#........... i guess responding to this and then adding tags an hour later actually did give me more ideas

[steddieas-shegoes]

it's not ever what it looks like

for @steddielovemonth prompt 'love is saying you're sorry'

rated m | 3,299 words | cw: language, implied sexual content | tags: angst with a happy ending, arguing, established relationship, hurt/comfort, rock star eddie munson, teacher steve harrington, modern au, steve thinks eddie is cheating on him but HE ISN'T I PROMISE, marriage proposal

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

It wasn't the first time Steve woke up to pictures and articles about Eddie being seen with some model or actor, but it was the first time he'd actually been worried.

Eddie had been distant lately. Usually, when he was on tour, he'd call Steve on his lunch break and text him when he got off of work, and he'd try to Facetime him after his show if it wasn't in a different time zone.

But for the past week or so, he had excuses. They sounded legitimate until one of the afternoons he said the band was caught up in an interview so he couldn't call and Jeff called him ten minutes later to ask where Eddie was. Even with that, Steve hadn't assumed he was cheating.

Steve figured maybe Eddie was just tired or his social battery had run out. Those kinds of things happened before occasionally.

But not daily for over a week.

He was barely even responding to texts, and the ones he did respond to were hours later and hardly adding to any conversation.

And now this article.

There was a picture of Eddie standing with his arm around some guy who was taller than him, both of them laughing, looking at each other like...well. Steve knew that look because it'd only ever been pointed at him, but now he was seeing it pointed at just some guy.

The headline read EDDIE MUNSON GIVING UP HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART FOR SUPERMODEL SUPERSTAR?

Steve decided the only way through this was to read the entire article. At least then he could probably convince himself they were wrong.

Except the article went on to explain how Eddie hadn't brough Steve to any shows yet this tour, and how he'd been flirting more with the crowd after the show instead of just during it, how he was seen at two bars over the last week when he usually doesn't go out after shows.

It went on to say that these pictures were taken shortly after they'd been seen sneaking away from a group of people they'd been hanging out with and that they seemed very close for the entire night. The article said the guy was a male lingerie model who made it big posing for Gucci last year. He'd just landed his first film role as a supporting actor and was looking to land a lead role soon.

Steve hated him. And he was getting a terrible feeling in his gut about what was going on.

He had 26 unread texts, most of them from Robin, Dustin, and Gareth.

All of them had said mostly the same things:

I can't get ahold of Eddie.

He wouldn't do this.

Something else is going on.

Call me when you can.

The last one was Gareth, and it's not that he and Gareth weren't close, but they never talked on the phone.

He tried not to think about he didn't have a single message or missed call from Eddie.

Steve called Gareth.

"Steve. Shit, I'm glad you called."

"What's going on?"

Gareth sighed. "Ed's kinda losing it. But before you call him-"

"Why would I call him? Shouldn't he be the one to call me? If he wants to be with some supermodel, he should probably be the one to break up with me, right?" Steve could feel tears gathering in his eyes, stinging the back of his throat. "I'm not sure why I have to be the one to hurt and do the breaking up."

"Steve-"

"Is there something you needed Gareth? Or were you just trying to defend your friend?"

"There's nothing to defend! I swear-"

"Yeah. Well. Tell him to call me if he wants to explain anything, I guess."

Steve hung up just before a sob ripped from his throat.

He never had to worry about Eddie being a famous rock star, spending 6-7 months of the year gone, meeting all kinds of flashy celebrities. Eddie loved him so much, he never had any doubt that he'd always be his first choice.

Until now.

It was a shitty feeling and he had to be at work in less than an hour.

No time to wallow.

He sent a quick text to Robin to let her know he was okay, but needed to focus on getting through work, then shut off his phone.

"Is everything okay?" the art teacher, Mrs. Phineas, asked him on their lunch break. "You seem out of it today."

"Just a migraine," Steve gave a half-smile, hoped it was enough to convince her to leave him alone. He still hadn't turned on his phone, and at this point, he didn't really want to.

She tilted her head to the side. "When are you off to see your man?"

"Don't know," he shrugged, ignoring the tug in his stomach, the sudden weight in his chest.

"Ah," she said, turning back to her soup. "Something happened."

"Nothing happened!"

"You look two seconds away from crying," she gave him a deadpan look. "Did he hurt you?"

Mrs. Phineas was a little older than Wayne, close to retirement, and had been his closest friend from the moment he started teaching at this school nearly six years ago. He'd told her everything about Eddie, their relationship, his hopes of Eddie taking a longer break after this tour so they could have some time just the two of them, maybe make a real plan for their future.

Steve nodded once.

Her hand covered his and she squeezed his fingers in her own. "I may not know him half as well as I know you, but I know that boy loves you. You two will get through this, whatever it is."

"I dunno if we will," Steve whispered, scared to speak louder and risk the tears falling. He'd been doing so well today.

She patted his hand and went back to eating, saying nothing else about it.

His students had caught on early that he wasn't quite his usual self, and the group of second graders had been on their best behavior because of it. As the dismissal bell rang and he started calling for bus riders to line up, someone walked through his door.

Eddie walked through his door.

He bit back the anger, knowing his students loved Eddie and wouldn't know he was here for any reason other than to say hello.

"Mr. Munson!" A few of them yelled as most of them ran up to him instead of getting in the line Steve asked them to.

"Hi kiddos!" Eddie was faking it, but luckily the students couldn't tell. "Sorry, but you guys have to listen to Mr. H right now. I promise I will come say hi again tomorrow."

The students grumbled about it and Steve took in his appearance.

He had dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't slept the night before, his hair was in a messy bun instead of perfectly arranged to fall on his shoulders, and he was wearing Steve's hoodie that had suspiciously gone missing the last time he'd been home.

The fact that Steve's first thought was how badly he wanted to pull him into a hug was not a good sign.

He checked names off the list as they filtered out the door and then called the car riders to line up. He went through the list and made sure everyone made it into the hall where they'd be called when their parent pulled up before turning back to Eddie.

He closed his door and made his way to his desk, ignoring the way Eddie awkwardly stood by one of the student desks in the front.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked, signing off of his work email and organizing tomorrow's lesson plan.

"I needed to explain-"

"Right."

"That article wasn't supposed to come out yet."

Steve's jaw dropped. So he wasn't going to deny it, he was just gonna act like it was the media's fault for releasing it before he could talk to Steve.

"Yeah. So you decided to come break up with me in person because you got caught cheating instead of doing it over the phone right before the article hit online. Got it."

Steve was not going to cry about this. Not in front of Eddie.

He was going to go home, shower, try to eat something, and then he was going to cry for the next 10 hours.

"No, Steve, you don't understand."

"You're right, I don't. I don't understand how you could throw away a 10 year relationship for a model who doesn't even know your middle name. I don't understand how you can fly all the way here and interrupt my day at my job to try to explain to me why you were so cozy with a guy who doesn't even know that you like your hot chocolate with Bailey's instead of regular milk. I really don't understand how you couldn't even bother to text or call me one single time since the article to even try to explain anything." Steve wiped his eyes furiously, angry that his tears were betraying him. "I don't understand why you would expect me to care for reasons."

Eddie wordlessly picked Steve's phone up off the desk and powered it on. He set it down in front of Steve and waited.

Texts and calls and emails came through all at once, hundreds of notifications lighting up his screen.

Many of them from Eddie himself.

"Go ahead. Open them," Eddie didn't sound mad, he just sounded resigned.

So Steve read through the texts, many of them different renditions of 'please Steve, call me' and 'I love you sweetheart I'm sorry.' Not promising.

But then he started playing the voicemails.

"Stevie, it's really not what it looks like. It's never what it looks like. You know that. Please call me as soon as you can. I love you."

"I can explain everything if you call me back. I promise you it isn't anything more than a business thing. Everyone in the band can tell you. I swear. Just. Please."

"I'm getting on a flight to you now. I'm gonna keep trying to call you even when I land. I need you to know what's going on."

"Just landed. I'm on my way to you. The guys are a little pissed, but you're more important than the show tonight. I'm not doing my own thing until I know you understand."

Steve looked up at him, tears still falling down his face.

"Well?" He asked, broken.

"His name is Wyatt. He's trying to make it in the acting world and he was pretty much told he was the top choice for playing lead in a movie that's in early stages of development," Eddie spoke quickly.

"Great for him."

"It's actually great for all of us. The movie is a biopic of Corroded Coffin. He's expected to play me."

At any other time, Steve would be proud, he'd be jumping up and down at this chance for them, and he'd be kissing Eddie without a care in the world.

But he still saw that picture and that article, and no matter how much "business" was going on, it was pretty clear that wasn't all that was going on.

"So you thought sleeping with him would help him get into the role? Or did you just wanna get into him?" Steve bit back.

"The article was wrong! The picture was just really conveniently timed! You know the media are vultures, Stevie. How many times have they written about us breaking up? How many times have they said Gareth and I have secretly been married for the last two years? How many times have they tried to post shitty things about your relationship before me to prove that you can't possibly be queer?" Eddie pulled Steve to his feet and cupped his face in his hands. "I've been spending the last two weeks talking with him and the producer and the guys to see what might work best for production. They want us involved in as much of the writing and filming part as possible. And he had time in his schedule to come to a show last night, so we all took him out after so he could get a taste of what it's like for us. He's really excited for the role and all of us are really excited for the movie."

Steve felt stupid. Well, maybe not stupid. His feelings were valid and he wasn't dramatic about what he'd seen.

But he did feel a little shitty about doubting Eddie.

Eddie, who had literally flown across the country to explain in person so that there was no way Steve could misunderstand him. Eddie, who once Doordashed him soup from his favorite restaurant when he was sick even though he was in Europe. Eddie, who sent letters to the kids in his class once a month to talk about how important music is and following your dreams. Eddie, who loved him for ten years and wouldn't have let anyone get in the way of what they'd built.

Steve fell against Eddie, buried his face in his neck and his hands in his shirt. Eddie's arms wrapped around him, his voice saying something against his shoulder. Steve couldn’t hear him, but he didn’t think he needed to.

He just needed to feel him.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said against his neck. Tears soaked the hoodie under him, and Steve could feel tears against his own button down. “I shouldn’t have- I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Eddie shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone until the article hit, but I was still gonna call you and warn you but I didn’t and I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. This is part of the whole lifestyle. I should be used to it,” Steve shuddered as Eddie’s hand scratched at his scalp. “I should’ve reacted better.”

“We both didn’t treat this the way we should’ve.”

Steve snorted, nodded as he found the spot Eddie had tattooed on his neck a couple years earlier. He pressed his lips over the tattoo of his lip print.

“You flew across the country over this,” Steve pulled away and looked at Eddie, vision blurred from crying. “Just to make things okay.”

“I needed you to know. I needed to hold you. I needed to have you in front of me. And I wanted to celebrate the fact that we’re getting a movie about our lives,” Eddie smirked. “I wonder who will play you. Someone with a nice ass is a must. Their hair will have to defy gravity. Don’t know if they’ll find anyone with that smile, though.”

“Me? Why would they need anyone to play me?” Steve played with the string of the hoodie. “That might be kinda boring.”

“How would they make a movie about me and not include you? You’re the reason I ever made it past Hawkins, sweet thing,” Eddie leaned in to kiss his bottom lip. “Maybe they’ll just cast you. No one else could pull it off.”

“Eds-“ Steve blushed. “Wait. Okay, I trust you, but what were you doing in the picture?”

Eddie laughed. “He had just finished telling me about his boyfriend who lives in Italy. He’s apparently just a regular guy in finance who has no interest in the whole fame thing. Sound familiar?”

“Sounds like you two have a lot in common.”

“The picture was me asking if we could crash at their home in Italy next summer on our honeymoon,” Eddie said casually.

Steve froze. “Honeymoon?”

“I’m open to other places, but you still haven’t been to Italy and I know how much you wanted to see Rome and Florence,” Eddie was smirking.

That bastard.

“You are ridiculous, you know that? I’m over here planning how I’ll survive a breakup with you and you fly across the country to propose with a honeymoon planned before I’ve even said yes! You know how crazy that sounds, right?” Steve shook his head. “You’re lucky I love you. You’re lucky I’m not interested in big romantic gestures.”

“Damn. Hold on, let me make a call,” Eddie reached into his pocket for his phone.

“What?”

“I gotta cancel the big romantic gesture,” Eddie explained as he typed furiously on his phone.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was a whole thing. Robin was involved. There may have been 500 flowers ordered. I think it’s too late to cancel the singing telegram though.”

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re being serious,” Steve wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of that was true.

“Oh, I’m serious. The ring was being set on the bed in the middle of a heart made of rose petals. I didn’t half-ass a fucking thing, angel.”

Steve pulled his phone out of his hands and set it on his desk. “Don’t cancel anything. I changed my mind. I am very much into big romantic gestures when it’s you doing them.”

“It was a team effort. I mean, I had to move it all up unexpectedly, but this was all gonna happen next month when I came home." Eddie pulled Steve into a long kiss, tongue tracing his lips. He pulled away to rest their foreheads together. "I'm not doing this just because of what happened, but I need you to know you're it for me. You've stuck by me through failing senior year, through being broke trying to book gigs all over the midwest, through the stress of our first album being released and the unexpected overnight fame, every album and tour since then, every time I've had to miss things that matter to you because of the band, all of it. You love me anyway. I don't always deserve it, but I'm grateful."

Steve's lips pressed against Eddie's again. "I love the life we have. I love you."

"I'm not asking you without the ring. I made so many plans. Robin will murder me in my sleep if I don't go through with them," Eddie laughed. "So can we get out of your classroom before I do something inappropriate and get you fired?"

"I mean," Steve glanced at the clock. "Technically all the students should be gone. We could lock the door..."

"Steven Harrington! How dare you suggest I fuck you over your desk in a school! I can't believe you would tell me to unbutton your jeans," he said as he unbuttoned his jeans. "And get on my knees." He got on his knees. "And suck you until you can't stand anymore."

"Eddie!" Steve chuckled, shoving his hand in Eddie's hair. "We should at least lock the door."

"So you're not saying no?"

"Why would I say no?"

"That's what I'm saying!" Eddie got back up and ran to the door, flipping the lock and turning back to Steve with flushed cheeks. "This is like, maybe three of my biggest fantasies in one, so I may actually come in my pants."

"You're ridiculous."

"Baby boy, my hand is my only friend on tour, you know that. How can I possibly hold myself back when I've got your dick in my mouth?" Eddie dropped to his knees again, looking up at Steve with something close to reverence.

"It's not in your mouth yet," Steve smirked as he tugged his waistband down enough to free his cock.

"Oh, I missed you," Eddie said directly to Steve's hard cock. "Steve, I want you to fuck my mouth until I pass out."

"I'm not doing that."

"Okay, well I'll settle for until I have to tap out."

"Fine. But it's not gonna be long for me," Steve shook his head. "Missed you, too."

"The sooner the better, sweetheart."

[cephalog0d]

Tagged by @outtoshatter for Messy Draft Monday! We had a GIGANTIC lightning storm for over an hour and one of them was really close and something in my router went "zap" and now it's dead so lol writing time I guess.

I got bit by a plot bunny earlier thinking about never-taken-in-by-Bruce Civilian!Dick and early Batgirl!Babs so here's some banter.

“Are you injured?” he asked. “Just my pride,” she said with a sigh. He flashed her a relieved smile. “Ah, not sure I can help with that. We didn’t cover bruised egos in EMT training.” “Clearly the training needs an update,” she said dryly. “I can improvise?” the stranger offered with a laugh, extending a hand to help her up. “Well, I wouldn’t say no to a little bit of an ego boost.” Barbara decided she probably didn’t have too much face to save considering he’d found her lying in a pile of trash and took the offered hand, letting the man help haul her to her feet. “Wow, you’re tall,” he blurted out, without thinking based on the way he winced the second it was out of his mouth. To be fair, the boots added a little bit of height, but only a little bit, and Barbara was still taller than a lot of people without them. She kept her expression carefully neutral. “Gee, thanks, consider my ego fully boosted,” she said flatly. “Uh. I like your hair? Wait, that’s still weird, I should maybe quit while I’m behind.” The stranger shrugged and gave her a sort of lop-sided smile. “Mm, it might have been less painful if I did need stitches,” Barbara agreed with a smirk. “Oh, definitely.” He nodded emphatically, smile widening. “I’m great at stitches. The key is distraction.” “‘Look over there, there’s a gorilla in a tutu’?” Barbara suggested. “I prefer jokes. What do you give a sick lemon?” Judging from the way he was grinning, Barbara was positive she wasn’t going to like the answer. He didn’t bother waiting for her to respond, though, before answering. “Lemon-aid.” Barbara rolled her eyes, moving her head to make sure it came through with the mask. “Oh, I get it, inflict worse pain so the original doesn’t hurt as much.” “They do say laughter is the best medicine.” “Yeah, but that means you actually have to be funny.” “Maybe I should try silly costumes and prat falls?” he suggested, his smile going a bit sharper. “How about you stick to your thing and I’ll stick to mine? I don’t think I can handle that kind of punishment.”

About ten seconds later Dick puts his entire foot in his mouth and Babs tells him exactly what he can do with his unsolicited, condescending advice, it's the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

(Look, 5 out of my 7 hard copy official DC character guides list Babs at 5'11" and I will DIE ON THIS HILL, Tall!Babs 5ever, fight me.)

No-pressure tags for @dangerousdan-dan, @kayrielwrites, @sepia-stained-sunset, @roseandgold137, @bess3714 and anyone else who wants to play!

[sluttyten]

Adore You

Poly Orgy Series: Part 9

Poly Series Chapter Index

summary: these last months of your pregnancy bring delights and troubles, but it all culminates in the true wonder of holding your daughter in your arms with her father at your side

length: 32.4k words

tags/warnings: pregnancy, childbirth, smut, polyamory, multiple partners, foursome

Christmas approaches suddenly in a cold, dark rush of icy rain and bitter wind. You’re grateful that you finished up your Christmas shopping a bit early, so you don’t have to get out in the terrible weather, instead spending your days leading up to the holiday napping and baking and decorating the house. You were lucky enough to get those days off of work as your boss wanted to go spend the holidays in a warmer climate, so he’d given your coworkers and yourself that time off too.

The wind rushes against the windows, spraying the freezing rain up against the glass, and even as you sit in the kitchen, wrapped up like a burrito in your blanket, you shiver. 

Jisung and Chenle are helping you bake some Christmas cookies. Taeyong had been helping too, but he had to leave for work, and ever since then you’d been in your blanket at the table while decorating the cookies. Chenle was making a mess of it--the sprinkles were everywhere, somehow he’d gotten green icing smeared across his cheek, and the glittery sprinkles you’d purchased on a whim were dusted across the table rather than on the cookies. Jisung was on his third cookie (at least) after he broke it in half trying to ice it in the most complicated way.

“Noona,” Jisung says, spraying the table with cookie crumbs. He quickly covers his mouth with his hand and continues speaking, “What are your plans for Christmas? Are you going home to spend it with your parents?”

You know that the group doesn’t really get Christmas off. Dream and 127 both have to perform on Christmas Eve, and several of them have an appearance to make as NCT U on Christmas Day. It doesn’t seem fair to you that they don’t get that time off; it’s a holiday that even if they don’t truly celebrate it, then they should be able to at least take the time with their family if they so choose.

“I’ll probably visit them between Christmas and the New Year.” You tug your blanket tighter around your shoulders, reaching across the table for the red icing. You’re trying to decorate a Santa hat, but Chenle’s been hogging the red icing all to himself. “Are you going to see your family on Christmas Day?”

Jisung shrugs, looking down again at his cookie. “I’ll try.”

Chenle pops the cap off one of the containers of sprinkles, and when he turns it over, a lot more pours out than he really needed. He swears under his breath, then looks up at you with a smile. 

“Maybe I’ll just stay here and celebrate with all of you. You and the foreign members who can’t go home for Christmas.” Jisung reaches over to use some of Chenle’s spilled sprinkles. 

“I think you should probably go. Your mom will want to see you.” You place your hand on your belly, feeling as your baby moves. She’s been active today, as if she’s already got a sweet tooth and knows that you’re making cookies. She’s gotten big enough that now if you hold your hand against your belly when you feel the movement, you can feel it from the outside. It’s still not really big kicks or anything, but she’s there. 

The oven timer goes off then with the last batch of cookies, and Chenle hops up to pull them out for you. 

You’re still decorating when YangYang and Kun enter, bickering with each other. YangYang sits down beside Chenle, folding his arms as he mockingly says something at Kun. Kun rolls his eyes and instead of responding comes around the table to stand behind you. 

“Hi, baby.” He kisses the top of your head. “The cookies smell good.”

You nod and tilt your head back to look up at him. She moves again and you reach for Kun’s hand, pulling him closer to put his palm on your belly right where you felt her. None of the boys have felt her move yet. It’s like she’s shy, and any time any of them are around she doesn’t move a whole lot, not enough that they’ve been able to feel anyway.

“Can you feel her?” You ask him, moving his hand a bit more.

Kun looks concentrated, focusing on trying to feel that tiny, wonderful life inside you. 

“Hey, you.” You sigh, poking at your belly gently with your fingertip. “Are you gonna move for him?”

From across the table, YangYang speaks up, “Maybe that’s a sign it’s not Kun who’s the dad. If she won’t respond to him.”

You scowl at him. “Stop it. She’s just finally gotten comfortable, I guess.” Kun sits down beside you, and as you continue decorating, he keeps his hand on your belly, but she really doesn’t move around for him to feel.

Even a few hours later when you and the boys have cleared off the kitchen table of cookies to make room for dinner, Kun doesn’t stop touching you, staying close just in case you try to pull him to touch your belly. But you don’t, and soon WinWin, Lucas, Jungwoo, and Taeil are gathered around the table as well for dinner.

It’s only once Yuta walks in with the food, his hair dripping onto his shoulders from the rain, that Kun shifts away from you, too preoccupied with eating now to have a hand on you.

You always love moments like this, casual mealtimes with your boyfriends and the younger boys gathered around, everyone eating and talking and laughing, just having a good time. If you could freeze a moment like that, tie it up nicely with a bow, you could hand it out as happiness. A nice, relaxed warmth fills you as you look around and soak in the moment. Yuta is animatedly telling a story while Taeil and WinWin laugh so hard that WinWin’s nearly in tears, and you feel her moving again, a soft kick, a lovely giddy feeling rising within you. But you don’t interrupt them all, saving this moment to yourself, adding it into the bundle of happiness you’re feeling.

Christmas morning you wake in bed with Doyoung. In your bed. The night before, you’d been watching a drama his brother was in, Doyoung’s head down near your belly, talking to the baby. You’d fallen asleep like that while Doyoung was singing along to the drama’s OST quietly for the baby.

And now his head was beside yours, his face so smooth and peaceful in sleep. You want to touch him, to run your fingers through his hair which is dyed a soft shade of purple at the moment, to lay your fingers against his soft cheek, kiss his lips. 

His eyes move beneath his eyelids, his lips part, and Doyoung sighs. You close your eyes quick when you see that he’s waking up, and after a moment, Doyoung shifts. You can hear him lift his head from the pillow, can feel his eyes on you.

You feel a nudge from inside your belly. You’re awake now it seems because she’s awake. She stirs inside you, and you try to keep your facial expression from shifting.

“I know you’re not sleeping.” Doyoung’s fingertips skim down your cheek. “You can stop pretending.” 

You open one eye to peek at him. “Good morning. Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas and good morning, babygirl.” Doyoung’s knuckles rest adoringly against your cheek. “I’ve missed sleeping with you. Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten rid of the big bed in here because this bed’s a tight enough squeeze for two people. What are we going to do after the baby’s born? When she’s older and wants to sleep with mommy?”

“We’ll make it work.” You turn your head to the side and brush your lips against Doyoung’s wrist. “And, for what it’s worth, I’ve definitely missed sleeping with you too. Sleeping with you and, well, sleeping with you.”

“Remember last Christmas?” Doyoung sighs wistfully, blinking sleepily and resting his head again on the pillow. “You, me, Kun and Ten. That sexy lingerie.” His eyes rake over your figure now, and you can’t help feeling self-conscious. Now you’re all big and pregnant; Doyoung hasn’t touched you for months now, and you can’t help thinking that he’s turned off by you like this, by the whole pregnancy. 

Self-consciously, you brush your hands down over your belly, tugging at the hem of the oversized shirt. 

Doyoung’s hand lands on your belly too. Your heart leaps and at the same moment you feel your baby kick.

You gasp and your gaze darts to Doyoung’s face. “Did you feel that?”

Doyoung frowns, moving his hand. “Did she kick?”

“You didn’t feel it?” Your delight at the feeling is somewhat lessened. Still, none of your boyfriends have felt her kick. You’d thought for sure that Doyoung would have felt it since he was touching you. He shakes his head sadly. “I think she’s shy. I swear she moves around all the time, I can feel her, and I’d think you guys would be able to feel her now too if she would actually do it when any of you have your hands on my belly.”

“It would be a nice Christmas present, if we could feel her too.” Doyoung sits up, shifting around so he’s kneeling beside you, and he places both of his hands on your belly, and his next words are clearly addressed to your daughter. “Hey, little angel, can’t you just give us a kick? I promise your mom won’t be mad at you for it. I just want to say hi.”

But she’s settled already, it appears. 

Doyoung groans as he falls down beside you again, turning his face into the pillow. “Your cat doesn’t like me. Your daughter doesn’t like me.” He opens one eye to look at you as he asks, “You still like me, right?”

“Yes, Doyoung,” you laugh, leaning into him to kiss him reassuringly. “I still like you. And don’t feel bad. Miso doesn’t like anyone, except Ten, but he’s got a way with cats, doesn’t he? And this little one she doesn’t seem to like anyone either. Just the other day she was kicking me and then as soon as I tried to get Kun to feel her, she stopped.”

Doyoung seems satisfied with that. He rolls onto his back, but not before putting a warm hand on your belly. “Maybe I should call our manager, tell her I’m feeling sick and can’t do the schedule today. I could stay here all day, hands on your belly to feel her. I can’t believe I didn’t feel her just now.” He frowns again.

There’s a soft knock on your door and it opens. Yuta peeks his head around, his gaze falling on Doyoung and then on Doyoung’s hand. He’s inside before you get the chance to greet him, already settling on the edge of the bed, his hand joining Doyoung’s now.

“Is she moving?” He asks, unable to conceal the excitement in his voice.

You shake your head. “She did move. But he didn’t feel her. I’m telling you, she’s shy.”

Yuta snorts and shakes his head. “Shy? Where’s she get that from? You’re not really shy. Maybe Taeyong’s the dad, he’s always shying away from touches. Or WinWin or Mark.” He puts another hand on your belly, concentrating like he can telepathically communicate with your baby to get her to kick for them.

“Oh?” A new voice speaks up from the doorway.

You look up from the sight of Yuta and Doyoung’s hands on your belly, an unavoidable smile on your lips, and you find WinWin. He’s got a blanket draped around his shoulders, his eyes drooping sleepily.

“Yuta hyung?” He says, and it’s only then that Yuta looks up.

Yuta jumps to his feet. “Sorry, WinWin. I didn’t want to wake you up.” He looks back at Doyoung. “We have to leave soon. I was just coming to tell you. And Merry Christmas, princess.” He dips in to kiss your cheek. You sit up, half-tempted to pull him into a longer kiss, but Yuta’s already moving away, so you lean back, your back resting against the soft pillows you have propped against the headboard.

Doyoung nods, and then he too is leaving you with a last kiss. WinWin steps out of the way as Yuta walks out, and he stifles a yawn with the back of his hand while Doyoung passes. He starts to turn to leave, but you call his name.

“It’s still early, come sleep here.” You pat the mattress beside you, the sheets still warm from Doyoung. WinWin shuffles inside, kicking the door softly shut behind him, and he flops face-first into your bed. You stroke the fringe of hair on his forehead. “Were you sleeping in Yuta’s room?”

WinWin nods. “Yeah, we were talking last night. About the baby, and the others and you and stuff.” His eyes shoot open and he looks at you. “Not anything bad! I promise. I just realized how that sounded. We were just thinking out loud about the future, really.”

“Like what?”

WinWin pulls his blanket up over his head. “Just saying that we both can picture a future with you. A long future.” 

You sink down beside him, lifting the edge of the blanket so you can see his face. WinWin closes his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me, but I think I’d like to hear about your dream plans about our future together. Please?”

WinWin tries to hide a smile. 

“Please?” You beg, slipping your hand under the blanket, searching for his skin, and you dip your toes beneath as well, making contact with his bare legs.

He whines and groans, wiggling as if to get away, but you notice that instead he moves closer, that he traps your hands in his and covers your chilly toes with his blanket. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But, God, your fingers and toes are icy.”

You smile as WinWin folds your hands between his and he turns completely onto his side to face you. You whisper, “Tell me.”

“I can see myself happy with you,” WinWin starts off saying, “I don’t really know how to describe it, but I can picture us with the baby, raising her, going on trips together, to China to visit my family, and maybe having more kids, being happy and in love. I don’t know, I think about the future and I just see you. Like, my career here isn’t a certainty, at some point my contract with SM will run out and I don’t know yet what will happen after that, but I know I still want you there with me. I want to raise our daughter with you, to be there for everything, to help you and support you, to love you and her. 

“This is the kind of stuff Yuta hyung and I were talking about. The future is dark and scary and uncertain,” WinWin’s voice is unsteady, but he stares into your eyes. “But both of us think that having you here will make everything make sense and make it easier. I just want you to be here with me. You make me feel good, like happy and all kinds of fuzzy emotions that I don’t know how to put into words.” He bites at the corner of his mouth for a second, and then he sighs, “I love you.”

“And I love you.” 

You lean in and kiss him, and WinWin happily kisses you back, nice gentle kisses that could last for ages.

The more you think about it, the more you can envision that future WinWin was talking about. Obviously you’ve thought about a future with each of the boys individually before, but also you’ve considered futures together with them all, but especially after that talk, you really think realistically about it.

In just about 4 months you’ll have a baby. A real, live baby out here in the world, depending on you to feed her, clothe her, take care of her physical and emotional well-being. You have to consider her in every single decision you make. 

WinWin dozes back off to sleep away the morning, and you snuggle in to the blankets, planning to sleep, but you just keep thinking about your future, seeing the boys fit into it.

You see WinWin, cradling your daughter in his arms, her tiny little hand curled around his little finger as he beams down at her with such adoration in his eyes. You see WinWin taking naps with your daughter on his chest, see him sitting with her when she’s older, letting her host a tea party and stick glittery sequins on his face and hands. 

And you can picture the others in situations like this too. Yuta, Doyoung. Yuta kisses her scrapes when she falls down. Yuta dancing silly dances with her in front of the mirror. Doyoung rocking her to sleep in his arms while he sings her lullabies, and napping quietly together with her. You can see Jaehyun carrying your giggling daughter on his shoulders, laughing even as she twists her small chubby hands into his hair and tugs. You can imagine Kun holding her on his lap and playing the piano with her fingers under his, and you can imagine waking up to breakfast in bed cooked by Kun and your daughter. Jungwoo chasing her around in a park with both of them laughing; Taeil singing her to sleep in his arms; Mark being so incredibly gentle with her tiny newborn body. You can see all of them.

“Baby?”

You see Johnny holding your toddler daughter in his arms, zooming her around like she’s flying, him holding her little hands while she stands on his feet as they dance together.

“Baby, wake up.” 

You start awake, WinWin’s hand slipping from your shoulder.

The room’s full of bright sunlight, the day already well on its way toward the mid-point. The blankets are twisted around your legs, your shirt you were sleeping in has ridden up over your belly, and WinWin’s now dressed in a warm looking hoodie and a pair of jeans.

“Mm, what?” You yawn. 

WinWin touches your hair, smoothing it down where it sticks up in the back. “Your parents are here.”

“What?” You’re suddenly wide awake, throwing the covers off, and standing on your bare feet on the cool floor. “My parents are here? How long have they been here?”

WinWin shrugs. “Well, it was probably about ten minutes ago when Kun hyung ran in here and practically dragged me out of your bed. He said he was making Christmas breakfast when Jaemin answered the door, and it was your parents. I got dressed, and had to pretend like I wasn’t in your room. But, yeah, Kun distracted them with breakfast to keep them downstairs, and he told them he sent someone to wake you up. I’ve been trying to wake you for, like, two minutes. You were out.”

“Oh my God.” You hurry to pull on some pajama pants and Doyoung’s sweatshirt he’d been wearing the night before. “Why wouldn’t they tell me they were stopping by? Rude.”

WinWin smiles, leaning against the door, watching you try your best to look presentable. “They brought you a present. Merry Christmas, by the way.”

As you come down the stairs, you see your mother warily watching Lucas coming down the stairs ahead of you. He’s shirtless, his sweatpants low on his hips. His eyes are half-closed with sleep, his fingers running through his extremely messy hair, and his large rib tattoo on full display. She looks less than approving of the sight.

“Lucas,” you whisper as you pass by him, a hand on his shoulder, “Cover up, please.” 

He blinks, and then, for the first time, sees your mother. Lucas grins sheepishly, grabs a blanket from the back of the sofa, and drapes it around his shoulders. 

“Mom, Dad!” You walk over, hugging your mother. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming by?”

“We wanted to surprise you.” She smiles, and as you step back, she looks around at the boys that seem to be gathering. “I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t realize all of these boys live here all the time. I would have brought more presents if I’d known. Why aren’t they celebrating with their families?”

Mostly, the boys that are around you are the WayV members, but Jaemin and Jisung are hanging around too. You know they have a schedule later on in the day, so you explain that to your mother, and then say, “Kun, WinWin, and Lucas are all from China. They can’t go home just for the holiday. None of them have gone home, several of them have to work today.”

As you say that, Taeyong comes zooming down the stairs, his coat half on, and he pauses at your side already leaning in as if to kiss your cheek when he spots your parents. He quickly covers by whispering in your ear instead, a quick, “See you later, love you.” And then he hurries over to where Haechan and Taeil are standing near the door.

“Is Johnny working today?” Your dad asks. You notice he’s nibbling at something that looks suspiciously like one of the cookies Jisung had decorated the other day. “Our present is kinda a present for both of you. We wanted you to open it together.”

He glances toward the stairs where a drowsy Hendery is stumbling his way down, also dressed in only his boxers and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. You briefly close your eyes and sigh. Why can’t these boys wear clothes? It’s freezing outside and you have surprise guests. 

Your mother clears her throat.

“Johnny’s also working today. He should already be gone.” You glance around at the other boys, hoping one of them will confirm or deny if he’s already gone.

“Johnny hyung’s got a lot of presents today.” Jaemin comments from where he’s sitting on the sofa. He points at a box sitting by the TV. “That was delivered while we were waiting for you to come down. I think it’s from America.” He walks over to it and cranes his neck, trying to read the label. 

You turn your attention back to your parents. “I wish you would’ve let me know you were coming over. I would have dressed up a little better.” You bunch up the sleeves of Doyoung’s sweatshirt in your hands. You feel sloppy with the sweater paws and the oversized pajama pants, your hair unkempt. But your mother smiles. “What?”

“Nothing.” She glances at your father with a soft smile, and he smiles back at her. “You’ve just got that lovely pregnancy glow going. And we are sorry about the surprise intrusion. Your father told me we should’ve called ahead to make sure you were awake, that you were ready to accept a visit.”

“And to make sure Johnny was here. I’ve been wanting to have a word with him about his intentions with you.” Your father pitches his voice lower as he ends that sentence, but nevertheless, you’re sure that every ear in the house is tuned in to the conversation. Out of the corner of your eye, you see several heads snap in your direction. 

“His intentions?” You ask. “Dad, this isn’t a new relationship, I’m already pregnant. What do you mean?”

Now your father looks around at the others. You see WinWin duck his head, pretending like he’s not listening. In the kitchen Kun’s standing there, slicing nothing on the cutting board, but suddenly looking very focused on the task. Lucas and Hendery are whispering to each other. Only Jaemin doesn’t pretend like he’s not listening. 

“I know when you told us about this, we said we understand that you’re a modern woman, but at the same time, we just want what’s best for you.” Your father says, spreading his hands out in such a dad gesture. “Being an unmarried mother, it’s still not a good thing, even in times like this. I think, since he got you pregnant, he should marry you to provide for you and his daughter.”

“Dad!” You exclaim. 

There’s a sound like something breaking in the kitchen, and Kun’s hushed swearing in Chinese. 

