, and everything comes pouring out. “He called me annoying.” 

“Zoro?” She asked, offering you a box of tissues.

“Yeah.” You sniff, taking the box.

“I’m sorry. That was fucked up of him to say.”

Unsure how to properly comfort you, Nami gets up and retrieves extra pillows from a storage compartment.

“Why don’t we have a girl’s night?” Nami asks, offering you a smile. It pulls a smile out of you too, the first one you mustered since Zoro crushed your spirit. 

“I’d like that.” 

Zoro is confused to find that you and Nami had left before them. Luffy gave Helios some lame excuse that you weren’t feeling well, but Zoro knew better. If you were really sick, the whole crew would be panicking and rushing to get to you.

He stares at Sanji and Usopp, trying to piece together what really happened. They both turn away from him, refusing to say anything.

In the next second, a maid rushes out, panting and screaming, “Mr. Helios! The treasury has been robbed!”

Fine. Answers can come later. For now, they need to run.

Once they’re back on the ship, Sanji follows Zoro into his cabin. He stares at the chef blankly, “Get out.”

“Did you do something?” Sanji leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Get out.” Zoro repeats, about to push him out of the room when Sanji speaks your name.

“She was upset. Asked to leave as soon as possible.” Sanji’s gaze is almost menacing, and his frown deepens when Zoro’s face falls. So, that’s what happened. You had heard him.

“Fuck.” Zoro groans, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Everyone noticed you getting bitchy over Helios.” Sanji notes “Did you confront him or something?”

Scoffing, Zoro sits on his hammock, the fabric dips under his weight. “It was something, all right.”

Wanting Zoro to explain himself unpromptedly, Sanji just watches him and lets the silence hang in the air. After a solid, suffocating minute, the swordsman caves.

“I called her annoying.” Zoro breathes out deeply. “I said her jokes aren’t funny and that she sticks to me a lot.”

“Man, that’s screwed up.” Sanji gapes. “I thought you cared about her?”

“Of course I do, but I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” Zoro defends. “Luffy’s the only one who laughs at her jokes, and she’s always by my side.” 

Sighing, Zoro continues, “...but I never minded any of it. I learned to care for those parts of her a long time ago. I was only trying to get that shithead off her back.”

“You’re an idiot.” Sanji concludes. “You have the emotional depth of a sink, sometimes.”

Zoro, surprisingly, doesn’t insult the chef back. He stares at the wall, slouched and looking the most empty Sanji’s ever seen him.

“What should I do?” He asks. “How should I make it up to her?”

Sanji’s eyes light up, he beams and claps his hands together in excitement. Even if Zoro hasn’t heard it yet, he already dreads the chef’s suggestion. 

“I have an idea.”

When you woke up the next morning, you had every intention of avoiding Zoro like the plague. It was still really difficult to look at him, the hurt you felt still stings your heart. 

But unfortunately for you, he had other plans. 

You’re gazing out into the sea on the forecastle deck when you hear a familiar set of heavy footsteps. You sigh. “I don’t want to talk, Zoro.”

“I’m not here to talk.” You turn to him questioningly, but you really shouldn’t give him the time of day. Wasn’t he the one who complained about you clinging to him?

You don’t say anything. Only glaring at him and hoping he sees how disappointed you feel. Zoro stands here, appearing strangely vulnerable. If you weren’t so hurt, you would have hugged him by now. 

But you are. So he has to wallow in the awkwardness of the consequences of his words. He—wait. What’s that on his face?

“I…” Is he… blushing? “I’m sorry I wasn’t around in the past.” 

You make a face and blink at him. What is he up to?

“...Can I be part of your future?”

That knocks the wind right out of you, your jaw practically falls to the floor. Did Roronoa Zoro just use a pickup line? On you? You can’t help but glance at your surroundings to check if the sky is still blue.

No—hold on. He can’t win you over just like that. He needs to explain why he said what he did. 

“You said my jokes are the worst.” You grumble.

“They are.” Zoro looks straight into your eyes as he speaks. “But you’re one of the best things to ever happen to me.”

“You said I always stick to your side.”

He doesn’t miss a beat and answers earnestly, “You do. And I wouldn’t want you to be anywhere else.”

“…You said you didn’t know what our relationship is.”

That causes Zoro to pause, searching your eyes as if he’ll find the answer in them. “…I don’t.”

Oh, this impossible sword-brain of a man. Your lips quiver, and you realize you can’t fight back your smile anymore. “I love you, Zoro.”

His expression shifts from anxiousness to shock, relief, and a bit of something else... 

“I love you, too.” Ah, of course. Love, that too.

Slowly, tentatively, he raises his arms, inviting you to an embrace. He’s adorable, looking a teensy bit nervous that you wouldn’t want to hold him. Giggling, you rush to him, wrapping your arms around his waist as he envelops your shoulders. 

“I bet Sanji taught you to apologize with that line.” You murmur into his chest. “If you tell me another one…” Zoro cringes, his frame tensing. 

“...I’ll give you a kiss.” His expression lifts, seriously considering it.

After a minute, Zoro clears his throat. You almost squeal in excitement.

“Roses are red, violets are blue…” A classic. This is going to be good.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward, I just want to have dinner with you.” You gasp, squeezing him tighter. 

“Yes! That was perfect.” Laughing, you reach up and hold his face to keep your promise. 

You plant a sweet, short kiss on his lips. When you pull away, he’s looking at you like he would fight anyone for you. He probably would, if you’re being honest.

“You’re perfect.” He breathes, mouth against yours and then he’s kissing you again.

Hiding behind a pile of crates, the rest of the crew whoop and cheer. (Silently.)

“That was such a good line!” Luffy whispers.

“I still think he should have used the ‘I don’t speak angel’ one.” Usopp whispers back.

“What are you talking about?!” Sanji angrily, quietly mutters. “That was perfect because he apologized and delivered the line.”

“Shut it, you guys. I was right, he didn’t last a day with her mad at him.” Nami holds out her palm. “Pay up.” The others groan, handing her some berry. All’s well that ends well.

© togenabi 2023 | see here to be added to my taglist ♡

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[dumpywrites]

Facade - Jeon Jungkook

Prompt: Your friend arranged you on a date with a BTS member. The catch is, you have to pretend like you’re not a fan. 

Prompt request: HERE

Genre/tags: Fluff, strangers (?) to lovers, idol Jungkook, fan/army reader

Pairing: Jungkook x she/her reader

a/n: I obviously don't know how real idol life works, let's just pretend this is how it looks like ok lol

“You did not just set me on a date with Jeon Jungkook.”

Folding your arms, you stood with your eyebrows knitted together, looking straight at your friend who in contrast had a big grin plastered on his lips. You bit into your sandwich, looking left and right, all skeptical about people overhearing your conversation. The guy in front of you then repeated his sentence again just to humor you. 

Undoubtedly, you did not hear your friend wrong. Man really just set you up with the one and only Jungkook from BTS. Being a set stylist in Big Hit and all, it came as no surprise that he knew the boys, but you did not know that he was that close to the point that he could introduce them to you personally. In fact, you were never aware of how close your friend was with them until now.

While it was true that you had told your friend, although mostly jokingly, about how you wanted him to introduce him to someone, you did not mean this. You did not mean introducing to the guy whose songs you literally had in your Spotify wrapped. 

“Felix, you can’t be serious, how??? I don't think I have anything to wear???“

“Here’s the catch.” The guy said sternly, putting down his chilled drink. “You have to pretend like you don’t know him.”

You looked at your friend as if he just turned into a fish. The sentence he blurted out just sounded ridiculous. 

“Okay, okay, I’m aware of how unbelievable that sounds. Obviously, everyone knows who he is. All I’m asking is for you to at least pretend to not be a creepy fan.”

“I’m not a creepy fan.” You looked at your friend, pretending to feel insulted. 

“You took a picture of his Calvin Klein poster at the mall last week.” He argued.

“That doesn’t count, I was asking about the location.”

“You mentioned something about rock-hard abs…”

“Okay, fair.” You rolled your eyes. “But I’m not one of those sasaeng if that’s what you mean.”

“Duh, I wouldn’t have suggested this if you are.” He rolled his eyes back at you. “The other's been teasing him about relationship stuff and your face popped up in my head." He sneered. "When I showed him your picture, he seemed to be interested.”

Your eyes widened. “Which picture of me did you show to him?!“

“Doesn’t matter.” He dismissed you. “But you’re somewhat of a fan, so you must know that he’s mentioned that he doesn’t date fans.”

“I’m aware.” You sighed. 

“I think that’s bullshit to be honest, he’s just saying that for safety purposes. So army wouldn’t fight over him and stuff?” He chuckled. “But just so he won’t get put off on the first meeting…”

“Yeah, I get it.” 

“You sound discouraged.” 

“No, I’m beyond ecstatic, it’s just that…” You stopped to sip your drink. “I don’t know, the idea of lying to his face just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“You can tell him later if the date goes well! It’s just so he won’t run away on the first meeting…”

You frowned, contemplating for a good moment. “Alright fine, but you have to help me with the outfit.” 

“I got you covered, girl.” 

**

That was how you ended up waiting in a private room, at restaurant way too fancy for you, sitting down awkwardly at a table that has a paper written “Reserved for Mr. Jeon” on it. Out of nervousness, you kept fixing the non-existent crease on your blouse, the one Felix helped you choose just the day before. 

Felix was the one who drove you there, since he knew the place and both of you basically talked with him as a bridge in between. Your friend did mention the possibility of your date being late, due to the fact that he could not just enter the place from the front door like normal costumer would.

Just around six minutes of fidgeting your fingers, you heard a light click from the door handle and you quickly straightened yourself up. Honestly, you wished he came even later, cause you were nervous as heck. Thank heavens for the good air conditioner or you'd be wetting your outfit with sweat.