Your mother and father say your name in a warning, calming tone. 

“No,” you tell them, “I’m not going to marry Johnny. Not just because you think I should. That would be stupid.” 

Now, both of your parents suddenly look uncomfortable with the audience of the other boys. Maybe they should’ve thought about that before bringing this up in front of them. “Maybe we should go talk about this in private?” Your mom suggests.

You shake your head no. “Whatever you want to say, you can say it here in front of all of them.” You put a hand over your belly. “Strange as it may be for you to hear, all of them are going to be a part of my future too. So they should hear what you have to say.”

“We can’t tell you how to live your life--” your mother starts, and you cut her off.

“You’re right about that.” You walk away, heading into the kitchen. “I think, for the sake of today being a happy holiday, we should drop that subject.”

Kun looks at you, his gaze searching yours. You’re fine, you want to tell him, you can tell that’s what he’s looking at you like that for. 

“We have plenty of food,” you tell your parents over your shoulder. “You’re welcome to stay for breakfast. Kun’s a great cook.” You slide into place beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder, and you stare at your parents, wondering if they notice the closeness, the way that Kun shifts into your gravity, relaxes under your touch. If either of them notices, they don’t say anything. 

They decide not to stay for breakfast with all of you, but they do stay long enough for you to open the present they brought and for you to send Renjun running up to your bedroom to grab the presents you have for your parents. Their gifts from you to them are just simple yet heartfelt gifts, things you know they’d like. 

And then you open the gift from them, wrapped with care in pretty paper that you feel bad to tear into. 

It’s a frame with a print of a soundwave, and it’s only when you read the words beneath that you realize what it is.

“Is this her heartbeat?” You cover your mouth, placing your other hand on your belly. “How did you do this?”

Your mother smiles warmly. “Well, you sent me that recording of the heartbeat from your first appointment, so I just used that for the company that makes these. Do you like it?” 

You do. 

Several of the boys crowd in around the back of the chair where you’re sitting looking down at the waves of your baby’s heartbeat. When you stand up, moving the frame aside so you can go hug your parents again, Ten takes the frame from you, studying the image, but you’re already wrapping your arms around your parents, trying your best not to break out in tears (and failing).

 It takes a while to get you to calm down even after your parents have left and half of the boys in the house are settling down to eat the Christmas breakfast that Kun prepared. 

“Hey,” Ten coos, wiping at your tears gently. “If you stop crying you can eat. There’s no way you’ll be able to taste Kun’s great cooking with all these tears.” He pulls his sleeves down over his hands and dabs at the fresh tears. “Babe, why are you crying so much, it’ll make me cry.” 

You just drop your head onto his shoulder and sniffle. You don’t know why you’re crying so much, but you can’t stop. So Ten just wraps his arms around you, holding you, rubbing your back until at last your tears run dry. He kisses your cheeks and then your lips, and leads you by hand to the kitchen table.

“We’ll hang it up in your room tomorrow, after everyone’s had a look at it, how’s that sound?” Kun asks, squeezing your knee reassuringly beneath the table. 

The rest of your Christmas runs smoothly and happily. After eating breakfast (which was really delicious, you later that day pay your compliments to the chef by kissing Kun, drawing him into the shower with you), much of the rest of the day is spent on the sofa down in the living room watching Christmas movies, snacking on the Christmas cookies you’d made, and the boys pass in and out of the house, heading to work, coming home.

By nightfall, most of them are home again. Snow is falling thickly outside. Renjun’s finally managed to befriend Miso by tossing bits of popcorn for your cat to chase (in an attempt to distract him from destroying the ornaments glittering on the tree in the corner of the room), and you rest your head on Jaehyun’s chest, his hand resting on your belly, everyone waiting for the last few boys to arrive home so you can all truly celebrate Christmas with an exchange of gifts.

You’re nearly asleep, lulled by the sound of the others talking, the warmth and comfort of being bundled up with Jaehyun, his hand a gentle weight on your baby bump, and you finished eating not too long ago.

You’ve quite literally just dropped off when something makes you jolt awake again.

At first you think it’s Jaehyun because he’s suddenly moved, sitting more upright, his hands around you. Then you think maybe you just startled yourself awake as sometimes happens when you suddenly drop off to sleep, and the movement of you waking is why Jaehyun’s like this. Then you realize he’s speaking, his voice excited and startled.

You put one of your hands over Jaehyun’s, and you feel it again. A sharp kick from your womb, nudging right against Jaehyun’s hand.

He swears.

Everyone else in the room is looking now, and it takes a few moments longer for them all to realize what was happening.

Jaehyun wraps his arms around you, both hands on your belly as your daughter moves again. He’s grinning widely, and when Taeil stumbles over himself trying to get close enough that he can feel too, Jaehyun selfishly tries to keep you and your moving baby all to himself.

“Of course Jaehyun’s the one to feel the baby first.” Ten rolls his eyes from where he’s leaning against Kun on the other side of the room. “His jealousy wouldn’t let anyone else feel her first.”

“It’s not like he did it on purpose, or like I did it on purpose.” You reach for Taeil’s hand as he sits on the edge of the sofa, and you bring his hand to your belly. “Jaehyun, let the others feel too. Don’t be stingy.”

He doesn’t really move his hand too far away, but just enough away that you can press Taeil’s hand to where she’s moving. Lucas comes closer as well.

Half the room is still gathered around you when Johnny, Mark, Yuta, and Doyoung come home. 

“Ugh, not fair!” Mark groans, kicking off his shoes and dropping his stuff on his way to join the mass of boys around you. “The baby’s kicking and we missed it?” He shoulders his way between Jungwoo and Hendery, “Has everyone felt her moving?”

Hendery shakes his head sadly. “I’m starting to agree that she’s shy. Jaehyun hyung and Taeil hyung felt her moving. Xiaojun swears he felt her, and Lucas too, but after them, we haven’t felt her.”

Jaehyun’s still got his arms wrapped around you securely, jealously. He covers your hands with his because you’ve still got your hands on your belly, trying to feel her moving so you can let the others feel her, but she’s fallen asleep again.

Doyoung pouts as he comes over. “That was meant to be my Christmas present this morning. She kicked while we were in bed earlier, but I didn’t feel it then.” 

You pat Jaehyun’s hand, getting him to let you up, and then you point at the box that was delivered that morning for Johnny. “That’s for you, Johnny. And my parents dropped by this morning. They got us a present, too.” You stand and move over to where you’d propped the frame from your parents against the wall, and you turn it around to the room.

“Woah, is that her heartbeat?” Mark squints as if he can’t quite tell. 

You nod enthusiastically. “My mom took the recording of the heartbeat from my first appointment, made this for us. Isn’t it wonderful?” 

Taeyong bites at his bottom lip, his eyes wide and softening as he looks at the rises and falls of your daughter’s visual heartbeat. You sit the frame back down lightly on the floor, facing the room so they can all still see it, but you go sit back down beside Jaehyun who immediately clings to you again, hands on your belly.

You can tell from the way he’s touching you now, gently pressing against your belly, he’s hoping to feel her again. But then as the others all settle into the room, as talk turns to exchanging gifts and presents begin to be pulled out from under the tree (where you’d made each of the boys wrap gifts and sit them--the resulting mountain of presents was very satisfying, like a Christmas dream come true), Jaehyun gets even touchier.

With his fingers low on your baby bump, he starts drawing his fingers in a distracting circle. You’re sitting right on his lap, back to his chest, his chin tucked over your shoulder, and occasionally Jaehyun drops his lips against your shoulder. 

“Stop it,” you whisper to him when he kisses your shoulder for the fifteenth time, his fingers still tracing that circle, and now he’s got a hand rubbing your thigh. You don’t want to feel horny right now, but Jaehyun’s definitely working you up to it. He turns his head, lips brushing your throat and you can feel that he’s smiling. “Jaehyun, I’ll go sit with Doyoung instead if you don’t.”

Reluctantly, he lifts his head with a sigh, and he tucks both of his arms behind his head with another long drawn out sigh.

You start to slide off his lap into the open space right beside him, but Jaehyun starts to voice a complaint, trying to keep you there.

The look you give him has him keeping his hands to himself, dragging a decorative pillow into his lap instead.

Xiaojun welcomes you sitting between him and Jaehyun. Presents are passed around, gifts that they bought for each other, for you, gifts sent here from their families, and gifts you bought for them. Someone breaks out the Christmas cookies. Several of them open some wine. Gift opening takes a while, the room is a sea of torn wrapping paper, empty boxes floating on it all like lifeboats. YangYang and Haechan double-over in laughter as they wrap Jeno in a long ribbon one of their gifts had come wrapped with. 

Johnny opened his package that had arrived that day, and it turns out to be a collection of candy and snacks from America one of his friends in Chicago had sent him. 

“Sweet!” Mark dives into it, pulling out a candy you don’t recognize, and after that the others are digging through it too, quickly sampling all that Johnny’s package has to offer. Mark settles on the ground at your feet, unwrapping the candy, and when he slips it over the tip of his finger you realize that it’s a Ring Pop, a lollipop fashioned into a diamond mounted on a plastic ring base.

Mark grins as he pops it into his mouth. He sucks on it for just a second then looks up at you, pleased when he sees you’re already looking at him. He takes your hand from where it sits on your knee.

“Remember?” Mark asks, tapping his finger against the base of your ring finger.

Of course you remember Mark proposing to you. You also remember promising him that no matter what you’ll be in each other’s lives. You also remember that you have hidden that proposal from all of the other guys, and you’re pretty sure Mark has too. You pray he doesn’t attempt a reenactment here with this ring.

Jaehyun, already in his possessive mood since you’ve spent the majority of the evening cuddling with him and since he had the privilege to feel your daughter moving first, immediately perks up and stares.

“Remember what?” He asks.

Mark laughs and shakes his head, dropping your hand and edging away. “Nothing, Jaehyun.”

But now several of the others are looking, and it’s Ten who notices Mark’s candy and the way he’d held your hand. With a laugh, he asks, “What, did Mark ask you to marry him or something?”

The way he asked, it was clear that Ten meant it as a joke. Several of the others start laughing right away, but when everyone notices the way that you and Mark both go still and awkward, the room falls silent except for one person.

“What the fuck?” Jaehyun stands up, glaring down at Mark who scrambles to his feet. “You asked her to marry you? When? Why?” He takes a step forward, and in Mark’s panicked rush to step away from Jaehyun’s jealousy, he takes a few steps back, slips on torn wrapping paper, and windmills his arms before crashing down into WinWin and Hendery.

Jaehyun takes another step forward, and you push to your feet.

“Do I need to restrain you or something?” You ask, squeezing your fingers into the muscle of Jaehyun’s arm.

Yuta laughs, a wonderful sound in this otherwise very tense situation. “I’d love to see that.”

Jaehyun glares at Yuta, and it takes another few seconds of you digging your fingers into his arm and tugging to get him to sit back down again. 

“Don’t be so dense, Jaehyun. And the rest of you.” You let up your grip on his arm. Jaehyun clenches his hand into a fist again, so you cover his hand with yours, doing your best to pry his fist apart, slip your fingers inside. “Stop being so possessive. I obviously didn’t say yes to Mark. Have you seen a ring on my finger? Do you really think I would say yes to marrying one of you without talking it out with the others first? No.”

You look around at all of them.

Jaehyun isn’t alone in staring at Mark with anger in their eyes. It’s obvious that Mark had neither discussed his impromptu proposal with any of them, nor had he told them about it afterward.

“I told Mark no. Relax, everyone.” You shake your head in disbelief that this evening, which had been so happy and warm moments before, had now dissipated into a cold and tense atmosphere. 

“When did that happen?” Taeil asks, and his face is so serious, his expression tight, you don’t hesitate to answer.

“Just a few days after we all found out I was pregnant. I told him no right away.”

Mark nods, wincing and rubbing at his arm. “She did. She also slapped me, if that makes you all feel better.”

“It does a little,” Jaehyun mumbles. “But why would you do that, Mark? Did you not even consider all the toes you’d be stepping on? There’s thirteen other guys in this relationship.”

As if just wanting to feel included in the conversation, Jaemin says, “Yeah, Mark. That’s at least a hundred toes that you were stepping on.” But when Mark frowns in his direction, Jaemin slumps back into Jeno where the two of them, Renjun, and YangYang are seated on the floor.

“I didn’t say yes, though. Mark and I talked about it afterwards, like why he thought it was a good idea, and I get it.” You look over at him, and then look around the room, your gaze meeting Jungwoo’s, Taeyong’s, Kun’s. “But like I said, I won’t marry one boyfriend without at least talking about it with the rest of you first.”

This wasn’t the Christmas present that you wanted. A fight. It was meant to be a happy holiday.

“Why don’t we all calm down.” Taeyong stands up, then he bends over and starts gathering up nearby scraps of wrapping paper. “Let’s clean up all this mess, and then we can play games. You said you wanted us to try games, right?” He asks you, and you nod. 

You’d been talking about Christmas for weeks leading up to tonight. You wanted a nice, family Christmas. That’s why you’d decorated the house, made them wrap presents, and now you wanted to all sit around and play games with each other and snack on Christmas cookies and the snacks from Johnny’s box.

Doyoung jumps up to help Taeyong with cleaning, and soon others join in. The paper goes in a trash bag, boxes are disposed of. Several of the guys carry their unwrapped gifts up to their rooms. The room’s cleared soon, and everyone settles back into their spots with snacks and drinks and happier attitudes.

The rest of the evening passes happily with only minor disputes related to the games, and as the hour grows later and later, you start to nod off, your head on Taeil’s shoulder.

You definitely don’t mean to fall asleep down there on the sofa instead of in your much more comfortable bed, but at some point your heavy eyes sink shut and don’t open again until much later.

Your head is still on Taeil’s shoulder when you again wake, but he’s asleep now. 

Someone must’ve just turned the lights off in the now nearly empty living room. Besides you and Taeil, Jungwoo’s asleep on the other sofa. Ten’s awake still, sitting in the armchair on his phone with the brightness turned low, probably to not wake up Taeyong who’s squeezed into the chair beside him, his head resting against the back of the chair.

There’s the sound of someone climbing the stairs, soft voices. A light on the second floor landing goes out, and you shake yourself fully awake.

Taeil stirs a little, but when you stand up, he remains asleep. Ten, however, looks up from his phone. 

“Goodnight,” you whisper, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Thank you for my present.”

Ten picks up your hand in his, gently squeezing. “Thank you for mine. Are you going to bed?”

You nod and stifle a yawn. “Merry Christmas, Ten.”

“Merry Christmas. Goodnight.” He brushes his thumb over your knuckles before releasing your hand. 

You climb the stairs slowly. Your back aches and your limbs are heavy with tiredness. Whose idea was it to put your room on the top floor of this house? 

As you reach the top floor, you see a strip of light around the bathroom in the hallway, hear voices coming from inside, and you intend to tiptoe past it, but as you do, you hear your name. You pause, unable to keep yourself from eavesdropping, especially once you recognize the voices as Jaehyun’s and Mark’s. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaehyun apologizes, “Mark, I shouldn’t have reacted like that earlier.” He sighs heavily. “I know I act like a jealous dick over her a lot, and you always call me out on that, as you should. I just, when I thought about you doing that, about her giving up on a future with the rest of us, it broke something in me.”

“But she didn’t, man.” Mark’s voice sounds a little strange, and it’s only after you hear him spit into the sink that you realize that they’re having this conversation while brushing their teeth. “Literally, the second that the question was out of my mouth she shut me down, told me I was being stupid. I know it was stupid too, is the thing. Why do you think neither she or I ever mentioned it to any of you guys?”

“Figured you were embarrassed.” Jaehyun laughs. “God, honestly, Mark. What were you thinking?”

Mark groans. “I was raised by a proper by-the-books family! She’d just told us she was pregnant. So I was going to marry her, make sure that she has a husband to help her with the baby.”

“And what are the rest of us?” Jaehyun’s voice is amused, but there’s still a dark edge to it that you’re sure Mark doesn’t miss either. “Do you honestly think that she won’t have all of us to help her after the baby’s born? That once we find out which of us is the father the rest of us are going to leave? If you’re not the father, are you going to break up with her.”

You don’t hear Mark verbally give an answer, but Jaehyun chuckles.

“No, didn’t think so.” Things are quiet between them for a few seconds, and just as you’re about to continue on to your bedroom, Jaehyun speaks up again. “I would never tell her this, but last week I was talking about the paternity with Lucas and Taeyong while we were taking a break from practice. Taeyong said he’d been doing the math, some research, and from what he found of timelines online and what he can remember of who she was with around that exact date he found using a calculator, he thinks it’s probably you, Johnny, Lucas, or Jungwoo.”

You’ve done your own research and listened to what your doctor said. You know the probable date of conception. You remember that you probably did have sex with most of the guys within that window of time around that date of conception. You also remember that there are a few that you probably didn’t have sex with, or if you did they didn’t cum inside you.

But you also definitely remember that of those four that Jaehyun just listed, you did definitely have sex with them. Multiple times.  

Jaehyun starts speaking again. “Lucas said he’s talked to her about the paternity before, and that he kinda hopes it’s not him.”

“Shit,” Mark swears. “What did she say?”

“That whoever the biological father is is going to be in the baby’s life no matter what, even if he doesn’t think he’ll be a good dad.” There’s the rushing sound of the faucet turned on, water splashing in the sink. “He told Taeyong and I that if he’s not the dad, he’s not too sure he’ll be able to stick around.”

Mark swears again.

Fuck, you wish you would have walked away, that you hadn’t stopped to listen. So you move now before you can hear anything else. 

Lucas really doesn’t want to be a dad. He can’t even entertain the possibility of being a father to your baby if he’s not genetically invested in it?

As you sink into your bed, drawing the sheets up to your chin, all you can do is replay Jaehyun’s words, replay that day you’d had that conversation with Lucas--a picnic date that had turned naughty just moments after that serious conversation--and your mind runs in circles, playing back Lucas’s hands on your skin, your mouth on his, his laughter in your ears.

For the first time in months and months, you have that feeling of the bottom of your stomach dropping, a dark pit opening up. 

Someday this relationship as a massive polyamorous thing is going to reach its end. Boyfriends will step away. Some will stay, but eventually some will leave. You’ve always known this. It’s why you broke up with them earlier that year, but the gravity of them had brought you back.

It hurts to think about, to know that you love them all so much, but maybe this love is going to have to change.

The last few days of the year pass quickly, and then you’re hosting a New Year’s Eve party at the house with the boys who aren’t attending Gayo Daejejeon, some of your friends in attendance as well as some of their friends. 

Your friends socialize with the boys, growing more comfortable with them. You’re not even surprised when one of your friends really gets along well with Lucas, and you watch the two of them laughing and throwing back shots together with Jaehyun. And most of your friends take this opportunity to try once more to dig out the truth from them about which of them is the one that you’re in a relationship with. They don’t tell you, but you’re pretty sure that they’re all waiting for midnight, for the moment to see which of the boys will be your New Year’s kiss.

So at midnight you continue to try to make it confusing for your friends by kissing every single one of the boys there. You just kiss them on the cheek. Taeil, Kun, Lucas, Renjun, Doyoung, Taeyong, Xiaojun, Chenle, and Jaehyun all receive a kiss on the cheek from you in those moments after midnight. Kun received his kiss first along with an enthusiastic round of “happy birthday” cheers from around the room. 

And when the others arrive home in a flood of happiness and cheers of “Happy New Year!” you kiss them all as well, surprising some of the Dream members who certainly hadn’t expected it, and disappointing a few of your boyfriends who were expecting a full kiss but only got a peck on the cheek.

Your friends are sufficiently confused by your kissing of so many of the members, and they persistently question you about which of them is the father. They even make guesses based off of how you act with the boys, which you find extremely funny after one of your friends pulls you aside to ask if the father is Renjun because you’d been goofing around with him for most of the party.

By the time the party ends a few hours later, you’re exhausted and achy, but you’re happy to have rung in the New Year with the boys and with your friends. You already know this year is going to be a great one, with the birth of your daughter already taking the number one spot.

Everyone leaves the party mess downstairs to be cleaned up tomorrow, and then there’s a drunken parade of boys climbing the stairs to bed. Taeyong has to be carried up to bed by Johnny because he over-indulged in the after-show drinks and then even more once they arrived home.

And you’d thought you’d be going to bed alone, but as you start to climb the final flight of stairs to the top floor, a hand comes to rest on your lower back.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Kun asks softly. “Lucas snores horribly when he’s drunk.”

“Just to warn you, I think I’ve been snoring lately too,” you admit. “But of course you can sleep with me.” 

Kun laughs, but you’re serious. Lately you’ve started snoring badly, and when you looked it up because it was kinda concerning when Taeyong woke you the other night, grumbling because your snoring was making it difficult for him to sleep, it turns out that it’s just another pregnancy symptom.

But Kun snuggles into bed with you, kissing your belly as you settle in. “Goodnight, little angel. Don’t kick your mommy too much, just dream tonight.”

As if she knows he’s talking to her, you feel a little nudge.

“Kun, here.” You take his hand and bring it to where you felt her move. “She always does this as soon as I lay down and get comfortable. Can you feel her?” She does it again.

Over the last few days, the boys have been touching your stomach pretty much any chance they can get, always hoping to feel her like Jaehyun, Taeil, and Xiaojun had. So far, they haven’t really felt her again, which in doing some research on that as well, you realize that at just on that edge between twenty-two and twenty-three weeks it’s not uncommon for the baby’s movements to still not be felt from the outside. Maybe she’d just been really, really active on Christmas, excitement for the holiday and all that.

Kun keeps talking to her, holding his hand against your belly with your hand pressed to the back of his. You can tell he so badly wants to feel her, and you want him to be able to feel her. You want all of them to feel her move because it’s so strange and amazing.

You lay on your side facing Kun, relaxing and feeling your eyes grow heavier and heavier as he starts singing to her, his hands caressing your belly. 

When you wake in the morning, Kun’s still got a hand on your belly though you’ve turned over to your other side. He’s spooning you, a hand on your belly, his warm breath on your shoulder. You feel so warm and comfortable, safe and happy, like you need never leave the bed. Until a sudden sense of urgency reminds you why you just woke up.

When you return from the bathroom and slide back into bed, feeling much better with any empty bladder but also much colder outside the sheets, you find Kun awake.

“Do you have a schedule today?” You ask him, resting your head on the pillow again. 

Kun shakes his head. “Yeah, but not until much later.”

You pat the sheets. “Then stay here. It’s your birthday, you deserve to sleep in. And besides that, we both want you here. Isn’t that right?” You rub a hand over your belly, tilting your head down to address it. 

“Oh, well, if that’s what the princess wants.” Kun smiles and sinks back down beside you, facing the ceiling. “I can’t believe in just a few months, she’s going to be born. It’s crazy to think that just a year ago this relationship was still fairly new, but in just months we’re going to have a baby. I think some of us are definitely more ready for it than others.” He’s smiling as he says it, and you know Kun is thinking about how ready he is to be a father, not necessarily thinking about the other side of things.

But now you are thinking about the other side of things. About the boys who aren’t ready to be fathers really.

So you just scoot closer and press your face against Kun’s chest, trying to forget about your worries.

A few weeks pass, and then you’re twenty-five weeks along. And by this point your belly is very round, very obviously pregnant to the point that your coworkers like to pat it when they’re near you, always wanting to feel the baby when you groan and put your hand to your stomach because she kicked. And also, she’s reached the point in development where she gets hiccups, you were surprised to find.

It was a startling feeling the first time you felt it. It was just a twitching feeling, unfamiliar, though similar to kicking. 

You’d been sitting on the sofa with Ten and Johnny when it happened, and Johnny had been quick to slide over to feel the spot that you indicated. And his lips had curled up into a bright smile as he said, “Hiccups. She’s hiccuping.”

Ten wanted in on feeling it too, and then as the three of you enjoyed the oddness of feeling her do this, Ten started looking online for ways to get rid of a baby’s hiccups in-utero, but it turned out that it wasn’t a big deal. Just drink some water. By the time Johnny had gone to get you a glass of water and brought it back, the hiccuping had already stopped, but she was moving, rolling inside you.

Ten stayed slumped beside you, messing around on his phone, and it wasn’t until he suddenly asks you, “Are you doing kegels?”

“Excuse me?” You turn to look at him. “What, like right now?”

“No.” Ten shakes his head. “I just mean, in general. This website says that it’s really important for pregnant women to practice kegels. Helps with labor and preventing bladder incontinence afterwards. Apparently it’s good for everyone to practice, but especially people who are pregnant.”

Admittedly, you have not been practicing any pelvic floor exercises, but now that Ten suggests it, and keeps reading off information about it, he and Johnny decide that they’re going to do it too. So after a bit more research Johnny and Ten are doing stretches on the floor, planning to do some yoga and some kegels, and you just excuse yourself from that because you don’t mind doing kegels, but you don’t like sitting there with them knowing that your vagina is contracting. There’s just something odd and very strangely intimate about that. It doesn’t matter that they have both been extremely intimate with your vagina before.

So you climb upstairs in search of something to distract you from the laughter and wrestling sounds and grunts you can hear coming from your two boyfriends downstairs.

Jaehyun’s laying on his bed. The duvet is crooked beneath him, the bed not really made, and he’s fully clothed with his arms tucked beneath his head. A record is playing quietly, so you almost feel bad for interrupting, but when Jaehyun opens his eyes and sees you standing there at the edge of his bed, he smiles.

“Hey, babe.” 

You’re stunned when, a moment later, as Jaehyun sits up, a tiny, furry (usually pissed off) head appears beside him.

“Miso’s here?” You’re shocked that he’s finally warming up to the boys. Slowly, but he is.

Jaehyun hums and lifts his hand to stroke Miso’s head, but apparently your cat draws the line at petting. He’s fine with cuddling up to Jaehyun though. He balks now, glaring at the offending hand. Jaehyun just laughs and wiggles his fingers at Miso. “He was in here when I woke up. I guess the others left the door open when they left so he came in. Completely ignored me until I got up to put on some music, then when I laid down, he hopped up here with me. Finally starting to like me.”

He tries again to pet the cat, and this time Miso actually bares his teeth.

“Miso!” You chastise him and lift him up in your arms. He immediately starts purring, nuzzling against you. “I just hope he likes her once she’s born. He’s taking so long to warm up to all of you.”

Jaehyun stretches out on his back again, humming along to the music. “I’m sure he’ll love her. Pets are usually good with kids, right?”

You can only hope.

Hope that your cat gets along with your baby. Hope that your boyfriends stay with you. Hope that life isn’t entirely altered in a few months.

“Were you looking for me? Did you need something?” Jaehyun asks after a moment.

You shake your head and sit Miso down as he begins to struggle. He bolts from the room. “No, I was just trying to escape Ten and Johnny trying to get me to do group kegels with them.”

“Kegels?” Jaehyun laughs. “My trainer at the gym has me do those. He says it’s good for lots of things, and it’s important to stay up on it so when I’m old I don’t have so many problems.”

From down on the first floor the grunts of Johnny and Ten echo upstairs.

“Are they doing them now?” Jaehyun turns his head slightly toward the door.

“I’m not really sure what they’re doing,” you admit. “I just felt awkward sitting there, thinking about doing it all together.”

Jaehyun sits up. “I mean, it’s not like they’ll know if you’re doing it. You can do it anywhere, anytime.” There’s another obnoxious noise from downstairs, and Jaehyun rolls his eyes a bit. “If they are doing it, they’re not doing it right.”

And now you feel a bit warm as you ask, “You said your trainer has you do them?” Jaehyun nods. “How exactly do you know you’re doing it right?”

In theory you know what a kegel is, how to do it, but you also don’t know if you’re totally doing it right. Jaehyun has experience.

“My trainer explained it to me, told me in detail about how it should feel. I did a little research online, making sure he wasn’t just making it up because at first it sounded weird to me.” He ruffles his fingers through his hair. “If you want, I can help make sure you’re doing it right.”

“What?” Your face heats up. “How?”

Jaehyun reaches out to you, his fingers on your thigh. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” He’s teasing, but you can tell that Jaehyun’s a little embarrassed too. His ears are too pink for him to not be embarrassed. “It might sound weird, but I’d put my finger in you while you do it.”

You fold your arms in front of you. “Jae, if you want to finger me, all you have to do is say so.”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s not it. Seriously, I know how it’s supposed to feel, and if I do that for you, then you’ll know if you’re doing it right.”

You hold his gaze for a long moment. Still seems like a trick to just have sex, but also you definitely trust Jaehyun to help you with this. “Okay, but go wash your hands first.”

Jaehyun pushes up off the bed, passing out the door within the second.

“Thoroughly!” You call out after him.

“Yes, Mom!” Jaehyun shouts back at you.

You sit down on the edge of the bed, and a minute later Jaehyun comes back into the room, closing the door behind him with his foot, holding his hands aloft like a surgeon entering the OR. 

“This is weird,” you mumble, looking up at Jaehyun still standing there, not touching anything, and you take your pants and panties off. “This feels like a medical examination.” 

“Don’t think of it that way.” Jaehyun kneels on the bed as you lay back, lifting your knees much like you would at an examination. He looks between your legs, then flicks his gaze up to your face. “Okay, maybe this is a little weird.”

It takes you both a few moments to get over the weirdness of it, and then he’s got a finger inside you as he coaxes you to try a kegel. You do it, but you’re embarrassed, covering your face as you tighten the muscles, contracting around Jaehyun’s finger. 

“Try it again,” Jaehyun tells you. “But hold it for a few seconds, then relax.”

You whine. This definitely feels weird, not like physically a wrong sensation, just the situation itself. 

“Relax,” Jaehyun smiles, and he kisses your knee. “You’re too tense to do this. Do I need to help you relax?”

He kisses your knee again, his finger starts pumping, just a slow stroke of his finger inside you. His lips start to trail along your thigh from your knee toward the apex of your thighs.

“Jaehyun,” you whimper, and drape your arms over your face. “I knew you just wanted to have sex. You could just, I don’t know, tell me that.”

“I was genuinely trying to help you.” Jaehyun nips your inner thigh. “But, mmhm, this is a nice turn. You’re getting so wet, fuck.”

When Jaehyun’s tongue meets your wetness, licking at you even as he continues thrusting his long middle finger inside you, you bite at your arm to hold back your moans just a bit. It’s been so long since one of them ate you out. At least about six months, definitely not at all since they found out you were pregnant, too scared to put their face down there at your pussy like they were scared to see the baby staring back at them.

But Jaehyun carefully uses his tongue on you, driving you absolutely wild with pleasure. Your heart pounds, and all of this racing through you doesn’t just awaken your lust.

“Oh, God. Jaehyun.” You gasp, less from what his tongue is actually doing to you in the moment. You take one of his hands and drag it up to your belly. He pauses when he feels what you feel. “We woke her up.”

Jaehyun sits up quickly, looking down at your belly in awe. He brings his other hand to your stomach, feeling your daughter moving in your belly, spurred into movement because of what Jaehyun was doing to you. 

You half expect Jaehyun to back off then, to be weirded out about having sex with the baby awake and moving. But, apparently you underestimate his horniness and his kink for you being pregnant.

Jaehyun pushes your shirt up, completely away from your belly, and you sit up as best as you can to pull your shirt the rest of the way over your head, reach back to unfasten your bra, and then you lay back down, and look up at Jaehyun as he slips backwards off the bed, his eyes raking over your bare body before him.

“I love seeing you like this,” Jaehyun groans, tugging his shirt over his head. “You’re beautiful.”

You flush at the compliment. 

“Yeah, sure. All big and bloated, with stretchmarks.” Just a few mornings ago, you’d looked in the mirror and, to your horror, had spotted stretchmarks on your belly and a dark line was stretching down from your belly button. It’s not that you’d never seen stretchmarks on yourself before, but these were just too much for you to handle in addition to everything else. “I’m gorgeous. Sign me up for a runway.”

Jaehyun rolls his eyes with a gentle smile, and he kneels down on the bed. He takes your hands, holding them down against your sides as he leans in and kisses your belly. “Would you walk a runway if I did sign you up? I could pull some strings. You’d be radiant, powerful, so sexy modeling like this.” He leaves your hands to touch your thighs instead, spreading them so he can fit between them easier.

The heat rises under your skin, both from his words and his touches. Jaehyun’s hands slide higher, thumbs stroking tenderly at the very top of your thighs. 

“Very, very sexy.” Jaehyun leans in and kisses you. It’s a slow, sensual kiss, liquefying your insides as he also dips his hips forward, grinding lightly against you. “You’re beautiful. Seeing you like this is legitimately a sexy dream come true.”

It is quite a confidence boost to have him telling you that he finds you so sexy when you look at yourself like this and don’t see anything great. The way he’s looking at you right now, like he would eat you alive if he could, sends a new wonderful thrill through you, which physically manifests as a shiver and your baby moving inside you.

“That’s so strange,” Jaehyun smiles, looking down at your belly where you can see her moving. He puts a hand over her. “Is it weird if we keep going?” He asks. “Like, do you think she can... feel it?”

At this point you don’t care. He’s got you hot and ready for him, so you don’t care if she can feel it, it’s not like she knows what’s happening, and it’s not like his dick is big enough to get through your cervix or anything as disturbing as that. You just grip at his arms.

“Jaehyun, just get inside me. Please.” You feel like you’re whining, begging, but you can’t help it. It’s been months since you and Jaehyun last really were intimate. You’ve missed having him like this, touching him and being touched by him like this.

He smiles, busy touching your belly, but when you start pouting, he grins even wider. “You’re so cute,” he tells you. “Do you need me so badly, princess?” He leans in to kiss you, carefully avoiding pressing on your belly. “You miss my cock?”

You moan his name, try to squeeze your legs around him to drive his cock against you, inside you. But he just pats your leg, and sits up, shifting back onto his heels. 

“I want you to ride me.” Jaehyun flips over onto his back.

“Right, cause that’s fair.” You sit up and look down at him. “I’m the one putting in all the work, building a baby inside me. Why don’t you do all the work?”

Jaehyun reaches for your belly again. “I just think it’s a better position to appreciate you from. You’ve always looked so good when you’re on top, and now, fuck, with your tits this full and your beautiful baby bump? You look like a goddess, and I’m totally serious, so don’t look at me like that,” Jaehyun says when he catches the doubting look on your face.

And it’s only because this man in bed with you knows how to heap on the praise that you agree and straddle him. He touches your thighs again, his fingers dipping higher, in between your legs, stroking two fingers against your wetness, slipping them inside you just for a moment.

Jaehyun watches you with a smirk on his face as you start riding his fingers, your wetness dripping down his fingers. “You need me right now, don’t you?”

You nod and grip his wrist, thrusting down on his fingers. 

It’s definitely odd feeling your daughter moving inside your womb while you’re in a very sexual encounter, to know that she’s feeling the basics of the emotions you’re feeling--the excitement, your racing heartbeat, the pure enjoyment of what Jaehyun’s doing--but you don’t plan to stop. Not when Jaehyun pulls his fingers out to circle them at your clit. Certainly not when his cock is hovering heavy and pink against his abdomen, and not when you position him between your legs with his fingers still stimulating your clit.

You sink down on him, and for all the teasing he’s done to you, it’s a bit of a surprise when Jaehyun’s eyes flutter shut and he bites his bottom lip to stifle the moan of pleasure as your warm walls wrap around his cock. You have to remember that for months now, while you’ve abstained from Jaehyun’s cock finding orgasms in the others, Jaehyun’s had nothing but his hand and memories of you.

“Do I feel good, Jae?” You ask, sinking down on him until you feel so full, and you rest your hands on his abs, grazing your nails lightly over the flexed muscles. “Have you missed me?”

“So much, princess. Fuuuck.” His hands move to your hips, trying to get you moving on him, though at the moment you’re thoroughly enjoying just sitting on him like this. Perhaps this would be the moment to practice your kegels again, clenching your pussy tight around him.

Jaehyun swears at you, lifting his hips, trying to get deeper inside you, to get you moving on top of him. You oblige.

You love the way a flush rises on Jaehyun’s skin, the way that his eyes are dark with ravenous hunger for your body as you ride him, rolling your hips and thrusting down on his cock and circling your hips.

Jaehyun’s hands are everywhere. He’s always loved your ass, but now he pays close attention to your tits too, cupping them in his hands, leaning up to place tiny kisses around your nipple. And then of course there’s your big baby bump. Jaehyun strokes and just holds his hands against it, and you can’t help touching too. 