And so there he was, walking in full slow motion before your eyes. He was walking in casually, so effortlessly. Running his fingers through his black, slightly permed locks, he closed the door behind him and you swore his black blazer was swaying in an animated way. There was a shine in both his eyes and lips. You were definitely wearing a pink tinted glasses and you were fully aware of it.

“Hi, you must be Y/N.” He flashed a bright smile and took a seat. “Sorry I’m late, had to make sure no one saw me and all…”

“Don’t sweat it.” You said, trying not to sound breathless. 

“You’re very pretty by the way.” He grinned. “Like, actually better than the picture Felix showed me.”

“Thanks…” It was impressive how you manage to not stutter while your heart was doing a backflip. “You look great too… I mean I’m sure you get it all the time.”

“Don’t even.” He laughed. “I look great cause we have a team of professional makeup artists on stage. Today though, I’m just Jeon Jeongguk in the flesh.” 

You wanted so badly to hit him because there was no way this man really just said that his no makeup face was anything but gorgeous. 

“Anyways!” The guy exclaimed enthusiastically. “Let’s order? I’m starving!”

“What do you recommend here? I’ve never been here before…” 

“Oh, I’ve never been here either. I just asked Jimin-hyung to recommend me a good place for a date…” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I figured it would make a good first impression.”

“You could just ask me out for a tteokbokki and I would’ve said yes.” 

Wait, you didn’t mean to say that out loud.

Jungkook’s laughter filled the room suddenly, which taken you by surprise. “That sounds awesome, we should totally get some after this!” 

You couldn’t help but to smile as well. 

“Felix told me you’re a copywriter?”

“Ah yeah, I am. I mostly work for social media stuff.” You explained as you flipped through the menu. “I kinda want to indulge in writing music but I don’t know where to start…”

“You should definitely try it!” He said in excitement. “I didn’t get to actually write my last album since the company decided to go full English, but I’d like to, maybe for my future releases.” 

“I’m looking forward to it.” 

“I can introduce you to my writers and producers if you want?” He looked at the ceiling for a second, pondering. “Have you listened to my song “Seven”?”

As a matter of fact, you had memorized the song lyric by lyric, but you couldn’t just tell him that. 

“O-Of course.” You cursed secretly for stuttering. “It’s everywhere, don’t act like that song didn’t top the charts.”

“Right…” He said, grinning while looking away from your eyes. “I mean, I could introduce you to the writers if you want.”

“There’s no need, I’m sure I can learn a thing or two from you.” You looked at him, testing the waters. 

“Or that! I prefer that, honestly.” He laughed. 

Dinner went extremely well. You were surprised at how at ease you were with him. He was fun and easy to talk to. He was talking about every dish in a very passionate way, which you found endearing. You share the same movie taste as him, which did not really come as a surprise to you, but it absolutely did to him. His eyes were practically glowing talking about the upcoming Deadpool movie. 

The guilt of pretending still lingered in you and you couldn’t just simply ignore it. No matter how comfortable he made you feel, you kept feeling on edge, scared of the possibility of spilling something you’d rather him not to hear. 

“So, are you still up for the tteokbokki?” He asked after giving his card to pay. “I mean, we can’t just eat them on the street like normal people cause you know…” He sighed, raising his eyebrows. 

“Oh yeah, I totally forgot you can’t just…” 

“I’m sorry, it sucks.” He smiled sadly. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my job but… I guess it’s just a small price to pay.” 

There was a very clear hint of disappointment in his voice, and you felt awful. “I’m so sorry.”

“Wait, I can just tell my driver to drop by so we can get some and I don’t know, eat in my car? Unless you wanna eat in my place which sounds bad, I don’t think you’ll be comfortable knowing we just met—“

“Jungkook, it’s alright.” You assured him. “We can just get them next time.”

“There’s a next time then?” He said with an eager smile. 

You blushed. “Of course. I had fun…”

“Okay… phew!” He exhaled comically and you laughed. “You know, I’m glad I came today.”

“Me too.” You smiled. 

“Can I have your number?” He said with puffed cheeks as he bit the inner side of his mouth. “It’s not exactly convenient to talk via Felix.” He chuckled. 

After exchanging phone number he offered to take you home with him having a driver as the argument. You refused, but mostly because you didn’t know if you could handle being in a close distance and such small space with him yet. Your heart could barely take his boyish grins and cringey jokes. You certainly needed more getting used to. 

Your friend was so gonna get an earful about this. 

Maybe you’d treat him food too as a thanks. 

**

“So?” 

“I’m in trouble, you don’t get it.”

Your friend laughed out loud while you sighed and palmed your face. 

“Aren’t you happy that it went well?” He snickered, eyeing the unopened notifications from Jungkook popping up in your phone. “He even texts you daily, don’t you know how busy he is?”

“He still doesn’t know that I basically have his album at home.” You groaned, slumping into the table. “Albums! And his posters… his light stick…” You ruffled your hair in frustration. 

“Relax, he clearly likes you! Look at those puppy eyes emojis he sent you.”

“How am I suppose to tell him now?!” You looked at your friend in disbelief. 

“I’m sure he’ll understand, you just gotta find the right timing.” 

“That’s easy for you to say cause you’re not the one dealing with it.” 

“Shut up, look…” Felix took your phone and shoved it in front of your face. 

“Are you free this Saturday? Let’s watch a movie!”

“Oh my god???” You snatched your phone instantly, eyes fully open.

And so here you were again, somewhat dolling yourself up for a mere cinema date. You did not step out before video calling your friend and sending the view casual outfit option you had. 

This time Jungkook insisted on sending you a driver to pick you up, mentioning how it was safer and more convenient for you that way. You felt a bit weirded out by the treatment but you guessed it was only right given his status. He even said that he wanted to pick you up himself if he could. 

The first thing you noticed after stepping into the cinema was how empty it was. Sure it was quite late at night, around eleven, but it was not that late to the point where nobody would be there. You had been to the cinema at the same hour before and you were sure it wasn’t this empty. Although you were feeling suspicious, you showed the staff your booking code anyway and she led you to the auditorium. 

How terrified you were to found the auditorium to be empty also, only the huge screen playing the commercials before the movie. You began to look around, terrified. Was this some sort of prank? You were not sure. Out of the blue a finger tapped your back and you yelped in horror.

“I’m sorry! Did I scare you? I was in the restroom.” It was Jungkook. 

You stood up for a few seconds, still processing the whole situation. Your eyes were glassy due to the fear and your heart was beating rapidly. Jungkook just stood there, wearing an oversized grey hoodie and a baggy jeans, looking handsome as usual, just staring at you with two cups of soda in his hands. He had a beanie over his head, making his face look rounder and pinch-able. 

“Hey… are you okay?” 

You cleared your throat, scratching your eyes. “I was scared I thought I got pranked or something.” You chuckled, vision still quite blurry. 

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve told you that I rented the whole place… I just don’t want people to see me and make a fuss about it…” 

“It’s okay. I’m here now, let’s just sit down?”

Jungkook followed you as you picked a random seat in the middle of the room. 

He was being awfully quiet as the movie started playing. You noticed how suddenly tensed he was and you saw his hands trembled for a quick second before he shoved it down his pants pockets. 

“Uh, Y/N?” He called. 

You were startled. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I can’t take you on a normal date.”

Your heart melted at the statement. While it was true that you were a fan, but seeing him being a considerate and gentle guy in real life completely swept you away. 

You smiled, looking at his direction. “I mean, as long as we’re spending time together I don’t care where or how.” 

He flashed you a smile, one that could turn you into a puddle instantly. Your eyes darted to a staff that suddenly came to your seats, with two cups of what seemed to be snacks. Your eyes beamed with excitement at the realization of what was served to you. You gasped, covering your lips. You barely mouthed a “thank you” to the staff and they bowed before walking out. 

“I didn’t know they serve tteokbokki here.” 

“They don’t… I just told my driver to get us some.” He said timidly. “I hope that’s okay?”

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been just to eat a tteokbokki.” 

Jungkook breathed out a sigh before smiling brightly. “You know, I don’t even remember the last time I went out on a normal date… I’m sorry if it’s weird to you.” 

“I haven’t been in one in a while either, it’s okay.” You smiled back, poking the tteokbokki and took a bite.

He started stuffing some in his mouth as well. “No, it’s different… I think I will never get the chance to actually date normally, you know? Not in the near future at least. I just wish people respect my privacy more, that’s not much to ask, right?”

“I’m sorry you have to go through this.” 

“Well, at the end of the day, I love what I do and I don’t regret anything.” 

He shrugged and continued to stuff more food in his mouth, making you giggle at the sight. You had seen him eat multiple times on his weverse live but seeing him actually eat with such enthusiast right in front of you just felt different. God was he cute. 

“I’m glad you’re not like those people.” He looked at you, smiling with his mouth full.

You froze. Am I though? You thought to yourself. Immediately the eye contact was broken and you straightened yourself on the seat to watch the movie, the one with plot you never really got to know at this point. You did not realize how you never really responded to his sentence. 

He did not press over it again and you were glad. Instead of opening his mouth to ask for more, he put his hand over yours instead. A bold move, which surprised you, but his touch was oddly calming and in no time you found yourselves intertwining your fingers together. 

After the credits rolled, both of you stood up to exit but Jungkook quickly caught your right hand again, refusing to let go of it yet. You found it really adorable so you let him be. 

“Let me take you home, yeah?”

“But aren’t you worried? What if someone snoops around seeing the same car drops a random girl and then you later?” You reasoned. 

“You’re not some random girl.” 

You were both mad and smitten that he chose to focus on that. “That’s not the point.” 

“I know… it’s just,” He puffed his cheeks. “I wanna spend time with you more, I don’t really get breaks that often so…”

You almost let out an “aww”. You sighed, fighting the urge to just hug him right there on the spot. “Alright.”

“Yes!” He celebrated, throwing his left fist in the air. “Don't worry, I have a driver trailing from behind in case I get followed. I won't drop you in your specific apartment tower too, if that helps."

“You drove by yourself?”

“Kinda wanna chat just the two of us.”

Okay, you were now holding every fiber of yourself not to just jump and kiss him.

“Is that alright though?” You worried. 

“The staffs here already signed NDAs and stuff, so I hope so.” He shrugged. 

Nodding, you followed him to the parking basement, where he parked his car. He did not let go of your hand until he reached his car. Not minutes after starting his engine, he already was asking for your hand. His eyebrows wiggling playfully at you, while he whined about how he could comfortably drive with one hand. 

You were in no position to complain though, your hand felt too comfortable resting against his. It almost felt like it belonged there but saying that about Jungkook made you feel delusional. Despite actually going on a date with the man himself, it was still surreal for you, the idea of going out with your idol. 

“Do you think I’m going too fast?” 

“Your driving? I guess it’s alright.” You raised one of your eyebrow, looking at him. 

“You know what I mean.” He chuckled. “About this whole thing…”

Before you answered, he spoke again. 

“I get way too excited over these things, I don’t have that much experience and not to mention how I don’t really get that much time to do so.” He nervously laughed. “I’m a fucking twenty-six year old guy who gets way too excited over holding hands…” He shook his head. The curse word rolling out from his tongue actually sounded natural, somewhat sexy.

“I think you’re fine the way you are.” You squeezed his hand, patting the top of it with your other one. “Everyone experience life differently, and so what if you get excited over holding hands? You think I don’t?” You chuckled. 

“You do?!” He said cheerfully. “We’re such a great match already.” He joked. 

You rolled your eyes but your lips were curled into a shy smile. 

“I like you, like a lot.” Jungkook suddenly confessed, as if it was nothing. 

You almost jumped in your seat, looking to his direction. His eyes were on the road but he was smiling from ear to ear. 

This was it right? This was the moment of your dreams. You were literally dreaming about this.  The idol who you admired, confessing his feelings to you. But a small part of you thought about how wrong it was. You were putting a facade in front of him. While you did not lie or put up an act just to impress him, he still didn’t know that you were one of his fans. Will he get mad if he finds out? You’d rather not find out. 

“Jungkook, it’s…” 

“You don’t have to answer right now. We’ll see each other again, right?” This time he squeezed your hand, dragging it near his chest. You felt his heart beating rapidly. 

You kept quiet, only nodding silently. Looking at his direction suddenly felt stuffy so you looked at the window instead, the road and traffic lights kept you busy. 

It was not long after and he finally stopped at your destination. 

“I’ll see you again?” He said, voice sounding a little bit like a beg. 

“I… I can’t.”

Jungkook’s jaw dropped slightly, he looked at you with furrowed brows. “Why?”

“I’m not who you think I am…” You looked away, backing off so your body hits the car door. 

“What’s that suppose to mean?” He leaned towards your direction, making you nervous. 

Panicking, you finally spilled the beans. “Jungkook, I’m actually your fan.” You breathed out. “I’m an army…”

You were so ready to get yelled and thrown out. This was gonna be the moment you wished you had never met—

“I know.”

“Wait, what???” You replied, voice almost a little too loud.

“I saw your little Koya charm in your bag when we first met, I was waiting for you to bring it up but you never say anything.”

Shit, guess you forgot to take that off. 

“But you said you were glad I’m not like those people…”

“And I don’t mean my fans? I was talking about those crazy stalkers and dispatch.” He looked at you in disbelief, almost as if he felt betrayed. 

“I… I don’t know what to say…” You blushed, the sudden realization hit you that Jungkook in fact had known about your secret since day one. 

“That was it right? That’s the only thing that I supposedly don’t know about you? You didn’t lie about anything else?”

“N-No, of course not…”

“Then my offer still stands, I’ll let you know when I’m free next.” He grinned. “If you want to?” 

“I want to…” You managed to say, in which seconds later the huge built guy launched towards you for a hug. 

“Hey!” You whined, but you were aware of how hot your face felt. Your whole body probably had turned red. 

“Can I kiss you?” He asked impatiently, eyes big like a puppy asking for food. “I mean… it’s okay if you don’t want to?” He giggled. 

“I swear you're gonna be the death of me…" You groaned. "You don’t have to ask!” You pouted with your cheeks burning like crazy. 

He showed you his tooth-aching smile, one that turned his eyes into crescents, before he quickly dipped and met your lips. It was a short and soft peck. He did left it lingering for a few seconds before pulling back. You couldn’t lie to yourself, you were lowkey expecting more. 

“Good night.” He giggled. 

“Good night to you too, silly.” You laughed as well, hugging him close and pecked his cheek. 

He finally let you go so you could grab your bag. It was kinda awkward after all hugging in the car seat but oh well. You clicked open the car door, slowly stepping out. 

“Drive safe.” You said, looking back to him. 

He nodded before waving you goodbye. 

That night you went to bed with your eyes wide open. How could you even sleep? The whole scenario felt like you just receive something only someone who had won a war in their past life would get. You took your phone, wanting to text the guy who you totally did not have as your wallpaper now. 

There were already two bubbles of notification from him, but your eyes almost popped out reading the second one. 

“I have arrived safely! No one followed me! Hehe”

“Any chance you want a signed album from Namjoon-hyung? I can give you for a very low price of a single kiss! 💜”

Thank you for reading! 🍷

Prompt request: HERE

[2kiran]

“FALLING INTO PIECES”

PAIRING: Spider-Man Noir x Reader Reader is a male. Bottom Noir. KINKTOBER CW: SMUT, physical descriptions of r (taller than o’hara), implied internal homophobia (noir), size kink, anal fingering

Noir was a simple man in an odd place.

According to his own perception of this alternative reality, at least.

Being a newly recruited member of the Spider Society was certainly not for a man who belongs to the twentieth century; mostly due to the existence of advanced technology no one from his time has invented quite yet. He was unaware—traditional, in his respective terms.

It wasn’t that he was judgmental of the future. He was just clueless to how everything currently functioned. Even now so when he learned that most accepted others so easily without so much of an intentional blink of a suspicious eye, he seemed to shift into a demeanor strangely experimental.

You were one of the only Spider-men he was ridiculously able to settle at ease with for an extended period of time, given that you didn’t ask too many questions and you didn’t feel the need to talk his hearing senses off.

And maybe, maybe it was also due to how... inhumanely large you were in stature.

The size difference between the two of you was stark. Hell, he thinks you stand a few inches taller than the Miguel O’hara. It was probably the reason why he appears to be drawn to you, dare he say attracted.

Right, he hasn’t thought about that part. Hasn’t come to the conclusion that he wasn’t a heterosexual man, as it was the only thing that wasn’t considered to be outrageous in his world.

But Heaven forbid, you were something otherworldly. Built like a beast that towers over him entirely, hands big and calloused while being simultaneously calculated and cautious when it came to tending to his wounds, and you didn’t treat him like he was a stray that’s originated from a nameless town.

He liked you in a way he didn’t know how to admit, and that made him fear the intruding feeling.

That realization only dawned on him as you backed him against a wall, his back hitting the bricks, his head now required to tilt up to meet your masked eyes through his goggles.

“What...” Noir begins, as if he wasn’t deliberately rubbing himself against you every chance he gets despite the danger lurking due to the presence of an anomaly you had the enough luck to capture and send back just moments ago. He swallows nervously, the separating barrier between arousal and regret blurring in the face of getting what he wants at last.

“You know what.” You scoff, leaning your forearm up against the brick wall in front of you in favor of bending slightly down to force yourself into his personal space like how he did with yours. You’re fairly certain his eyes are blown wide in excitement, but you needed to hear it from his mouth - that he wanted it.

“Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll leave and forget about all of this.”

He liked that about you, how you’re so easily considerate unlike the way your personality outwardly appears to be. For a moment, he considers it, but his core suddenly aches for your touch.

His hand tentatively reaches up, curling around your nape to tug you closer to his masked face. “No, I... I want you.” His words drawl out as foreign sin and lust on his tongue, but neither of you care. “Don’t go. This is what I want. Please.”

“Yeah?” You follow-up, your hand manages to slip down the front of his pants and you waste no time with palming his growing bulge through his boxers, “Want me to take care of you?”

Noir shakily nods his head, a choked gasp escaping his lungs when you apply the right amount of pressure around his cockhead to have his mind begin to haze. “Yes.” He manages, his hands frantically clutching onto your forearms to stabilize himself.

-

He thinks about how you haven’t grown downright exhausted with him yet. You keep on giving and giving to him until he can’t decide what to do with himself; his thoughts prominently melting into slick that pools at his slit and cascades down the length of his dick.

You’re knuckle-deep inside of him once more, the glove you’re using mildly dulling the pleasure but makes him brainless nonetheless. Your digit is thick and long enough for you to roughly prod at his sweet spot, with Noir eagerly asking for another one.

He’s acting as if he’s got something to prove to you. That he can take your cock, that he can make it fit inside of his tight hole. Noir gasps as you push in a second finger.

“That’s it. You’re doing good.” You praise lowly into his ear. Your frame against his is the only thing keeping him from sliding off the closed dumpster he was currently sat on - which should’ve turned him off, but he was hyper-focused on getting himself to come undone beneath the work of your hands.

He is doing good, Noir repeats inside of his head. A whimper slips his lips as he rocks his hips to provoke you into sinking in deeper. He relished in the stretch, a burn that molds itself into a peak.

Noir was yours - made for you as he had no protest despite the phantom whispers of overstimulation making themselves known.