You’ve clearly got your baby excited too. She’s kicking and moving, worked up from the excitement you two are experiencing. You can tell that Jaehyun loves the pure intimacy of a moment like this, just you and him and your baby and all this raw emotion and the physical aspect of this. 

It’s moments like this when you’ve got Jaehyun like this that you want him to be the father more than anything else. He wants it so badly. You’ve known that since the first time you had sex with him that he wanted a baby. Hell, you knew it before that. On one of your first dates with him, Jaehyun kept waving and making silly faces at a toddler who was clinging to his mom’s leg nearby, and after they’d left, Jaehyun hadn’t been able to wipe the smile off his face, which had led to a discussion about how he thinks that if he hadn’t followed his path into the idol life he’d probably have already settled down and started a family.

You want this to be it for Jaehyun. Sure, he’s said that he’ll be here no matter if he’s the biological father or not. But you know it’ll break his heart if he’s not the biological father, that he just wants so badly to have it be him, to have this little girl be part you and part Jaehyun, to give her his surname.

And as he cums inside you now, his orgasm unleashing powerfully for the first time in months, you feel the heart-breaking realization that Jaehyun may very well not be the father.

There are some afternoons when you get off of work, and you just can’t go home and sit around there. You want to do something, see something different, and as you’ve gotten more obviously pregnant and with winter being in its depths at the moment, you rarely do more than commute to work and commute to home. 

So on one particular chilly, gray, snowy day, you walk out of work and decide that you’re going to go visit your boyfriends. 

Several of them are at the dance studio, so that’s where you go.

You didn’t check in with any of them before coming, but it’s rarely ever a problem for you to show up at the practice studio.

But of course, this time, you walk through the door of the room they’re in, and immediately three staff members turn to face you, and there are a few of the boys, but it’s only Jungwoo and Doyoung that look up from what they’re doing, and you freeze. They’re doing a VLive.

Doyoung starts to smile, then looks back down at his phone where he was reading something. Jungwoo starts making a face at you until Kun gently puts his hand on Jungwoo’s thigh, pulling his attention back to the live. 

Recently they added two new members, neither of which you know very well, but Shotaro and Sungchan seem really great, like they’ll fit into your little family perfectly, but as they don’t live at the house with the rest of the members, you haven’t had the chance to get to know them. Both of them are there as well, squashed in on the back of the sofa between Lucas and Yuta.

Just a week ago when you asked Yuta about the two of them and what they knew of you, Yuta just shrugged and said, “It’s kinda like what we’ve told the staff. That you’re dating one of us, that you’re pregnant, that we’ve all agreed to keep it a secret which one of us you’re dating because then any rumor that leaks won’t have anything really solid to it.” So that’s how it stood. 

But now, standing here just inside the doorway of the practice room while the staff members look at you, while Sungchan and Shotaro keep glancing your way curiously, you think maybe you shouldn’t have come. Especially not unannounced.

You move to the side and ease yourself down to sit on the floor beside their manager who didn’t look up when you walked in. She’s the friendliest, the one that helped with the gender reveal cake, who is probably one of their only staff members to know the true nature of this relationship you’ve got with the boys. You trust her, and they all do, which is why she knows because she won’t spill the secrets to sasaengs and gossip sites.

They wrap up the live about ten minutes later, waving goodbye and blaming the need for a few of them to go meet up for a special practice. Once it’s over, the live shut off, and the phone used for the live tucked safely out of sight, everyone disperses.

Doyoung, Jungwoo, and Kun come over to you right away. Yuta walks to the other side of the room, talking in rapid Japanese with Shotaro. Sungchan disappears, and Lucas remains sitting on the sofa, tapping at his phone and smiling at whatever he’s looking at.

Now that you can talk without fear of it being picked up on the livestream’s audio, their manager starts asking you about the pregnancy, how far are you exactly, when’s the due date, are the boys being good to you? To which you answer her: 28 weeks, mid-April, and usually.

“Hey, we’re pretty good to you!” Jungwoo protests. “Who was it that helped you with your swollen feet and your back, hmm?”

“And who woke up the other night to make some insomnia snacks for you?” Doyoung asks, gesturing at himself and Kun. To be fair, Kun had already been up and in the process of grabbing a snack from the kitchen (you’d already drained his snack drawer supplies), so he and Doyoung had worked together to satisfy your cravings even though Doyoung was half asleep most of the time, just standing there nodding off beside you while Kun cooked. But he’d made for a very nice shoulder for you to rest your head on, and he’d smelled like clean detergent when you’d buried your nose in the shoulder of his hoodie.

You roll your eyes at them. “Yes, they’re all really good to me. Don’t you all need to practice, or something?”

“Soon,” Kun tells you. “We’re just waiting for the last few members to get here.”

Johnny, WinWin, and Taeyong walk in soon after, and the set of members to practice have all arrived.

You’re not surprised that when your boyfriends leave you to go start the practice that Johnny and Jungwoo both take off their shirts, though you are quite impressed. Jungwoo’s really not usually so flashy with his body, but he’d recently told you that the company wanted to make his image more manly and powerful, like Johnny and Jaehyun. Thus, the long stretch of toned muscles and tight abs that you see reflected in the wall of mirrors.

You love watching the boys dance, seeing them put all of their focus and determination into it. You don’t know how many times you’ve sat in these rooms with them, watching them put in the hours, losing themselves in the music. 

You hope your daughter is a dancer, that whichever of them is the father she inherits part of his talent, whether it’s the dancing or the singing or rapping, the visuals or acting ability or humor. You hope she has star quality like every one of her fathers.

You’re sitting there caressing your belly, daydreaming about her while watching them, listening to Doyoung just start belting out his part of the song, when she moves--a big stretch suddenly, causing you to gasp.

WinWin looks over at you, nearly stumbling over Kun and Johnny who’ve also twisted their heads around to see why you’ve gasped.

“I’m fine.” You wave at them to get back to practice, but the choreography was destroyed by the stumbles, and they’ve been at it for a while by this point, so they call a water break.

WinWin drops down in front of you, folding his limbs just-so so that he can sit close to you and put his hands on your belly, feeling her trying to get comfortable. “She wants to dance too, I think,” he says with a soft smile. “I was dreaming about the baby last night. You were holding her and she was a few months old, laughing, smiling, and she held my finger so tightly I could still feel it when I woke up. And then I was holding her too, dancing Take Off choreography and she was just laughing.” He looks up at you, his eyes aglow.

You put a hand on his head, petting his hair flat where it’s standing up awkwardly on top. “I just want you to know, if you ever decide to dance to your intense choreographies with my newborn daughter in your arms, I will kill you.”

WinWin laughs. “It was just a dream! I would never.”

You look up from his sweet smiling face to see Sungchan standing a few feet away, looking at the two of you, at WinWin’s hands on your belly. “Do you want to feel, Sungchan? She’s moving.”

“Oh, I.... are you sure?”

“Yes.” You laugh. WinWin moves back, opening up space for Sungchan, who hesitantly sits down too. He lets you guide his hand to where you can feel her.

“That’s.... interesting.” Sungchan looks down at his hand on your belly, like he’s puzzled as he feels you baby move just a little bit. “Weird. No offense.”

“None taken. It’s definitely weird.” She moves again, and you groan. “Alright. She’s sitting right on my bladder now. I need to get up.”

WinWin hurries to his feet, reaching down to help you up, which is quite an ordeal because you’ve been sitting there on the floor for a while. You probably shouldn’t have sat on the floor in the first place, and now as you have not one, not two, but a third boyfriend come over to help you gently to your feet, you feel utterly embarrassed.

WinWin, Doyoung, and Taeyong all three end up helping you safely to your feet. Taeyong even tags along with you as you walk from the room in search of the restroom, keeping his hand on your lower back tenderly.

You’re not helpless, you want to remind him that. You just needed a bit of aid getting up off the floor, which even he needs help with sometimes. 

“I’m fine, Taeyong. I promise.” You turn as he tries to follow you through the door of the restroom. “I don’t need help in here.” You curl a hand around the back of his neck and press forward on your toes to kiss him quick, praying no one is around to see and start rumors. “I’ll be right out.”

Taeyong’s still standing there when you emerge a few moments later, and you can tell from the way he’s looking at you that he wants another kiss, wants more than a kiss. But you can’t right then. He needs to get back in to the practice room, not sneak away with you to have a quick romp in a closet at SM Entertainment, which you’re not even sure seems like a good idea with you being this pregnant.

As you’re both walking back into the room, Lucas walks up from the opposite direction, still buried in his phone, and when he looks up and sees you, he grins. It’s a loose, easy smile, and he puts his phone away to come closer, rubbing your belly.

“For luck,” he tells you.

The practice ends hours later by which point you think even you could follow along to the choreography if you weren’t 7 months pregnant. And because you are 7 months pregnant and hungry, you beg them to feed you as you’re all leaving to head home.

Taeyong has to go to the studio and Kun’s going with him to collaborate on a project together, so they’re both out, waving goodbye as they head their own way.

“I’ll go with you to get food,” Lucas tells you. “I’ve been wanting to be alone with you.”

So the others head home, and you and Lucas grab a taxi to a restaurant that Lucas likes.

You’re glad it was Lucas who volunteered to take you to get food. Lately it seems you haven’t spent a lot of time together, which he’s been busy recording and practicing, doing photo shoots for the group and solo shoots also since he’s so handsome. But also several of the guys have been trying to keep you all to themselves. And when you do get the chance to be with Lucas, you just keep thinking about what you heard Mark and Jaehyun talking about, thinking about what you and Lucas talked about that day you went on a picnic date.

So things have been a bit awkward between the two of you over the last month especially.

Dinner is good. The food and Lucas’s company. Both of you laugh as you eat, tucked away in a back corner of the restaurant. But occasionally you notice him going randomly quiet and picking at his food, sinking into his thoughts, and that makes you nervous, so you ask him about it.

Lucas shakes his head. “Just nervous for the comeback.” He shoves a piece of meat into his mouth. “And I’ve just had a little cold lately. Don’t worry, babe.”

So you don’t worry. Several of the guys have been dealing with mild colds lately, and you’ve been downing vitamins and healthy foods, wearing a mask to keep yourself from getting sick too when you’re around the boys. 

As you stand together outside the restaurant, waiting for the taxi to come take you back to the house, Lucas holds your hands in one of his large ones, keeping your fingers warm in the chilly night. And he looks at you and looks at you. You can feel his gaze burning against the side of your face, and when you finally look at him too, Lucas doesn’t look away.

“What?” You ask, unable to hide a smile. “Do I have something on my face or something?”

Lucas shakes his head, his expression so serious on his handsome face. “No, I’m just looking at you.”

He looks like there’s more he’s going to say, but at that moment the taxi pulls up, and you drag Lucas into the warm car’s backseat. 

“How was work?” Mark asks, rubbing his hand soothingly down your back. 

You’re sitting at the kitchen table, freshly showered, just waiting for the dinner you’re making to finish up, and Mark’s just walked down from his room. 

“Work was... work. I’m heavily pregnant, tired.” You drop your head onto his shoulder. “I had a stranger try to touch my belly today when I went to lunch. That was horrible.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” Mark kisses your head. “Want me to do anything to make you feel better?”

You shake your head. “I’m just going to eat dinner, then lay in bed until I fall asleep. Spend some quality alone time before I never get it anymore.” You pat your belly. 

Mark strokes your head, “I can finish making dinner for you. Relax.”

“She wants to eat sometime tonight, Mark. Preferably without being poisoned.” Taeyong strides into the room. He pauses at your chair to drop a kiss to your cheek, then moves on to the stove. “I can finish it. Mark’s right, you need to put your feet up, relax.”

So you do just that while Taeyong putters around the kitchen, cooking, improving upon the meal you’d already begun making, and soon he sits the meal down in front of you, ducks his head to kiss your belly, and tells your baby, “Eat well, little angel.” And then he lifts his head to kiss you. “Enjoy, my love.”

The dinner is quite delicious and filling, so by the time you’ve finished, you’re in the perfect state to just climb up the ridiculous amount of stairs to your bedroom and then sit in bed and watch videos. You put on your comfy clothes to sleep in, and settle back against your pillows, put on a Netflix show you’ve been trying to watch that none of your boyfriends have much interest in.

Probably somewhere in the second episode you’re watching, there’s a soft knock on your door.

“Come in!” You call out.

Lucas pops his head inside, looks around the room, then asks, “Hey, can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.” You scoot aside on your bed, making room for him. “What’s up?”

Lucas has his phone in his hands, twisting it around, tapping his fingers on it. He sighs, a deep heavy sound. “I need to talk to you about something.”

And your heart sinks. 

Your shoulders go tense, and you look up at his face even as you truly want to look anywhere else. “Okay.”

Lucas sits gingerly beside you, perched just on the edge of the bed so he’s in no way crowding you. “I’ve been thinking for a little while, trying to really, really think about stuff, and when you asked me the other night at dinner what was wrong, I just didn’t really know yet, but what I said to you is true. I was recovering from a cold and I’ve been nervous about the comeback, but there’s more too.”

He rubs his hand over the back of his head, looking down at his feet, and you just watch him. Your mouth feels dry, your heart pounds.

“What is it?” Your voice sounds hoarse.

The silence that fills the room them is unbearably loud, static in your ears.

“I think we should break up,” Lucas mumbles. 

“Why?” You ask, your voice quiet.

You wish you could say that you didn’t see this coming or that you saw it coming from a long way off. But honestly you’d been afraid that this was coming, hoping that it wasn’t. Ever since you found out that you were really pregnant, this fear has been lingering in the back of your mind; not this specific fear that Lucas would break up with you, just that one of them would--that he wouldn’t want to be a father, that it would all finally grow to be too much for him.

“It’s not you.” Lucas puts his hand on your leg.

You roll your eyes and look away because you can feel hot tears tingling their way to the surface.

“I swear. It’s not you, it’s not the baby.” He squeezes your leg in a way that’s probably meant to be reassuring. “We already knew that this relationship would be tough, even before any of us knew about her. We knew that keeping this going with all of us just isn’t realistic, that things are going to happen in the future, that feelings might go away.”

You turn quickly to face him, your eyes burning, and when you blink, the tears begin to fall. “Is that why you want to break up? The feelings just went away?” You can’t help feeling angry and upset, so the words come out with a bite behind them.

Lucas shakes his head quickly. “No, no, not really. I still love you, of course I do. Maybe the feelings going away isn’t the right way to say that. The feelings have changed. I love you still. I’ll always love you, but now I think it’s more of a best friends and confidants kind of love. And I met someone, I like her too. I thought we were just supposed to be friends, but we’ve been talking more, and that’s what I meant a few minutes ago, about me thinking a lot recently. Because as she and I have been talking, I started realizing I really like talking to her. She’s funny and smart, and that’s not to say that you aren’t those things, but no offense at all, please, but sometimes it feels like I get a little lost in this relationship, and it’s so much easier to just be with one person, especially when I feel like that person fits me really well.”

You bite at your bottom lip, trying to hold in the tears, but you can’t help sniffling. “I know you’re right. It’s better to end things before you really start anything with someone else. Does she know how you feel?”

Lucas shakes his head. “No, and, uh, please don’t be mad. But it’s your friend Chaerin.”

Instantly you think back, remembering how it’s been your friend Chaerin who was fawning over Lucas that first time that they all met the boys; it was her that spent most of the New Years Eve party talking with him. He’s her type too.

“We exchanged numbers on New Years Eve,” Lucas tells you as if he can see the wheels turning in your head. “She said she just wanted one of our numbers to be able to check in on how you were doing without having to ask you all the time because she wanted an honest opinion. She said she thought you might just tell her what you thought she wanted to hear, which, honestly, you know you would’ve.” Lucas reaches up to wipe away one of your escaped tears. “At first we did only talk about you.”

You so badly want to be angry. He’s your boyfriend. She’s one of your best friends. What business do they have getting to know each other better?

But she doesn’t know about this between you and Lucas. She doesn’t know that he’s totally off limits. How would she know when you’ve kept all of this a secret from all of your friends? And Lucas is right, it’s not like you’ve given him all of the attention that he deserves when you’re in a relationship with him and thirteen others. 

“But we started talking more and joking around, and I like her. I’m sorry.” Lucas ducks his head. “I tried telling myself I’m being ridiculous, but I just....”

Now it’s your turn to put a hand over his, squeezing reassuringly. “Don’t feel bad, Lucas. I should’ve known this was coming. You already told me that you’re not sure about this whole fatherhood thing, and this relationship is complicated, and if you fall in love with someone else, well, I just want you to be happy.”

He looks up, eyes brightening and a smile blooming on his lips. “Really?”

You nod slowly. “Yes, really. Did you think I’d scream and argue, tell you that you can’t break up with me or something?” He laughs and shakes his head no. “But, Lucas, I think you should tell her about us, about the chance that this baby could be yours.” You put a hand on your belly, and his eyes follow that motion.

“Of course. And if she is my daughter, I swear, I’ll still take care of you and her, just like I promised. Even with us not... with us not being together anymore.” He swallows, and his face once more takes on a somber, apologetic expression. “I’m sorry. I hate doing this.”

You hate it too, and it hurts, of course it does. But you’d much rather that Lucas end it now than both of you face possibly months of unhappiness, it ending in a huge blowout fight or something.

“Now I can go beg comfort cuddles from one of the others.” You shrug, then reach for his hand, holding onto it. “I want you to be happy, just the same for any of you. If they’re not happy in this relationship, none of them have to stay, I won’t hold it against anyone. I won’t hold it against you.”

Lucas sits with you for a while more, still trying to comfort you and apologize for ending things, to which each time you tell him to shut up. When he leaves, you wait a few moments and then walk to the door, peeking out to see if any of the others are around.

You don’t see any of them wandering around, but Mark and Taeil are laughing in their room down the hall, so you walk over there.

When you walk in you see Mark lying on his stomach on the floor, watching videos on his phone, while Taeil’s sitting wrapped up in a blanket on his bed, his hood pulled up over his hair, and he smiles when you come right over to him. But it’s when you just lay down and immediately snuggle as close to him as your belly will allow, hiding your face against his chest, that Taeil clears his throat.

“Is something wrong?” He asks, bringing one hand up to pet your hair and the other to rest on your belly.

“Lucas broke up with me,” you tell them.

“What?!” There’s the sound of Mark’s phone hitting the floor, and by the time you roll over to see him, he’s already picked it back up and he’s sitting up. He asks again, “Lucas did what?”

You sigh and put your head back on Taeil’s chest. “He broke up with me. Me and the baby need cuddles.”

Taeil’s already fulfilling that, but Mark wastes no time getting up off the floor and trying to squeeze into Taeil’s bed even though that leaves him right on the edge of it.

“Did he say why?” Taeil keeps his voice soft, his touches tender.

“He just doesn’t feel the same anymore.” You can feel the tears starting to rise and burn again. Mark kisses the back of your neck. “And he’s started getting feelings for someone else. One of my friends. Chaerin.”

Mark bristles. “What a dick move. Do you want me to go talk to him?”

“No, Mark.” You rub your cheek against Taeil’s sweatshirt, leaving a big dark tear stain. “It’s fine, really. I understand, and I want him to be happy, but it still sucks.”

“It does.” Taeil kisses your forehead. “If you want to cry, baby, you can just cry. We won’t judge you.” He cups your cheek, hiding your face more against his chest.

Mark kisses the cap of your shoulder again, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your belly. Their tenderness just breaks something in you, and you let the tears go, sobbing into Taeil’s chest while both he and Mark hold you. After a while you can tell that Taeil’s crying too, and your baby is moving, but even that can’t bring you delight right now.

Yuta finds the three of you just like that when he comes into the room a little over an hour later.

“Oooh, what’s this?” He asks, his tone light and excited as he climbs onto the bed too, careful of you as he straddles Mark and bends over to kiss your belly. And then he sees Taeil (who has stopped crying with you) and sees your face with the tears and the wet sweatshirt under your cheek, and he gets serious immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“Lucas broke up with her.” Taeil explains, stroking his fingers over the back of your head as you hiccup and hide your face against his chest again. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got this.”

Yuta frowns and folds his arms. “What do you mean, you’ve got this? You think I’m just going to go sit over there on my bed and pretend like she’s not laying here heartbroken and crying? No. Mark, you’re not really doing anything, you’ve had your turn, go to your bed. It’s my turn to cuddle her.”

You feel the hitch as Mark opens his mouth to respond, but something else makes him hesitate, and then he’s moving. Yuta quickly fills in the space, whispering to you words that only you and Taeil can hear, sweet comforting words. You don’t even hear Mark leave the room.

But you do hear the argument start about five minutes late downstairs. Yuta swears under his breath and says, “I’ll take care of this.”

And then it’s just you snuggled up to Taeil, his lips on your forehead, a hand on your belly, another in your hair. 

The volume of the argument rises and you hear Yuta’s voice joining in, then Yuta and Mark climbing the stairs, now arguing with each other. They stop outside the door, and Yuta shushes Mark with a harsh, “Do you really fucking think that she wants you to do that, Mark? You think she wants you to pick a fight with Lucas? Lucas? He could crush you with no problem if he wanted to, and you’re going to pick a fight with him? Don’t you think that might upset her even more if you got hurt, dumbass?”

Mark mumbles something that you can’t quite catch.

“Yeah, now shut up, be good, and go to bed.” Yuta demands, and the door of the room opens.

Mark slumps into the room, and he climbs into his bed, pulls the sheets up over himself, and then the room goes quiet. Yuta doesn’t say anything else either, just snuggles right in behind you again, his body warm and protective against your back.

By the morning after the breakup everyone seemed to know about it. All of the boys, including the younger boys, were being careful and almost overly affectionate with you. Lucas was keeping his distance, trying to keep out of sight of you. You couldn’t decide if that was because of his own choice or due to something Mark had said to him the night before.

Either way, it was a week later before you heard from your friend Chaerin. She sent you just a simple to-the-point text: “oh my god I swear I didn’t know about you and Lucas. I wouldn’t have ever flirted with him if I’d known!”

So you know Lucas has talked to her.

“Yeah, it’s fine, really. We broke up, and I just want him to be happy.”

“When he told me I freaked out!” She types, “And then when he said that there’s a chance the baby might be his I wasn’t so sure about this, like I don’t want to totally piss you off and ruin our friendship”

“Really Chae, it’s fine. I don’t know what all he told you about us, but it wasn’t just me and him in the relationship, so I’ve still got my support in this relationship. Like I said, I just want him to be happy, and he seems like he really like you. I hope his history with me and the chance of the baby being his doesn’t scare you off.”

And it takes a while before you get her response: “it totally doesn’t, I really really like him :)”

And later that day you seek Lucas out, needing to actually talk to him for the first time since the breakup. You both agree to keep things normal, friendly, between you. 

“Well,” Lucas smiles at the suggestion. “As normal as we can be when we’ve fucked as many times as we have, when you’re pregnant with a baby that might be mine, and when you’ve pissed on me sexually.” That last comment earns him a punch in the arm, which he good-naturedly pretends actually hurt him.

Things are good then. Normal as they can be, though it’s still strange to have lost an element of your relationship, to still have him so strongly in your life, but his heart’s not yours anymore. Chaerin’s got him now.

So almost two weeks after the breakup, when it comes time for the baby shower hosted by your mother, your friends and a few coworkers are in attendance. Chaerin is there too, awkward at first, but after a while she’s back to normal, especially as you’d not treated her any differently. You can’t be mad at her; you tried the anger thing but it just didn’t work. You wanted Lucas to be happy and her to be happy too, and as long as you’d known Lucas he’d been a man of his word, so you trusted that if your daughter shares his DNA, he’ll act as her father should.

You celebrate the shower as if you’re a single mother, and somehow your mother goes along with that. Neither her, nor Chaerin, nor your other friend who knows that at least two of the guys are potentially the father, lets on to any of the other attendees that they know who the father is.

Chaerin even comes with you to take all of your gifts back to the house, unbeknownst to anyone else at the house.

So when she walks in, Lucas is sitting on the sofa, laughing with Jeno and Xiaojun. He’s shirtless, his hair an absolute disaster from sleep, and he’s drinking a smoothie which clings to his upper lip as he pulls the glass away. And then he sees you and Chaerin framed in the doorway, and he starts grinning like a fool, an embarrassed fool at that.

“Hi, Chae.”

Your heart sinks a little when you remember that even as adorable as Lucas looks right then, it’s not you who should be admiring him like that. It’s not you that he’s smiling at.

Chae blushes and smiles and sits down the gifts that she carried inside before she walks closer to talk with him. Xiaojun and Jeno both look surprised, glancing between you and Lucas and Chaerin. But you put on your happiest face, and you recruit them to help you carry the gifts upstairs to your room.

“That’s the girl that he broke up with you for?” Jeno asks in a low, incredulous voice as soon as you’re all three inside your room. “She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

You shrug. “Yeah, that’s how they met each other. Listen, it sucks. I’ve said that before, but I just want them to be happy.”

Jeno mumbles something about “bullshit,” and Xiaojun just sighs and walks closer, wrapping his arms around you, his lips brushing your shoulder. “Do you want some help organizing this stuff? You don’t really need to be walking up and down the stairs so much, you know?”

Jeno leaves the room quietly.

“If you want to stay, Dejun.” You look at the piled gifts, mostly just baby clothes and toys and a few other things. Chaerin and your mother had helped you organize them into baskets or bags, so the larger items were still down in Chae’s car, but you figure she and Lucas and maybe Jeno too could help bring those in.

“Of course I want to stay.” Xiaojun sits down in front of the pile of gifts while you groan as you ease down into the rocking chair in the corner of the room. “Or are you tired? If you want to nap, just tell me to fuck off.”

You shake your head as Xiaojun looks up at you with his soft puppy dog eyes. You tell him, “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

“Do you want me to sing to her?” He asks. “I’ve heard that singing to a baby makes them happier, makes them smarter, stuff like that.”

Before you even tell him yes or no, Xiaojun’s already crawling the few feet across the floor to you. He folds his legs and sits right in front of you, one hand caressing your belly, and he leans closer, his lips only inches from your belly as he sings. You don’t know the words to the song but it’s nice, and you think she must be listening because she starts moving, stretching and rolling over.

By this point in your pregnancy, thirty-one weeks along, it’s all starting to feel like a bit of a tight fit. She’s digging into organs, pushing her little hands and feet against the swell of your belly, making your body look like an alien is trying to break out of you. And you sometimes feel like a bit of an alien in your own skin--the stretchmarks, some weird rashes, the aches and pains, trouble sleeping, housing another human life inside of you--it’s all a bit much at times and you miss your body from before.

You worry that you disgust some of your boyfriends because you look like this. A particularly nasty voice in the back of your mind whispers that your pregnancy and how it’s affected your appearance is the reason Lucas broke up with you.

But you know, deep down, that that’s not it. You know that Lucas’s feelings for you just changed and you know that you don’t disgust the others. Jungwoo and Jaehyun have both expressed their delight and pleasure at seeing your body like this. Johnny just a week ago praised your body when he woke you up and ate you out before fucking you fully awake, telling you that you deserve to feel good too, putting in all this work and looking so sexy while doing it.

Xiaojun’s still quietly singing to your belly when the door opens and WinWin peeks his head inside. And then you see Doyoung just behind him, and both of them come inside, closing the door behind them.

“Is that her?” Doyoung asks, gesturing back toward the door, toward the living room downstairs. “That’s your friend?”

Xiaojun glares at Doyoung, pausing his singing, irritated that Doyoung’s bringing up what you’re clearly trying to avoid thinking about. WinWin also knocks his fist into Doyoung’s arm before he comes farther inside your room, sitting on the edge of your bed.

“You’re much prettier,” Doyoung blurts out. “So much prettier, and I talked with her when she was here for the gender reveal party, and you’re a million times smarter and more interesting.”

“Thanks for attempting to flatter me, Doyoung.” You sigh, rubbing a hand over your belly. “But I’m sure those are just pretty words. I’m absolutely enormous and swollen and my belly has all these stretchmarks and stuff, so I doubt that Chaerin is less pretty than me right now. Or ever, really. She’s gorgeous, don’t try to lie about that just to make me feel better.”

WinWin rolls his eyes. “Obviously she’s pretty. Lucas is a narcissist, visual-obsessed guy, so he’s not going to want to be with someone who’s not just as good looking as himself. Which is complimentary to you and Chaerin. But also, love, you’re not any less gorgeous now than you were before the pregnancy. Stop putting yourself down.”

Chastised, you look down at your hand on your belly. Xiaojun is still sitting on the floor at your feet, and he ducks his head a little, trying to catch your eye.

When he succeeds, he gives you a little smile. “You’re beautiful, glowing. Why do you think you aren’t?”

“I just told you,” you mumble, “A big round belly like this, the swelling, stretchmarks, among the other unattractive side effects.”

You blush as you remember a few days ago when you could hold in some gas, and let it go to your extreme embarrassment. The younger boys that had been around you at the time had burst into laughter until Jungwoo walloped Jisung on the arm and told him to shut up.

“Besides,” you refuse to look any of them in the eye as you say, “Hardly any of you touch me anymore. I don’t think I’ve had any sexual contact with you, Doyoung, since before we found out I was pregnant. Same with you, WinWin.”

WinWin opens his mouth, then pauses to think about it. He frowns. “It wasn’t intentional. But I think you’re right. If anything it’s a subconscious thing about not wanting to hurt the baby. It’s absolutely not me finding you unattractive. You’re still incredibly sexy.”

“You won’t hurt the baby.” Xiaojun stands up, looking quite assertive. “Have you not heard any of the others talk about it? Do you not know that your dick can’t get to where the baby is? The baby will be fine. At this point, the biggest worry about having sex is triggering her into early labor.”

Just the thought of that happening makes you feel sick. Not that you’ve admitted it to anyone but you’re still scared of what’s going to happen when you actually go into labor.

Doyoung clears his throat. “I heard Jungwoo say he and Hendery both fucked you together, but that was a few months ago.”

“Yeah,” you huff. “And it’s been months since I got anything from you or WinWin. Do you think I haven’t missed having you two? Have you not missed me? What’ve you been up to?”

Doyoung flexes his hand, but doesn’t say anything. WinWin just laughs.

“So you’d rather just fuck your hand than your girlfriend, I get it.” You try to stand up from the rocking chair, but nearly fall back into it. Doyoung steps forward, gripping onto your arm to stabilize you. “Just say you don’t want me. Break up with me like Lucas.”

The look Doyoung gives you then is indescribable--some mix between fury and annoyance and sadness and something else.

And then he’s kissing you, pouring all of those emotions and more into it. You haven’t been kissed like this in months. Kissed with a burning passion that sets you whole body alight, that takes you from one mood all the way to horny in an instant. Horny, hungry, craving more and more and more.

“We can just leave.” Xiaojun’s already backing toward the door, but WinWin sits frozen on your bed.

“Stay, i don’t care.” Doyoung mumbles, barely pulling his mouth away from yours to answer.

You want to stay right there, kissing Doyoung, but you know where this is heading or at least where you want it to head, and with all the blood rushing south, another need arises.

You put a hand to Doyoung’s neck, lingering in the kiss for just a moment longer before you press your hand gently to his shoulder. Your lips feel absolutely gross from a mess of lip gloss you’d worn to the baby shower earlier now smeared across your lips, but you tell Doyoung. “I’ll be right back.” And to the other two you point at your bed and tell them, “Stay here too.”

Xiaojun nods and takes a seat on the bed beside WinWin. Doyoung falls back onto it too. All three watch you walk away into your bathroom and close the door behind you.

As soon as the door’s shut, you hear WinWin groan. “I haven’t done this in months. God, I feel like it won’t last long.”

Doyoung snorts an amused laugh. “I’m the same, though.”

You smile to yourself and walk over to the sink, splashing water on your face, wiping at the tackiness of the lipgloss.

You take your time in there, peeing, freshening yourself up just a bit, and when you feel nice and all good about yourself, that’s when you open the door and step back out into your bedroom.

All three of them are still seated on your bed in a row of shirtless, awe-faced men.

Doyoung’s rubbing his lips together, and when his eyes drink in the sight of you framed in the bathroom doorway, he licks his lips.

WinWin’s mouth forms a round O.

Xiaojun just bunches his hands up at the his knees. “You look really, really fucking good.” He can’t take his eyes off of you, his face tinged a bit with the honestly of his statement.

You’re wearing only a bathrobe and panties. The robe hangs open around your belly, covering just your breasts. Your hair is loose around your face, and as you step into the room, you feel the confidence inside you swell. The way they’re all three looking at you is the same as they’ve always looked at you, which makes you feel so good now when you’ve gained the weight and have all of your new body bared to them like this.

“I can taste your lipgloss, darling.” Doyoung rubs his lips together again, unable to look away from you. “So sweet, makes me just want to taste you.” His gaze drops down to your belly, to the peek of your panties just underneath. “Can I?”

WinWin makes a short noise as you walk towards them, and when you tear your gaze away from Doyoung’s hungry expression to look at WinWin, he’s palming himself through his pants. Xiaojun’s still just clutching at his knees, looking like he’s really trying to hold himself in check before he breaks and fucks you.

You love it, and absolutely need to feel it.

Doyoung pushes off the bed, falling to his knees smoothly in front of you. His fingers tuck inside the band of your panties, lips brushing your belly, and then he drags the panties down your thighs, following the trail with his lips. His fingers caress the back of your calves as you step out of the panties, and then Doyoung tips his head back to look up at you, his eyes dark and lustful, as he tells you, “Sit on the bed.”

You step around him, sitting on the bed in between Xiaojun and WinWin.

“Darling.” Doyoung moans, kneeling between your knees, putting his hands on your knees to spread them farther apart. “You want me to eat you out, sweetheart?”

You slide a hand over each of your other boyfriends’ thighs, nodding down at Doyoung, already sucking in a sharp breath as he kisses and nips lightly up nearer to your pussy. “Doyoung, please,” you sigh, and you slump sideways against Xiaojun who drapes his arms protectively around you. You let out an unrestrained moan when you feel the wet heat of Doyoung’s mouth on you, licking against your pussy, getting you wetter than you already are.

“So noisy,” WinWin tuts, and then his fingers are touching your lips, tracing the outline of your mouth, and then his fingertips are on your tongue and you instinctively latch onto them, sucking and pushing to take more of his fingers deeper inside your mouth. “Oh, fuck,” WinWin moans, spreading his fingers slightly. “You want something in your mouth too, princess, while Doyoung’s taking care of you?”

Doyoung moans softly, his lips around your clit, and a finger entering you.

You squirm, moaning, trying to nod your affirmative desire to have what WinWin’s talking about. You miss blowing your boyfriends, having sex with multiple partners. This foursome is exactly what you’ve been needing for months now.

Xiaojun’s hands move from where they’d been just casually resting, and he now touches your breasts, the robe fallen apart and just barely hanging on your shoulders. Your tits weigh in his hands, and he plays with them while Doyoung continues to eat your pussy, and WinWin draws his fingers from your mouth to instead cover your lips with his.

WinWin’s hand rests on your belly, rubbing slowly over the top curve of it. It feels so good combined with everything else. And then Doyoung pulls his mouth away from your clit, instead dropping a tender kiss to your belly, his fingers still pressing inside you.

“You taste so sweet,” he moans, and then he ducks his head again, his tongue dancing around where his fingers enter your pussy, catching the wetness that gushes out around his fingers.

You pant and moan, sunken into Xiaojun’s side. His teeth nip at the curve of your shoulder, fingers still pinching and pulling at your nipples, tightening that twist in your belly. WinWin does his best to keep your loud sounds quiet, kissing you or giving you his fingers to suck on.

When you feel Doyoung’s hand bumping rhythmically against your foot as you also begin to feel him humming in pleasure against you, you realize what’s happening.

“Just fuck me, Doyoung.” You sit up, trying to get a clear look at him, but your belly makes that a little more difficult. “Stop touching yourself, I’m ready for you.” His head appears, and Doyoung licks at his glossy pink lips, drawing his fingers from your pussy and slipping them between his lips, his tongue moving explicitly around them.

Xiaojun swears softly, his hands leaving your tits to grope his cock through his shorts. 

Doyoung stands, reaching for you again, though this time he’s urging you to move. “On your hands and knees, darling,” he instructs, his hand caressing your thigh, steadying you as you turn over. “This feel alright?”

You feel a little strange like this with the heavy weight of your pregnant belly hanging below you in this position, but good about this. Especially good when Doyoung presses his spit-slicked fingers inside you once again, his thumb now working circles on your clit, just getting you a little more stretched for him.