[egcdeath]

something old, something new

pairing: patrick zweig x f!reader

summary: when your childhood best friend asks you to get married, how are you supposed to say no?

word count: 7.2k

warnings: MATURE (mentions of sex but no explicit sex scenes), marriage of convenience, fluff, mentions of alcohol, patrick is a bad friend (but he improves), friends to spouses to lovers, fake dating, yearning and pining, everyone is bad at communicating, many feelings are being repressed, mentions of dieting in an athlete way, one singular creepy old man, no use of y/n

author’s note: i cannot get this tennis man out of my head!! i hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!

It wasn’t every day that you could count on hearing anything from your childhood best friend, but it seemed like whenever you did hear from Patrick Zweig, it was always an ask for something more shocking than the previous one. 

As kids, you spent many evenings doing the homework that Patrick didn’t want to do, despite the fact that you didn’t really want to do more homework either. At boarding school, you’d somehow become his personal designated driver, answering his calls no matter what time and groggily picking him up from whatever party he’d found himself at. In your adulthood, you found yourself becoming a go-to stand-in for him at events he didn’t feel like attending. The amount of times that you’d shaken hands at charity galas and introduced yourself as Patrick’s girlfriend, despite not having a single romantic encounter with him, was frankly astounding. 

It seemed like whenever Patrick needed something, you were the first person he reached out to. After his parents, of course. 

You dreaded knowing the reason behind the simple hey, text message you’d just received, but you were sure that you’d find the reason out sooner rather than later–and that whatever the reason was could not have been good. 

Like clockwork, only an hour after you’d received his message, Patrick appeared at the doorway of your apartment. He came to you equipped with his secret weapon, the kicked puppy look that he often used on you before he asked you for a ridiculous favor, like breaking up with his girlfriend for him or telling his mom that he still wasn’t joining the board of the family business. 

You sighed as you took his less-than-stellar appearance in. Downtrodden expression, wrinkled and sweat-stained shirt, as if he’d gone to the gym to sweat out his feelings before coming to you, and eyes so red-rimmed, you wondered if he’d been crying. 

If you had to guess, he’d either been arguing with his parents, who knew exactly how to get under his skin, or his tennis friends, who also knew exactly how to get under his skin, or his latest girlfriend, who probably confronted him about his own wrongdoings. Regardless of who had upset him, he had obviously come to you to lick his wounds. 

Like always, Patrick stalked inside without asking you for any further permission. The two of you had done this song and dance more times than either one of you would like to admit. 

“How are you?” he asked, stopping in your kitchen to steal an apple from your decorative bowl of fruit.

“I’m good,” you said with hesitation, eyeing him once more. He really looked like shit. If he hadn’t looked so sad, you would’ve told him exactly how much shit he looked like.  

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how I am?” he questioned, a little pathetically.

“No,” you walked off to your living room, fully expecting him to follow you. You were unsurprised when he did exactly that. “Let’s just get right to it. Why’d you come over here?” you asked as the two of you sat down on your couch. 

“My parents are cutting me off,” he explained, voice breaking as he spoke.

Surely, this couldn’t all be over an empty threat. They seemed to threaten Patrick with this every few days. In fact, you’d been in the room with him when his parents promised that he’d never see another dime from them–more than once. Every time, it ended with them coming to their senses and throwing more cash at him. 

“That’s what, the twentieth time?” you laughed. “They always threaten to cut you off. What’s different this time?”

“This time, they mean it.”

You laughed even harder in his face. If you had a quarter for every time you’d had this conversation, you’d be richer than the two of your families combined. 

“I’m serious,” he inched closer to you. “They’re tired of funding my ‘tennis habit’. They want me to get serious about life. To join the board and start a family. My dad showed me an edited draft of his will and everything”

“So?” you prompted, trying to figure out where you fell into the equation. Hopefully he wouldn’t try to put you up to something absurd, like seducing his father into convincing him to not threaten Patrick’s inheritance.

“So, tennis is the only thing I care about.”

“Okay…” you trailed off. “What would you like me to do about that?”

“I need you to help show my parents that I have a vision for the future.”

“Again, Patrick, what exactly are you asking me to do?”

“Marry me.”

You weren’t sure what you expected him to say, but it certainly was not that. Your mouth instantly dropped open and you were sure that you were gaping like a fish. Maybe if he had asked you ten years ago, you’d have instantly said yes, but you’d let that naive dream die after you’d come to realize the transactional subtext of your friendship.

“What?”

“I want you to marry me. I was thinking… you remember when we were younger and we made that pact, that if we weren’t married by the time we were adults, then we’d get hitched?”

You continued to stare at him, completely dumbfounded and not believing a single word coming from his mouth. “I… I…” you couldn’t even form the words. “We were kids!”

He gave you a halfhearted shrug, as if that didn’t matter at all, and as if he didn’t just ask you to be legally and romantically bound to him forever.

“You are fucking unbelievable! You haven't talked to me for anything other than asking me a favor in years, I barely know you’re alive apart from the random drunk texts you send me, and now you want me to marry you? Do you even hear yourself?”

You scoffed and stared at him in disbelief. “And that has to be the worst proposal in all of human history. First you tell me that tennis is the only thing you care about and then ask me to marry you? You’re a joke.”

He let you finish your rant, but after a beat he finally asked. “…Is that a no?”

———-

Stranger things had happened to you than marrying your childhood best friend just a month after he’d randomly popped back up in your life. At least, that’s what you told yourself as you walked down the aisle on a beautiful beach off of the Amalfi Coast.

The last few weeks had been an absolute whirlwind, with what felt like every second of your time consumed by making guest lists and invitations, booking hotel rooms, and finding a dress that you liked enough to get married in. Obviously, you knew this was more of an elaborate scheme than a celebration of love, but you wanted it to be nice anyway. For all you knew, you may never get married again.

You don’t know what possessed you to say yes to Patrick. Maybe the small, desperate part of you that had been begging him to truly see you since you were old enough to realize he didn’t, or maybe the desire to finally have that fairytale destination wedding you’d been dreaming about from the time you learned what a wedding was. Regardless of the reason, both of your families were overjoyed by the union. In one fell swoop, you’d been able to satisfy both of your parents’ desires for you to settle down, and you’d done it with someone both pairs approved of. 

You had to give props to Patrick, the ceremony was beautiful. Given the short timeline, the two of you decided to divide and conquer the planning of the event. You were sure that he’d outsourced the work, since he was still in the middle of his tennis season, but whoever he hired did an excellent job at giving you the wedding you’d always wanted. 

Despite the very short timeline everyone had been given, you were able to wrangle all of your close family and friends to Italy to watch you elope. Your parents had insisted on inviting second cousins and shareholders to your wedding, but you’d somehow convinced them that you and Patrick wanted a smaller, more intimate ceremony. It was probably better to have less people there, lest someone notices the artificial nature of your union. 

Part of you felt like you’d pulled off the greatest prank of all time as the two of you stood up in front of your small crowd, gazing as lovingly as you could manage into each others’ eyes while the officiant said his spiel, but the other, more logical part of you filled with dread as the reality of the situation began to set in. Patrick seemed to have a way of always dragging you into a shitty situation, and you hoped for both of your sakes, that that wouldn’t be the case for your marriage.

After what felt like a lifetime, Patrick began to recite his vows, claiming to have loved you since you were children, and promising to continue to love you ‘till death did you part. If you had been marrying literally anyone else, your knees would go weak with swooning. 

Unfortunately, you were cursed with the knowledge of the reality of your situation, one where your vows sounded more like: “We only have to stay married until I retire, which should be sooner rather than later. We don’t have to do anything together: no galas, no family dinners, no family vacations. Hell, you don’t even have to come to my games. And we don’t have to be exclusive either. This is basically just a title, so feel free to see anyone you want to. I can already see the worry in your face. Stop that. We can hire someone to make us prenups, so the divorce will be an easy, clean split of our assets. See? It’s not that bad.”

The dichotomy between the words he’d said to you a month ago and the bullshit he was spewing now almost made you laugh, but that was clearly not the reaction you were meant to be having when the love of your life was publicly declaring their feelings for you. 

Once he finished declaring his romantic, empty words, you began to read off your vows. They fell in a similar vein to his, a proclamation of a lifetime-spanning love that didn’t really exist in the first place. But when you glanced up at him from your slip of paper, he was really selling it. He stared at you like he adored you, like he wanted to study every inch of your face after running off with you into the sunset.

The ridiculousness of it all finally hit you like a freight train, and you managed to pivot the laugh that was creeping up into your throat into a weepy sounding crack of your voice. Surely people cried during their own weddings. 

You finished off your vows, doing your best to pretend like this whole ordeal wasn’t the most ridiculous scheme you’d ever been dragged into. You imagined a world where he was less selfish and you were less selfless, one where you were exchanging these vows with sincerity, and it helped you to get through the words that you knew were almost completely meaningless. 

The two of you then took turns placing the ring on each others’ fingers, with Patrick giving you a ring with the largest diamond you’d ever seen, and you giving him a band that had been passed throughout your family. He’d agreed to give you the heirloom back once you divorced, so you couldn’t complain too much about giving it away in the first place.

The announcement of being able to kiss the bride rang out in your ears, yet you still found yourself surprised when Patrick eagerly wrapped his arms around you and kissed you passionately. Cheers erupted around the two of you, and you pulled away as the officiant declared you Mr. and Mrs. Zweig.

You had successfully tricked your audience, and yet, you still had the strangest feeling. 

Your reception felt far more natural than your wedding ceremony. After a change of outfit, a huge bowl of pasta, and a few flutes of champagne, you were feeling substantially better about the arguably poor decision you’d just made. You chatted up your friends, who jumped at the opportunity to comment on how cute of a couple you two were, did some light matchmaking between single guests, and placated both of your parents with manufactured acts of affection. You even managed to get Patrick out on the dance floor, after he swore to you that he didn’t dance. 

By the time the two of you were stumbling back into your villa, the woes of the day had practically been forgotten. When you were having this much fun, who cared about a massive, potentially life altering decision? 

You immediately made a beeline to the bathroom, anxious to get into your comfortable pajamas and to wash your face after a long day of wearing tight, extravagant dresses and a heavy layer of makeup.  

“So what did you think of your big day, Mrs. Zweig?” Patrick called out from the other side of the bathroom door, where you were sure he was also preparing for bed. “Was it everything you wanted and more?”

“I think this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” you paused as you thought about something before confessing, “but it was everything I wanted and more.”

“Yes!” he celebrated from where you couldn’t see him, though you could perfectly envision the goofy look on his face. “I owe it to you after everything I’ve put you through. I just hope you weren’t too let down by the groom.”

“What?” you drew out before blowing a raspberry. “Of course not. You looked very handsome today,” you complimented in between splashes of your face. 

“You looked pretty beautiful, yourself,” he complimented you right back. 

“Aww, thank you, honey,” you emphasized the pet name. 

“Hmm, I don’t know if I like that,” you heard the squeak of the bed from behind the door as you assumed that he’d sat down.

“Hey, you’re the one who made me marry you,” you pointed out. “Am I more than you bargained for?”

“Of course not, babe,” he emphasized his own pet name, which sent you into a fit of laughter. “It’s just so weird to hear you refer to me as anything other than an asshole.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re still an asshole,” you replied as you walked out of the bathroom, donning an old shirt with the logo of your boarding school and an equally old pair of shorts. “Just a married asshole.”

You took in the sight of your now-husband as you made your way to your side of the bed, surprised to find that you quite liked the sense of domestic bliss you were feeling. The bed dipped as you sat down and glanced back at Patrick with the slightest bit of hesitation. 

“Is this weird for you? I can go to the spare room, if you want me to,” he offered, surely in reference to the two of you sleeping in the same bed. 

“Don’t worry about it,” you assured him, setting a steady hand on his knee. “What kind of couple would we be if we didn’t spend our wedding night together?” you teased. 

“The kind of couple that marries for convenience?” he suggested.

“Hey, who’s to say that this isn’t love? I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids. Maybe some of it lingered, or some shit.”

“Oh yeah?” he looked at you with that sleazy smirk that you both loved and hated. “What happened?”

“Hmm… I think I realized that you’re a dick,” you matched his smirk with a challenging one of your own.

“Huh. Did you have this realization before or after you started seeing Dan Thompson?” he questioned.

You were surprised by the mention of your first boyfriend, particularly because you weren’t sure that Patrick remembered any detail about your personal life, let alone your love life. “I realized it after you started treating me like your workhorse.”

“Oh okay, so you had a crush on me while you were with your boyfriend. Good to know.”

“Shut up,” you groaned and turned away from him as you finally full laid down. 

“Would it make you feel better to know that I also had a crush on you?” you heard the bed sheets rustle as he scooted closer to you, and you turned back to face him. 

“You’re lying.” You couldn’t see any world where that would make sense to you. In your youth, it seemed like Patrick was always off somewhere with a new person, and none of those people were you. Not that you had an issue with it, but the thought that the two of you might’ve had crushes on each other at the same time without either of you pursuing each other felt kind of weird. 

“Nope. You’re the first person I ever jerked off to,” he said as casually as if he were telling you what he ate for breakfast, not breaking eye contact with you.

“Ew, you’re so gross,” you gently pushed him, but your hands lingered where they sat on his chest. “Was that supposed to be romantic or something?”

“That’s not romantic to you?” he asked with all the sincerity of someone who was fully committing to a bit. 

The two of you broke out into laughter. Once you finally caught your breath, you began once more. “This is gonna be a long marriage.”

“Hopefully,” he remarked in response. 

“If you keep talking to me like that, I will literally go get our marriage annulled, like right now.”

“Please don’t,” he whined, grabbing one of your hands from his chest and kissing your fingers. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Every time you promise to make something up to me, an inconsistent fairy gains its wings.”

“Hey,” his tone suddenly became very serious, completely catching you off guard. “I really am sorry that I’ve been a terrible friend. I don’t know that I’ve ever said it, but I am. You deserve so much better than me, and I don’t even know how I convinced you to do this for me.”

You almost started to laugh, unable to take the absurd situation seriously. You’d been waiting years to hear him genuinely apologize, and now hours after you’d married solely as a favor to him, he was finally telling you what you wanted to hear. 

“Please. I’m serious. I know you think I’m a piece of shit flaky ashhole, and I am, but I want to be a better husband to you than I ever was as a friend.”

You felt your heart stop beating for a second. The word husband sounded so foreign in his mouth. You couldn’t quite pin how you felt about it, but you knew you felt uncomfortable with the intimacy of his words. 

“Patrick, please shut up,” you squeezed your eyes shut, suddenly a little overwhelmed with the Patrick of it all. In fact, you couldn’t think of anything more encapsulating of your experience with him than the whiplash you got from that moment. He could be a complete asshat, but his occasional moments of earnestness kept you following him like a lost puppy, accepting his apologies and granting him ridiculous favors, despite your better judgment. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, moving closer to you to get a good look at you. You swore you felt your heart squeeze painfully in your chest. 

“I’m fine, I just-“ am overwhelmed by you being sweet? Can’t believe that I’m hearing you say this to me after so long? Also can’t believe that you and I are married?

None of the right words seemed to come to you, so you did the second best thing you could think of. 

You pecked his lips and pulled away as if you’d just touched a hot handle. You didn’t know what had come over you, and immediately began to apologize profusely. 

“Oh my god, I don’t know-“ you were cut off by his hands on your face, greedily and sloppily pulling you back in for another kiss, this one far more passionate and confident than the first. 

Your kiss was messy but fervent, years of pent up sexual frustration and non-sexual frustration behind your every movement. As you kissed, you moved to straddle him, feeling a little ridiculous in your ratty old clothes, but that didn’t stop him from groping you over your pajamas like you were the hottest thing on the planet. 

Maybe the strangest thing to happen to you that day wasn’t even your wedding.

——

That night was the first in a series of very strange events. You couldn’t even fully wrap your head around what was happening in your marriage. You just knew that the two of you had become closer friends than you’d ever been before, and that you slept together when either of you had the urge. It was basically a no strings attached situation, except, legally, all strings were attached. 

If you were confused by your arrangement, you were sure that your friends were even more lost, something they proved to you as they interrogated you over brunch. 

“So, just so we’re clear, you married him as a favor?!” your friend asked in complete disbelief. 

“Well… yeah, basically.”

“Shit. Can I ask you for a favor of a million dollars?” she joked, leading to the laughter of your other friends at the table.

“Well, that’s different. At least with our marriage, we both benefit. He gets his parents off his ass about being so focused on tennis that he doesn’t have any future prospects, and I get my parents to stop trying to marry me off to every single rich boy they find.”

“But you’re not like, actually married. Like you guys don’t have feelings for each other?” another friend questioned.

You sipped your mimosa before explaining your situation for what must’ve been the fifth time that day, “we’re basically friends with benefits.”

“But you’re legally married? Like, the wedding was official and stuff?”

“Legally? Yeah. But it’s literally just that,” you clarified. 

“Legal marriage and sex?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, hoping that they were finally catching on. 

“Then… are you guys seeing other people?”

“Oh yeah, what ever happened to that one model guy you were seeing?” another one of your friends pitched in. 

“It didn’t really work out,” you addressed that with an understatement. He rightfully flipped his shit when he found out you were going to be marrying someone else. “But neither of us are seeing other people. I don’t think either of us want to risk bringing anything back to one another.”

“That sounds pretty committed to me.”

“Not really,” you dismissed.

“Then why are you even together?”

“How many times do I have to explain how we both benefit from this?”

“No, not legally, or socially or whatever. Why are you hooking up with him? Aren’t you scared you’ll mess up your friendship or something?”

“Well, the sex is really, really good. But I’m really not worried. There's no romance between us. We’ve been friends for so long that it’s just… weird to look at him like anything other than my friend. It’s basically a loveless marriage of convenience.”

Your friend shot you a skeptical look. You just shrugged her off. 

———

The moment you found out your afternoon meeting had been canceled, you reached out to your assistant to make arrangements for you to go to Patrick’s tennis game. He’d been on a winning streak, and though he insisted that you didn’t need to come to his games, you knew that he secretly liked having you there. 

Over the past few months of your marriage, you’d grown to realize that he often didn’t say what he actually meant. Like the time he told you that he preferred to live alone, before breathily confessing in your ear that he slept better by your side. Or when he swore to you that he loved the pancakes you’d served him, despite the food being some of the worst you’d ever put in our mouth and him being on a diet. You almost found it sweet that he tried to prioritize your feelings over his own, which was surely a result of overcompensation from the way he had treated you for the majority of your lives. 

You arrived at his match just in time to watch him take a break, making your way into the stands and finding a seat where you’d have the best view of your friend as possible. You didn’t expect him to scan the audience and find you until much later on, but you were pleasantly surprised when the two of you made eye contact and he absolutely lit up. You waved, then gave him a thumbs up in hopes to communicate your support from far away. 

While you couldn’t always make it, you liked to play the role of supportive tennis wife. Getting dressed up and making an appearance not only publicly legitimized your sham of a marriage, but helped you to reconnect with some of your former boarding school classmates, who were often in the stands supporting a friend or a loved one. You also just liked to watch him play, as witnessing the passion and ferocity he had out on the court was extremely entertaining, and even at times, mildly arousing.  

With their break ending, Patrick went back out on the court and played just as well as you expected him to, crushing his competition, and looking up into the stands at you to celebrate once he’d scored the winning point. 