“Fuck, Doyoung.” You whine, dropping your forehead down onto the sheets. “Stop playing around with me. I’m pregnant and horny and just want you inside me, can’t you give me that?”

He laughs and his hands disappear from your body for an instant in which you hear the sound of clothes falling lightly to the floor. Then the heat of his body is back, right behind you, he rests a hand on your hip, his dick is right there and if you just pushed your hips back you would feel the satisfaction of having him fill you, but Doyoung doesn’t give you the chance to take that role.

He slides right into you with a low moan.

Right beside you, WinWin moans too.

One sideways glance reveals he’s not even touching himself. Just the sight of Doyoung sinking into you, the way you take him so easily, it’s enough to have WinWin aroused to the point that he makes such a pretty sound when he’s so rarely been vocal during sex with you.

Doyoung keeps up a steady pace that has you panting, your pussy fluttering with an approaching orgasm. You don’t expect to last long, and you don’t expect any of these three to last long either. You just hope you have it in you to give all three of them a good time.

And then Xiaojun kneels right in front of your face, the bulge in his pants almost level with your lips already.

“Please, baby, I want to feel your lips.” He touches your hair, pushing it back from your face, while his other hand messes with the fastening of his pants. 

You nod, pushing up on your elbows, and Xiaojun shuffles forward on his knees so that when he does unfasten his pants, when his dick pops free of the confines, it swings up to bounce off your lips much to your surprise.

Xiaojun starts to apologize, but you’re already moving, taking him into your mouth without the use of your hands, just suckling at the tip.

It takes you a moment, while you sit there with your eyes closed, wrapped up in the rocking motion of your body while Doyoung thrusts into you and you take more of Xiaojun down your throat, to realize that the hand on your head, the one pushing you ever so slightly farther down on Xiaojun’s cock, is WinWin’s hand. Both of Xiaojun’s are otherwise occupied: one curled on the back of your neck, the other at the base of his erection.

Not wanting WinWin to feel left out, you lift a hand to help him, but he backs away. At the muffled, choked whine that you let out, WinWin chuckles and explains, “No, baby, not yet.”

So you let him push your head down to choke on Xiaojun, alternating between choking on Xiaojun and rocking back on Doyoung.

The swaying and rocking, the knocking of Doyoung inside you. It doesn’t surprise you when you feel a different movement inside you, a stirring of the little life in your belly. Yeah, you wish she would stay asleep while you’re in the middle of having sex, but you’re not surprised. You wouldn’t be able to sleep through all of this either.

You pull off of Xiaojun to gasp and loudly moan when Doyoung changes positions, mounting the bed so that he’s fucking into you at a different angle, now driving his cock right against your G-spot. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck!” You cry out, pressing your face against Xiaojun’s thigh. “Doyoung, oh--!”

The orgasm brought on by that direct G-spot stimulation is extreme. You don’t realize just how extreme until you can feel it leaking down your thighs. Whether you’re just squirting or pissing you’re not sure, but Doyoung doesn’t seem to mind either way, still fucking you through it, now just chasing his own high, his breathy desperate moans starting to make themselves known. 

You don’t quite have it in you to really blow Xiaojun, so instead you wrap your fingers around him, and jerk him off. His eyes roll back when you carefully drool on his tip, spreading the saliva around with your tongue before bringing your hand up to meet your lips, just sucking lightly at the tip, getting him nice and wet.

When Doyoung suddenly pulls out of you, you try to turn to look at him, but Xiaojun knots his fingers in your hair, pulling your mouth down on him, his hips pushing up, driving his cock to trigger your gag reflex.

And you’re actually pretty disappointed when you don’t get to see Doyoung’s face as he cums. You just hear his moans and feel the hot stripes of his cum between your legs, against your thighs, some getting on your belly. You can feel it dripping down the mound of your belly, down your thighs, soaking against your pussy.

Doyoung presses his cock back inside you, thrusting shallowly a few times until your legs quiver and he can feel a new wetness leaking out of you.

“Pretty. So fucking pretty, darling.” Doyoung compliments as he steps back. You hear his feet touch the floor, and then it’s just his thumb you feel, slick between your legs from the mess of his cum and the wetness of whatever’s come out of you. “And even prettier sucking Xiaojun like that.”

Xiaojun says something in Cantonese, just mumbles it under his breath, rocking his hips against your face.

He’s so close, you know it won’t take much longer.

And then Doyoung’s thumb wanders higher, and he draws it in a circle over your second entrance, applying just the slightest pressure, not necessarily like he’s trying to fit his finger inside your tight ass, just enough that you can feel the pleasurable anticipation of what it would feel like.

You moan around Xiaojun.

Whether Xiaojun meant to cum just from you blowing him, you don’t know. Maybe he intended to just have you keep him hard while he and WinWin waited for Doyoung to finish, either way, it doesn’t matter.

Xiaojun cums on your tongue, halfway out of your mouth, coating your tongue and your lips. You close your lips around his tip, sucking gently, not trying to miss a drop of what he’s giving you.

Doyoung moves away, out of your awareness, but WinWin kneels on the edge of the bed in his place.

Xiaojun grunts when your mouth gets to be too much, his hands press at your shoulders, and you lift up, trying to sit up on your knees. Xiaojun doesn’t let you get far before he’s got a hand on the back of your neck, pulling you in for a kiss and a murmured, “You’re amazing.”

A different pair of hands slide around you; one glides over the small of your back, and the other hand caresses your belly. You shiver, but don’t break the kiss with Xiaojun, not until WinWin reaches up and turns your face to the side with a gentle press of his fingertips to the side of your jaw.

“Me too. Don’t forget about me.” He whines with a tone that sounds like jealousy, and judging by the way he kisses you now, it was jealousy. His body presses right up behind yours, his erection fitting right against your ass, his arms are wrapped around you, hands caressing your belly, your head twisted around to kiss him.

You know you’ve still got Xiaojun’s cum on your chin and around your lips, still have Doyoung’s cum leaking from your pussy, but neither of those things seem to really bother WinWin. Even when his lips come in contact with the stickiness of Xiaojun’s semen, he just kisses you harder, kissing you clean.

He grinds forward, and you press back on him.

His name is a sigh off your lips, “Sicheng.”

He moans, passing his hands over your belly, and then moving back. “Lay down for me, sweetheart.”

You sink down onto your back, rubbing your hands over your belly as you look up at WinWin. Xiaojun slides closer to you, carefully brushing some of your hair back from your face, and then he leans in to kiss you softly.

“Baby, you okay?” Xiaojun asks. You nod without a word, relaxing as WinWin fills the space between your legs again, his thumbs stroking your thighs. 

“I’m so good, Junnie.” You moan, trying to lift your hips to WinWin’s touch. “You all are making me feel so good.” On the last word, WinWin spreads your thighs more, lifts your knees up toward your belly as much as he can, and he thrusts smoothly into you. 

Xiaojun presses his mouth to yours, but WinWin, in all his gentle jealousy, grinds into you and then strokes his hand up over the mound of your belly, to your sensitive breasts, and then easily shoves Xiaojun’s head away. Xiaojun rolls away with a groan, disappearing from the bed entirely.

“Look at me,” WinWin tells you, his voice soft but commanding. 

You do look at him, biting your bottom lip as your body flushes with heat. Your daughter rolls in your belly. You bring your hands to your tits, massaging them as WinWin thrusts into you, a hand still keeping one of your legs lifted, the other is on your belly right near where she just kicked.

“So weird...” WinWin murmurs, still touching your belly. She makes another move, pressing back against your hand. “Feeling her here inside you while we’re having sex.”

“Bit uncomfortable, isn’t it. Awkward.” You laugh a little. “But it’s okay. She doesn’t know what’s happening, it won’t hurt her. It’s just us, Sicheng. And I really, really, really want to make this moment amazing because in a few weeks she’ll be born and who knows how long it’ll be after that before we can have this again.”

“Mm, that’s true.” He ducks his head to place a gentle kiss on your belly. “Guess I’d better savor this. Savor you.”

And then he’s moving again--smooth, deep, slow thrusts, his body dancing with yours. You hold onto him, nails digging into his shoulders, fingertips dragging up his neck, holding his face to yours, kissing him as your bodies move together, the buzz building up under your skin, WinWin starting to make the adorable breathy noises, soft moans just for you.

He cums with a long moan, his mouth leaving yours, dropping down to kiss your throat, moaning “I love you,” still kissing you and moaning and thrusting steadily until you dig your fingers into his hair, holding on as you cum for him too.

WinWin’s not always one for cuddling. Usually he has to be bullied into it when it’s one of the boys trying to curl up with him. You’ve even had to beg him and just lay on top of him in the past. So now when he moves off to the side, then comes right back to rest his hand on your belly, you’re somewhat surprised. 

She’s still quite active, like she’s bouncing around in there on a trampoline, so you can’t just lie there for much longer. When you get up to pee you find where Doyoung snuck off to, showering with his back to you, but he finishes up as you’re finishing up, so you both redress and head downstairs again.

The rest of the presents from the shower had been brought inside, and if Chaerin and Lucas were still in the house, they weren’t down there anymore. You sink down on the sofa with Doyoung, kick your feet up, and when Taeyong appears from the kitchen a few moments later with a snack, he sits down right beside you (and you use your belly as a perfect built-in snack table).

You were thirty-five weeks along when it happened.

Over the last week you’ve been sleeping fitfully, unable to get comfortable. You took your chances to sleep when you got them: napping when you got home from work, napping on your lunch break, falling asleep with your head on Hendery’s shoulder as you watched a movie with him.

You were just constantly tired, ready to get this baby out of you, to have your body back to being yours alone, to get to meet her after so long.

Lately your dreams had been a mix of sweet dreams and nightmares. The nightmares often involved labor, complications, terrible things that left you in a panic when you woke, and if you were sleeping alone at the time, then you had to calm yourself down, but a few of your boyfriends had seen you in that state, and it terrified them just as much as it did you.

The sweet dreams were a relief. They also sometimes involved the birth, but it was always easy and in the way that dreams are, it would skip through it so she was there in your arms within moments, a healthy robust baby cooing and smiling up at you. She looked different in every dream, always having a prominent feature that would identify one of her potential fathers.

There was one particularly jarring dream that was somewhere between dream and nightmare, in which you actually gave birth to twins. You’d woken scared, your hands already flying to your belly. Taeil jolted awake beside you, feeling your sudden movement, but you’d soothed your own mind, telling yourself the doctor would definitely have noticed a second baby by now, and you’ve only felt one baby kicking. It was just a dream.

Your mother’s told you that these dreams are just anxiety related to motherhood. She had them too when she was pregnant.

So with only a few weeks left in the pregnancy, you were napping and dreaming and anxious about the reality of giving birth soon, and anxious too about the aftermath of raising your daughter.

On this particular day, you were dozing on the sofa in the living room, drifting in and out of dreams.

When you really wake up, you just stay still for a few moments, keeping your eyes closed. And after a few seconds you’re glad that you did.

You realize there’s a pair of hands on your belly, gently touching, and a soft voice murmurs to your daughter. It takes you a bit to understand who is talking and why you’re not understanding what he’s saying.

Ten.

You listen for a couple minutes, your insides feeling gooey soft and totally loved up at how tender his voice sounds. You open your eyes then, and Ten’s kneeling on the floor, speaking in Thai to your belly, to your daughter.

“What are you saying?” You ask him, reaching to touch his hair.

Ten jumps. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“You didn’t.” You yawn and stretch your arms up over your head. 

Ten watches you quietly and then he stands up. “I was just talking to her. Telling her how much she’ll be loved once she’s out here. Talking names with her.”

“Oh? Did she answer?” You sit up, making room for Ten beside you, and he sits down, letting you tuck yourself against his side. “Because I’ve been thinking of names for months now and I can’t decide. I don’t even know what kind of name I should give her. Korean, Chinese, Japanese. Thai?”

Ten makes a soft noise. “I’ve thought of a few names. Thai names.”

“Can I hear them?”

“Anong. Duangkamol. Lamai. Chanthira.” Ten recites quickly, obviously having had these same names on his mind for a while now to be able to list them for you so quickly. “I maybe have told my mom about this whole situation, that I have a girl in my life who might be pregnant with my baby, and she was excited, maybe over-excited honestly, and sent me a long list of baby names and meanings and asked me all kinds of questions about you. I had to calm her down and remind her that the baby might not even be mine.”

“But she might be yours.” You sigh heavily. “I wish I knew which of you was her biological father. It would make everything so much easier. How are we even going to find out, just wait until she’s older and actually looks like one of you? Or just make each of you get a paternity test, and have the hospital staff then think I’m an absolute slut?”

“You are, but you’re our absolute slut,” Ten teases, giving you a kiss on the top of your head when you glare at him. “And we can probably just get a few of us tested as the father first. Probably Jaehyun, to get his anxiety over if he’s the daddy of his dreams.”

You laugh. “I really hope he doesn’t get pissed if he’s not. I know he keeps saying he won’t be, but....” You rub your belly, then look back up at Ten’s face. “Well, he’s jealous, we all know that about him.”

Ten nods. “He is, but he does love you a helluva lot. Jaehyun reentered this relationship just like all the rest of us, knowing what we were getting into. I think he’s probably a man of his word. If he says he’ll stick by your side even if she’s not biologically his, Jaehyun means it.”

“I hope so.” You sit up, stretch your arms over your head, groaning as your muscles stretch, and then you let out a little “oof” as you feel something like a jab in your belly.

Ten smiles and tries to flick his hair out of his face, but ends up shaking his glasses askew. 

You reach forward to adjust them for him. “You’re adorable.” 

The moment is broken when the door of the house bursts open. Taeyong comes inside, aiming for the stairs, but when he spots you and Ten on the sofa, he detours toward you. He flops down, dropping his head onto Ten’s shoulder. Ten immediately puts a soothing hand on Taeyong’s hair, stroking and lightly scratching his fingers there. 

Taeyong sighs and closes his eyes, and pouts as he says, “I’m so annoyed.”

“Still no good news on the solo?” You ask.

He nods. Ten makes sympathetic noises.

Over the last few weeks, Taeyong had been putting in extra hours in the studio, working on finalizing songs that he wanted to be good enough for his first solo album, something he knows the fans want. Today was a meeting with the powers that be in SM, those that would decide if the songs Taeyong had compiled would be good enough to make an album.

“They said that they were almost good enough.” He sighs again. “I’ve shown several of those songs to fans, to you guys, to my producers I’ve worked on them with. Fans are looking forward to the full-length and studio versions of these songs. I just want to release it.”

“Soon, Yongie.” Ten kisses Taeyong’s forehead. “Why don’t you go take a bath, relax. I have a present for you that I think will help. How’s that sound?”

Taeyong pulls his head back to look at Ten, his gaze suspicious.

“I don’t think I want to know.” You shake your head and stand up, putting a hand under your belly. “I think I’m going to see who wants to go with me to buy some more things for the baby. Taeil distracted me when we went shopping yesterday.”

“More?” Taeyong starts to ask, but as you walk toward the stairs, a strange feeling squeezes your belly, a pain that takes your breath away. 

Ten and Taeyong are there in an instant, hands on you, panicked voices calling your name, asking what’s wrong, are you okay? Just as you’ve straightened up and caught your breath to answer them, it happens again, the tight squeeze of your abdomen. 

“What do we do?” Ten asks Taeyong, one hand on your back, the other on your arm. Taeyong, looking equally panicked, shakes his head and glances upstairs. “Should we take her to the hospital? Call the doctor? Her mom?”

“No, no stop.” You gasp. “I’m fine. I’m not hurt, just surprised and uncomfortable. I’m-- I’m sure I’m fine. I just need to lie down.”

The sound of the boys’ surprise had called the attention of several of the others, and now Jaehyun nearly tumbles down the stairs to your side, Yuta, Xiaojun, and Lucas right behind him. 

“I just need to lie down. I’m not in labor, relax, all of you.” You put a hand on Yuta’s shoulder. 

“You need to quit your fucking job,” Jaehyun grumbles. “You’re thirty-what weeks pregnant, you don’t need to stress yourself out at work, exhaust yourself all day. It’s not worth it. Besides that, you’ve got us, what do you need to work for?”

You’ve had this discussion with them before. You don’t want to be entirely dependent on them, that’s why you work. But as a few of the others begin to agree with Jaehyun, you think that they may have a point for the time being. You’re heavily pregnant, there’s no reason that you need that unnecessary stress plus after you have the baby then you can take the time you need to recover and take care of her.

They all continue fussing over you as Lucas supports you up the stairs to your bedroom as the strongest man home at the moment. Your heart wallows in your chest as you feel the heat of his big hands; you’re still mourning the loss of that aspect of your relationship, but Lucas truly does seem immensely happy with Chaerin. He leaves you sitting on the edge of the bed, but Yuta and Jaehyun both linger.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Yuta asks as he helps you rearrange yourself on the bed, resting back among the pillows at your headboard. 

You nod. “It’s just my body practicing. All good. Promise.” Your doctor’s told you about all of this, so you understand what’s happening. 

Both Jaehyun and Yuta look at you like they don’t entirely believe you. They coddle you, tucking you in, asking if there’s anything they can get you, asking if it still hurts, if you’re sure you’re okay. Jaehyun seems torn, and when Yuta turns to him looking irritated and says, “Just go, Jaehyun. She’s fine. And if she’s not, we’ll call you.”

“He has a schedule,” Yuta explains to you as Jaehyun leaves the room. “He’s supposed to be filming this evening. Do you want me to stay with you?”

“As long as you don’t ask me if I’m sure I’m fine anymore.” You put your hands on your belly. It feels fine now. “And I’ll definitely let you stay if you promise to rub my feet. They’re sore.”

Yuta smiles even as he teasingly rolls his eyes. “Do you think I love you or something? Rubbing your feet? What next?” But he sits at the end of your bed and gets right to work on massaging the tiredness out of your feet, which feels absolutely amazing. 

You keep touching your belly, and after a bit Yuta sighs and rests your feet back down on the bed. “Are you sure...?” He trails off not wanting to tack on the “you’re fine” element of that question. 

“I am.” You nod. “Seriously, Yuta. This happens, it’s just the body practicing for labor. I’m fine, please stop asking.” You hold out your hand, and Yuta slides up the bed and he lies down beside you, putting his hand on your belly too. “She knows that she’s got to stay in there for a few more weeks, then she can meet you all.”

“We’re all ready and excited to meet her.” Yuta smiles. “Little princess is going to keep all of us wrapped around her finger, but she should definitely wait a little longer. I had a dream about her a few nights ago; just me holding her, and she looked just like you, so beautiful and sweet, just asleep with her fingers wrapped around mine, and when I looked up from her, there you were.” He flicks his gaze between your lips and your eyes, his warm brown gaze softens as he drinks you in. 

“I don’t want her to look like me.” You settle on your side, and brush your fingers over Yuta’s cheek. “I want her to look like one of you, all of you. You’re all so attractive.”

Yuta turns his head to the side to kiss your hand. “And you think you’re not attractive, my love? You snagged fourteen guys at once, how do you think you managed that?”

“My wits and charms.” 

“Definitely a huge contributing factor.” Yuta laughs. “You know we love you, right? You’re not just a pretty face, you’re so much more, and we love everything about you.”

You hide your face in the pillow. “Stop, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Cute.” Yuta kisses whatever parts of your face he can get his lips on. “I love you, I love you, I lo--”

You turn your head and put your hands on Yuta’s cheeks, cutting off his professions of love as you drag his mouth against yours. 

“Mom, seriously, there’s no room!” You insist over the phone, rolling your eyes to Hendery’s amusement. 

“How is there no room?” You mother argues back. “There are how many boys living in that house, and you don’t think you can squeeze your mother in? Honey, you could go into labor any day now. I just want to be there to help you when it does. You’ve said yourself that due to his busy schedule, Johnny might not even be home when you go into labor. You can’t guarantee that any of them will be.”

And that is something that you have seriously been considering over these last few weeks, especially since that day when you felt the Braxton Hicks contractions. 

Now, with your due date just days away, with your weekly appointment having just revealed that your cervix is showing signs of the end of your pregnancy, your mother is insisting that she come stay at the house with you.

“I promise you, if I go into labor while I am home alone, you will be the first person I call.” You shift in your seat, trying to get comfortable which has become almost impossible over these last couple weeks. “Listen, Mom, I’ve gotta go, she is pressing right against my bladder.”

It’s not true, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned in this third trimester of your pregnancy it’s that excusing yourself to the bathroom because of the baby is a very useful excuse to exit conversations you’d rather not be a part of. You sit your phone down on the table and look over at Hendery again. 

“She’s too much,” you sigh. “You’re all taking good care of me, being observant, helpful. I don’t know what she thinks will be any different if she’s here.” You shift in your seat again, hoping the change in position would get rid of the cramping feeling. Fucking false labor pains.

Something must show on your face because Hendery’s face goes still and pale. “Are you alright?”

You nod wordlessly, settling back in your seat, and you’re grateful when Lucas walks through the doorway into the kitchen, distracting Hendery. They start talking and you stand up to walk around, hoping that it’ll ease this feeling.

But hours later it still hasn’t stopped. And when you go to the bathroom and find that you’ve lost your mucus plug, you sit there for a moment, overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety and fear that this is happening. Maybe not right now, but soon. 

You hold on to the firm belief that this is just false labor, even as you’re sitting on the sofa a little after one in the morning, breathing through a contraction, and that’s when Doyoung comes home, talking on his phone and laughing about something. But then he sees you clutching onto a throw pillow, trying to control your breathing.

“Shit, I’ve gotta go.” Doyoung drops his phone on the sofa on his way to you. “Baby, baby, is this it?”

“No.” You shake your head. “No, it’s not. Just false labor pains.”

“Okay.” Doyoung says, but then he sits down beside you, turns on the TV and sits there watching it, but you notice him keep looking at you, and when you inhale sharply at the beginning of a new contraction, Doyoung fully turns his attention away from the TV and stares at you. And the next time this happens he stares at you.

After the fifth contraction hits, Doyoung shakes his head and stands up. “You’re in labor. Your contractions are getting closer together, lasting longer. Do you really want to have your daughter right here on this sofa, or should we get you to the hospital?”

“Doyoung---”

He shakes his head. “No, you at least need a doctor just to make sure that you’re not in labor, if you’re so much in denial.” And then he’s leaving you, running up the stairs, and by the time he comes back down, you’ve decided that he’s definitely right. The contractions are stronger, closer together. 

Doyoung returns with Johnny in tow and a bag that you’d packed a few days ago while you were rushing around the house, cleaning and organizing and baby-proofing things. Jaehyun’s right behind them, pulling a jacket on, brushing his fingers through his hair. You can hear the rapid patter of more feet coming down the stairs. 

“Do you all think you’re coming, or something?” You groan as you push to your feet. “You can’t all come, that would be so suspicious and strange for anyone who sees you all.”

“I don’t care.” Mark steps forward. “She could be my daughter, and I’ll be damned if I’m not at least there at the hospital when she’s born.”

The volume in the room increases as the others agree, but before you can answer, another contraction hits, and you reach for your nearest boyfriend. Yuta grunts as you squeeze his arm and let out a stream of curses.

“To the hospital, come on, babe.” Johnny reaches for you, gently curling his arm around your shoulders, steering you away from Yuta, to the door of the house. “We’re going, and we’ll call your mom on the way there. The rest’ll follow in a bit.”

But there’s no arguing as Jaehyun climbs into the backseat, Mark right beside him, and when Yuta and Kun both scramble to fill the last empty seat you just groan and complain of feeling claustrophobic with the three boyfriends you’ve already got in the car, so both of them fall back, letting the car door close.

You look out the window as Johnny pulls away from the house, at the gathering of your boyfriends on the front step, watching you leave for the hospital to give birth to a baby fathered by one of them. 

You don’t get to see the utter panic of the boys in the waiting room. All fourteen of them filling the room. You can only imagine the odd looks they’re getting from the other people waiting out there, probably wondering why there are so many young men, all talking to each other, as if they know each other so well. You’re sure your father is sitting out there, surprised that, firstly, you don’t have Johnny (who he and your mother still believe to be the father) in the delivery room with you, and secondly, that all of the boys are there except for the Dreamies.

Not that you really think about any of that at the time, you’re too focused on, you know, going through labor with your mother at your side. 

So you don’t get to see when Taeyong and Jaehyun flag down a nurse to ask her about paternity tests, nor do you get to see her face when they tell her, no, it’s not just the two of them that are potentially the father. 

You don’t hear the panicked phone calls from managers when they realize that none of your boyfriends are at the house, or the ensuing arguments that break out when the managers say that they need to get home, shower, come in for recording or meetings or whatever’s on the schedule for them that day. 

They camp out around the waiting room for hours and hours, waiting for news, for anything.

And after a solid nine hours of waiting, your mother comes out into the waiting room, beaming and teary-eyed.

“She’s here. Healthy and chubby. Mei. Her name is Mei.” Your mother tells the anxious men before her.

They don’t all come in at once, scared of overwhelming you and the baby.

The first visitors into the room are your mother and father, Johnny, Jaehyun, Taeyong, and Kun. If you feel like hell, they look like it too. Taeyong looks raggedly tired. Jaehyun’s hair is a mess like he’s been raking his fingers through it. Johnny must have just been woken up, judging by the bleary look in his eyes. Kun just smiles warmly and sweetly as he steps inside the room. 

“Oh, God. She’s so little.” Jaehyun is the first at your side, his gaze soft, his hand hesitant as he reaches for her. His hand hovers above her little back, scared of touching her. Instead he looks at you, and asks, “How are you feeling?”

You nod. “I’m tired. But I’ve never been happier.”

You can barely take your eyes off of her. She’s tiny and pink and beautiful, her little warm body cradled against your chest. You can’t believe she’s really here, right here, and you’ve only just stopped crying. You’re tired and overjoyed and feeling so many things.

“I named her Mei.” You look up at the four of them. “Sorry I didn’t wait for any of you to decide. But look at her.” She draws your attention like you’re magnetized, bringing your gaze back to her.

“I think she looks kinda like me,” Kun murmurs as he comes to stand right beside Jaehyun. “Can we hold her?”

“I think she could look like anyone right now.” Taeyong stands quietly at the foot of your bed, staring with his wide, dark eyes at the swaddled baby in your arms. 

Johnny stands just behind him, also staring at you and the baby on your chest. He’s absolutely frozen, even when your mother wraps her arms around him in a hug, though he does robotically hug her back. He just stares as your dad thumps him on the back and congratulates him. 

Both of those occurrences cause Jaehyun to glare in Johnny’s direction. 

“Jae.” You lift a hand to take his, just wanting to ease his jealousy. “Do you want to hold her?”

“Well, wait.” Your mother speaks up. “Shouldn’t the daddy hold Mei first? Johnny?” She looks at the man who she believes to be the father. It’s like all the air goes out of the room. All four of your boyfriends in the room kind of freeze.

The time for the truth has finally come.

“Mom, Dad, I um... Johnny might not be her father. That was just something we told you so you could understand, so you wouldn’t freak out if you knew the truth.” You hold your breath for a moment, considering your next words, but at that moment Mei shifts, making a tiny sound, and once more every eye in the room is on her. 

“Well, then, who...?” Your mother looks around at the four men, then back at you and your daughter. 

You’re still holding Jaehyun’s hand and he squeezes it reassuringly. You say, “Don’t think less of me, please? It could be any one of the fourteen of them. I can’t explain the relationship to you, so please don’t try to make me. Just, I want you to know the truth now. It wasn’t so important before, but now she’s here, and they’re all here, and we can do a test to find out which of them it is.”

You can see the puzzle pieces fitting together in your parents minds. Comments and things from the last few months. 

“Is this why you said that you wouldn’t marry Johnny?” Your father asks.

“What the hell? He proposed to you too?” Jaehyun groans. 

You quickly shut that down. “No. Johnny didn’t propose. My parents just wanted me to marry my baby’s dad. No one other than Mark proposed, don’t worry about that.”

Your mother sits down heavily and puts her face in her hands. Ignoring her, you help Kun to hold Mei for the first time. Jaehyun crowds in close, then Taeyong drifts over. 

“Hi, Mei.” Kun coos at her. “Hi, little beautiful angel.” He kisses her little head, and you smile, watching the way that he’s so tender with her, the way that all four of them look at her with softened eyes. 

Johnny settles on the side of the bed, rubbing a soothing hand over your leg. He asks, “Are you tired?”

You nod. You’re very tired. 

“So sleep. We’ve got this.” Johnny scoops up your hand, brings it to his lips. “We’ll have the others come visit once you wake up again.”

Watching your parents interact with your thirteen boyfriends and Lucas over the next two days is kind of amusing. Your parents don’t know which of them is Mei’s father; you don’t know which of them is Mei’s father; they don’t even know which of themselves is the father. So everyone’s a bit awkward now with your little blob now fully formed and brought into the world, a little angel and bundle of joy. Mei. 

“You need to finish filling out the birth certificate.” The nurse tells you. And you know. You’ve been putting off filling out the name on the certificate. You want to give her her father’s name, but a large part of you wonders if you should just give her your last name.  

“We’re waiting on paternity results,” you tell the woman. 

She glances around the room, which at that moment is occupied by Lucas, Hendery, Ten, and WinWin. You know this nurse has seen all of the boys in here; you don’t know if she recognizes them, but you can feel the judgement radiating off of her. She was also there when a few of the boys got swabbed for the DNA test. 

When they were all done giving their DNA samples, you were told that the results might take around two to five days. And it’s been two days.

Ten’s in the bed with you, showing you picture and video proof that they’d finished baby-proofing the house for you. Hendery’s sitting beside Lucas, and Lucas is holding your daughter. WinWin’s sitting in the seat beside your bed, looking over at Lucas and Hendery and Mei, a far-away look in his eyes like he can’t believe that she’s finally here.

She seems like she could fit in just one of Lucas’s hands. Her whole little body in his ridiculously large hand. 

Lucas has Hendery snap a few pictures of him with her, and you hear him mention Chaerin. Your friend came to visit you already, tagging along with your friends who’ve already had kids. They all stayed for a while, cooing over Mei, giving you advice, but you could tell from the way that Chaerin was looking at your daughter, she was searching for any similarities to Lucas. Which was ridiculous. Even you can admit that your newborn daughter doesn’t look like any of the boys in particular. She looks like a baby.

You remember Lucas telling you one day during your pregnancy how worried he was about the possibility of him being a father, about the fragility of a newborn baby. But now you look over at him, at the way that he’s carefully holding her. He’s holding her properly because he’d spent the first five minutes of his visit asking you and the nurse on how to properly hold her, terrified of doing it wrong and hurting her.

“She’s not going anywhere, you know.” Ten chuckles, nudging his shoulder against yours. “You keep looking over there as if you think she won’t be there anymore.”

“It’s not that.” You shake your head. “I just like to look at her.”

Ten drapes his arm around your shoulders, tucking you into his side, and he kisses the side of your head. “You’re gonna be great at this, you know. This mom thing. Little Mei’s lucky. ”

Deep down you know he’s right, but at the surface of your mind right now are all the anxieties of being a new mom. You keep thinking about taking her home into a house with so many other people, so many loud noises, so many things going on. You think about being alone with her (which certainly hasn’t happened yet) and all the horrible things that you’ve heard about and read about online. You’re not sure you’ll be able to sleep when you do get home. You’ll probably just watch her sleep, keeping an eye on that reassuring rise and fall of her chest, listening for any little sound she might make that means that she’s hungry or messy or anything at all.

“You’ve got this.” Ten tells you now. “You’ve got us too, don’t forget that. You don’t have to do this all alone.”

You do have their help, you know that. That’s why Kun’s there later that day when you and Mei are discharged from the hospital. There’s a baby’s carseat installed in the backseat, and you sit yourself right beside it. 

You don’t have to look up to know that the whole drive to the house, Kun keeps throwing glances at you in the rearview mirror. 

“The kids are excited to meet her.” Kun tells you when you’re nearly home. You know he’s referring to the Dreamies and YangYang and even the new boys Shotaro and Sungchan, who have all been busy the last couple of days, unable to get the chance to come visit you at the hospital. “We told them to be quiet and gentle, to not scare her or anything like that. Haechan used some colorful language and then told us not to talk to them like they’re kids.”

Sure enough, they’re waiting as soon as you walk through the door. 

Kun carries Mei inside in her secure carrier seat. She’s deep asleep, which is lucky. You imagine it would be alarming to suddenly have your entire field of vision filled with half a dozen excited faces crowding in to see you.

“Ohh, she’s so cute,” Jaemin says. “So tiny.”

“She doesn’t look like any of you,” Chenle accuses with a laugh. 

“Well, she is one of theirs.” You retort. “Test results should come in any time now.”

A nervous tremor seems to pass around the room. Johnny laughs to break the awkward silence, “Maybe I should film all of us getting the results for JCC. Episode number whatever: you are the father.” 

Taeyong lets out a high-pitched nervous laugh. “I’m sure that would go over well with fans and our management.”

“Maybe we should wait and check the DNA test results all together,” Mark suggests as he crouches down to look at Mei in her carrier seat. You watch as he reaches a finger in, prodding it at her little palm, and her tiny fingers close around his. Mark lets out a shaky breath. 

“I don’t want to wait.” Lucas says. “I want to know as soon as possible.”

You understand that. And you agree. “I think you should look when you get it. I feel like we always wait and have these big moments together, like the gender reveal and even just when I told you all that I was pregnant. Maybe this time it should be different.” 

Quiet murmurs around the room, agreements. Mark sighs, but doesn’t look away from Mei’s little round face. “Okay, so when we get the results, we can look at it whenever we want. To see if she’s my daughter.” He lets out another shaky breath, as if he’s trying to steady himself, to still wrap his mind around her being here and real.

“I just want to look at her,” Jungwoo admits quietly, sitting down beside Mark and looking in at her. Haechan sits right behind them, peering between their shoulders at her. “Look at her eyelashes, her nose. She looks like a doll.”

She really does look like a little doll. Everyone just looks at Mei, admiring her, adoring her, not removing her from the carrier until she wakes up some time later and immediately starts crying. The sound makes your heart race, nerves of doing this for the first time with no nurse to help you if anything goes wrong, like if she suddenly decides that she won’t latch on (which so far hasn’t been a problem, but everything you read in the last weeks of your pregnancy suddenly rises to the forefront of your mind). 

Some of the boys back away cautiously when you lift her from the carrier, and you laugh. “It’s like you’ve never seen a baby before. Relax,” you tell them and you tell yourself. “Don’t any of you want to hold her?”

Several of your boyfriends have held her when they visited you in the hospital, but not all of them. To your surprise, Jungwoo hadn’t held her yet despite how excited he’d been all throughout your pregnancy. Yuta had held her once, just staring at her in awe, holding her so gently as if she was made of glass, almost holding his breath while she looked back at him.

"What’s her name again?” YangYang asks, sidling up beside you. He wiggles his fingers down at her, then gives her one of his fingers to hold on to. “Can’t we just keep calling her Little Blob?”

“No.” You roll your eyes at him. “Her name is Mei.”

You knew her name the moment you saw her, even before you saw her. In the last few weeks you’ve thought about it a lot, thought about names in different languages, different meanings. And now you know. Mei. It works in Chinese, in Japanese, even kind of in Korean. Beautiful. 

You spend the rest of the day settling Mei in, sleeping when she sleeps, feeding her. Taeyong sits in your room while you use the toilet, a process that you wish you could entirely avoid this soon after birth. You leave him there watching her, holding her, cooing at her. Just as you’re coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a soft robe, you hear Taeyong whispering to her, and see Mei staring up at him, her whole hand tight around his pinky finger, and Taeyong looking at her with pure adoration, like she’s his whole world.

Jaehyun comes in as you’re sitting there with Taeyong, your chin tucked over his shoulder, both of you looking down at her. Jaehyun slides onto your bed, a hand sliding down your arm, over your waist, his other hand reaches around and he ever-so-lightly strokes Mei’s soft cheek.

Instinctively she turns her head toward his fingers, and Jaehyun makes this small indecipherable sound.

You turn your head to the side, just enough that you can see his face. You can see it in his eyes right then, can see just how badly Jaehyun wants her to be his daughter. You can see how much he wants this moment to be just you and him, for her to be in his arms, for the rest of his future to be you and her and him. How he wants sleepless nights trying to rock Mei back to sleep. How he wants to wake up in the night to her little hands and small voice asking him to come scare away the monsters under her bed. How he wants to have random strangers look at the two of them and say how similar they look.