At first, it was surprising how proud his wins made you feel of him, a feeling that you explained to yourself by arguing that if he wasn’t giving his absolute all to tennis, then your marriage had basically been all for nothing. Although that did still ring slightly true, the truth was that you were simply proud of Patrick. Whether you liked it or not, the two of you were a unit now, which meant that his wins were your wins and vice versa. In some ways, it was kind of nice to be part of a team. Or at least his team.

You met Patrick down on the court, where he paused from packing his bag to immediately greet you with a kiss to the forehead, a small act of intimacy that was typically reserved for situations far different from the one you were currently in. 

“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming!” he exclaimed, pulling you in for a half-hug. 

“I didn’t know I was coming either,” you instinctually wrapped your arm around him in response to his half-hug. “Great job out there. You kinda demolished him!”

“I did, didn’t I,” he said just loud enough for you to hear, still wanting to appear like a good sport. “I have to go get ready for the press conference. Do you want to meet me at my hotel?”

“Of course. You don’t mind me staying for the night?” you probed, despite knowing the answer. He wouldn’t have asked you to go to his hotel in the first place if he’d minded.

“You know I never mind you staying for the night,” he gave you a cheeky wink.

“You’re so sleazy,” you commented with fake disgust.

“You started it,” he replied, reluctantly pulling away from you and reaching into his bag to grab his hotel keycard. “I’ll text you when I’m heading back.” 

The moment you received a message about him being on his way to the hotel, you made a very lengthy phone call and request to the restaurant in the building. Technically, he shouldn’t be eating any of what you ordered, on account of him being on a strict diet plan, but you figured that he deserved it after playing the way that he did. Besides, Patrick liked thoughtful acts of service, and you figured that this would count as one.

“You know me so well,” he practically gasped as he stepped into the room, taking in the platters of food you’d laid out for him.

“What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t?” you teased, though your sentiment was somewhat accurate, and it was clear that the two of you had grown to know each other far better over the past few months, you hoped that your friend wasn’t interpreting your words in too serious of a way. 

The two of you laid out on the pristine hotel bed, eating the feast that you’d ordered without much dialogue between you, other than a comment on how good something was, or a request to pass an item to one another. It felt oddly domestic, and oddly enough, you liked it. Maybe you liked it even more than you’d been willing to admit.

“I’m gonna go shower,” he announced after tossing his napkin onto a cleared off plate.

“Want some company?” you offered, raising your brows at him in a playfully suggestive manner.

“Is that what this is all about?” he feigned offense. 

“Maybe,” you trailed off. “Or maybe I just wanted to celebrate the greatest tennis player of all time,” you purred.

“Come on. You and I both know that is far from the truth.”

“Well you’re the greatest player in my heart,” you praised, much to his chagrin.

“Ugh. Shut up and come shower with me.” 

As you sleepily ran your fingers through his damp hair, you were surprised when he broke his silence with a comment seemingly out of the blue. It was more of a mumble than anything else, but you’d grown accustomed to his muffled words over the course of your marriage. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he randomly complimented you.

“You know you don’t have to compliment me to get into my pants, right?” you asked with a hint of laughter in your tone.

“I’m not trying to,” he pecked your arm–the limb he had the easiest access to at the moment–as if he was trying to emphasize his point, though all it did was bring heat to your cheeks at the reminder of the way he’d pressed slow and meaningful kisses along your calves and inner thighs while the two of you were in the shower. “You just looked so good today, I couldn’t not comment.”

“I don’t look good every day?” you asked facetiously, trying to deflect from the warm and fuzzy feeling his compliments and affection were making you feel. 

“Of course you always look good,” he reassured you rather than playing along with your game of joking instead of addressing your feelings. “I just don’t tell you that enough.”

You weren’t even sure how you could respond to that. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to mince words tonight, but you couldn’t bear to match his genuinity with cheap jokes. The only real, genuine thought to pop into your head were three ridiculous words that you immediately batted away. You couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing than randomly declaring your love to a husband who wasn’t really your husband in a marriage that wasn’t really a marriage. 

Out of ideas, you hit the lamp on your side of the bed. “I appreciate it. Goodnight.”

“Night,” he parroted back to you, remaining snug against your chest, despite the fact that your hands had stopped threading through his hair. 

Deep down, you knew that those three words had been on the tip of Patrick’s tongue, too.    

——

Being in the social circles of filthily rich people meant you often found yourself at random charity events, hosted by the nonprofits of families and business owners looking for a particularly large tax break for the year. Over the years, you’d felt that you’d seen and participated in it all: marathons raising awareness for a serious, but extremely rare disease, date auctions to raise money for a cause that certainly didn’t justify you having to go on a date with a man almost forty years your senior, or galas for nearly-extinct sea creatures that were essentially used as an excuse to stand around and network while drinking expensive alcohol and eating hor d'oeuvres.

You seemed to find yourself at a lot of events like the latter, including the one you were standing at now. The gala, which took place in the art exhibit it was raising money for, was a rather standard one, filled with the typical suspects who regularly attended those events. 

It was slightly ironic to be at the event with Patrick as your plus one, as this was the exact type of event he would’ve texted you about an hour before it began to ask if you would play his concerned partner for the night who told everyone a flimsy excuse about him being under the weather. 

It also served as somewhat of a reminder to you of the massive growth that your friend had undergone since the two of you became legally bound to one another. It finally felt like Patrick saw you as a true friend, instead of a reliable person who would do his dirty work. It finally felt like he cared. In some ways, your marriage was the best thing to happen to your friendship. 

Patrick returned to where you were standing, this time with two flutes of champagne and a delicious looking appetizer in his hand. 

“You’re too kind,” you said as he passed you your drink. 

“Anything for my wife,” he mockingly bowed in front of you and you chuckled and shook your head. Over the past year, the two of you slowly became slightly more comfortable with referencing each other as husband and wife, but only really as a joke. You guessed that in a lot of ways, that’s what your marriage was—a ridiculous inside joke.  

He was just about to feed you a hor d'oeuvre when you were approached by a wildly unwelcome figure: the man who had purchased a date with you a few years ago. Despite your one very awkward, stilted date, he never really seemed to get over you–which he made a point to prove at every event you both happened to be at. And unfortunately for you, his generous donations landed him on the guest list for the majority of these events. 

You were used to fighting him off on your own, as he seemed to come and flirt with you regardless of how inappropriate it was for the setting of the event, or even when he already had a beautiful young bombshell hanging on his arm. At this point, you’d learned to just tune his every word out and flee as soon as you possibly could. He was annoying, but he wasn’t dangerous.  

“Hey, honey,” he greeted you way too comfortably. You’d given up on asking him to call you by your name a very long time ago. 

“Hi, John,” you reached out to shake his hand and cringed internally when he kissed the back of your hand. 

“Oh honey, who is this?” Patrick immediately lept in, surprising you with his unsubtle passive aggressive tone and ridiculous use of a pet name. 

“You don’t remember me? I swear, we’ve met a few times.” John asked, trying to smile despite clearly being agitated by the presence of competition.

“Some people are more forgettable than others,” he said with a shrug. “How do you know my wife?” He emphasized the word and you pushed down the small inkling of pride you were feeling. Whether it was from watching Patrick try to scare this annoying man away from you, or being so proudly referred to as his wife, you couldn’t be sure.  

“Finally settling down, eh?” he directed at you, then directed his next statement to Patrick. “We went on a date back in the day.”

“It was for that one date auction thing,” you quickly added context, but paused when you took in John’s less than pleased look. He was a large donor at your own family’s nonprofit, and you were sure that your parents wouldn’t be too pleased with you if they found out he pulled out over you hurting his feelings. “We had a lot of fun, though.”

“We definitely did,” he chuckled and smirked. You wanted to punch him in the mouth. “We should definitely do it again sometime.”

It was clear that Patrick was not taking kindly to seeing you be flirted with so brazenly in front of him. Part of you wondered why he would be possessive, since part of your initial deal was that you could see whoever you wanted, even if that happened to be a creepy old man with a lot of money. The other part of you was enjoying seeing him so fired up. Particularly, seeing him fired up over you. 

“Our schedule is just so busy. Between work and us trying to start a family, I just don’t know when we’ll have time to see you again.”

Trying to start a family? That was definitely news to you. Although, the idea didn’t sound awful. Wasn’t it everyone’s dream to start a family with their closest, most dear friend? 

“Well, she knows where to find me, right, honey?”

“Mhm,” you mumbled, looking into your glass like it was the most interesting thing in the world. 

“Now if you don’t mind, my wife and I are going to go check out the exhibit,” Patrick announced, grabbing your hand and taking a step away from John. 

“You two have fun,” he said before clapping Patrick’s shoulder and leaning in to begin a stage whisper. “Make sure you treat her right and cherish her. If you don’t, I might have to swoop in and do so myself.”

He winked at you and you bit back a gag. 

“Don't you worry your wrinkly little head. Nobody lov- cherishes her more than I do,” he theatrically patted his back much like he’d initially done to him. “See you around.”

Did he almost say what you think he almost said? Surely you misheard him, or he was just playing up your relationship to scare away that creepy man. It really wasn’t anything to think twice about. 

Once the two of you had walked away far enough to be out of earshot, you finally addressed what had just happened. “Thank you, bodyguard. You don’t even know how much I despise that man.”

“He seems like he’s the worst,” he agreed with you, looking back over his shoulder. 

“That’s because he is,” you emphasized. “This is so random, but did you mean what you said earlier?”

Patrick suddenly paused, his face going pale like he’d just seen a ghost. You were a little confused by this reaction, as he’d said nothing to warrant that level of fear. 

“Do you actually want to start a family? Obviously not now, while you’re still playing tennis, but maybe eventually? I know we don’t have the most traditional marriage, but, I don’t know. Neither of us are getting any younger, and it might be fun to co-parent with my best friend,” you were clearly rambling now, but luckily, Patrick came in to rescue you for the second time that night. He looked far less aghast now. 