You think she’d be adorable with his dimples.

Taeyong passes her back to you when she starts to get fussy, and when you start to loosen up your robe, Taeyong excuses himself from the room, leaving you and Jaehyun.

Jaehyun tries his best to not stare as you breastfeed. He’s seen your tits a hundred times, but suddenly the sight of them makes him blush, the tips of his ears pink as he looks over at the crib in the corner and the rocking chair, the stuffed animals. Anywhere but at your breasts.

You smile at his embarrassment, and look down at her. 

You like to imagine that you can tell which of them is Mei’s father now that she’s here. That just by looking at her, you can pick out features that point to the boys. Her skin’s pale enough that she could be Jaehyun’s with his lighter skin. Sometimes you look at her little nose and think that it looks like Taeil’s. Her eyes are big, wide, dark and she has beautiful eyelashes which honestly could be several of the boys. But honestly, looking at her, she does look overwhelmingly like one of them, you know she does. You just can’t figure out which of them.

After she falls back asleep some time later, you put her down in her little crib, and you sit down on the edge of the bed and just keep looking at the crib.

Jaehyun pats the bed. “Lay down, babe. You should sleep while you can.”

“I know.” You sink back, then tuck yourself against Jaehyun, glad that you have someone here with you. You feel Jaehyun relaxing with you in his arms, his lips brushing your temple, his nose in your hair. You tilt your head back so you can look Jaehyun in the eye as you ask, “If I fall asleep, will you keep an eye on her?”

“Of course.” Jaehyun glances over toward the crib. “I’ll take care of her and I’ll take care of you, and right now, your priority is taking care of you. Sleep.”

When you wake from your nap, Jaehyun’s sitting in the rocking chair beside the crib, gazing down at Mei in his arms as she holds on to his finger. And it’s not just the three of you. Miso has entered the room too, and he sits on the foot of your bed, staring at Jaehyun and Mei.

Throughout the pregnancy, your cat had shown little to no interest in your belly. Once or twice you’d woken up in your late pregnancy to find him curled up in bed with you, his head on your belly, but that was it. One of those times, your little baby had kicked right where Miso’s head was, and he’d lifted his head looking irritated, and swatted gently back at your belly.

So you’re not quite sure how he’s going to react to her now. It took him so long to warm up to the boys. Even now he only lets a few of them approach him without him fleeing, even less of them can hold him. But when he hops off the bed and walks over to curl up beneath the crib, with his eyes following the movement of Jaehyun gently rocking in the chair, you think maybe this will all be okay.

“How is she?” You sit up, rubbing at your eyes. 

“Perfect.” Jaehyun looks up at you. “She’s just been sleeping.” He strokes her cheek with his thumb, and he sighs as he also touches the shell of her ear. 

There’s a look on his face that you can’t quite decipher, and before you can ask him, the door opens. Doyoung peeks around the door. His eyes run over you in the bed, over Jaehyun in the chair, down to Mei, and then back to you. His fingers are white on the door. 

“I just got an email. The results.” Doyoung wags his phone. “I think some of the others might have them too.”

He comes inside and flops down on the bed beside you. Doyoung’s hair falls in a messy array around his head, and he lets out a nervous noise, reaches for your hand, and lays it on his chest. “My heart is racing. God.”

“Don’t be nervous, Doyoungie.” You drum your fingers on his chest. “What do you want? So few of you have actually told me what you’re hoping for.” You look back at Jaehyun, and he’s looking at you, the light of certainty in his eyes, as if he’s trying to reassure you that he wants his result to be a positive paternity.

“I love you,” Doyoung says quietly, just for you to hear. “It doesn’t matter if she’s mine or not. I’ll love her like my own. Shall we look?” 

You can almost hear Jaehyun holding his breath in the corner, his mind racing as he worries if this is going to be positive. 

Doyoung holds his phone up over his face, unlocks it, and right there is the email. You put your head right beside his, looking up at the little screen. Doyoung reads quicker than you do, and as you hear his shaky exhale, you see the conclusion, reading that Doyoung is not the father.

“Well?” Jaehyun asks from across the room. 

“It’s not me.” Doyoung drops his phone back down onto his chest. “So you still have hope, Jaehyun.”

Over the next few hours, a few more of the boys come find you, each of them with their results, all negative. 

Second was Mark, wandering in just a few minutes after Doyoung. The way his face fell when he saw the negative result made you want to kiss him and promise him you’d give him a baby of his own as soon as you were able. Jungwoo slipped into the room, barely glancing at Jaehyun who still sat over in the corner rocking Mei, and Jungwoo tells you that his result was negative also.

“Which is a good thing, probably. I don’t think I’d be ready for this. Dad Jungwoo? No, Uncle Jungwoo sounds much better to me.” He kisses you on the forehead as if you’re supposed to feel some sense of relief instead of a tightening in your gut as your boyfriends are wheedled away.

Ten finds you later that night as you’re standing in the kitchen grabbing a bite to eat. “I’m going to have to break my mom’s heart when I call her next time,” Ten says as he shows you his email. “I think she really was looking forward to having a granddaughter, but I’m not so sure she’s going to get a biological grandchild from me.” He scuffs his toes across the floor, takes a deep breath, then asks, “Can I talk to you?”

The tightness in your belly winds even tighter. “Yes?”

“I love you,” Ten tells you as he takes your hand. “You’re like my best friend, and we always have so much fun together, and I feel like I can talk to you about everything and anything, which is why I don’t think it’ll be too much for me to tell you that I think it’s time for me to exit this relationship. I’ve had fun, and I love getting off with you. But I think I’d be happier in a different relationship.”

You’re not terribly surprised. Ever since the start of the pregnancy, probably even before then, Ten and you had been withdrawing from each other in terms of the sexual aspect of this relationship. He was more often entangling himself with your other boyfriends than with you, so this doesn’t feel so much like a break up, rather it’s like it just fizzled out. 

“I’m not ruling out the possibility of still having sex with you in the future, though.” Ten makes sure to wink as he says it, nudging you with his arm. 

Xiaojun, Hendery, Taeil. All three are negative. Xiaojun looks upset at first, honestly disappointed. Hendery lets out a sigh of relief before apologizing for feeling so relieved. Taeil just kind of shuts down upon seeing that it’s not him, and when you try to talk to him about it, he says something that just really makes you sad.

“It’s fine,” he sighs. “I wasn’t really expecting it to be me anyway. I wouldn’t be that lucky.” 

Even with half of the boys marked off the list of fathers, that knot in your belly is still tight. 

The next day, only Lucas gets his emailed result. You’re sitting at the kitchen table with Jaemin and YangYang and still-glum Taeil. Lucas’s face goes pale as he looks over at you and your daughter, his grip white-knuckled on his phone as he checks out the email that has the potential to change his entire future.

The answer is this: a deep, long sigh he lets out, his entire body relaxing, a laugh bubbling out of him and his wide smile stretching his lips.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be this happy about this.” He covers his mouth. “It’s not me. Sorry, Mei.” He stands up, comes over and places a very gentle kiss on her head. “I’ve gotta go tell Chaerin. I promised her I’d tell her the results as soon as I got them.” And then he’s gone from the room. 

You can’t deny the slight relief you feel too. You wouldn’t have wanted Lucas to be so locked into this when he’s the only one who’s truly left the relationship entirely, moved on and all that. 

And when you wake on the fifth day, you can feel the energy buzzing in the house. It’s late into the morning already, so several of the guys are awake. You were just up a few hours before, feeding and trying to calm Mei down, but the house had been otherwise quiet then. Now you can hear semi-excited voices echoing from down the hallway, from downstairs too. 

As the number of possible fathers has dwindled, your remaining boyfriends had grown more and more excited. Or anxious might be the better word. Johnny, Taeyong, Yuta, Kun, Jaehyun, and WinWin had yet to get their results. 

Mei’s still asleep at the moment, and you move over to stand beside the crib, looking down at her little sleeping form. She was blessed with a decent amount of thick, black hair right away, and it looks messy at the moment. You want to reach down and smooth it into place, but you know that in doing that you just might wake her.

So you hold your breath and keep quiet and still, just watching her, watching her chest rise and fall.

You feel the movement from the other side of the room more than hearing it. Quiet footsteps from the door toward you, and then an arm sliding around your waist, a body knocking against your side.

“Hey, good morning.” Taeyong squeezes you gently. “We have some news.”

“Yeah?” 

Taeyong hums in confirmation. “Johnny woke me up this morning when he dropped his phone when he saw that he had his results. So I checked and saw I had mine too. Jaehyun said he still doesn’t have his results though, so Johnny and I checked ours.” You look sideways at him as he drops his head, and he murmurs, “Neither of us. But I’m pretty sure I heard Yuta say through the wall that his result was in.”

Yuta, Kun, Jaehyun, and WinWin. 

One of them is the father. 

You sigh heavily, resting your head on Taeyong’s shoulder. His nose touches your hair and then he stands up a little straighter. 

“Don’t stress, baby.” Taeyong rubs his hands up and down your side. “How are you feeling? Do you need more sleep? Some time to yourself? Because there are about sixteen of us in this house right now that can watch Mei so you can catch a little more sleep.” He senses your hesitation, so suggests, “Or we can call your mom to come over, if you don’t trust us.”

You turn around then to face Taeyong. “It’s not that I don’t trust you all. Some of you are good with kids and babies, one man in this house is her father. Of course I trust you guys with her. But, I also wouldn’t put it past some people in this house to get overly rambunctious when she’s around, and I just don’t--”

The door opens again, Johnny looking in. “Hey, did he tell you?” 

“That we’re down to the final four? Yeah.” You step away from Taeyong, stretching your arms over your head. The shirt you wore to sleep lifts up, and you feel the cool air touching your belly. You catch Johnny’s eyes looking, and you quickly tug your shirt down, feeling embarrassed about how you look right now. It was one thing when your belly was big from the baby inside you, but now she’s evacuated, and your uterus and abdominal muscles are still working on coming to terms with that. 

“I don’t need anyone else to watch her. I’ve got it.” You turn to Taeyong again.

He bites his lip, looking imploringly past you to Johnny. 

Johnny clears his throat. “Babe, don’t take this the wrong way. But you’ve been home for, what, three days now?” He comes farther into the room, standing between you and your ensuite, edging nearer to the crib. Johnny glances at Taeyong, then back at you. He asks, “How many hours of sleep have you gotten? And, uh, we love you, we truly do, but, babe, you stink. Please take a shower.”

Something hot, like shame and embarrassment, flushes through you.

“No, don’t be like that.” Johnny steps forward quickly. “None of us wanted to say anything because you’re obviously busy and focused on taking care of Mei, but at some point you need to focus on you. Let us take her off your hands for just half an hour. That’s all. Can you trust us to do that?”

Your face is burning. How can you say no after that? Do you really smell that bad? You knew that you were sweating in your sleep, but you didn’t think it was that much. You also didn’t realize that you hadn’t showered since you got home from the hospital. 

“Okay. But just please be careful with her.” You glance down at her in the crib as she makes a little sound. “Maybe I should--”

“No.” Johnny and Taeyong both say it at the same time.

Mei stretches her arms above her head, wiggling as she blinks and opens her eyes fully. Her little face scrunches up, and you know that she’s about to cry. You take a step toward her, but Taeyong beats you to it. 

He scoops her up in his arms. 

“Shh. Shh, you’re okay.” He holds her against his chest. “You’re fine, Mei. Momma’s gonna go get clean and fresh, and you get to spend some time with Uncle Tyong.” He kisses her head, cradling her, swaying from side to side. From where you stand, you can see that she’s just staring up at his face, all signs of fussiness gone.

“Go shower.” Johnny’s hand curls over your shoulder. “And don’t rush, okay? Take a little time for yourself.”

Taeyong’s still murmuring to Mei, talking to her in a sweet baby-voice when you step through the door into your bathroom, and as you’re undressing, you can hear him and Johnny leaving your room, which also makes you nervous. You’re going to shower quickly.

As you wait for the water to warm up, you hear your bedroom door open, you hear your name, and then a soft knock on the bathroom door. Jaehyun opens the door, looking around at you. “Where’s Mei?”

“Taeyong’s got her.” You fold your arms in front of you, trying to hide your belly from his view, but it’s too late. You know he’s already seen, but he just smiles and looks you up and down again. “He and Johnny reminded me that I need to shower. Do I really smell bad?” 

Jaehyun avoids looking at you for just long enough that you know you’ve got your answer. Then he smiles all sweetly and says, “Can I shower with you?”

“I hope you know you’re not getting anything out of this.” You step back toward the shower. “Just a shower.”

Jaehyun nods, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He strips naked quickly and follows you into the shower. Jaehyun’s gentle as he helps you suds up your hair with shampoo, as he kisses you. You relax with his hands on you, and you knit your fingers in his hair, holding his mouth to yours. 

Maybe it is nice having a house full of babysitters, so you can catch a few minutes of you-time right here.

How many parents can just take some time to make out in the shower when they’ve got a newborn?

“Oh, that reminds me.” You pull back from the kiss, patting your hand on Jaehyun’s chest. “Did you get your result yet? It’s just you, Yuta, WinWin, and Kun left. All your dreams are this close to coming true.” You wrap your arms around his neck.

Jaehyun groans and rolls his head back on his shoulders. 

“What?” You ask. “Jaehyun? What does that reaction mean?”

“I got my result right after Doyoung got his.” Jaehyun quietly admits. “I felt the notification in my pocket while he was laying there with you, checking his result.” His throat bobs. “I was just scared to check it.”

“Jae.” You slip your arms from around his neck, sliding your hands down into his, squeezing them. “You know that no matter what the result is, you can still be her dad?”

He sighs and presses his face against your shoulder. The shower’s spray bounces off his shoulders, the sound filling your ears. Jaehyun suddenly seems so small and tired and nervous. “It’s the jealousy, I think, that made me really scared to check the email. I don’t want to be jealous. I know that even if I’m not her biological father, I can still be her dad. But I want to be her only dad because I’m a jealous dick. That’s what Yuta called me the other night when I was complaining about that.”

“Can we check what the email says when we get out of here?” You rake your fingers through his soaked hair. Jaehyun nods against your shoulder. 

Once you’re both out of the shower, Jaehyun piddles around, wasting time fixing his hair in the bathroom, taking his time when he leaves back to his room to dress, and then when he comes back into your room, he returns with Yuta and a fussy Mei. Yuta passes her off to you, explaining that he thinks she’s hungry or needs her diaper changed.

“Well, then this would be a good time for both of you to learn to change her diaper, wouldn’t it?” You lay her on the little changing table you have in the corner, beckon both Jaehyun and Yuta over.

Jaehyun moves slower, looking reluctant to have to face that, but Yuta comes over right away.

“Oh God.” He brings his hand up to cover his nose as the mess in your daughter’s diaper is revealed. “Why does it look like that?”

“She’s on a diet of breastmilk, Yuta. And she’s only a few days old. It’s not going to look like an actual poo.” You step aside, looking over at Jaehyun who’s standing behind you. “Well, I’m not going to be the only one in this relationship changing her diapers. Come on. This is a learning experience.”

Yuta makes the first move, and you know he’s just trying to rile up Jaehyun when he says, “Her dad can take care of a little dirty diaper. Isn’t that right, Mei?” And then he starts speaking to her in Japanese.

Jaehyun frowns, and he steps forward, elbowing Yuta out of the way. “I can do this. It’s just a diaper, right?”

After a few minutes of them whining and groaning and taking breaks to gag (it’s really not that bad), little Mei has a fresh diaper and she’s settling in again. Yuta stands beside the crib, his arms folded on the wooden gate, his chin resting on them as he watches her wave her hands up at the mobile that spins around over her head.

Jaehyun settles back onto your bed, his arms behind his head, feet kicked out. His phone rests face-up on his belly.

Just as you’re about to bring it up to Jaehyun again about checking his email, you hear another ding. Yuta stiffens up at the crib, and you can see his phone screen lighting up his pocket from a notification. He straightens up, fishes his phone out of his pocket, and then sits down on the edge of your bed too.

“Well, what does it say?” You sit on the bed between them. Both Yuta and Jaehyun are holding their phones now, white-knuckled, faces drawn and pale. “Let’s take a look. Go on.”

They’re both moving slowly, reluctantly, so you grab one of Jaehyun’s hands, one of Yuta’s hands, and hold them in yours for reassurance.

Together, they lift their phones, unlock them. Your eyes dart back and forth between them, as if you’ll be able to read the light on their faces or see the tiny print reflected in their eyes. So instead you look down into the triangle of your duvet between your folded legs. And you wait expectantly for one of them to say....

“It’s me.” 

His voice is hoarse. Hoarse but full of relief and excitement at newfound fatherhood, but also fear and worry and so many anxieties. He says again now, “I’m Mei’s father.”

You lift your head and look straight ahead at where WinWin stands framed in the doorway, holding out his phone, the screen all lit up, the email pulled up right there with the evidence. And he’s smiling. Because he’s the father, because his daughter that is half him and half you and entirely perfect in every way is on the other side of the room.

Jaehyun’s off the bed before you can move, and he’s standing in front of WinWin to jerk the phone from his hand to check the result, to see it with his own eyes.

Yuta stays planted on the bed with you, his fingers knotted with yours as he looks back down at his phone. He tilts it so you can see his email, see the result that confirms that he is not a DNA match with Mei. “Doesn’t mean I’ll love her any less,” Yuta mumbles as he brings your hand up to his lips, placing a gentle kiss. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s some part of my DNA in her, and I’ll treat her as such until the day neither you or her wants me in your lives.”

“Thank you, Yuta.” You rest your head on his shoulder for a moment. “I love  you.”

“Love you too. You should probably go over there.” He nods at where Jaehyun is still staring down at WinWin’s phone with a truly shocked and sad look on his face. “I’m good, my love. Go talk to the new Papa and the depressed not-dad.”

When you slide up to them, your hand drifts over Jaehyun’s lower back, and your other hand you lift to WinWin’s cheek.

“Hi, daddy.”

WinWin smiles, wide and shy, excited. “I’m a dad.” His gaze flicks toward Jaehyun as your other boyfriend hands his phone back. “Jae, are you mad?”

Jaehyun shakes his head quietly and looks away. “Not mad. On some level I knew I wasn’t her dad. I mean, someone said it a few months ago. I often sat to the side during sex, so I had less of a chance than the rest of you all. And then as soon as she was born, I could tell she doesn’t look like me.” He looks over at the crib again, then back at WinWin, and he reaches up, fingers brushing WinWin’s pointy ear. “She has his ears, so I had a feeling.”

She does? You hadn’t noticed that, not consciously but perhaps subconsciously you had. Maybe that’s the little thing that you’d noticed that made you think she looked like one of them. 

“I’m not mad. I’m not even upset really. Relax.” He cups his hand agains the back of your head, stroking your hair gently with a soft smile on his face. “I’m going to eat something. Yuta hyung?” Jaehyun steps away from you and WinWin. “We should leave the happy parents with their sweet girl.”

“And break the news to Kun, if he hasn’t already seen his result.” Yuta pushes off the bed, kissing your cheek as he passes you by, and ruffling WinWin’s hair. He slaps his hand down on WinWin’s shoulder too. “Congrats, WinWin.”

WinWin grins. “Thanks, Yuta.”

And as Yuta and Jaehyun walk out the door together, Yuta throws his arm around Jaehyun’s shoulders. “Better luck to us both next time, right?”

The door closes, and WinWin sighs lightly, sinking into you, pulling you in for a hug, but he also tips your head back, capturing your lips in a kiss. You smile into the kiss, laughing when WinWin does too.

“My family is going to be so surprised,” WinWin says to you. “When I tell them I have a daughter that was just born. Dong Mei.”

“Dong Mingmei.” You correct him. “Mei is just the name that was in common for all of the names I was considering. Mei’s her Korean name. Mingmei in Chinese. Maybe we should go visit your family when she’s a little older, when she can travel. Oh, I need to finish filling out the birth certificate. Give our daughter your name.”

You slip out of his arms, taking his hand and pulling him with you to the crib. Mei’s still staring up at the spinning mobile, but her eyelids are heavy, and now that you look at her, you can see what Jaehyun was saying about her ears. The one comes to an elfin point, like WinWin’s one ear does.

WinWin wraps his arms around your waist, his warm chest against your back, and his cheek rests atop your head. “We made a beautiful baby.”

You heart swells in your chest, looking down at your newborn daughter as her eyes close, watched over as she falls into sweet dreams by the two people who will forever and always adore her.

gimme that: a drabble <- Previous || Next -> Fresh Air

a/n: so I had already decided on the name Mei when I realized that’s the same name I used for the baby in we got that good love (the daddy/husband Kun smut), but that was just a coincidence. I chose it because it’s a name that works in Japanese, Chinese, and kinda even in Korean.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading. This one was a long one, oof sorry about that. Sharing, commenting, feedback are all greatly appreciated! Please let me know what you thought!

[yandere-sins]

Now that the undatables are datable, can I see some thoughts on a jealous Diavolo who wants to hoard the mc? Just maybe a punishment for going on a trip to the human world with some of the bros and leaving him behind. Or he’s upset about how little time he can grab between the demon bros eating up all of their attention and his own duties. He’s just so cute, and I’m so happy he’s finally a surprise guest!!!!!

Bruh ask me!!!! Everyday I open the app to be welcomed by the handsome demon-king-in-making and my heart goes doki doki ♥ I decided I need a change of mind since I worked on the book for four days straight, so I wrote you a scenario instead of just my thoughts! Thanks for requesting and please enjoy!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««      

Humming, you were led down the hallways of the Demon Lord’s castle. With a smile and short waves, you greeted the little devils that passed you, snickering and welcoming you back. You had only been back home in the human world for a weekend, but they all seemed awfully joyous that their exchange student had returned, even though you couldn’t pinpoint why that was. 

Thanking the Little D that led you to Diavolo’s study, it swirled around you, giggling for a moment before leaving you alone, and you took a deep breath before knocking on the massive doors that separate you from the room. With a hint of anticipating nervousness, you waited for an answer, hoping Diavolo would be as happy to see you as you were to see him. Over your time in the Devildom - no matter how harsh the truths you had discovered were and how often you had questioned your capabilities since you met the brothers - you had grown quite fond of the Lord, always knowing he supported your progress and time here.

“Yes?” it called out from inside. You had no doubt that Diavolo knew everyone who knocked at his door, but it was still nice that his voice never lost a certain tinge of curiosity when he called someone in. With your smile growing wider, you entered, looking into the instantly brightening face of the man of the hour. 

“[Name]!” he called out, jumping out of his chair like an excited child, and you greeted Barbatos quickly before focusing your attention on the Lord in front of you. “I am back!” you announced, holding up the small package with sweets you brought as a gift from your trip.

“Where have you been?” he asked, his voice urgent despite the smile on his face. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“Huh?” you muttered in surprise. “I thought Lucifer was going to tell you that we were visiting my home for the weekend?”

“Is that so?” Diavolo grumbled under his breath, expression faltering and becoming somber for a moment before the corners of his lips curled up again. He opened his arm as he approached you, adding, “It’s good you’re back then.”

Even before he could reach you, you quickly handed over the package in your hand to Barbatos, who whispered a short, “His majesty was a little... tense this weekend.” Then spoke up louder, “I shall prepare some tea.”

With that, he was gone, and Diavolo pulled you into a hug, an affection you two had grown used to. It was wild for a mere human like you to embrace the future Demon Lord, but you weren’t complaining, especially not since it was Diavolo’s wish to act more normal with you. “I’m sorry. I really thought Luci was going to keep you updated,” you mumbled into his hug, and Diavolo let out a long, sad sigh that tugged on your heartstrings. 

“I can think about why,” Diavolo revealed, and your curiosity perked up at that, showing in your face when you finally brought some distance between you two. “Why?” you asked, unsure what he could mean, but Diavolo’s answer kept you waiting while his eyes scanned all over you, inspecting all of you as if he hadn’t seen you in years. “It’s not a surprise. Anyone would want you all to themselves.”

Furrowing your brows, you let yourself be led to the discussion couch in the middle of the room, sitting down together with Diavolo on his urging. “If Lucifer had told me, I’d have insisted on tagging along. I am sure he wanted to be the only one to have all of your attention this weekend.”

Spluttering, you felt the heat shoot into your head as you shook it vehemently. “It’s not like that! I just showed him around my hometown, and we had all kinds of foods, and...” your words trailed off as you heard the door behind you open again, Barbatos walking in with an apologetic smile as if he had interrupted something, tea tray in his hands.

“As I said, it was just a change of scenery.” Clearing your throat, you tried to change the topic, looking Diavolo straight in the eyes as you spoke up. For a moment, you thought to notice a disapproving gleam in his eyes, but you merely spoke over the bad feeling his unusual stern expression and crossed arms gave you. “What have you been up to? I hope you didn’t just have to work all weekend!”

Prolonging his response, Diavolo hummed thoughtfully before sitting up straight and opening up his arms to receive the cup of tea Barbatos was handing to him, and afterwards to you. “That’s all, Barbatos,” he confirmed to his servant, the latter bowing before taking his leave. You thanked Barbatos too and took a sip of the hot beverage, letting the delicate aromas of the drink fill your nose. 

“I’ve... I’ve been busy, yeah,” Diavolo eventually simply admitted, an uncommon short answer coming from him. Not like he had much leisure to tell endless tales, but usually, he talked in longer sentences. “It’s been a quiet weekend, and I actually wanted to ask you to join me for tea, but I guess my message never reached you.”

“Oh, no...” you mumbled, realizing that since your DDD didn’t have reception in the human world, you hadn’t even checked it once in all this time. Not even know had you charged it and looked at it, having come directly to the castle instead after your return. A crude mistake on your side.

“It’s no problem.” A short smile crossed his lips as Diavolo looked into your regretful eyes. “I am used to it. You are always up to something with the brothers, so I am not surprised when you didn’t reply.” But disappointed. The words he didn’t speak were plainly visible on his face, and you felt a sting in your heart knowing that your carelessness had upset him. Biting your lip as you thought, you decided to make it up to him in the best way you could come up with.

“I’m sorry, your Highness... But I am here now! How about I wait for you to finish your work and we can go out together and have dinner? Promise I won’t leave this time!” Laughing, you tried to lift the mood, and at first, he gave you a raised brow and a somewhat skeptical look, but soon enough, even the Lord couldn’t resist your smile, chiming in softly. 

“Here, let me,” he prompted, taking your cup from you and filling it up with fresh, warm tea even though you hadn’t even finished. Being only able to see his back, you could only assume he even put sugar into the new brew for you, stirring your cup dutifully. It was an honor to receive such a treatment from someone like Diavolo, and you made sure to thank him plenty when he handed the cup back to you. 

“I think spending some time with you is a good idea. This weekend I’ve just been a bit too gloomy for everyone in the castle, I think. Can you believe it? I broke half of the entire inventory on tea sets we own in my frustration.”

Diavolo laughed out loudly while you couldn’t help but feel concerned about what he just revealed to you. It didn’t sound very healthy that he’d let out his mood on the items around him, much less on the people who had to endure the chaos he caused. Giving him a forced polite smile, you decided it was best to let him talk while you sipped your tea. It was almost too sweet now to enjoy it, but since Diavolo went out of his way to prepare it, who were you to refuse the gesture just because it was a little sweet?

“Everytime they brought me a new one, I felt so lonely since you never responded. Eventually, Barbartos decided no more tea for me.” His laugh became even louder as you felt your stomach twist anxiously, not liking what you were hearing. 

“But now you’re here.” Diavolo’s eyes focused back on you, blinking innocently as if he didn’t just reveal that he caused quite an unnecessary troubles. He opened his mouth, breathing in visibly before he continued to speak, one of his hands coming down to lay on your free one resting in your lap. “Let’s not talk about the past anymore. We should think about what we want to do when you wake up instead!”

“When I wake up?” you questioned, confused. Was this a dream? Did Diavolo meet you while you were asleep still? But everything and even his touch felt so real and warm, it couldn’t be. “Well, I didn’t think I’d stay the night. There’s school tomorrow, right?” you chuckled jokingly, nudging him slightly, but when you continued to talk, your voice betrayed you, cracking as you felt a nervous pull inside of you.

“I... I just thought we could go for dinner later, so we have enough time to prepare for tomorrow at home.”

As if on cue, the moment you finished your sentence, you looked back at Diavolo, feeling suddenly very light-headed. “I heard you, [Name].” Diavolo spoke slowly, sounding a bit like he was talking to a toddler, trying to pronounce his words clearly. “But you said it. You’re not leaving this time, and a promise is a promise.”

“W-What... What’s going on... ?” 

Indifferent to your growing discomfort, Diavolo took the cup of tea from you, putting it down on the coffee table before inching closer to you. An arm wrapped around your shoulders while another pressed between your knees and the couch, all while you felt dizzy and dizzier, your body slowly but surely growing heavy. “I think I deserve some extra time with you, and tonight must suffice for now. Maybe even tomorrow? Let’s see how long the magic lasts. Do you like movies?”

Really, it was more of a monologue by now as you could barely manage to speak anymore, being hit by seemingly the weight of the world as Diavolo lifted you gently from the couch. “We could watch one of the new movies I sponsored. Rate if they did a good job.” Giggling like an excited child, your head fell against his chest, your breathing growing slow and steady despite the inner panic you felt just seconds ago. Your eyelids felt like they were solid blocks of cement, ready to bow to gravity and fall closed.

“I know, you're very tired, you don’t need to answer me right away. I promise we’ll have a lot of fun together later, and you can tell me if you like movies then. If not...” Diavolo’s words came to a halt while he carried you forward, doors opening for him with seemingly no effort as he simply kept going and going. But it was too hard to comprehend what was going on, only a feeling of fear and disapproval left bubbling inside of you for a few moments more. 

“If not, I am sure we’ll find something,” he promised with a wide grin on his face. You felt his lips connect with the top of your head briefly before a second wave of tiredness overcame you, this time too strong to resist. Your eyelids refused to open while your mind was lulled into a dreamless sleep, your limbs hanging loosely from Diavolo’s arms. The last thing you remembered wondering was what he was going to do with you, but luckily, you didn’t finish this thought and rode yourself into more anxiety than the situation already gave you.

If Levi’s envy, Satan’s wrath, and Lucifer’s pride - feelings that were ever so possessive over you - were awful in your opinion, then you should have known better than to rise all of them in the strongest Demon that currently existed. Unless, that was, if you wanted him to catch you like a mouse with a piece of cheese?

If that was the case, you achieved exactly what you wanted.

[space-mermaid-writing]

House Arrest [Reader X Loki] Chapter 3

Summary: You are Clint’s 'little' sister and actually a trained Shield agent. But you gave that up a few years ago and became a Chef, because you wanted a normal live. Then one day Natasha shows up at your door and takes you to the Avenger Tower for a while for security reasons.

Tags: Reader is an former Shield Agent, chef!reader, Reader Barton, 2012 Avenger vibes, everything is still alright, Slice of Life, Avengers Family, Loki has a good heart, still the god of mischief, Slow Burn, mention of food and cooking

Read it on AO3

Chapter 3: Nighttime pancakes

The next few days you got to know everything a little better: The tower, the Avengers - as far as they were present and showed themselves - and the rest of the staff that you ran into from time to time. You also discovered that the tower had its own training halls. Actually this was just logical given the team that lives here. Often when you were out and about in the building, you got the faint feeling of being watched. It was a little disturbing, but you dismissed it by saying that the environment was still new to you. Also, you had learned that JARVIS had access to all the public rooms and most of them were probably video monitored too. You weren’t sure about your own quarters yet, but you were also not sure if you wanted to know the answer.

Unfortunately the nights are very long, because you sleep very badly here. Despite the short time, you miss walking outside, through the streets, and besides, you are used to a rather strict daily routine. Sure, it's nice to switch off for a few days and not have to do anything. A little vacation, so to speak. But you're someone who soon gets bored with that. You chose a profession that requires you to spend hours running around the kitchen, preparing dishes and finishing orders for a reason after all. The price of your now lazy life is that you toss and turn in your bed at night without really being tired. Maybe there are some additional worries that keep you awake. For example, the Hydra question that was still unresolved.

This night you turn from side to side again, sighing, and at some point take a look at the digital alarm clock. Its digits glowing a light red in the darkness. It's three in the morning. Or night. Depending on how you see it. After a few more unsuccessful tries to sleep, you give up and decide to roam the halls a bit. Just walking around and stretching your legs. Outside, it's quiet. Only the soft whirring of some working machines can be heard. The corridors are discreetly lit, so you have no trouble finding your way, which leads you into the large lobby. It’s actually the first time since your arrival that you find it completely empty. Still, you have the familiar feeling that you are not alone. Jarvis probably never sleeps.

Out of habit, you end up in the kitchen and take a bored look into the fridge. Nothing in there appeals to you, but you're not really hungry either. Not even for a little snack. Still, you feel like cooking. Maybe pancakes. You could eat them for breakfast later. Without thinking too long about it, you get a bowl from the cupboard and tie an apron around yourself, which you have obligatory lying here by now. Flour, milk and eggs are quickly mixed and a few other ingredients are added for flavor. You put some butter in a pan on the stove. When it became liquid, you start to fry the first pancake and gradually got more and more, so that you quickly have a respectable pile together. Quietly, you hum to yourself.

"It's been a long time since anyone has been here at this hour”, you suddenly hear an unfamiliar voice behind you. Surprised, you whirl around, holding a knife that had been lying next to the stove. A dark-haired man in a green shirt is standing by the kitchen island, watching your actions curiously. When he sees the knife, he raises both hands to calm you down. On each of his arms you notice a narrow silver hoop with a red dot flashing. You hadn't heard a door, and you're not sure how long he's been standing there. "What’s your deal? Can’t sleep?", you ask him. "Just like you apparently." You raise an eyebrow and set the knife aside as the pancakes demand your attention. "You're Loki, aren't you?" It's more of a statement than a question, and the man nods. "And you're the archer's sister", he respond, which makes you in turn nod. "I‘m Y/N, pleasure to meet you." "You don't often hear that as a prisoner", he says amused, but still keeps eye on you, waiting for your reaction. "Heard about it. I guess we're sitting in the same boat." "Oh, really?" "Well, I probably won't be tasered right away if I try to leave the building." "Probably?", Loki follows up. "Yeah, I'm not entirely sure about that."

You talk for a while until you hear the elevator ping quietly in the lobby. But you're not paying attention right now, as you're busy scraping the last bit of dough out of the bowl and then turning off the stove. "Would you like some?" you ask Loki, turning to him only to find that he has disappeared. Taken aback, you turn your attention to the room next door, where you hear muffled voices. Then the door opens. "THAT'S what I call a nice welcome," Clint grins, looking at the stack of pancakes. "Brother dear", you greet him equally pleased and surprised at his unexpected appearing. Smiling, you walk up to him and hug him. Along with him, Steve Rogers, whom you've also already seen on the news as Captain America, came in. He seems a little confused at first, but after you fill him in on who you are, he welcomes you as well.

"What are you doing here?" your brother then asks you. "You can see that. I'm making breakfast for you." "No, I mean, what are you doing here?" He specifies the question with a gesture that included all the surroundings as well as the Tower. "Oh..." It's clearly too middle of the night for you to be that precise. In a few words, you explain your situation. Clint has some encouraging words for you, but can understand that you are not enthusiastic. "At least we can get more on each other's nerves again. Why don't you start right now and join us while we eat?", he laugh, putting his arm around your shoulder in a brotherly fashion as he pushes you toward the stove. You have to laugh, too. "You mean while you eat my breakfast." "Exactly." You go get two plates from the cupboard and serve the men each a good stack of pancakes with maple syrup. They thank you and the group of you make yourselves comfortable at the kitchen island. "Where and how do you guys usually eat here?", you ask in the meantime. "We each order our own food. Probably have a flat rate with all the suppliers in the neighborhood," Clint explains. Steves' gaze is on you questioningly. "Don't you want some pancakes, too?" "In the middle of the night? No thanks, I'm not hungry." "Then why did you made them, if you don't mind me asking?" "I knew you'd come and could use something in your stomach", you reply with a serious expression, to which Steve shoots first you and then your brother a scrutinizing look. He’d seen enough weird shit while working with the Avengers to take such a statement quite seriously. And he wonders whether you, unlike Hawkeye, have superpowers. But only until you can no longer stifle the broad grin, because his facial expression is just too funny.

Before you can say anything, though, Clint interjects. "As siblings, we've just developed some sort of telepathic ability." You nod in agreement. "Exactly. That's how I always know when he's going to say something stupid and deserve a head butt." "To be honest, I never heard him talk about you before”, Steve admits. "See”, you wink, "It‘s working out just fine." You laugh, and while they continue to eat, Clint tells you about the mission they just came from.

Afterwards, you put another stack of pancakes on a plate to take it with you back to the lobby. "Hungry now, are you?", your brother asks you, clearly tired after the long journey and at this late hour. Just as the super soldier. "Maybe”, you answer shortly and wish them both a good night. The greeting comes back double and you head into the large lobby with the elevators. "Jarvis?" "Yes, Miss Barton?" "Where is Loki's apartment?", you ask the computer. "You are not exactly authorized to receive this information." "I just want to get him something to eat."

You raise the plate in your hands a little higher and apparently your answer is analyzed, because for a few seconds there is silence. But then you get the information you want and are directed to the door you are looking for. It was on another floor and at the end of a long corridor.

You knock, but at first there is no response. So you try again. "Come on, my prince, I know you're not asleep and it's rude to leave a lady at a locked door." You hear an amused sound from the other side and shortly after the door is opened. With his arms crossed, Loki stands before you. "It's also rude to disturb a prince in the middle of the night, M’Lady", he replies. "Rude would be to refuse a dinner from a lady. Especially when she personally hands it to you", you add, giving him the plate. It's impossible for you to tell if he's amused or annoyed as he looks from you to the pancakes in his hand. "I never said I wanted any“, he states. "But you didn't say you didn't want them, either. Just give them a try. I'm pretty good at cooking." With that, you turn to go. "Good night, dear prince," you wish him, but without turning around. So you miss the grin on Loki's face as he closes the door.

[najatheangel]

𝐉𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫

pairing: lee know x reader

genre: fluffy fluffy and spicy spicy.

inspired song: jaguar by victoria monet

summary: After getting married to the love of your life, you and your husband Minho decide to travel in a private tropical island to celebrate your honeymoon. For the most part the trip has been very fun and the weather puts you in the mood.

"Ahhh this is paradise! After 7 hours of jetlag this is just what we needed!" You both slammed your body on the bed after spending an hour unpacking.

This weekend was the weekend where you finally get the chance to spend alone time and celebrate your marriage with your husband Lee Minho.

For the week, you planned on exploring the tropical islands in Bora Bora while staying in of the best resorts in the area. You have your own personal chef to serve you, your surrounded by the beautiful blue ocean and the best part of it is you don't have to worry family or friends ruining the fun this whole trip.

"You know what we should do after our nap?" You both look at each other smiling already knowing what the other person is about to say.

"Ziplining!" You both cracked a smile laughing at how in tune you two are. Your telepathy is one thing that brought you two closer together.

...

Hand in hand your personal limo driver drove you to the zipline place. You were very nervous when you arrived and saw how high up the people was gliding on the zipline. Minho squeezed your hand for extra support letting you know that he's going to protect you if anything happens.

With your zipline safety gear ready to go you start taking the elevator making your way up to the platform to where your ziplining off of. Minho paid for the couple zipline special so the two of you can do it together and stay super close.

“It’s alright just hold my hand and close your eyes.” You took a deep breath, closed your eyes and next thing you know you were sent flying off on the zip line.

“Ahhhhh y/n open your eyes it’s beautiful up here. Look look!” You finally open your eyes and you finally start to open both of your arms and let yourself free. “The view is so amazing. I can see our resort from up here!”

This was the highlight of the trip for you and things got even better from here. Later that day you two took a Atv Quad tour around Bora Bora and things got a little dirty from there. After riding around in mud all day Minho had this idea.

“Hey y/n, since we got all sweaty and dirty from ya know riding all day, how about we bathe together at the waterfall by the resort? And then we can get dinner afterwards.” He reaches his hand out to help you off the motorbike.

You started blushing at the thought and respond back by saying by saying. “Sounds good to me. We’ve got to make it short though or we’ll miss the hula dancers.”

“Mmm why don’t you hula dance for me, but in the bedroom this time.” Minho flirtatious comments made you even more flustered and you raced each other to the waterfall.

...

The waterfall was known as “The shower of Love” which all couples can swim, relax and bathe together out in the open. A lot of couples had there own private waterfall at the resort where they can let loose and even stroll around in their birthday suit if they wanted to.

“Wow Minho! I swear you are the best husband anyone could ask for. How much did this cost?”

“All together...about a good 700 with the discount.” The both of you laugh at together and slowly walk towards the waterfall.

The sun was shining, the water was a pretty shade of blue, birds were chirping and the sound of the water was splashing against the palm trees it was music to your ears.

Minho decided to tease you by picking you up and dipping your body underwater to rinse the mud and body wash. “Y/n you’ve got to be quicker then that. What if someone actually tried to drown you?” He starts giggling at your pouting face.

“I hope a shark swims up behind you and bites you in the ass.” You get your revenge by splashing him with both of your arms, but it was a baby splash. Minho seemed unfazed with the by attack by laughing again.

“No no y/n your doing it wrong, it’s like this...” He swims back under water and pops up in-front of your face and splashes you. “Lee Minho!”

The two of you go back snd forth splashing each other until the other one gets tired. After 20 minutes of playing in the water you’ve decided to towards the cave and sit inside getting a better view of the waterfall.

“That got a little wild didn’t it.” The two of you start expressing while fanning yourself from the heat. Minho wasn’t really paying attention before, but he starts noticing your body up close and in action.

The way your orange flower one piece matched his flower swimming trunks. The way the water water dripping down your body especially your legs. The way your hair got soaked and got tangled on your necklace he bought you back in high school.

He didn’t know if it was the bora bora air that was making him act like this, but he was starving and was willing to go all the way with you.

“Y/n there’s no easier less blunt way to say this, but can we do it...like right here. Right now?”

You turn your head super fast and saw the greedy look on his face. The look on his face reminded you of a Jaguar. Jaguars normally know what they want at that particular moment and capture their prey.

“Minho you know you don’t have to ask for something like that. I’m your wife now of course I’m willing and more than ready to go all the way with you.”

The chemistry between you becomes more intense and before you know it he starts crawling on top of you still staring deeply into your eyes.

“I guess you are right. Just a little warning though, once I start it’s going to be hard to finish. We might even miss the hula dancers-“

You put a finger on his mouth shushing him and proceed by saying. “Forget dinner, I’ll be much with just this.”

You wrap his arms around him and start kissing Minho. The kisses were filled with so much fire and desire it made you crave for more.

Minho starts biting your lip and trailing the kisses down to your neck, chest, stomach until he got in between your legs. “Wait, you take yours off too. I don’t want to be the only one left hanging.”

Minho starts laughing again at your request. “Fine by me. Either way I’m going full speed inside of you in a minute.” “Shhh don’t or the birds will hear us.”

Minho gives you one last peck before sliding each other’s floral swimming suits off. This was only the beginning of your adventure of a life time with your husband.

This got a little longer than expected, but I hope you guys enjoyed this one. ✨

𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭🏷: @thechoppersan @dundun-baby @purplepsycho03 @xxminmixx @kpopsnowball @soleilsuhh

Send an ask if you want to be added or removed from the tag list. 💫💫💫

[gwynrielendgame]

Gwyncien part 3

Idk if y’all will like this one as much. It’s kind of a filler but it took forever to write so I’m posting it anyways. I’ll tag people who have asked below.

Gwyn thought she might puke and it had nothing to do with Lucien's winnowing abilities. She never thought she would feel so nauseas especially after the blood rite. She supposes that the imminent fear of death had her more distracted from her typical anxieties. Now that she could focus on the fact that she was actually leaving Velaris, she felt sick. She grabbed onto Lucien harder and closed her eyes tightly. What felt like hours later, although it was truly only a minute or two, Lucien spoke.

"Welcome to the band of exiles." She opened her eyes to a surprisingly large castle. She was not sure what she expected, perhaps an abandoned cabin, but the building was spectacular and beautiful.

"Jurian and Vassa are excited to meet you." Lucien added as they continued to stand out front. It appeared that he would allow her to stand here for as long as she needed. She knew that if she demanded he take her right back he would. His words finally caught up with her brain that seemed to be running a mile a minute. Why would his closest friends be excited to meet her she thought. It made her anxious for the first time. Perhaps she mistook his friendly countenance for something less than it actually was. She would address it later. She began walking towards the door, mumbling under her breath.

"Let's get this over with."

"That's the spirit!" Lucien inserted much more enthusiasm than necessary into his tone. He grabbed her arm and laced it through his which had her feeling very grateful. Her knees were shaking as she walked and she knew he could tell. Gwyn felt the need to remind herself that he had a mate. She wondered if he would be desperate enough to make a move on her. A large, beautifully decorated foyer greeted them. Two very beautiful people stood in the middle of the white marble floor. Gwyn tightened her hold on Lucien when she saw the new male, stopping them mid-walk. She started her mind-stilling technique as the anxiety clawed at her chest and throat. She would eventually have to face men if she ever wanted to get her revenge. She could not allow a few measly physical reactions hold her back. She took one last deep breathe and then continued walking towards the couple. She spent less time analyzing the female, but from what she saw Gwyn knew she was beautiful. She also had red hair, however, Gwyn's hair was more of a copper/bronze red while Vassa had a deep maroon red. Gwyn kept her eye on Jurian though.

"You are making her nervous, standing there like two parents ready to scold their children." Lucien reprimanded his friends with a roll of his eyes. The female waved his comment off, completely ignoring him. Gwyn did not miss the look they shared, however.

"I am Vassa and this is Jurian." She gestured to the male next to her. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard so much about you." It unnerved Gwyn that the few interactions that she had with Lucien warranted Vassa knowing much about her. She did not think much on it as she continued to watch the beautiful male. He had hair cropped short to his head and a deep skin tone. His looks were not what had her distracted though. It was the weapons. Gwyn found it unnecessary for him to require weapons while meeting with her. Instead of exchanging pleasantries like socially integrated Fae would, she began her questioning.

"Why so many daggers?" She gave him a scathing look while cocking her head to the side. He would not manipulate her into believing anything but the truth and she wanted that to be conveyed in her facial expression. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline as if he were surprised.

"I could ask you the same question." He threw back at her with a smirk. It only infuriated her more. He could not tell she had daggers on her. She was wearing a cloak over her priestess robes with silver majesty strapped to her thigh. There was no possible way he could see the outline through her clothes. She narrowed her eyes and waited for him to respond. The staring contest was only broken when Lucien cleared his throat and Vassa nudged him.

"Fine." Jurian conceded with a smile. "Vassa is woefully bad at handling anything sharp, so I have taken on the role of her protecter while soon-to-be high lord is out and about." Both Vassa and Lucien seemed annoyed by his explanation. The anxiety began to loosen in her chest though. He was not completely trusted, but in this moment he would not attack.

"Gwyn." Is all she managed for an introduction. It seemed good enough for Lucien because he began leading her off to the side of the room towards a grand staircase.

"I will be showing Gwyneth her room and then we can talk." He threw over his shoulder. She held onto his arm all the way up the long staircase and through an even longer hallway. She laughed internally at the size of the mansion considering only three people resided here. A thought occurred to her when they finally came to a stop at a door.

"How many people live here?" She finally let go of Lucien and took a step back.

"Just us three. And now you. Occasionally we have a guest or two, but I will give you ample warning before that time. This will be your bedroom here. Mine is right across the hall if you need anything. There is a lock on the inside, but if you would like I can show you how to set up some furniture to keep the door from opening at all." Lucien gave her a small smile. It made her soften towards him even more.

"Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate all that you have done for me. Truly. I cannot say thank you enough." She gave him a short hug to convey her gratefulness. He returned it, hesitantly. His touch was feather light. As though he did not want to touch her and make her uncomfortable. She stepped back towards the door once more and began to walk inside.

"I will come get you before dinner. You have a full wardrobe to pick from in there if you would like to change. If there is anything you require, just ask." Gwyn nodded and then he was gone.

The first thing Gwyn noticed was that the satchel she packed earlier before leaving was sitting on the bed. She had been so nervous about everything else that she had not even realized it was missing. Gwyn continued to survey the room. It was beautiful. The decorations reminded her of the night court. Lucien really did pay attention to the smallest details. Gwyn truly believed Elain was an idiot for not giving Lucien a chance. The bedding was all black and the drapes twinkled with specks of a shiny material. It almost made them look like stars. The bed was unnecessarily large and so was the desk that was off to the side of the room. It had been such a mentally exhausting day that Gwyn decided a nap was needed. She locked her door and stripped off her cloak. She knew the lock would do nothing against winnowing, but as far as she knew only Lucien could do that. She placed her desk chair under the doorknob anyways. She fell onto the bed without even removing her priestess robes. She did remove her dagger and place it under her pillow for protection. A small smile graced her face as she thought of a certain spymaster who also slept with a dagger under his pillow.

Soft footsteps woke Gwyn from her sleep. She had no idea how long she had slept, but knew that dinner must be approaching if it had not already passed. A light knock on the door made her jump.

"Gwyn? Dinner is almost ready if you would like to join us downstairs." Lucien yelled through the door. Gwyn's racing heart began to slow as she realized where she was and who was speaking to her.

"One moment." She decided this dinner was not worth changing her clothes so she grabbed her dagger, putting it back in its sheath, and flattened her hair down with her hands. She did not want to keep Lucien waiting after all. The second she stepped out of the room, a sly smile crossed the male's face.

"What?" Gwyn demanded a tad self-consciously. She flattened her hair once more.

"Enjoyed a nap I see?" He was teasing, but that did nothing to stop her from shoving him.

"Oh shut up and show me the dining room." A real smile graced his face as he put his arm out for her to grab. She was half tempted to shove his arm away for his teasing. Instead, she rolled her eyes and held onto his arm anyways.

"Your wish is my command."

The castle was truly beautiful. Gwyn knew she could spend hours looking at the art pieces- some of them looked familiar. She would guess those were done by Feyre. The marble flooring and intricate ceilings were only part of the beauty. It has clearly been decorated. Perhaps Vassa and Lucien bonded over similar tastes in rugs. The thought made Gwyn giggle internally. The castle was so large that it took them about five minutes before they reached the dining hall. Gwyn took her place next to Lucien across from Jurian and Vassa who were already pleasantly discussing Vassa’s doomed fate. They quickly stopped talking once she sat down and turned the conversation to her.

"So I have been dying to know," Jurian begins "is Rhysand as much of a prick as he pretends to be?" Lucien sent him a glare which only had Jurian shrugging with an innocent expression upon his face. Gwyn sighed.

"Depends on who you are. He is kind to me, but only out of pity from what he witnessed at Sangravah. I have seen him be cruel to those he purposefully does not want to understand. I am not here as your spy though. That is as much from me as you will get about Rhysand." Gwyn truly felt a level of gratefulness to the high lord, however, he often squandered any other positive feelings she had of him by constantly looking at her as if he was seeing that day in Sangravah all over again. It did nothing to help her forget. Jurian gave a contemplative look before turning his attention to his plate. Vassa decided to try her hand at conversation.

"How are the Archeron sisters? I know the death of their father was hard on all of them." Vassa took a sip of wine. Gwyn did not want to discuss this either though. Speaking of Nesta made her miss her sisters.

"They are as well as could be expected." It was generic and had the fiery red head pursing her lips in displeasure. Gwyn did not quite care.

“Gwyn is a beautiful singer.” Lucien finally changed the subject to something that she did not mind engaging in. “We will need you to sing for us sometime.” Gwyn nodded in agreement. The conversation continued on with Lucien boasting about Gwyn, talking about her training as a Valkyrie and winning the blood rite. She started feeling uncomfortable with all the compliments he was sending her way. It reminded her of a conversation she needed to have with him. Right now was as good of a time as any she supposed.

"It was extremely generous of you to offer your help, but I feel I should inform you that I am not interested in anything other than your friendship." Gwyn interrupted Lucien mid-speech to clarify. He looked startled by her statement. Jurian choked on his wine and Vassa cackled like there would be no tomorrow. It made Gwyn feel as though she was on the outside of some joke they all knew.

"Excuse me?" Lucien, for once, looked genuinely surprised. It was as if he could not quite believe she would say that and needed her to repeat it just in case he heard her wrong. Maybe Gwyn misinterpreted some of his advances.

"I know our coupling seems inevitable," Gwyn explained further a bit shyly, not quite sure of herself anymore. "But I am not interested in any one that is not Azriel." Vassa's cackles slowed down to more of a chuckle and Jurian kept sending amused looks to Lucien.

"Gwyn, I am your grandfather." Lucien approached the topic slowly. "I assumed your mother talked about me, but, and I really hope this is the case, you did not know this?" His tone lifted up at the end in questioning.

Oh, Gwyn thought. She was not easily surprised, but this topped the cake. She tried to think back to anytime her mother mentioned her grandparents, but the instances were few and far between. Gwyn realized she did not even know their names. Suddenly, every compliment and favor from Lucien no longer appeared odd. He was complimenting and bragging about his only living granddaughter. This took much longer to process than Gwyn would like to admit. Unexpectedly, she felt an unwarranted amount of anger towards Lucien.

"And you waited until this very moment to tell me? What the hell Lucien? Or should I say grandpa?" Her tone was more hostile than it had been with anyone else. The sarcastic comment at the end had the red-haired male cringing. Jurian and Vassa started laughing once more.

"I know this is not great timing to interrupt, but I, for one, will be referring to you as grandpa from here on out." Jurian inserted. Vassa gave an amused smirk, but said nothing. It earned him a glare from Gwyn and Lucien though.

"I apologize, Gwyneth, for the delayed reveal. I thought you knew that's why I offered to help you, though. I assumed your mother had spoken of Jesminda and I. She was rather young when we had to surrender her, I suppose." Lucien looked so genuine that Gwyn's anger diminished as fast as it had appeared. Gwyn's family history had always been a mystery to her. She might finally get some answers.

"Jesminda is my grandmother?" Gwyn inquired. Her own mother had never given details. This adventure was beginning to answer many questions she had always had.

"Yes." Lucien said. Gwyn was trying to understand his expression and tone. She spent another minute watching him. Their other table mates had gone quiet as well. It did not take a genius to understand the moment. Jesminda had never been mentioned before to her from anyone and she was not here right now. She was dead that much was clear. Lucien cleared his throat and for a brief second Gwyn could see the emotion he was so desperately trying to hide, guilt.

"Why did you give my mother to Sangravah?" Gwyn realized it probably had something to do with Jesminda's death. She truly wanted more details. Lucien sighed heavily, probably understanding that there were many questions in store for him.

"Beron just ordered for Jesminda to be tortured and executed in front of me. I am certain if he had known of your mother, he would have had the same future in store for her. I had kept the child a secret from everyone except a brother, who helped me hide her after Jesminda's death." It did not escape Gwyn's attention that Lucien neither referred to Beron as his high lord nor as his father. Lucien ran a hand through his hair roughly. Her hair was clearly from him, but it was his one russet eye that had her pausing. An eye that suddenly reminded her so much of Catrin.

"Why did he kill her?" She asked softly. Gwyn realized she would never be able to deny Lucien anything. One look from his russet eye and Gwyn would give in simply because of its similarity to her dead twin.

"Because he's a spiteful old man." Vassa spit out. Clearly, she was just as enraged by the situation. It made Gwyn wonder if Vassa and Lucien had ever been together. Lucien rolled his eyes at the fiery female. He seemed to roll his eyes constantly while he was here.

"Because he could," Lucien added. "Your mother, who was about six at the time, was extremely unsafe even under my brother and I's protection. Beron would put your mate to shame with all the torture tactics he uses. I dropped her off on the doorstep of that church in the middle of the night. I always planned to go back and visit, but I was nervous and I knew she was safe there. I felt it was selfish to visit her since it only put her in more danger." Gwyn felt sad for everyone involved. Sad for Lucien who watched his love be tortured and executed in front of him only for him to have to turn around and surrender his daughter to a church. Sad for Jesminda who died that day. Sad for her mother who must have lived every day wondering where her parents went and why they abandoned her. Sad for Catrin who never got to meet her grandfather.

"I had a sister." Gwyn felt the need to mention. She was unaware of how much Lucien knew, but it suddenly felt important to her that he knew of Catrin.

"I know." He responded with a sad smile. "This family is well versed in tragedy." Gwyn had so many more questions. She had time to ask though. Her questions were making Lucien relive memories that were better left untouched. Perhaps he had endured enough for one night. She looked down at her full plate. She had been so distracted that she had not touched a thing. She began to devour her food as the rest of the table engaged in a debate about seasonings and which was the best.

"Have you and Vassa..." Gwyn trailed off, leaving the innuendo open when Lucien walked her back to her room after dinner.

"She wishes." He chuckled.

"Would you be with Elain if you could?"

"I would not jump into a mating ceremony but I would like the chance to get to know her. She has not given me the opportunity." He answered practically with his arms folded behind his back. Gwyn felt the need to assure him that knowing Elain would not make any of this easier.

"Trust me, it's better this way." She did not want to leave the conversation on such a sore point. As they approached her door, Gwyn jokingly shoved him. "So this would make Elain my step-grandmother?" Lucien was quiet before speaking. It was not the reaction she hoped for.

"Elain does not know. No one knows. And no one can know, even Azriel. At least until Beron is dead. Make no mistakes if Beron were to discover you, he would torture you simply to spite my mother." His lips pursued together in displeasure.

"Azriel is very good with secrets." She felt the need to remind Lucien. He is a Shadowsinger after all.

"Not with his high lord. If Rhysand knew, he would tell Beron if he had too. If Nyx or Feyre's life were on the line, he would do anything to save them. That includes selling you out. This is very important, Gwyneth. You cannot tell anyone- promise me." His stare was so intense that she could not look away. He grabbed her hands in a tight grip to make sure she understood how serious he was. Gwyneth had never purposely kept a secret from Azriel before. Hopefully, Beron would die sooner rather than later.

"I promise."

+++

Two weeks later

"What do you mean she’s gone?" Azriel was shocked to discover that Gwyn had left two weeks ago. He thought she had been avoiding training because of the kiss they shared- not because she was gone. He had been eating dinner with Nesta and Cassian when he finally had the courage to mention the priestess and where she had gone. Now he was mad that he had not asked sooner.

“She left with Lucien on some adventure. I am not really sure. Her note was unclear.” Nesta responded solemnly. The House dropped a piece of chocolate cake in front of her which made a small smile curve at the brash female’s lips. Azriel’s stomach dropped at the mention of Lucien. Gwyn did not know him well enough to go on an adventure with him. Gwyn would not leave her sisters here and she would definitely not choose Lucien to be the first person she left Velaris with. He was certain of that. He also knew Lucien to be a spiteful person. Perhaps he was tired of watching Azriel and Elain parade their relationship around him, making a fool of the one-eyed male. He could have taken Gwyn as retribution.

“He must have kidnapped her. Gwyn would never willingly leave the House of Wind with anyone- let alone Lucien.” Azriel knew this had to be true. Gwyn would never just up and leave. Guilt started gnawing at his chest as he realize he could have prevented her from being taken. If only his shadows would work properly around her, he could have prevented Lucien’s nefarious plans from being completed. His siphons started glowing the longer he though about it. He had to clench his hands around his silverware to keep from winnowing straight to the Band of Exiles and demanding his mate be given back. Nesta gave Azriel an odd look before speaking.

“She left a note that said she was willingly leaving with him and as much as he annoys the shit out of me, I don’t think he would hurt Gwyn.” A frown marred her face now, though. As if she had not considered that her sister could be in trouble. It only annoyed Az further.

“He could have made her write the note.” He reminded in a quiet, harsh voice. Gwyn and Lucien were not friends. She would have no reason to leave with him. Cassian was cautiously glancing between his mate and Azriel. He did not know what to say that would not piss off Az, so he was choosing to let Nesta handle the situation instead.

“She is not in danger.” Nesta declared after peeking at her wrist. There was no possible way for her to know whether Gwyn was safe or not. Even Azriel could not find out given how stubborn his shadows were being. He could always take a trip to the Band of Exiles, but he had to assume Lucien would not be stupid enough to take Gwyn there.

“You do not know that.” His wings flexed in anger. The siphons atop his hands were glowing dangerously bright now. He needed to get his emotions under control.

“Yes I do.” Nesta insisted with a roll of her eyes that annoyed Azriel to no ends. “My bracelet is not glowing. They glow when any of us is in trouble. It’s how I found her in the blood rite. It has not glowed since then either.”

“Hers could have fell off.” Gwyn would not have left after the kiss they shared. It was too important of a moment between them for her to have left immediately after.

“Gwyn and Lucien are friends, Az. You know if you want someone to blame for her leaving, maybe you should look inward.” It was a sharp jab that hurt more than the Shadowsinger would ever admit.

Suddenly though, he could see the hurt on Nesta’s face. It was there for only a second, but he saw it. Nesta was just as hurt by Gwyn’s departure as he was. He finally unclenched his hands from around his silverware- his fight giving out. Nesta was right. Lucien would never kidnap Gwyn especially if he thought it might upset Elain. Azriel chose this time to leave, however. He would not stoop to Nesta’s level and trade jab after jab. He headed to the training arena. It was hours later when slight footsteps could be heard making their way over to him. He was sitting at the edge, his exhaustion forcing him to take a break. Nesta took a seat next to him, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I miss her too, Shadowsinger." He said nothing in return because there was nothing else he could say. "You are worse than I was with the mating bond." Nesta tried again with a joke this time to try and get Azriel talking. She knew he was not normally one to discuss his feelings though. He gave her a withering look at that comment. It was an ongoing joke within the inner circle that Nesta handled the mate situation particularly horrible.

“Shut up.” Was all he responded with and he only said it halfheartedly.

"I am just saying, if you ask me for advice I could save you some time and heartache." They both continued to look out at the Velaris skyline.

"And what precious advice would you bestow upon me?" The comment was dripping in sarcasm, but he decided to humor her.

"Anyone other than your mate will be a disappointment, especially to you. Just accept it and her and everything else will become background noise." She looked up at him for a second before setting her head back down. He was not one to seek out comfort through touch, but sitting here with Nesta made him feel a bit better. Maybe it was because they could both ruminate in their sadness at Gwyn’s departure.

"Ah so wise. I had not considered that." Again the sarcasm was heavy.

"Well if you have thought about it and have not done it then I would consider you an idiot. You do not strike me as an idiot, Az." She was frustrated now- throwing her arms up and crossing them over her chest. He chuckled lightly.

"I think I might be." He admitted. Everything was so confusing with Mor and Elain that he lost focus of what was truly important.

"Gwyn is the most compassionate and understanding person I know. If she can love me, she can love you too. Just be honest with her." Her voice was soft now in a way that it never was. She always seemed to push him even when it seemed the rest of his family refused. It was the thing he liked most about Nesta- she was never scared of him or his feelings.

"Thanks Nes." He settled his head on top of hers and they stayed like that for hours- reminiscing in all things Gwyn.

[ickymichi]

𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝.

a tendou satori x reader series.

✟ there’s always been the one rule every person who’s been in a band knows not to break, never mess around with your band mates. but Satori was sick of the groupies, sick of catching the bra’s and panties that were flung at him every night. he just wanted the one thing he couldn’t have.

✟ warnings: swearing, eventual smut, eventual angst(?), drug use, inappropriate themes, comedy.

✟ things to know: band au!, some timeskip careers mentioned, slow updates.

✟ if you’d like to be added to the taglist just send an ask! <3

✟ word count: 1.8k

✟ note: first actual chapter of this series! it’s nothing big but obviously i wanted to get something written for this series! but i hope you enjoy my dears! reblogs are greatly appreciated <3

all contents belongs to k1ttykawa 2021. please do not repost or modify on this or any other platform.

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𝟎𝟎𝟐:. 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐜𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬

The bright lights and screams from the small crowd in the underground venue was what brings you back down from the high you’re always on whenever you sit on the small bouncing stool behind the drum set on stages every second or third night. You heard Semi thanking everyone for coming and whatever shit he always says. Once you seen him bow and Tendou go to pick up the collection of bra’s and panties thrown on stage, you raised a hand and threw one of the drumsticks into the crowd, your own way of saying goodbye before making your way offstage. Semi and Tendou’s tall frames following behind, the same order as always.

The sweat was pouring out of you, tonight being more of a wilder one than the usual calm sets you’ve been having in bars or party’s recently. they were easy money, but they got boring after just a few hours. so all three of you were in desperate need of a night like tonight.

Turning the corner of the small, dark corridor to your dressing room for tonight you were met with the stench of weed, 3 different girls on the beat up leather couch, a rolled joint in one of the girls hands and white lines on a tray to the others left. Like always, you went straight to the showers to get the scent of sweat and fake smoke of you.

You really don’t know when but the cropped black tank top you had on was ripped down one side but your usual headband you sported every show was missing and it now became you new priority to track it down. “Satori! Where the fuck is my headband?” you stomped back out to see the wanted man desperately trying to pull the tight leather pants down his lanky legs. His head was whipped up to at the sound of your annoyed voice and then quickly darted his eyes over to the blonde that had previously rolled the joints and was now fawning over semi and his revealed tattoos. “oi” was all you muttered out behind her and holding out your empty hand—also noting some of your rings were gone. She turned her head to you with a scowl covering her features, which also revealed your missing accessory that caused your distress. “that’s her bandana and she’s quite obviously looking for it back,” Tendou quipped in making every one bar the girl laugh. After time, she untied it from the back and forcefully placed it back in your hand. Dramatically you held your arm, acting as if she pained you, tendou again laughing with you.

Finally you were able to hop into the shower and quickly get your self freshened and rub the accesses makeup off your eyes that was already smudged from your constant wiping, trying to stop the sweat dripping from your hairline.

“(y/n)!! please help me out of these, semisemi just keeps fucking laughing!” the peace and quiet you had was quickly interrupted by Tendou’s loud whining. “how the fuck am I not supposed to laugh when your walking around with them swinging around your ankles and your dick hanging out?” “what, Its out?!”

The large door separating the bathroom from the connected dressing room swung open and revealed Satori with his leathers pooled at his ankles and— surprising his dick not actually ‘hanging out’. “please help me sugartits, they’re fucking stuck even with my skinny ankles,” he hopped onto the counter and held his legs up for you to guide them off him. “well for starters, take your fucking shoes off!, and also I swear i saw these in the women’s section of some online store?” jokingly you shouted at him and moved to untie the doc martin’s around his feet. “yeah? You probably did, stole them from that chick that wouldn’t stop hanging off me last month,” both of you laughing at his silliness and falling into a comfortable silence.

The only noise was the voices off the others in the separate room and a recognisable Mötley Crüe song shaking the floor from the stage.

“what you think of tonight then?” the silence being broken by Satori like usual. “uhhh, it was definitely something but yeah, it was fun. Its nice to have a night like that every now and then, specially since we’ve just been in bars doing the same covers for the past two weeks. What about you huh?” he hummed, a noise of agreement showing he was listening, a habit you grew to learn. “I guess it was good fun yeah, although I didn’t appreciate nearly getting hit with a dildo within the first two songs. But I agree, it’s nice to do our own shit and not covers in a bar with a bunch of middle age boring shits. I think we’ve another show that’ll probably be like this again on Saturday.”

Saturday, today was Thursday so you’ve a nice day or two to just lie around, the other probably filled with travelling and setting up.

After about 10 minutes you had unlaced both his boots and chucked them onto the floor and not too long later his ‘borrowed’ pants joined them. “thanks chicken, lifesaver as always,” he pulled you into an embrace with one arm before leaving to find his spare clothes in the other room. He did always have the weirdest nicknames.

The night bled into the early hours of the morning, Semi and Tendou both getting their share of the girls there while you kicked your feet up, sparking up a conversation and passing the joints with your friend Taichi who was also your ‘manager’, he wasn’t really he just acted like it when venues would ask important questions and tagged along for the free show and nights at different clubs.

He was also the one who suggested you start moving to the motel down the street for the night before the venue boots you all out. Quickly you agreed, not fancying seeing any more glimpses of your friends and strangers body parts. Obviously the girls whined to the boys, asking if they could come, saying it’s dangerous for girls to walk home alone at night, “sorry ladies, but we’ll be sharing a bed tonight and I don’t fancy getting an unwanted facial on a Thursday night,” you butted into their persuasive conversation by wrapping an arm around the boys from the back of the couch and giving a friendly smile.

By the time you all got your equipment packed away and into the van it was nearing 4:30 in the morning and you, quite literally we’re going to fall into the bed. It wasn’t the nicest of places but you were just spending tonight and the next two there, unless you decided to go out after the shows and find some rando’s condo to spend the night in. All three of you pushed your way into the small room trying to get the edges of the double bed. And it wasn’t easy trying to squeeze through two 6’2 lean men, resulting in you again stuck in the middle of them staring at the blank roof, desperately waiting for the sun to rise so you could find some place to get food and away from the mess of limbs under the covers.

When you did wake up it felt like you’d only slept for two hours, when in reality it had been about 10. The afternoon sun melting through the old curtains and falling into your pillow. As you moved to see what had finally woke you from the deep sleep you saw Semi at the small table, his guitar resting on his knees and his worn, nimble fingers scribbling words on his notebook he kept for when lyrics would come to him.

“mornin’ early bird,” all you could let out was a groan, your mind still coming to its senses. “there’s food n’ shit there Satori went out to get it, we was the first up, surprisingly,” he breathed out the last remark before moving to pick up the red pencil and get back to writing lyrics before they left his head.

The food that Tendou got was still warm so he must’ve of been up long before you anyway. “where is he?” “beats me, probably wandering round like always,” quickly he responded and took the pic from between his teeth and started strumming a tune while humming, what you were guessing, was the lyrics on the page.

Letting your curiosity get the better of you, you pulled your phone from where it was connected to the wall by the charger and found Satori’s contact and pressed the call icon, moving away from the sound of Eita and his guitar you went to go outside and sit on the bench outside your rooms window.

“hello, hello,” his ever cheerful voice filled the speakers of your phone that was wedged between your shoulder and ear. “hey, I was just calling to see where you are that’s all,” you piped up when he went quiet, tutting when you realised you were out of cigarettes. “oh you know, just out sightseeing ‘tis all,” “cool cool, well i’m going to the store now you need anything?” he hummed into the phone, indicating that he was thinking of something he needed. “just cigs I guess and get me that drink I like while there, i’ll pay you later,” bidding him goodbye as the small shop on the corner came into view you slipped your phone into your sweatpants pocket and walked to the back where they kept the energy drinks.

Exiting the shop with everything you needed you walked to make your way back till you saw a familiar head of red locks across the street and quickly, but quietly made your way to his figure.

Sneaking up behind him and wrapping your arms around his middle, feeling his ribs press into your arms, something you’ve noted recently. He sucked air into his lungs and jumped slightly before laughing with you. “here you go your highness,” was how you greeted him and chucked him his requested items. “thanks muffincake, i’ll pay you back later I swear,” you scoffed and shook his offer off, suggesting you stroll around the city until Semi called either of you to ‘get your sorry asses back to the room’.

Your stroll progressed into a very long walk and by the time Satori suggested you head back with an arm around your shoulder it was already dark, the night life staring to come out of hiding. eyeing a club across the street you thought might be a good shout to visit in case you three got bored tonight, making a mental note of its location.

“Didn’t Semisemi say we need to go over the set list again cause, someone, messed up last night,” a sing-song voice dragged you out of your club browsing and brought a scowl to your face. “excuse me, you’re the one who told me we were doing ‘nasty’ after the interlude, prick,” he pulled his chin up and started to ‘think’ about your accusation before loudly dubbing it false; “nope, I don’t recall doing such a thing. I could never, but if it boots your already sky high ego then, of course I did my dearest apologies baby cakes,” “do you ever shut up,” “when i’m face first in pus-” “Don’t even!”

t a g l i s t: @evan-rose @elianetsantana @weebintheinternet @kuroos-roosterhead

please lmk if i missed you if your not there! <3

[the-duke-of-nuts]

Is This Coffee Hot Or Is It Just You?