“I would love that,” he said to you with a genuine smile. You matched his with one of your own. 

———

“Do you have any big plans for retirement?” a reporter asked for the final question of the press conference. 

“Mostly just eating a lot of burgers. And maybe learning how to play pickleball,” Patrick responded, never one to give a serious answer to questions that weren’t explicitly about tennis. 

It was a ridiculous note to end on, but it felt right. You’d found that to be the case with most things in your life that pertained to him–most notably your marriage, which ended up being far more than you ever expected it to be.

After the press conference had come to a close, Patrick met you outside by the car, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips, then leaning down to peck your baby bump. 

“How does it feel to be retired?” you asked, ruffling his hair while he was still bending down.

“It feels like you might divorce me,” he joked. Obviously your marriage deal was only meant to cover the time that he was still playing tennis, but after years of a complicated marriage that suddenly became significantly less complicated once you finally confronted the fact that the two of you very obviously loved each other, it seemed unlikely that your union would end any time soon. 

You glanced down at your baby bump, then back up to him skeptically.  “I hope you’re not being serious.”

“Come on, I never know with you. You’re the one who friendzoned me the entire first year of our marriage!” he exclaimed.

“That was a lifetime ago,” you countered before taking his hands in yours. “If you’re really worried, I have zero intentions of ending our marriage.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he grinned, stepping away from you. “Let’s get going. I don’t want us to miss our reservation.”

You nodded and obliged, passing him the keys before heading to the passenger side of the car.

Once you sat down, you were overcome with the urge to say something. You had spent so much time bottling up and pressing down your own feelings, that it was now hard to resist letting things out when they came to you. 

“I’m so proud of you,” you blurted. “And I love you. So much.”

Patrick smiled at you genuinely, before his look turned into a slightly more devious one. “I love you so much, too. One might even say I love you more.” 

“Don’t even start with that,” you laughed, not in the mood to have the kind of back and forth with him that you had at least once a week. Considering that you were carrying his child, you were pretty sure that you were the winner of the love competition.  

“Fine. We love each other equally,” he conceded.

“That’s more like it.”

You tried to think back to one specific moment where your marriage had crossed over from being one of convenience, into a union with genuine feelings attached, and realized that you weren’t exactly sure. It could’ve been the first night you spent together, when you’d finally allowed yourself to consider what your relationship might look like beyond a simple friendship, or maybe it was even earlier than that, when you gazed into Patrick’s eyes as you read off your vows. The look of pure adoration he gave you was one that you had grown familiar with throughout the course of your marriage, but you hadn’t realized at the time just how genuine he had been. Or maybe even the moment Patrick asked you in the living room of your apartment, when you’d been the first person he thought of to carry out his ridiculous scheme, and you’d said yes despite every logical part of your brain that screamed at you to say no. 

Whenever it began didn’t particularly matter. What mattered now was that the two of you fully intended to spend the rest of your lives together. 

[adollrable]

Talking in your sleep

ও summary: you hear your boyfriend say things while he sleeps.

ও cw: leon kennedy (re4r) x female reader! fluff, established relationship, him being a sleepyhead!

ও wc: 900

a/n: so i have this little headcanon... that when leon is deep in sleep, he talks while he sleeps... and that's all, it came to me listening to the song by the romantics :p something small (i think) i hope y'all like it =]

You love being with Leon.

You always learn something new with him day by day. Either from the anecdotes of him training in the military, or those (scarce) of him training to be a police officer.

At first he was a closed man, without the slightest desire to open his heart. You changed that, and now you are his little treasure.

There are still things that he hasn't finished showing but as you told him in a memory of your first date, you can go little by little.

Lately, you've learned more about small details and habits that he wouldn't feel comfortable showing around other people, you see more of him as a person.

So, you find yourself mesmerized by every new thing you see in him. Every detail, whether of his body or his personality.

Tiny moles, some acne marks on his cheeks, that stubble that never grows. His hair? How is it so soft and pretty? His fingers feel rough but his palms are very soft, probably because of the fingerless gloves he wears on his missions. His legs are strong but they are cozy when you sit on them for a cuddle session. His arms serve to warm you on those cold nights, and he loves to sleep cuddling next to you.

You also noticed that in public he is usually not a big fan of displays of affection, but in subtle ways he lets others know that you are not available. Hand on your waist, hands intertwined, kisses on your forehead, he offers you his jacket.

But at home? He pampers you as you deserve. Kisses everywhere, hugs from behind while you cook something for both of you, when you are very tired of wearing heels and you get home he doesn't hesitate to pick you up. And the list can continue.

Now... There's a little problem.

It may be silly, but it doesn't stop you from being insecure. And it's ridiculous to be!

But... The times Leon has said I love you are counted. You even think you can count them on the fingers of just one hand.

And you understand that everyone has different languages to express their love to their loved ones... But you bombard him with "i love you's" every day and he responds with a kiss on the cheek.

It sucks to feel insecure about that when it is obvious that the man loves you, even more so knowing that he is still a closed guy about several things.

But still, you can't help it.

You adjust the sheets in your shared room, lying on the bed, followed by Leon who lies on his side. You look at him and smile as you lean down to place a kiss on his forehead to which he smiles slightly. "Is that a good night kiss?" Leon asks as he settled down next to you, resting his head on your chest.

"Mhm, so you have nice dreams." You responded to which the smile on his face remained. You wrapped your arms around him and let out a sigh. His cool skin greeting your hands as you delicately ran them down his back, feeling his muscles relax.

Leon always sleeps without pajamas, and if it's cold he only puts on cotton pants. He says it's enough for him to have you and the sheets to keep him warm.

"Sleep well baby." He says as he similarly wraps his strong arms around you, a firm grip but not so tight as to hurt you. "Sleep well, Lee."

And with that, between small, lazy smiles, you fell asleep.

Until you started hearing things.

Your sleepy mind does its best to bring you back to consciousness, and you come across an image so sweet that it made you smile.

Leon remained asleep on your chest, one arm thrown over your stomach. His cheek was pressed against one of your breasts and made his face bulge, his lips remain in a small pout. You wanted to kiss him until you were tired. But you noticed that he was very asleep.

One of the things you learned about him is that Leon is a light sleeper. At the slightest noise he wakes up.

Leon's missions, in addition to the horrors that come with doing his job and especially the stress, make it very difficult for him to sleep as peacefully as he is doing in your arms. So you are relieved that you can give him a little comfort to sleep so peacefully.

So, you gently ran your hands through his hair, which made him let out a sigh and move to cling closer to you. That made you stop for fear of waking him up, but what he did next surprised you.

You noticed how his lips (still pouting) parted slightly and the noise that made you wake up came from him. You were no stranger to this, as Leon sometimes had nightmares, but this time it was very different than usual.

"Mmph... B-baby?" His voice made you open your sleepy eyes, did you wake him up?

No... He's breathing very calmly. You doubt he's awake.

He tries to hold onto you tighter and tries again, "Babe..." His voice sounds thick and hoarse from his time asleep, and you hesitantly decide to answer him. "Yeah?"

"I love youuu..." He mutters, that made you smile. "I looove you sooooo muuuch." It was funny in a way, his voice was muffled by his bulging cheek.

A small but almost imperceptible giggle took over you. "I love you too, Lee."

That interaction filled your heart with warmth, feeling happy that in his dreams he had the courage to tell you that he loved you. But what you didn't believe was that he would spend the next... Thirty minutes babbling about how much he loves you.

Well... You're probably going to wake up with a headache, but certainly that insecurity that he doesn't tell you that he loves you so often disappeared.

a/n: well, i'm not that sure about this one BUT i like to post silly little things =] i wasn't sure what to say to justify leon saying i love you to reader while he's sleeping LOL sorry about that

i had four exams this week and somehow i managed to approve them so my little treat is writing ;p

i just know this man TALKS embarrassing corny things while he sleeps and i just want him to nap in my arms 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

thanks 4 everyone for reading this, likes, comments and reblogs are very appreciated 🤲🏻🤲🏻🤲🏻 that's all for this time, bye-bye

[secretlovezz]

Simon with an s/o who has a cat

Prt.2 here! <-

He hates your cat 😭

Their literally mortal enemies it's ridiculous

The cat glares at Simon 24/7 and he stares right back

You finally make it home after a stressful day at work ready to shower and relax. You open the front door and call out, "I'm home!" You get no response. It makes your brows furrow in confusion, having been used to a little furry friend lying on your unused shoes waiting for you to get home or hearing the heavy steps of your boyfriend making his way toward you. But today there was no welcome wagon for you.

Your heart immediately racks in worry the once steady beat of it moving to an unnaturally quick pace. Your hands move faster to remove your shoes and jacket wanting to look for the person and cat that once populated your apartment.

You call out again, "Simon? My Baby?"

"In here, dove." At the sound of your lover's voice, you're on the move heading to where his voice had been most prominent.

When you get to Simon- in the bathroom -he's clad in only a towel water still dripping from his hair and body and condensation on the mirror signifying he's just gotten out of the shower. Then your gaze goes to his face and his eyes aren't on you they're focused on something on the counter.

Your cat.

They're staring at each other both of them refusing to look away from one another. They were barely blinking. Then you realize why Simon's having a glaring contest with your pet, it's because the cat was on his clothes refusing to move out of pure stubbornness.

Suddenly you're glaring at the both of them too, "Are you guys being serious right now? This is getting ridiculous," you tell them and with Simon's response you roll your eyes and walk away.

"Oh, this is deadly serious, love"

Sometimes when Simon walks by your cat it latches onto Simon's leg kicking and biting the shit out of him (your poor boyfriend is just about ready to chuck the cat into outer space)

Your little fur baby definitely steals or tries to steal food from Simon's plates. Simon swears the cat gets stronger when determined to get into his stuff

Simon's cups have been knocked off of tables more often then not being left to clean up a mess that isn't his

Your looking up from your plate of food as soon as you hear grumbles and silverware clanking roughly against a porcelain plate. You smile a little at the sight in front of you. Simon's pushing your cats head back away from his food, while the cat uses all of his strength. Simon's scowl at the animal only gets deeper when he sees you smile at his unfortunate situation.

"You better not be smilin'," He says annoyance clear in his tone.

Now your laughing, a sound simon usually adores, one that makes his body relax, one that makes him feel safe, but now it has him clenching his jaw and has his eyebrows furrowed.

"Make 'im stop," He growls.

You pretent to think about it for a moment, pointer finger tapping your chin in faux thought, "I don't know si... this is thoroughly entertaining. What's in it for me if I help you?" The vein on his arm looked like it might burst at your question.

"If you don't get this dammed cat away from me it's gonna go missin'," you roll your eyes at his dramatics but called your cat to you regardless.

When you cuddle with one of them the other gets sooooo jealous

Simon will literally toss your little baby off the bed

The cat hits and claws for simon to get away from you

(Your constantly having to scold them its like having two children)

These two will argue with each other Simon's voice is stern its how you imagine he talks to new recruits and your cat is meowing loudly at him clearing cussing him tf out

Groggily peeling open your crused eyes open but quickly closing them as the bright morning sun peeked through your bedroom window you start to awaken. You rubbed into your eyes with the back of your fist before opening them again moving to look at the clock on the bedside table.

11:23

You slept in, or really someone let you sleep in because to your right your boyfriend seemed to have long since left the bed leaving the side he usually accompanied empty and cold.

You stretched and groaned the sheets and blankets moved with you weird groans and grunts leaving your yawning mouth as your joints crackled and popped. You sat up in bed still drowsy with sleep barley aware of your surroundings but still you gripped the enormous blanket and wrapped it around yourself as an act to shield the breezy-ness of the winter weather that leaked into your apartment.

Mreeeooow!

Your head whips to the door at the loud sound. Your cat was talkative but he was never very loud about him. This time the usual cute sound was replaced with an almost screech that made you cringe.

You take a deep breath before standing up and making your way to your room door. Once you open it the sounds of your cat get louder and now you can hear Simon too. His voice is booming but isn't loud it's stern and serious but filled with frustration and anger.

As you walk down the hall to the living area your duvet drag behind you on the floor. The floor creaks and groans under your feet alerting the two others in your home. Both their heads snap towards you. Your little baby's ears are pinned back in airplane mode and his pupils are dilated. Your big baby has his nose scrunched and lips downturned into a frown.

Your voice is laced with tiredness and a little deeper than it normally is, "What are you two arguing about this time?" The back of your hand is rubbing one of your eyes again as you speak.

"The little fucker is bein' disrespectful, he's not listenin' to me."

The cat meows loudly in response to Simon seeming trying to say he was lying.

You sigh and move to pick your cat up, he turns to putty in your arms and nuzzles his head against your chin. You walk towards Simon now. Leaning into him and humming contently when he wrapped his arms around you and the little one in your arms pretending to be annoyed but fully relaxing against your body.

[dramaticals]

a favour

pairing: theodore nott x reader

summary: you want to get your mind off of your break-up and theodore knows just what to do. literally just smut. characters are assumed to be 19+. mdni.

author's note: based on a thread i wrote in the rpc, but i excluded any wordings from my writing partner for obvious reasons

You didn't know who else to ask.

You've tried just about every heartbreak remedy out there—guzzling glasses of alcohol being the most recent and detrimental. The only remedy you hadn't tried required another person, and asking for it seemed to be much harder and more embarrassing than you thought.

In theory, you should be doing what any normal person would do when they want to get over an ex: find some stranger at a bar and have at it. But you're convinced the looming grey cloud that seemed to follow you around was enough to deter any stranger, regardless of whether sex was involved.

Which is why you were standing in front of Theodore Nott's place with a ridiculous and crude request on the tip of your tongue.

You and Theodore Nott weren't exactly friends. Friends of friends, more like. You two ran in the same circles, but there had never really been an opportunity or a reason to hang out one-on-one.

Even so, you knew the type of guy he was. Theo was as charming as he was alluring. He had that aura around him that just screamed lothario. And he was—at least, that's what you heard. Your mutual friends often teased him about his latest conquests, to which he'd respond with a smirk and a dismissive, "If you want me to fuck you next, all you have to do is ask."

"Y/N," Theo says. He leans against the doorframe of his apartment coolly, brows raising in question at your visit and curious eyes giving you a once-over. The way his arctic green eyes lingered on your body made you flush.

"Hey," You say breathlessly, fingernails digging into the palm of your hand out of pure nervousness. You didn't think it would be so hard to come out and just say it. "Can I ask you for a favour?"

"A favour," Theo repeats, his lips twitching into his signature smirk. By the way he was looking at you, you swear he knows what you want from him. "Depends. What do you need?"

"Could you help me get over my ex?"

Theodore's brows raise, his eyes flashing in smug amusement. He definitely knew why you were here.

"I can think of a few ways to distract you." He says slowly, eyes trained on yours. There's a teasing tone in his next words as he lists, "Movies, puzzles, bourbon..."

"Actually," you interrupt, your gaze flickering anywhere but his eyes. Your heart's practically beating out of your chest now. His intense gaze was doing a number on you, and you suddenly understood every woman he'd ever slept with. Theo knew exactly how to work a woman in the simplest way possible. "I was thinking of something more effective than that."

"Oh? And what may that be?" Theo asks as if he already didn't know. He just wanted you to say it.

You inhale sharply, your eyes meeting his again. "I want you to fuck me."

Theo lets out a breath, his lips twisting into a mischievous grin. "Gladly."

Theo beckons you inside before shutting the door and turning the lock. He wastes no time closing in the space between you two. Strong hands pull you close as his lips ghost over yours teasingly. You can practically feel his smirk on your lips, and it makes you shiver.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this." Theo says huskily against your lips.

There's no time to process his words before his lips are on yours. You gasp against his mouth, allowing him the opportunity to slip his tongue in. He steps forward, guiding you backwards until you're pinned against the door. Your hands reach to cup his jawline, kissing Theo back with as much passion as he was giving you.

He lets out a groan against you, and it strikes a fire within you and to your core. God, you needed to hear more of that.

Feverish kisses turn into teasing, nipping kisses down your neck. His rough hands slide down your frame, his leg expertly maneuvering between yours and pinning you in place. You whine at the pressure, throwing your head back in response.

"Fuck, Theo," you breathe, your fingers running through his brown curls.

He lets out a low chuckle against your collarbone, clearly eating up every second of this favour. You were so receptive to his actions that a part of him wanted to drag this whole ordeal out.

His hands tug at your sweatshirt, expertly removing the garment. He hisses when he realizes that was the only barrier he had to deal with. The cool air of his apartment, along with his lips on your chest, made your nipples perk. Your back arches into his mouth.

Theo flicks his tongue against your breast, teeth grazing lightly as he pulls away to say, "So fucking beautiful."

You could just melt into him. The way he was working you was unlike anyone you've ever experienced before. And the way his hands hooked onto the hem of your skirt and knickers, pulling them down swiftly—fuck.

One hand moves to capture both your wrists, lifting them both up and holding them above you firmly. His other hand finds its way to your core, toying with your slick folds before inserting a digit.

You let out a desperate whimper. You want to grip onto something, but his hold on your wrists is solid, and it only makes your hips buck into him.

"Eager, are we?" Theo muses, his lips planting a sweet kiss on yours. He watches you attentively as he slowly inserts another digit. Slow enough to really take notice of your wetness on his fingers. Theo smirks when your breath hitches.

"Theo," you gasp. "Please."

Theo kindly obliges, curling his fingers inside you and flicking repeatedly against the spot that made your knees buckle and your heart soar. His grip on your wrists tightened in part that you could no longer keep yourself standing.

"Oh my god. I need—" you moan, your eyes shutting in pleasure.

"What do you need, darling?" Theo asks smoothly, his fingers continuing their motions inside you. His eyes are dark with lust. He plants a kiss on your jaw.

"You." You manage to get out, squirming against his fingers. You're so close.

Theo was feeling too fucking smug seeing you unravel like this, and so it's another second before he's sliding his fingers out of you and letting go of your wrists. You whine at the loss of contact, your eyes shooting open in confusion.

Theo's discarding his shirt, untying his sweatpants, and shoving off his boxers. You bite your lip at the sight of him. You didn't think he could be any more sexy.

"Like what you see?" Theo quips with a sly smile. His hands move to your hips and then to your thigh, guiding your leg up around him. He guides himself to brush against your core teasingly. You jerk at the contact.

"Theodore," you warn. You don't know how much more foreplay you can take.

With a pompous grin, Theo sinks into you roughly. He grunts in pleasure, reveling in the feeling of your dripping cunt around him.

"Fucking hell, Y/N," Theo groans, setting up a torturous rhythm of thrusts. You feel the pleasure bubbling in your core, your fingernails dragging across his bare back.

Theo buries his face in the crook of your neck, leaving sweet kisses on your skin. The sensation of his soft, tender lips on your neck versus the primal thrusts into you made you want to scream.

Theo senses this, and he relentlessly continues his movements. He's quite close himself, his cock twitching in response to your body. But considering this was a favour to you, he holds himself back. You needed to come first.

And you do.

You release a panting whine just as the building pleasure finally washes over you. You grip onto the locks of his hair on the base of his neck for support, coming undone in his strong arms. Theo moans, feeling you clench around him, before allowing himself to come.

You slump forward into Theo, your forehead resting on his chest. Your hands gripped his shoulders tightly, now more than ever needing the support his strong frame provided.

"That'll definitely do," you say with a weak nod.

You can't see his face, but you can practically see the shit-eating grin on his lips.