Day 3: Coffee Shop @dukexietyweek 

Summary: Virgil finds out that a certain someone happens to work at the local coffee shop

Pairing: Dukexiety

Word Count: 1389

Warnings: Food Mention, Innuendos, Violence Mention, Literally all of my fics contain swearing so there’s that I guess

Tag List: @idontcareaboutcanon (If anyone else wants to be added just let me know)

Ah Coffee shops. Virgil never understood the appeal about a place filled with nothing but caffine, free WIFI, hipsters, and pastries. He certainly also didn't understand why he agreed to go to the local one near his apartment that his friends kept oh so begging him to go to for some reason. Well, by "friends" it was mostly Patton and Roman. His other two friends could care less about the place just as much as him. But here he was opening the door to the quiet semi-crowded shop. There was an oddly comforting atmosphere to it. The lights were dim, random relaxing music can be heard through the speakers, various different tea boxes and mugs hung on the shelves. "Maybe this place isn't so bad." Virgil thought to himself as he looked around the room. He walked forward to the counter as he happened to be the next person in line but then he saw him.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Remus Pierce. The same Remus Pierce that always flirted with him in high school. The same Remus Pierce that casually ate juiced bread at lunch to gross people out. The same Remus Pierce that Virgil secretly had a crush- 

"Well hello there customer~ What can I get you~?" The said mustached, silver streaked hair barista asked smirking. "Coffee." Virgil deadpanned. "I'm afraid you're gonna need to be more specific than that." "Like my soul." Virgil glared. "Alright so black it is. And a name?" Remus smirked as he uncapped a marker and held an empty coffee cup. "Oh my god Remus you already know my-" Virgil took a deep breath in so he could stop himself from getting angry and causing an unnecessary scene and answered with a fake smile "Virgil." "I'm sorry can you spell that for me please? I don't wanna misspell a hottie like yours name like everybody else here does to the other customers."

That damn cocky smirk.

Virgil just wanted to kiss- punch that smug look off his face. "V-I-R-G-I-L." "Okay S-E-X-Y got it. Your beverage should be hot and ready for you shortly." Remus winked and booped Virgil's nose as he walked off to go make the emo's coffee. Virgil growled blushing and buried his face in his hands.

Damn him for being so hot- horrible!

Remus soon came back with Virgil's coffee and dramatically bowed as he held the cup for him to take."For you, my 'Bittersweet Symphony'. "Thanks..." Virgil hesitantly took the beverage. "How much?" He asked as he placed the cup down and reached for his wallet. "Oh for you it's on the house!" "Thanks I guess?" Remus smiled and responded with a nod and a hum.

You gorgeous fuck stop smiling!

Virgil's heart started beating a little faster. Surely Remus wasn't having this effect on him right? They've known each other since high school. There was nothing to be nervous about. The only reason Virgil didn't hear much about the barista after that was because Roman hardly ever talked about him. "So... You work here." Virgil stated as he tried to start a conversation. "Yup! Have been for a couple of months now. What about you? Do you do anything nowadays?" "Of course I do I do a lot of stuff!" Virgil immediately answered. " Oh really? Like what?" Remus asked amused. "Stuff..." Virgil half mumbled as he looked away. Remus cackled.

That disgustingly beautiful laugh.

"Vee Vee, I've known you long enough to know that you're not fully being honest because you're either 1, ashamed or 2, scared of what I'm gonna say. Now c'mon what do you actually do? I promise I won't judge." Virgil blushed. Was he really that readable?

"Fine. It's not like you care or anything but I write poems and sell them."

"Nice. Maybe one of these days you can read me one of your angsty emo sonnets. OOH! Or better yet I can help you write some juicy-"

"Not happening!"

"Fine fine suit yourself." Remus chuckled. "So what brings you here Finding Emo?"

"Prince Drama Queen and Chocolate Chip Cookies."

"Ah so Romano and Patty. That figures. You sure it wasn't for another reason~?"

"No?"

"C'mon admit it. I know you missed me~" Remus smirked playfully pinching Virgil's cheek. "I didn't even know you worked here!" Virgil blushed as he swatted Remus' hand away. "Yeah but now you do and you can see me aaaaanytime you want." "Whatever..." Virgil crossed his arms and looked away.

There soon became a silence between them. Since when did Remus' eyes get prettier? Maybe it was the eyeshadow? No he always had that. Maybe it was because they were a deep chocolate brown? His hair and lips definitely looked softer and- Shit! Virgil was staring!

Get out of there! Get out of there now!

"Anyways I should get going and uh-" Virgil cleared his throat as he picked up his coffee and turned around to leave as quick as possible but Remus stopped him. "Wait uh Virgil, can I ask you something?" Ah yes every anxiety-ridden person's favorite question. "You just did." Virgil deadpanned trying to play off his anxiousness. "You know what I meant!" Remus said slightly irritated.

"Fine. What is it?"

"Okay so I was wondering if you maybe wanted to hang out together later after my shift?"

Virgil blushed. "Like a date?" "If you want it to be~" Remus wiggled his eyebrows and winked. "But in all seriousness yeah kind of." A date!? Remus was far from being the romantic type. This had to be a trick right!?

"Remus I-"

"Look, I know you don't like me much and you probably hate me, but just give me this one chance... Please?" Remus took Virgil's hand and gave him a pleading look. Virgil unconsciously held Remus' hand tighter staring into his eyes. He felt bad. Did Remus really think he actually hated him? That was far from the truth. Virgil loved him. He loved him so damn much since the moment he first laid eyes on him. He just didn't know how to tell him. Let alone show him. 

Virgil sighed. "Fine. One date and that's it. If I actually have a good time, I'll maybe consider going on some more with you. If not, then whatever we have going on between us isn't happening.” That was an obvious lie. Virgil would've agreed to go on countless ones regardless of the outcome and accept to being Remus' boyfriend if he asked but he never wanted to actually admit that to the barista's face.

"I won't disappoint!" Remus smiled getting a little excited. "Yeah yeah whatever. Just out of curiosity, what exactly is this date?" Virgil asked knowing fully well that this "date" the barista had planned was far from his twin's definition. Remus smirked and leaned forward for only Virgil to hear. "Two words. Baseball bats and breaking shit." There's the Remus he knew and loved.

Still chaotic as ever.

Virgil smiled. "Alright you've piqued my interest." "I'm glad I did. If I'm lucky, we both know what happens after the first date~" Remus smirked wiggling his eyebrows. "Shut up. You wish." Virgil blushed holding back a laugh and playfully pushed Remus' face away. Remus cackled.

"A man can fantasize."

"Yeah a little too much."

"So you have thought about-"

"Pierce! Stop flirting with the customers and get back to work!"

Remus rolled his eyes annoyed at his manager's voice in the distance. "I gotta go. My shift ends in like 2 hours and I put my number on the cup so just call or text me or come back by then." "Alright." Remus smirked. "What!?" Virgil blushed confused but immediately realized what that smirk meant.

Oh no.

Remus practically made this phrase a tradition everytime they said bye to each other. "I love you no homo." Yup there it was. Virgil sighed and facepalmed "I love you too no homo..." Remus smiled satisfied that Virgil still said it back since the day they first met.

"Later."

"Later."

 Virgil picked his coffee up and left and smiled to himself as soon as he went outside. After all of these years, he's still a dork. That's what Virgil always loved about Remus. And with that final thought, Virgil finally sipped his coffee and his smile grew wider.

He remembered exactly how I liked it.

[writeforfandoms]

Shake, Rattle and Roll 2

Chapter two!

You can find chapter one Here

Summary: Now you’ve got a dead body and a bunch of prospectors. Time to get out of this mess.

Warnings: More murder. Swearing. 

Eventual Ezra x reader.

Tags: @fandom-blackhole @pedrocentric 

--

“So who killed him?” Felicia demanded, irreverently.

You scoffed quietly and shifted around the others, making your way to the teenager. She was still staring at the body, barely moving. “Hey, kid,” you murmured, moving into her line of sight. “Let’s go get you a drink, hm? C’mon.” 

Gently, you herded the girl away from the body and into another room. She sank into a chair, and you crouched in front of her. 

“What’s your name, kiddo?” you asked her quietly.

“Not a kid,” she murmured, although it sounded more reflexive than argumentative. 

“You’re not old enough to legally drink,” you retorted. “So you’re still a kid. And I’ll call you that until I have something else to call you.”

She hesitated, blinking at you. Her eyes were wide but surprisingly dry. “Cee.”

“Cee.” You smiled at her and gave her your name in return. Her voice was quiet as she repeated it, but not shocky. She was still tracking things. “Cee, I’m sorry, I have to ask. Was that your dad?” 

“Yes.” She took a deeper breath, gaze flicking back to the doorway. 

“Okay.” You rocked back on your heels. “You have anyone else?”

“No.” She seemed reluctant to answer you. You couldn’t blame her - the state-run facilities were kind of rubbish. 

“Okay.” You took a deep breath. One problem at a time. “Okay. First we need to call this in to the authorities, so they can do all their… stuff.” You waved a hand, unwilling to go into further detail about what ‘stuff’ meant. Investigating, mostly. “You’re probably old enough that you could file for emancipation, and if this place is your dad’s, that’s good for you.”

“What?” Cee blinked at you, looking taken aback.

“I mean, unless you really want to go to a government-funded orphanage? I wouldn’t recommend it. They’re not great.” You wrinkled your nose in distaste. 

The two of you were interrupted by a knock on the door. “I had a feeling I might find the two of you together,” Ezra drawled from the doorway, gaze flickering between the two of you. “I have some unfortunate news.”

“More?” you asked, voice dry.

“The others have decided that the map Damon spoke of must be here,” Ezra continued, looking more at Cee than at you. “They are quite determined to find it, and to not be interrupted in their search.”

Meaning they weren’t calling the authorities, and would hinder anyone who did. That was not great. “Where are they starting?”

“The study, I believe. They left the cook in the kitchen with some… creative promises.”

Aka: threats. Got it. “Did they say anything about the kid?”

“No.” Ezra shook his head, looking at you. “I do not believe they cottoned on to the relation between her and Damon.”

“Thank Kevva for small favors,” you grumbled. “Okay. New plan. We’re getting you out of the house.”

“What?” Cee asked, looking at you.

“We are?” Ezra asked, his voice dangerously mellow.

“Yes, we are,” you said, glowering at Ezra. “I don’t give a fuck about the supposed Queen’s Lair. They can turn the house over searching for that map. But once they realize that she’s related, they’re going to expect her to have answers. You really want to leave a kid to the mercy of the four of them?” 

Ezra was silent, frowning a little as his gaze bored into yours. You stared right back, refusing to blink, willing him to just listen to you. You were speaking reasonably, after all. 

Apparently, the girl had been thinking, too. “This place isn’t dad’s, not really,” she whispered. “We’re using it tonight. He was almost out of money, that’s why he was so eager to get some diggers for the Queen’s Lair.”

You dropped your head forward, towards your chest, with a sigh. Fuck. Fuck! Your mind scrambled over possibilities, creating plans to discard them almost as fast. 

“Do you know where the map is?” Ezra asked, creeping a few steps closer. 

Cee looked between Ezra and you, calculating. For all that she wasn’t grown yet, she wasn’t a fool, either. She was weighing her own options. 

“Cee,” you murmured, lifting your head to meet her gaze again. “What are you thinking?”

Cee didn’t get a chance to respond. There was a crash from down the hall, then footsteps running down the hall towards the kitchen. A brief moment of silence later, there was the sharp report of a thrower discharging. You closed your eyes slowly. The cook, at a guess.

“You two stay here,” Ezra said, speaking a little more quickly now. “I will venture over and see what has occurred.” 

You blew out a breath and stood, stretching out your complaining knees. This was turning into a right mess. Even worse, a right mess with no backup. 

Okay. Priorities, in order:

Get Cee out. Get yourself out. Call the authorities. Then see about hiring Cee or something to help her along. Sure, you’d only known the kid for a couple hours, but no kid deserved this. 

Of course, convincing Cee to let you help her might not be so easy, after all. 

“Cee,” you murmured, turning to the girl again. “I want to make one thing clear right now, between you and me. I don’t care about the map, or the aurelac.”

She blinked at you. “You… don’t?”

“No. I stopped digging years ago and I have no desire to go back to it.” You took a deep breath. “Just… keep that in mind. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.” 

Ezra let himself back into the room. This time, he strode right over to the two of you, standing with his hands tucked into his pockets. “Well, from what I understand, the cook attempted to call the authorities, to report the, er, incident, as it were. One of the others took exception to that and stopped her in a rather permanent fashion.”

“Great.” You shoved one hand back through your hair in frustration. “Any idea if they’re continuing to search room to room?” 

"Your guess is as good as mine, birdie," Ezra admitted with a shrug. 

You huffed. "Alright, kid, you got a way out of here? Back door?"

"I can make it," Cee agreed.

"Might be needin' a distraction," Ezra mused, gaze sharp. 

You snorted. "That would help. You volunteering?"

"No. We are." Ezra shot you a grin, wild and mischievous. Oh this one was absolutely Trouble. 

"Hey!" 

The sharp bark from one of the others made you and Cee jump. 

"Everyone here, now!" 

Ezra nodded for you to go first, but you turned to Cee. 

"I know this isn't exactly ideal, but I need you to trust me when I say I will do whatever I can to get you out of here. Okay?" You spoke in a rushed whisper, maintaining eye contact with the girl. This was important. 

"Why?" She asked, rightfully confused.

"I'll explain later, I don't have time right now," you muttered. "But I need you to know that." You stood and headed for the door, passing Ezra wordlessly and ignoring his appraising stare. 

The other prospectors were already gathered in the main hall, joined momentarily by yourself, Ezra, and Cee. 

"Grab the girl," Mikken growled. Inumon stepped forward to comply, and you stepped in her way, heart hammering.

"What for?" You asked, suspicious.

"She's a liability." Mikken gave you a look that clearly questioned your sanity. 

"She's a kid," you protested. "She doesn't know anything about the map. She just works here." 

"Indeed, we spent the past several minutes conversing with this young soul," Ezra added. "As disappointing as it is, she knows nothing of the map, nor of Damon's plans. I am afraid if we wish to find the map, we will have to do so ourselves."

"Fine," Fero spat. "Then we split up and search the house."

Uneasy silence followed that statement as everyone eyed each other, wary and mistrustful. 

"Well then," Ezra started with an easy smile. "Mayhaps we pair off with our accustomed partners? We can divvy up the house by floor."

Mikken nodded once and pointed at you and Ezra. "Basement." Then he looked at Fero and Felicia. "Second floor." 

"And the girl?" Inumon asked before anyone (mainly you) could protest.

Mikken looked down the hallway, thinking for a few moments, before he nodded to a doorway. "Lock her in there." 

You turned to Cee and found Ezra already there, smile still firmly in place. 

"Well little bird, looks like you're in luck," he said, leading the way into the room. It was a library. An actual library. You felt your jaw drop a bit. You'd thought the study had been impressive, but this? This was magnificent. Ezra whistled lowly, apparently sharing your opinion. "In luck indeed! Little bird, you most certainly have luck on your side this fine night. I recommend you find something with which to entertain yourself and keep quiet."

Cee gave both of you one last look before she stepped inside. Ezra shut and locked the door, pocketing the key. 

"Shall we venture forth, then?" He asked, nodding to the basement door. 

A quick glance confirmed Fero and Felicia were already half-way up the stairs. With a sigh, you nodded. 

"Let's go."

[tyongf-nct]

the three of us - smut (2k)

dynamic: markhyuck x reader

warnings/tags: threesome, markhyuck, member x member interaction, established relationship (?), fwb, smut

Mark and Haechan had an interesting dynamic that no one could quite understand, including themselves. 

They argued often, not really about anything serious, but stupid fights that ended quickly when Haechan would pout or Mark would change the subject. They forgave each other as easily as they got annoyed with one another. They were also both very open with each other, which was surprising sometimes to Haechan considering how hard it was to get Mark to talk about his feelings--especially concerning you. But there was always an air of something you couldn’t quite grasp, and neither could they, you imagined.

Mark and Haechan both slept with you, that was nothing new. You had always done it with each of them individually, never all three of you at once. Recently, though, this idea was a topic of discussion between you and Haechan. In fact, he had been the one to bring it up several times, asking what you thought about Mark possibly joining the two of you in bed.

“Did he ask you about this?” You had asked, searching Haechan’s eyes for a clue as to why he suddenly was thinking about a threesome. You certainly weren’t against it--truthfully, it had been one of your biggest fantasies ever since you had started your...relationship...with the two boys.

“No, no, you know Mark. I was just thinking, maybe it could be fun. I mean, we’re already both experienced with you, so the dynamic could be fun?” the statement came out more like a question. You tilted your head to the side, considering it for a moment.

“If Mark is comfortable with it, I’d love to. Should I ask him or you?” 

“I think you,” Haechan said firmly, “If it’s coming from me he might freak out and think I just want to sleep with him,” he laughed.

“Well, don’t you?” You smirked. Haechan whipped his head to look back at you, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks.

“I mean...yes. No. Well, maybe,” he laughed awkwardly. You decided to quit teasing him, leaning back in for another kiss.

It wasn’t until almost a week later did you broach the topic with Mark.

“So, Mark, I have a question,” you started. He looked at you from below, your legs planted on either side of him as you straddled him. You had been making out lazily for half an hour, breathing each other in with feverous touches and deep kisses.

“Ask away,” he murmured, lips still attached to your neck. You sighed, unsure how to start, and gently pushed him away. He caught your eyes, staring in concern.

“What’s wrong?” He sounded worried, and you stroked his cheek to try and calm him.

“Nothing! Nothing is wrong, I just don’t know how to start,” you laughed uncomfortably. He blinked, giving you time to collect your thoughts.

“Okay,” you sighed, “Okay. So, Haechan and I were talking the other day. He had an idea...well, we had an idea. How would you feel about the possibility of a threesome?” You bit your lip, holding your breath in nervously.

Mark’s mouth dropped open, stuttering for a second before breathing in and trying again. 

“You mean, like, between the three of us? Me, you, and Haechan?”

You nodded, scared for a moment that he was going to freak out like Haechan said.

“Sure.”

You gaped at Mark, unsure if you actually heard him right.

“Wait, really? You really want to?” You asked excitedly. He chuckled, blushing and hiding his face with his hand.

“I mean, yes, I guess.”

You frowned, your excitement dying down for a moment as you eyed him warily.

“I don’t want you to guess. I want you to be sure. If you’re uncomfortable, please don’t feel like you have to. Haechan and I want to, but we’ll be fine if you decide not to,” you reassure him. He smiled, reaching his head up to kiss your nose.

“I’m sure. It’s just going to be a new experience,” he laughed.

“For all of us.”

The next night, you were sitting in front of the two boys, both looking rather awkward on the small bed.

“Okay! Listen, we all need to relax. This isn’t a big of a deal as we’re making it right?” That was a lie, it was definitely a big deal for the two of them. It would be their first time with another guy in bed, but you were trying your best to diffuse the tension before it turned into something negative.

Haechan grinned, his smile bright and brilliant as always, and nodded firmly. 

“Y/n’s right. It’s not like we’re all strangers.” You smiled, grateful for his small contribution, and looked at Mark. He didn’t look upset, just a little nervous. You crawled over to him, settling on his lap and wrapping your arms around his neck. He finally made eye contact, his round eyes wide.

“You trust me, right baby?” Your tone was smooth and soothing, and Mark’s eyelashes fluttered with a soft moan. You could hear Haechan suck in a breath but you didn’t look at him yet, wanting Mark to get comfortable with you first. He nodded, closing his eyes as you leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. It deepened quickly, your hips circling against his and your mouth muffling his quiet groans. You could feel him grow hard quickly, and wetness started to pool in your panties as your mind went to Haechan, who was sitting patiently right beside you.

As if on cue, Haechan reached for you, grabbing your jaw with one hand and placing the other on your hip. You broke the kiss with Mark, turning to him for a split second before he smashed his own lips against your own. You moaned, feeling Mark’s length through his pants underneath you as you kissed Haechan. Mark whispered something under his breath, probably a curse, as you slipped your tongue inside Haechan’s mouth. He reached for the hem of your shirt, your arms lifting as he pulled it over your head. The three of you hadn’t exactly discussed what you’d be doing, but you figured that was for the best. The more spontaneous, the more likely everyone would remain comfortable and confident.

The next minute was a blur of the three of you getting undressed, shirts and pants and underwear flying off in record speed. You ended up down by Mark’s thighs, his now pink and rock-hard cock twitching right in front of your face. Your mouth watered, wanting to swallow him down immediately and hear his deep groans.

“Wait,” Haechan spoke up, moving to position himself behind you until his face was right at your entrance. You whimpered, feeling his hot breath puff against your soaking core. You clenched around nothing, hormones and desire overwhelming you. As soon as you grabbed Mark’s length to put into your mouth, Haechan licked a stripe up your center, pulling a moan out of you. Mark groaned at the vibration against his member, reaching down to hold your hair in a tight fist. You sucked him off as Haechan ate you out, the three of you not holding back anything. Moans blended harmoniously with obscene wet sounds in the air, flashes of hot pleasure traveling straight to your core. You pulled off Mark to warn Haechan you were close and he stopped instantly, wanting to drag it out a little longer. Although at this point, you were sure you’d be coming more than once tonight.

“Can we-can we try something Mark?” Haechan asked, wiping his mouth ungracefully with the back of his hand. His lips glistened with your wetness as you sat back, watching the two of them as your core throbbed with need. Mark opened his eyes, panting as his cock twitched against the tight muscles of his stomach.

“Try what?”

Haechan bit his lip, looking at you for an encouraging nod before returning to Mark’s gaze.

“I want...I want to t-touch you,” he whispered. You groaned, unable to hold back at the thought of the two boys getting each other off. Mark blushed furiously, as did Haechan, but they held each other’s stares.

“Yes,” Mark sighed, “You can.” Haechan looked relieved, letting out a breath before scooting closer to him, placing a tentative hand on his dick. Mark responded instantly, choking out a moan as his friend stroked his hard member slowly. Your saliva provided a slick hold for Haechan, and you grinded down on the sheets needily. Mark noticed, snapping to attention as you whined with desperation. His mood changed from whiny to dominant, flipping Haechan under him and beckoning you to the two of them. 

“Come lay next to Haechan,” he instructed. You scooted closer, laying on your back next to Haechan, feeling the heat from his skin as your arm pressed right up against his. Mark took Haechan’s untouched length in his hand along with his own cock, pulling a surprised moan out of both you and Haechan. He stroked himself and Haechan together, cursing under his breath as you watched through half-lidded eyes.

“Spread your legs, baby,” he said, turning his eyes to you. He never stopped his actions, continually stroking the two of them off as he reached his free hand between your thighs, circling your bundle of nerves a few times before sliding a digit inside you. You tightened around him, desperate for any kind of internal stimulation at this point. It continued like that for just a few overwhelming minutes, Mark getting the two of you off with just his hands as you fell apart. Mark’s legs were straddling Haechan, the younger boy looking suddenly so much smaller as Mark kneeled on top of him. You gripped onto the sheets, nails digging in desperately as Mark added a second finger.

“Oh my god,” you moaned, letting your head fall to the side on the pillow. Haechan met your eyes then, pupils so dilated they looked black, and a whispered curse fell from his full lips. They were almost red from him biting them so hard, swollen and looking too kissable to resist. You gave into the temptation, leaning over the pillow to kiss him. He moaned into your mouth, sliding his tongue in and arching under Mark’s touch.

“Fuck,” Mark grunted, thrusting into his hand against Haechan’s cock. You broke the kiss, wanting to watch the two of them just as Haechan came, white come spilling everywhere. It coated Mark’s own length and his hand, pulling a string of profanities from him before he came too, his come mixing with Haechan’s as you whined loudly. Mark grinded his cock against Haechan’s spent one, taking his fingers out of you to place his hands on either side of Haechan, overwhelmed with the pleasure of getting himself off against his friend.

“Oh god, Mark. Oh my fucking god,” Haechan cried, his nails digging into Mark’s thighs where he held tightly. Mark finally stopped, the overstimulation too much as he slid off Haechan and down to your core, ready to help you finish.

You barely had time to moan, tossing your head back in pleasure as Mark sucked on the flesh of your core, licking you to your orgasm. Your thighs shook as a tsunami of pleasure crashed into you, eyes squeezing shut as he placed one final kiss on the inside of your thigh. Mark pulled back, licking the wetness from his lips with a grin. You and Haechan lied there weakly, panting from your orgasms and looking up at Mark in wonder.

“I guess that wasn’t such a bad idea,” he smiled, laughing at your groans. Haechan reached up to smack his leg half-heartedly, rolling his eyes as Mark flopped down between the two of you.

“I say we go for another round in a few minutes,” you spoke up hoarsely. The two boys laughed, stupid chatter and affectionate touches between the three of you.

[talesofarcadia78]

Sorceress of Arcadia || Becoming Part 2

Summary: Y/n Lake is Jim Lake's older sister. She discovers  that she is sorceress and her brother is the Trollhunter. She and the Trollhunters go on adventures together, they save trolls and humans. Along the way, a friend becomes more than just a friend and discovers their secrets.

Warning: Pain

Word count: 6,601

Tags: @lunariasilver

Previous >> Becoming Part 1  • Next >> Becoming Part 2 (Douxie’s POV) 

Next morning, you woke up, looking around. You looked down at your ankle, it wasn’t purple anymore. You cautiously stepped on your feet, it hurt a little bit you could handle it. You got up and got ready for the day. You were wearing the same thing from yesterday, not bothered to wear anything else. You saw yourself in the mirror. Your hair was a mess. You combed your hair, which was very hard and tied it up into a low ponytail. You walked downstairs, calling for Jim, but he was going out the door. 

“Where are you going?” you asked. 

“To the dentist, to tell Toby about yesterday. I’ll see you later,” he said, closing the door behind him.

You walked into the kitchen and saw your mom making something. Oh no. She didn’t have Jim’s cooking skills, or any for a fact. 

“Mom! What are you making?” you asked peeking over her shoulder. 

“Just making toast. You want some?” she asked and you backed away. 

“I’ll pass, I’ll just grab something out of the fridge,” you said, walking to the fridge and opening it up. 

You took the first thing you saw, which was an apple. 

“Your going to eat an apple for breakfast? You’re not the type of person who would have fruit first thing in the morning,” she said, raising her eyebrow at you. 

“Well, you know what they say: an apple a day, keeps the doctor away,” you stated. 

“That’s what parents say to make their kids eat an apple, it’s not actually true,” she told you. 

“Meh. Well, I’ll get going, bye!” you said, kissing her on her cheek and walking out the door. 

You rode your bike over to Mr. Benoits, hoping for something to eat, more then just an apple. You walked in and saw there were a lot of people today. You walked out of the cafe. It would take a long time for you. You went to a taco truck instead. You saw that the line wasn’t too long, so you stood in line. As you moved to the front of the line, you looked at the menu. When you got to the front, you ordered a breakfast burrito. You waited a good 5 minutes until when your burrito arrived. You thanked them and walked off to find somewhere to sit. It was a beautiful day, so you sat outside the museum. You ate your burrito quietly while researching about sorceresses. Apparently you were one. You found a wikipedia page that said sorceresses were a female practitioner of magic. ‘Practitioner of magic’ was in blue so you clinked on the link, to only find out about magicians. Not helpful. You only found websites that defined sorceresses, not actually tell about them. You sighed, frustrated. 

“Looks like someone is frustrated,” a familiar voice spoke. 

You looked up to see Douxie. 

“Oh hey Douxie. I was just researching but didn’t find what I was looking for,” you explained. 

“Ah, I see. Well, I see you are in town, so your ankle must be okay. Right?” he asked. 

“Yeah, its better. It still hurts a bit, but I can handle it,” you said, walking over to a near by bin to throw the foil that was wrapped around the burrito. 

“Well, are you interested in books?”Douxie asked. 

“Yeah. Why?” you asked, curious why he suddenly brought up the topic of books. 

“Well, the bookstore I work in isn’t far, wanna come?” he said. 

“Yeah sure,” you replied. 

You both walked to the bookstore, chatting about your life. When you had arrived, Douxie held open the door for you and bowed. 

“Why you’re very chivalrous,” you commented.  

“Thank you m’lady,” he joked.

You both walked inside. It felt very cozy and homey. You walked over to a shelf, and started skimming through the titles. None of them looked appealing to you. You kept searching through the shelves, until you felt a tap on your shoulder. You spun around to see Douxie, holding out a book. 

“What about this?” he asked, handing you the book. 

The title read: Life of a Wizard in Camelot. 

“Wait, Camelot as in 12th century, medieval times Camelot?” you asked. 

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t really know. This book had been here for ages, no one has ever showed any interest in it so far. You’re the first,” he explained . 

You walked over to a couch and started reading the book. You couldn’t really read what was written, since whoever wrote it was not a neat hand writer. But it wasn’t that messy that you couldn’t read it all. There were margins where there was neater hand writing, where they had random notes like, ‘Magic isn’t a permissible shortcut to hard work!’ and ‘Master doesn’t let me use my magic’. The last one caught your attention. 

“If it says me, then there must be someone else who wrote, not the author,” you mumbled to yourself. 

You kept reading through the pages, learning about Camelot and the wizard, Merlin, who had also written the book. It was interesting to see Merlin’s perspective of the world. Your eyelids started getting heavier by the minute as you kept reading. Then you dozed off. 

“I got lemonade!” Douxie declared, to no one in particular. 

You jolted up. You had realised that you had dozed off in the middle of the bookstore. Douxie came up from behind you and gave you a glass of lemonade. He sat next to you on the couch and looked over your shoulder. 

“Is it good so far?” Douxie asked. 

“Yeah. It’s interesting to see Merlin’s perspective of Camelot and King Arthur. Plus it’s funny to see the little notes in the margins,” you said, pointing to a note. 

“Well, I hoped you liked it, want to buy it?” Douxie asked, finishing his lemonade and setting it on the table in front of him. 

“Actually yes. How much is it?” you replied, closing the book. 

“As I said, the book has been lying around for ages so, it’s on me,” he repeated. 

“No. You have two jobs and on top of that, you study. You deserve the money,” you denied, getting $15 and handing him the money. 

He shook his head, shoving the money back into your hand. You were about to protest, when he jumped up, off the couch. 

“What about, you give me the money and in return, I buy you dinner tomorrow,” he suggested. 

You thought about it. You got to give him the money he deserved and in return, you two got to go out for dinner, as friends. 

“Okay, sounds like a plan,” you told him, handing him the money. 

“Great, it’s a date!” he added. 

He walked over to the counter and put the money in a box. 

A date? Did he just really say that. You shook your head and concluded that it would be a friendly outing. 

You opened the book and continued reading. Douxie came back and sat down next to you again, reading with you. He noticed that you had also finished your lemonade and put the glasses away. He looked at the time, it was 12, it was break time. He walked over to the door and spun the sign from ‘open’ to ‘on break’. He walked back over to you and sat next to you. The two of you read through the book. 

Once again, your eyelids got heavier and heavier. You tried to not close your eyes, but you slowly drifted off. As you closed you eyes, you leaned onto Douxie’s shoulder and fell asleep. Once Douxie had done reading the page you were on, he wondered why you had stopped turning the page, so he turned to see you. He realised that you had fallen asleep on his shoulder. He grinned. He book marked the page and closed it. He put the book on the table gently, making sure not to wake you up and leaned back into the couch. After a few minutes, he also drifted off into a sleep, leaning his head on yours. 

It had been about half an hour, when you heard a loud banging. You woke up abruptly, looking towards the source of the noise. You realised a slight pressure on your head, you looked up to see Douxie sleeping peacefully. You smiled. You gently shook him by his shoulder, and he instantly opened his eyelids. He looked down at you, and you pointed towards the door. Some people were knocking on the door. He sprinted towards the door and unlocked it. 

“Sorry folks! Just drifted off a bit, please come on in,” Douxie apologised and opened the door wider to let the people in. 

“It’s okay lad. We understand if you need to focus some time with your girlfriend,” an old man said, pointing to you. 

“I...uh...um...” Douxie stammered, trying to look for an answer.

“Lad?” the old man waved his hand in front of Douxie. 

Douxie snapped back into reality. 

“Yes sir! Please come on in,” Douxie answered, gesturing him to come in.  

You walked up to Douxie, with the book in your hand. 

“Well, I have to go. I’ll see you later,” you said, and was about to leave when Douxie grabbed your wrist. 

“Wait! How am I going to let you know what time I’ll come pick you up? Do you have an email or a number...”, he asked. 

The two of you exchanged numbers. 

“Thanks. I’ll text you what time I’ll come,” Douxie said. “Oh and come dressed....nicely,” he added.

“Sure, you too. Don’t wear, you know...that,” you joked, gesturing to his outfit. 

“Cheeky!” he teased. 

You walked back to your bike and rode back home. When you opened the door, you saw Jim and Toby in the kitchen. You put the book on the table and walked into the kitchen. 

“Hey Jimbo! Hey Toby!” you greeted, as you leaned on the kitchen bench. 

“Hey y/n!” they both said. 

“It takes 8 hours! 8 hours!” Jim cried. 

“Yep!” Toby replied, going on explaining what happens in those 8 hours. 

“Wow! That’s a lot,” you commented. 

You walked out of the kitchen and took your book and went to your room. You could hear Toby freaking over Jim’s armour, and telling him that he can use that to kick Steve’s butt. You put the book on your desk and went back downstairs. 

“Really? I show you a glowing sword and a suit of armour that can only be magic, and that's how you respond?” Jim exclaimed. 

“Yeah! It’s butt kicking time! Wow, these pants are so elastic!” Toby replied, fascinated that his pants were so flexible. 

Then you heard a knock on the back door. You looked towards the door and saw Blinky waving. 

“What?! Don’t open the door!” Toby freaked out. 

Then, the door opened up by Blinky and then he shouted, 

“Master Jim!”

Toby started screaming, and hid behind the counter. Toby dialled animal control, and started speaking to them. 

“Monsters, at my best friend's house! I need you to send a squad! Make that the National Guard!” Toby panicked. 

Then Animal Control hung up on him. 

“Animal Control hung up on me!” Toby said, frustrated. 

While Toby freaked out, AAARRRGGHH was having a hard time getting through the small doorway. Poor guy. Before you could help him, he got through by himself. 

“You told your stout little friend about us?” Blinky asked. 

“Uh is that a problem?” Jim and you asked. 

“Master Jim, miss y/n, we trolls have gone to great lengths to keep our existence secret from your kind, lest there be panic,” Blinky explained. 

Toby on the other hand was panicking. 

“Like that,” Blinky said, gesturing to Toby. 

“It’s all right, Tobes,” you soothed, trying to keep him calm. 

“They’re like nine feet tall!” Toby said, looking at AAARRRGGHH. 

“This is my best friend, Toby D,” Jim explained to Blinky. 

“He has like 800 eyes. We’re going to die,” Toby wined. 

You rolled your eyes. 

“Hardly. Your friend is the Trollhunter. His noble obligation is protective and the other one is a sorceress” he explained to Toby. 

“What! Y/n is a sorceress! Like in magic?!” Toby remarked, “And by ‘protecting’...You mean like a super hero? Oh, can I be his sidekick, along side y/n? With a cool superhero name like Deathblade or Snipersnake? Just wait. Who would I be protecting?” 

“Us,” AAARRRGGHH said. 

“And mankind. From bad trolls... As well as goblins, gruesome, and the occasional rogue gnome,” Blinky told us. 

Then Toby started tapping Blinky with a large spoon. You giggled. 

“Do you mind?” Blinky scolded. 

Toby drops the spoon. 

“The mantle of the Trollhunter is a sacred responsibility, one which has never been passed to a human before. This is a momentous occasion,” Blinky continued. 

Then we all heard a car pull onto the driveway. 

“Oh no, it’s our mother! Upstairs, quick!” you cried, running upstairs, into the bathroom and locked the door. 

“Jim? Y/n? It’s me!” your mom announced.

“She’s not supposed to be home till midnight!” you whispered. 

Then it hit you. Not why your mom had come home, but the pain in your ankle. It started to come back. Curse you ankle! You tried to look like you weren’t in pain, and this time it actually worked! You got out of your own thoughts and back into reality. 

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were explaining about the amulet and what had happened to the previous Trollhunter. Unfortunately, he was killed or had sacrificed his life, something like that. Then your mom started speaking to Jim. He had made a lame excuse that he had food poisoning and obviously mom was a doctor, so she had to treat her son. She was about to come in, when Jim some how shoved us in the shower. 

When your mom had left, you all came out of the bathroom and into the living room. AAARRRGGHH started knocking things over, since he was a big troll. 

“Your cave too small,” AAARRRGGHH complained. 

It technically wasn’t a cave, but if he thought it was a cave, then a cave it is. 

“So Master Jim, are you ready? We should begin training immediately, y/n yours too, since you need to develop your magic skills, Vendel will help with that” Blinky said. 

“Uh, it’s a school night for us,” Jim said, picking up books that had fallen over. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. 

“I assure you the relevance escapes me,” Blinky tried to convince us. 

“I’m 15 and y/n’s 18. We have to stay home and study, and stuff- do homework? We can’t be out y’know Trollhunting and sorceressing?” Jim explained to Blinky. 

“Because?” Blinky asked. 

“Well the whole getting killed by a vicious troll named Bular might be a deal breaker to Jim,” you said. 

“Deal breaker?” Blinky asked. 

“We don’t want to die!” Jim blurted. 

Who does? 

“Goodness gracious, who does!” Blinky exclaimed. 

Jim takes out the amulet. What is he going to do?

“Maybe you should take this back,” Jim said. 

“Jim?” you said. 

“The amulet called to you, Master Jim. It chose you. It is your-” Blinky said, when he was cut off by Jim. 

“Please don’t say destiny,” Jim begged. 

“-sacred obligation!” Blinky finished. 

“Or that,” Jim added, face palming. 

“You cannot refuse it, you cannot give it back. It is yours until you die,” Blinky said. 

“And I would like to get a little further past puberty before that happens!” Jim blurted. 

Ooo! You wanted to side with Jim, but Blinky was also right, the responsibility was his to take. You were about to say something, when the pain in your ankle got worse. You leaned on the window seal. Jim looked at you, worried. 

“Y/n are you alright? It’s your ankle, isn’t it?”Jim asked. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Really. It’s just a little pain, it’ll subside eventually,” you reassured your brother. 

Jim raised his eyebrow. 

“Know it’s fine,” you lied, walking towards the back door, where Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were. 

Toby was giving AAARRRGGHH some VHS’s for the road. When you heard Blinky start to say something to Jim. 

“Master Jim, if I may... destiny is a gift. Some go their entire lives living existence in quiet desperation, never learning the truth that what feels as though a burden pushing down upon on our shoulders is actually a sense of purpose that lifts us to greater heights! Never forget that fear is the precursor to valour. That to strive and triumph in the face of fear, is what it means to be a hero. Don’t think Master Jim... become! Would you at least consider?” Blinky said. 

Wow! That was some speech. Jim fist pumped all of Blinky’s hands, as an agreement. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH went out, noisily, climbing over the fence. 

“They’re pretty stealthy. How’s that? We bought you a night!” Toby said. 

“A night?” Jim scoffed. 

“Dude, you’re the one who’s always talking about ‘wanting adventure’, and ‘something more!’ Well, wish granted! So trolls are a thing, who knew?” Toby reminded. 

“Well, there you go Jimbo! You have an adventure. Happy?” you said, as you headed towards your room. 

You were just about to go up the stairs when, you heard a ‘beep’ from your phone. You looked who it was from, Douxie. 

It read: 

Hey, 

So, I can’t take you out for dinner tomorrow, something came up. But I am free tonight, are you? 

You replied: 

Yeah

He immediately relied: 

Great! I’m coming to pick you up in 20 minutes. Bye.

You replied: 

Okay, bye. 

You ran upstairs, when you winced halfway, your ankle. Maybe it was a bad idea to curse your own ankle. You ignored it, and continued to your room. You flung open your closet, looking for something good to wear. Then your eyes landed on a dress, it had a black to navy blue gradient, with purple flowers on the right side of the waist. With   navy blue flats. You looked in the mirror, your hair was a bit messy, so you quickly made it back into a low ponytail, with a few loose strands around your face. Perfect. 

You walked into your brothers room to find Jim doing his homework. He looked at you. 

“Where are you going?” Jim asked. 

“Out for dinner with a friend,” you replied, while texting your mom that you were going out for dinner. 

“Who is this friend?” Jim asked. 

“Douxie,” you replied, while you read through your mom’s text. 

She had agreed and told to be back by 10. 

“Douxie?! Why?” Jim asked, again. 

“Why do you keep asking me questions, like a police officer?” you asked. 

“Well...I...uh...” Jim stammered, “I don’t trust him, y’know”. 

“Why?” you asked. 

Douxie wasn’t a bad person. Jim was about to answer when the door bell rang. You were about to walk downstairs and open it, but Jim beat you to it and told you to stay. He went downstairs and opened the door to find Douxie, in a black dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and a navy blue bow tie, with black pants and shoes. 

“Hey Jim. I was here to pick up your sister. We’re going out for dinner,” Douxie said. 

“Hey Douxie. I’ll call her,” Jim replied. 

Douxie was about to say something when Jim shouted out, 

“Y/n! Douxie is here!”

Douxie winced, that was loud. Jim took a step back from the doorway and you came down. Douxie’s eyes widened as he saw you. You looked beautiful. As you walked towards Jim, he grinned. 

“Come back by 10. It’s school night,” he said, sternly, but you could hear the little amusement in his voice. 

“I will,” you replied. 

“Shall we?” Douxie asked, offering his arm to you. 

You took it and stepped out of the house. You turned to face Jim. 

“Have fun sis. Douxie, take care of my sister, she’s the only one I have. She is the only person I can talk to when no one else would understand, even when Toby wouldn’t understand,” Jim said. 

“Don’t worry Jim! She is under great care for the next 2 hours. I promise,” Douxie reassured him.

You waved to Jim as he closed the door. You went over to Douxie’s vespa. 

“I never knew you had a vespa” you said. 

“And I never knew your brother was very protective of you,” Douxie joked. 

“Well, that’s true. He’s never been so protective before,” you said. 

“Well, let’s leave your brother to the side for now, and you come and sit behind me,” Douxie said, patting the seat behind him. 

You sat behind him as he started the vehicle up. Once it was started, you jolted, as he rode very fast. You were about to fall, when just time, Douxie caught you with one of his hands. 

“No offence, but you need to ride more safely,” you commented, as you put your hands around his waist, not wanting to have a risk of falling. 

“I’ll get around to it. For now just enjoy the view,” he said. 

You looked out, it was beautiful. The moon was rising and the scenery before you was beautiful. You put your chin on Douxie’s shoulder, taking in the scenery. After 10 minutes, you saw that you were at a fancy type looking restaurant. You got off the vespa and walked into the restaurant with Douxie. 

“Wow! You chose a nice restaurant,” you said. 

He thanked you. 

You walked over to a two seater table and was about to sit when Douxie stopped you. He took out the chair for you and you sat. You were going to pull it in, when Douxie did for you. Then he took a seat in front of you. Douxie grabbed the menu and looked through the variety of foods, then his eyes lit up at something. 

“Do you want pasta?” Douxie asked, looking up from the menu, at you. 

“I don’t mind,” you said. 

“Which one do you want?” Douxie asked, turning the menu so you can see. 

You read through each one, there were a lot of options but not a lot of vegetarian options, since you didn’t like the idea of eating animals. (If you aren’t a vegetarian then you can imagine another type of pasta you like)

“Maybe the Macadamia pesto pappardelle? Wait you aren’t allergic to nuts, are you?” you asked. 

“Nope! It’s sounds good. Nice choice,” he said. 

Then a waiter came over to you and asked for what you would like to order. He took down what Douxie ordered and walked away. 

“I’m sorry, if you found my choice of food, well you know,” you said. 

“It’s ok. I’m guessing you are a vegetarian or a vegan?” Douxie asked. 

“Yeah, I just don’t like the idea of eating animals,” you explained. 

From that you and Douxie started talking, and finding out a lot about each other.

 After you had finished dinner, you both went to the front to pay. You took out your card to pay while Douxie took out his. 

“Are you guys splitting the bill, or is one of you going to pay?” the employee asked. 

“I’m going to pay,” Douxie and you replied at the same time. 

“Y/n, you bought the book, I buy you dinner. That was the deal,” Douxie said. 

You were going to protest, but Douxie quickly tapped his card on the machine. You sighed and put your card back into your purse. 

“Let’s go,” Douxie said, heading out of the restaurant while you followed behind. 

He started the vespa and you sat on. 

“Ride safely,” you said. 

“Will do,” Douxie replied, and rode off into the night. 

You looked at your phone, 9:55. You had to hurry. 

“Uh, Douxie, maybe you want to go a bit more faster,” you said to him, as you showed him the time. 

He nodded and sped up a little. You were half way across the bridge, when something jumped in front of you. Douxie halted to a stop. The thing that had jumped in front of you was huge, and had red and orange eyes, that were staring at us. It came towards us, scraping the floor with its sword, a troll.

“What is that?” Douxie whispered. 

“Two little flesh bags out and about at night, make tasty meals,” the troll said. 

“I do not want to be a tasty meal,” you whispered. 

“It has been so long since I had a human for dinner,” the troll said. 

It kept coming forward. You looked for an escape route, but didn’t find one. 

“Douxie, what do we do?” you whispered to him. 

“We have to distract him,” Douxie whispered back. 

“How?” you asked. 

“I didn’t think that far,” he replied. 

He tried to start up the engine, but it didn’t work, no fuel. 

“We have to run,” Douxie said. 

You nodded. You got off the vespa and looked at the creature. 

“I’m sorry lad! But you won’t be having dinner tonight!” Douxie shouted at him. 

He roared and ran towards us. Douxie grabbed your hand and said, 

“Do you trust me?”

You nodded. Then he ran to the edge of the bridge and jumped down, taking you down with him. He landed perfectly, but you on the other hand, landed on your already injured ankle, which had landed the wrong way. You let out a groan, hugging your ankle. Douxie turned to see what the matter was. He saw that you were holding your ankle in pain. 

“Y/n! Are you alright?” Douxie asked. 

You did a thumbs up to him, forcing a smile on your face. 

Then the troll jumped in front of you. In a flash, Douxie picked you up and ran. 

“Sorry y/n, the dinner didn’t go as planned,” Douxie said. 

“It’s okay,” you said, peeking over Douxie’s shoulder to see if the troll was following you. It wasn’t, it had disappeared. Then you looked ahead, seeing where you were going. You had reached your house. Douxie walked up the stairs and saw that the door was slightly open. He kicked it open, to see that Jim was sitting on the edge of the couch. He jumped up off the couch and ran towards you. 

“Y/n! What took you so long? I was worried sick!”Jim exclaimed. 

“I’m fine,” you said. 

“You are clearly not fine. You are literally in Douxie’s arms for a reason,” Jim said. 

“It’s her ankle,” Douxie said. 

“What did you do?” Jim asked, giving Douxie a glare. 

“Nothing! We ran into...trouble. Her ankle started hurting, so yeah,” Douxie explained. 

Jim nodded. Douxie set you down and waved goodbye. Jim glared at Douxie as he went out. 

“Jim, it’s not his fault,” you said. 

“It is! I never should have trusted him. He said that you would be under great care for the 2 hours that you would be with him. But no you weren’t, he broke his promise,” Jim exclaimed. 

“Well the only reason I did get hurt cause a random troll jumped in front of us while we were coming back. And the only evil troll around is...” you explained. 

“Bular!” Jim finished. 

“So it’s not Douxie’s fault,” you said. 

“It is his fault. Now lets go to bed,” Jim said, helping you to your room. 

You sighed. How were you going to make him believe that it wasn’t Douxie’s fault?

You changed into your PJ’s and went to sleep, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day. 

You woke up the next morning a bit late and quickly got changed. You headed downstairs to find Jim waiting for you. 

“Sorry I overslept,” you said, as you headed out. 

It was a quiet ride to school, Jim and Toby were riding ahead of you, chatting away. While you silently rode your way to school. 

As you put your bike away, your friends came over to you. 

“We got the news! If you don’t spill yourself then we will annoy the entire day,” Izzy and Rachael said. 

“What news? I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” you said, walking over to your locker. 

You actually had no idea what they were talking about. 

“Don’t try to act innocent,” Rachael teased. 

“I’m not! I have no idea what news your talking about,” you said. 

“The news where you and Douxie...” Izzy hinted. 

“Oh that! How did you guys find out?” you asked, placing books into your bag. 

“Your waiter!” they exclaimed. 

What? Then it hit you. The waiter was one of your classmates! You were so caught up talking with Douxie, you hadn’t realised. 

“It was just a friendly dinner, that’s all. Plus it only happened because I paid for a book at his bookstore so he took for me for dinner,” you explained, closing your locker and started walking towards class.

 “Hey y/n!” someone said. 

You spun around to see Douxie running towards you. 

“Well, there comes your boyfriend,” Izzy giggled, making you blush.

“He is not my boyfriend!” you hissed. 

“Whatever,” Izzy teased. 

“Hey Douxie!” you greeted him. 

“So from yesterday, is your ankle alright?” Douxie asked. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry that my brother was so rude yesterday. He was mad at you, for not keeping your promise,” you added. 

“It’s okay. I’m to blame for though, I promised Jim you would be in great care, and I broke that promise,” Douxie admitted, looking down to the ground, feeling ashamed. 

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault, plus I’m fine now,” you reassured him. 

He shook his head. Then, you saw some tears drop onto the ground. You put your hand on his shoulder. 

“Douxie, I’m fine,” you said, making him look up, “See?”

You jumped up and down a couple of times to prove your point. After you stopped jumping, you tried to not wince from the slight pain. 

“I’m fine,” you repeated, putting your hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. 

Suddenly, he took your hands in his and looked you in your eyes. 

“Well can you come to my concert tonight?” Douxie asked. 

“What time?” you asked. 

“8:30, at the square” he replied. 

“I’ll be there,” you said. 

“Great!” Douxie grinned and kissed your cheek, making you blush.

He then waved bye. You were shocked. He had just kissed you. Izzy and Rachael walked in front of you and got your attention. 

“He just asked you out!” Rachael squealed in excitement. 

“Douxie Casperan, the most popular and hottest guy in Arcadia Oaks Academy just kissed you and asked you out y/n!” Izzy exclaimed, shaking your shoulder. 

“Um...yeah, but he didn’t ask me out, just asked me to come to his concert,” you whispered, looking around. 

There was a crowd, starring in awe. They must’ve seen everything. 

“Let’s just go to class,” you said, as you noticed people starting to come up to you and ask questions. 

The day went like a blur. Before you knew it, it was already 3 o’clock. 

You walking over to your bike when a bunch of people surrounded you. 

“Is it true that Douxie kissed you?” a girl asked. 

“Are you two a couple?” another girl asked. 

“Are you two dating?” a guy asked. 

You had to get out of there, when someone pulled you out of the crowd.You looked at you saviour, it was none other then Douxie. 

“You alright?” Douxie asked. 

“Yeah, but my metal state, not so much,” you replied. 

“People asking you too many questions?” Douxie asked, giving you a sympathetic smile. 

You nodded. The crowd started surrounding the two of you know and started to shoot questions at both you. 

“Are you guys dating?” a girl asked. 

“When did you guys get together?” another asked. 

You were starting to get tired of these questions. You looked at Douxie, hoping he would have a plan to get out of this problem. He just smiled, took your hand and ran through the crowd, towards the bikes. You both grabbed yours and started riding away. When the coast was clear, you stopped to catch your breath.

“I don’t know how you do it, managing such a big crowd at school,” you said. 

“I just do, love” Douxie said. 

“Thank you Douxie, for saving me from all those people,” you said. 

“No problem. You still coming to my concert, right?” Douxie asked. 

You nodded. Then in the corner of your eye, you saw that Jim and Toby were coming towards you. 

“Doux, I think you have to go. My brother is coming towards us, and I don’t think he’s in the mood to see you right now,” you warned Douxie, pointing towards your brother and his best friend. 

“I agree. See you tonight,” he said, giving you a salute and riding off the opposite direction. 

“Hey Jimbo! Hey Toby” you said, waving both of them.

“Hey y/n!” they both said. 

“How was your day?” Jim asked. 

“Overwhelming and tiring,” you answered, starting to ride along side him. 

Jim raised one eyebrow, not understanding. 

“Dude, that was amazing! You were amazing! I’m amazed at how you were!” Toby exclaimed. 

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Jim commented. 

“What happened?” you asked. 

“I tried out for Romeo and Juliet, as Romeo, in my armour,” Jim explained. 

“And did you see how that chikita was looking at you? Your amour totally did you a favour!” Toby added. 

“Blinky said it reacts to your emotional state. The armour turns on when you’re in distress!” you remembered. 

“But I wasn’t in distress back at school,” Jim claimed. 

Then you turned the corner, to find the troll from last night again, Bular. He roars. 

“But I am now!” Jim panicked,.

“Trollhunter, Merlins creation, Gunmars bane!” Bular said.

“I think he’s talking to you...” both you and Toby said. 

Bular roars again and tries to leave the shadows, when his hand gets hurt when he puts it in the sun. 

“Look! He’s afraid of the sun!” Jim noticed. 

You looked over at the sunset. 

“Not for long!” Toby exclaimed. 

“The amulet! Surrender it, and I will give you a speedy death!” Bular threatens Jim. 

“Doesn’t know how to negotiate this guy!” you said. 

Bular lunges at the three of you, but you cycle away. The three of you ride until you see a row of cars and hide behind a truck. 

“Armour up, armour up. Armour up! Please! Now! FASTER!” Toby asked. 

“For Merlin’s sake, hurry up and armour up Jim!” you pleaded. 

“For the glory of Merlin, daylight is mine to command!” Jim chanted the incantation, but nothing happened. “It’s not working! For the glory of Merlin, daylight is mine to command. Seriously! It’s mine to command! I’m commanding here!” 

Then Bular picks up the truck, revealing the three of us. 

“Centuries of Trollhunters, and I will have killed two in almost as many days!” Bular chuckled. 

“HE’S GOOD AT MATH!” Toby yelled. 

“GO! GO! GO!” you said, hurrying onto your bike. 

Bular throws the truck at us. 

“Flying truck!” Jim warned. 

You dodged it and peddled faster. 

“Head down Delancey!” Jim said, changing courses. 

Then you narrowly avoided another flying vehicle. 

“Behind Stuart Electronics!” you said, noticing the alleyway. 

“You guys know I can’t fit there!” Toby whined. 

“You can fit!” Jim argued. 

“I CAN’T!” Toby argued back. 

“You’ve been on a diet, remember?!” you reminded Toby. 

You and Jim easily slide down the alley, while Toby get’s stuck. 

“I can’t fit! I can’t fit! I can fit! I can fit, I can fit! I’m fitting! Yay, diet!” Toby said, eventually getting through the alley. 

You ride towards the neighbourhood, wanting to get away from Bular. 

“Look at me. Look at me! We’re not dead, right?” Toby asked Jim. 

Then from the nearby trees, you saw Blinky and AAARRRGGHH. 

“Aha! Master Jim! Miss y/n!” Blinky exclaimed. 

“Bular is trying to kill us! He chased us all over town!” Jim explained. 

“And you’re still alive! I knew you had potential, Master Jim!” Blinky added. 

“You have a sweet voice, but you bring death with you!” Toby shouted at Blinky.  

“You guys can fight him right?” you asked, hoping they would say yes. 

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH chuckled. 

“I could not hope to posses the skill to defeat Bular!” Blinky told the three of you. 

Jim points to AAARRRGGHH and asks, 

“What about him? He’s big!”

True. AAARRRGGHH was big and could fight off Bular. 

“Pacifist,” AAARRRGGHH said bluntly. 

“Seriously?” Jim said. 

“Man, what a waste of a hulking brute,” you and Toby said. 

“Thank you,” AAARRRGGHH grinned, taking it as a compliment. 

“This is why there is a Trollhunter, Master Jim. AAARRRGGHH renounced the violent path ages ago,” Blinky explained. 

Then, you heard Bular snarling behind all of you. 

“Follow me! We’ll be safe in Heartstone Trollmarket!” Blinky said. 

You started peddling behind Blinky, when Bular knocked over a power line, disrupting Toby. AAARRRGGHH catches Toby and places him on his back. From this, Bular is slowed down, since his leg is caught on Toby’s bike. 

“Master Jim! Dawn your armour!” Blinky commanded.

“I’ve been trying! The amulet won’t listen to me!” Jim said. 

“Did you speak the incantation?” Blinky asked. 

“I’ve been incanting the crap out of it and it’s not working!” Jim exclaimed. 

“Just focus and incant dude!” you shout. 

You reach the canals and slide down, while Jim gets his amulet out. You can see Jim was incanting the incantation and what looked like the third try, the amulet activates and equips Jim with his armour, just a Bular reaches him. Bular roars at Jim. But Jim backs out. He tries to run, but his blocked by Bular. 

“Use you sword Master Jim!” Blinky told Jim. 

“I’ll drink your blood out of a goblet, made of your skull!” Bular threatens. 

“Cut him like a meatloaf, Jim!” Toby shouts. 

While Jim is trying to fight with Bular, AAARRRGGHH is drawing an arch on a wall under the bridge with something called a ‘horngazel’ and opens a portal. 

“Wow!” you said. 

“Master Jim! Master Jim, come on!” Blinky said. 

“I’m a little busy here!” Jim says. 

“You are not fit to wield the amulet! I’ll tear the armour off you, along with your skin!”Bular threatens. 

Jim dodges one of Bulars swords. He tries to hit Bular with his sword but it gets stuck in his arm instead. 

“C’mon Jimbo!” you exclaimed. 

Jim runs towards you but the doorway closes. Blinky quickly reopens the doorway and pulls Jim in. 

“He nearly- we nearly- he almost,” Jim pants, trying to say something. 

“What? Speak Master Jim,” Blinky asks. 

“HE ALMOST KILLED US!!” Jim yelled. 

“Almost! A very important word! A life of almost is a life of never,” Blinky said. 

“Why’d the armour suddenly shut off?” Jim asked, frustrated. 

You place your hand on your brothers shoulder, trying to calm him down. 

“Master Jim, you are the first human to posses an amulet crafted fro trolls. It’s to be expected it’s behaviour will be unexpected,” Blinky explains. 

Then, you start to walk, when a stair case of crystals light up. 

“This way masters, this way,” Blinky said. 

As you walk down the stair case, you looked around the place. It was beautiful, who knew there was a whole other world right underneath our feet! When we get to the bottom, you saw Heartstone Trollmarket. 

“Woah,” you breathed, walking next to Jim. 

“This is the world you are bound to protect! This is Heartstone Trollmarket!” Blinky exclaimed.

[megumisbimbo]

- Five -

megumi fushiguro x reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

summary: (y/n) was nothing special. A human being who had no idea that curses walked the same earth they walked. But then they locked eyes with Megumi Fushiguro. Can Fushiguro focus on the task ahead or will he be distracted by the king of curses and his new love interest?

series masterlist

©️ @megumisbimbo — all rights reserved. Please do not repost, modify or translate my work. Reblogs and likes appreciated!

Credit for the main storyline and characters goes to Gege Akutami.

tags: @xreemie @kitkozume @noyakura @vanilnya20​ @tobi--o​

the songs are indicated throughout the story at certain points!

songs used:

i love you - billie eilish

killshot - magdalena bay

You sit in Megumi’s room, an empty box of sashimi and soda can sitting beside you. You’re on your fifth movie, silently wishing Fushiguro would come through the door and keep you company.

Your wish is granted...but not in the way you’d hoped.

Fushiguro’s beaten and broken body leans on the door frame as he pushes the door open with the only strength he has left. You run up to the door and he falls into your outstretched arms.

“Megumi! Are you ok?? What happened?!”

“(y/n)...i’m sorry...”

“Sorry? Megumi what’s going on?”

He doesn’t respond, dropping his tired head onto your shoulder. You pull him into the room and throw him onto his bed. You lightly smack his face a few times in hopes of waking him up a bit, but he’s knocked out cold. You run out the room frantically searching for Yuuji. You run into Nobara’s room and find her face in bandages.

What the hell happened.

—— i love you - billie eilish ——

You nervously sit by Megumi’s bedside, waiting for him to wake up again. After about an hour he wakes up. He sees your face and quickly sits up.

“(y/n)!”

“Megumi what’s going on!? Nobara’s face is bandaged and I can’t find Yuuji anywhere!”

He reaches a hand out and cups your cheek, wiping away the small tears that roll down your face. You didn’t even know you were crying.

“I’m scared Megumi...”

“I know, and I don’t know if there’s an easy way to tell you this, but Itadori...is not coming back...”

Your eyes widen in shock.

“What do you mean-”

“(y/n) he...he’s dead...”

You stare blankly into his eyes, processing the words that just came out of his mouth.

He can’t be.

Your eyes well up with even more tears, and they stream down your face leaving a warm trail. Your heart is racing and millions of questions are running through your mind.

“Him and Kou fought-“

“Kou?” You say, cutting him off

“...Kou...was also killed by the curse...”

The pain is too much. Your crying becomes louder and more violent. You’re shaking uncontrollably as Megumi holds onto your arms, keeping you from hurting yourself. Your eyes shoot open and your pupils begin shaking. Megumi notices and desperately tries to calm you down. He pulls you into his arms and presses your face onto the fabric on his shoulder, as you sob. He pulls away slightly, putting your face in between his warm hands. Your eyes are still shaking. Your hysteria isn’t going to let up anytime soon. He pulls your face up towards his, stopping with only a few inches between you two. You feel his hot breath on your lips. Your eyes flutter closed as you wait for Megumi’s soft lips to meet yours. He swipes his thumb across your cheek, getting rid of the excess moisture from your tears. He pulls away, panting heavily.

“Let’s sleep for a bit. There’s lots to think about and I think we would both benefit from a nap right now.” He says, unable to make eye contact.

You absentmindedly nod and fall into his arms, exhausted from crying. You rest your head against his chest, and his heartbeat gently lulls you to sleep.

You wake up a while later, unsure of how much time has passed. Couldn’t have been long if the sun is still out. You’re alone.

Where’s Megumi?

You barely make it out the door when you suddenly remember that Itadori was gone...Kou was too...

You walk back into the room feeling utterly defeated.

Wait...earlier.

Megumi.

Was he trying...to kiss you?

—— killshot - magdalena bay ——

Megumi pov:

Why did I do that.

They’re probably really confused.

What if they don’t like me back.

I shouldn’t have got that close.

But it felt so right...

“‘Live a long life’?..doesn’t mean much when you go and die yourself. Is this your first time having a partner die?” Kugisaki asks, sitting on the steps beside me.

“First time for one my age...”

“Well you’re taking it well.”

“Same to you, although (y/n) isn’t...”

“You told them already?”

“They had to find out at some point, I thought maybe they’d want to hear it from me.”

“Well I didn’t know him for that long. I’m not some simple woman who cries when someone she just met dies.” She says.

Her breathing becomes shaky and I can hear her sniffling. My eyes begin to water just a bit but I hold them back when I hear a familiar voice.

“What’s this? You’re looking more glum than usual Megumi. This a wake or something?”

“Zenin-senpai.” I respond.

“Don’t call me by my last name!-“

She’s swiftly interrupted by another familiar voice coming from behind a statue.

“Maki! Maki! You actually don’t know why they’re so down?” Panda-senpai says.

“What are you talking about?” Maki responds.

“Someone really did die yesterday! One of the first year boys!”

“Bonito flakes”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner!? Now I look like some heartless, cold-blooded demon!”

“That’s exactly how you came off!”

“Tunamayo.”

I look over my shoulder and see (y/n) coming towards us.

I guess they were going to meet the second years at some point. Might as well be now.

“(y/n)!” I say standing up to meet them.

They walk over to where I’m standing and wrap an arm around my waist, burying their cheek in my shoulder.

I wrap my arm around their shoulders and place my opposite hand on their cheek stroking it lightly.

I guess they’re not mad at me.

Nobara gets up and stands next to us, eyeing us and the position we’re currently in.

“Hm, I knew something was up.”

I give a small smile and look at (y/n) who looks lost in their thoughts. I wonder what they’re thinking about.

(y/n) pov:

You stand next to Megumi, his arm wrapped protectively around you. Tight enough to make you feel safe, but not enough to suffocate you. You gripped onto him as your thoughts take you captive once again.

“You’re supposed to try and make me feel better!!” You hear a voice say in the distance.

Who were those people? They seem to be wearing similar uniforms to you three.

“Who are those guys?” Nobara asks.

“The second year upperclassmen.” Megumi responds.

So they’re your age...

“You have to be kinder to your underclassmen.” The panda says.

Wait...the panda...talks?!?

Megumi interrupts your thoughts and starts giving a rundown on who each student is.

“Zenin-senpai is the best of all the students at wielding cursed tools.” He says pointing to the tall green-haired ponytail girl.

“Salmon.”

“That’s the cursed speech user, Inumaki-senpai. He can only speak in onigiri ingredients. And that’s Panda-senpai. There’s one more, Okkotsu-senpai, he’s the only one I can openly respect, but he’s overseas right now.” Megumi explains, looking at yours and Nobara’s confused faces.

“Wait. You’re not adding more about the panda named Panda?” Nobara responds.

You look at Megumi and nod your head in agreement with Nobara.

He sighs and looks away from both of you.

“We’re sorry about this...and when you’re in mourning. Please forgive us for that. The truth is we’d like you to participate in the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event.” The panda says, his hands clasped together, practically begging.

“Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event? What’s that?” Nobara asks, looking to Megumi for any kind of explanation.

“It’s a get together with the other tech school in Kyoto. But isn’t it mainly for second and third years?” He asks his senpais.

“Those stupid third years are suspended right now. So you need to participate.”

Panda describes what goes on at the event, saying that it’s basically a showdown between jujutsu sorcerers from each school.

I don’t understand anything they’re talking about.

“So you’ll do it right? I mean you just had a partner die on you after all.”

You flinch at the ponytail’s comment. Megumi notices and squeezes your shoulder lightly. Both first years look at you, silently asking for permission to train and fight in this event. You smile and nod.

You wouldn’t want them to miss out on something just because of you.

“We’re in.”

AHHH uni is kicking my butt right now so i’m only going to be able to post once a week from now on :(( i’m so sorry but pls bear with me ! 

[wiyodreamz]

𝑽𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 | 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑺𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒉𝒘𝒂 [02]

⌜Nari is a college student at Seokhye University. One day she got off on the wrong foot with Seonghwa, throws her coffee on him and curses him out. Later that day she signs up for an internship at Hwa Corp. That same day, she learns that the same guy she threw her coffee at, is the CEO of that company. How will things go for Nari if she has a target on her back from that encounter? ⌟ Office AU

01 | 02

A/N: if you want to be on my taglist, dm or send me an ask with ur user.

Contains: fluff, angst, smut, alcohol drinking, cursing, and more as the story goes on.

Seonghwa X Fem!reader

Warnings: alcohol consumption and a heated makeout session

Tag list: @seonghwaskitten

Nari felt like she could hibernate after these few weeks. Mr.Park, or his real name Seonghwa which she learned from the workers, has been pushing her to her limits in the past week.

She was working on a PPT and then at the last minute before she had to hand it to him, he made her start all over again, making her want to hit her head on the wall for hours. Her appearance even shows that she was exhausted too.

“Did you just roll out of bed just to come here?” Dani remarked as she laughed at Nari appearance. Nari had very noticeable eye bags, even with makeup on.

“I’m not in the fucking mood Dani” she said as she glared at Dani and sat down at her desk.

“Ooh! A temper I see” Dani said in a snarky tone and then sat down at her desk.

“How many hours of sleep have you been getting, Nari?” Sunji asked as she looked at Nari concerned.

“About an hour or two, but the day he made me redo the ppt, I only got 30 minutes. So I’ve been functioning off coffee” she answered.

“Nari you’ll hurt yourself doing all those things! You looked stress...” Sunji trailed off as she looked and saw Dani glaring at her to be quiet.

“I know that I’ll have to stay up and finish the other things too, plus the stuff I have to do towards school to” she said as yawned sleepily.

“Moon Nari! As your friend I declare that once you get off work, you take a nice long shower to relax and sleep in until you can no more tomorrow! Because me and you are going out somewhere to distress!” Yunho declared as he stood up and that caused everyone to look at him. “And he’s at least nice enough to get us Fridays off.”

“Yunho you know I-“

“Nari we’re going tomorrow, no complaints or excuses!”

Nari laid back into her chair and rubbed her eyes. Taking a nice long shower and sleeping in sounds like heaven right now. She decided it would be best to with Yunho and she mostly can’t say no when he gets like that. She nodded sleepily at home and went back to working at her desk.

She was currently eating lunch and the same guy who made coffee came up and sat down in front of her.

“Are you sleeping okay?” He asked as he looked at her.

“I am” she said, not really wanting to make a conversation right at that moment.

“I can tell that you’re lying. Your eye bags or messy hair doesn’t help” he said. “Oh I’m sorry, my name is Hongjoong.”

Nari looked at him, “it’s fine. I’m Nari.”

“Aren’t you like close friends with Mr.Park?” She asked.

“Yeah I am. I never really see him work anyone as hard as he’s doing to you. Did you happen to piss him off or something?” He asked.

“Yeah, I sort of threw my coffee at home one morning” she admitted.

“You’re that coffee girl he’s always been complaining about?!” He asked shocked as she nodded.

“Yeah, now I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from doing that” she said as continued eating. She heard the clicking of shoes and looked up to see Mr.Park staring down at her coldly.

“Yah intern! I need these copied right now!” He said as he slammed a stack of papers right in front of her.

“Yah Mr.Park! Can she at least finish her lunch first and if she doesn’t have them to you ten minutes after her lunch, you can scold me alright?” Hongjoong suggested ad Mr.Park clenched his jaw and then sighed.

“You better be lucky that Hongjoong saved your ass” he said and then walked away.

“Thank you!” She said with a tired smile.

“You’re welcome and you better eat quickly, because even though we’re friends, he won’t hesitate to scold me harsh.”

It was now the end of the day and Nari, for the first time, she left with the other interns instead of staying over.

“You guys aren’t leaving yet” Mr.Park said as he came out his office. “Ms.Lee hand them the papers.”

“What are these papers for?” Dani asked as she looked at it.

“These papers are what rank you’re in” he said. “I’m also ranking you guys on your time management, workmanship, and how hard you’ve been working.”

“You’re ranking us?” San, a classmate that’s also going for the internship asked

“Of course, that’s how I’ll choose you guys in the end.”

Nari looked down at her paper to see her rank, but was angry at her rank. She was 10th, the last rank. How much time she put in while doing the work she was asked even overdoing it, the nights she stayed up to fix things up for him and other workers, and even staying a few hours over after everyone left. She crumpled the paper which made everyone turn their attention over to her.

“Aw, are you mad that you didn’t get the rank you wanted?” Dani asked in a mocking tone as Nari glared at her and saw the smirk Mr.Park was wearing.

She stormed away, despite hearing Yunho calling after here and made her way back to her apartment.

“How could he do that?! Ordering me around and stressing me out and giving me that last rank?! THE LAST RANK?!” She thought angrily as she walked inside her apartment building.

She followed Yunho’s advice and went inside the shower. The hot water felt so refreshing on her tense muscles, she swore she could fall asleep right then and there.

Once she got out the shower and into her pajamas, she felt relaxed and calm, but that feeling went away once she saw the balled up paper that fell from her coat pocket. She took it and threw it in the trash.

“Fuck you Mr.Park” she said angrily and then got into her bed. After a long time, she was going to get a full nights rest.

Nari was enjoying the amount of sleep she was getting, until her phone kept blowing up. She whined when she had to get up and go get her phone. She saw many text from Yunho

From Yunho [2:46 P.M.]: r u awake yet?

From Yunho [2:48 P.M.]: i see ur actually sleeping in

To Yunho [2:49 P.M.]: yeah i just woke up not to long ago. what do you need?

From Yunho [2:51 P.M.]: we’re going tonight like i planned yesterday.

To Yunho [2:52 P.M.]: like on a date??

From Yunho [2:53 P.M.]: of course not! we’re going to a dance club!

To Yunho [2:55 P.M.]: yunho, you do know I don’t do clubs or dance right?

From Yunho [2:57 P.M.]: well you better be ready at 7 because that’s the time I’m picking you up at.

The conversation soon ended and Nari thought she could spare a few more hours of sleep, she definitely deserves it by how hard she works.

It was now a couple of hours before Yunho came to get Nari. She decided to put on a simple dark red dress, that wasn’t too tight fitting on her. As she finishing getting ready, she saw Yunho’s car outside her apartment.

She grabbed her purse that had all her things that had her information on it just in case she was too drunk to respond to them, or they just find her asleep outside on the convenience store table. That has happened before. She walked outside and got into Yunho’s car.

“Still can’t believe I convinced you to go out” he said as he turned towards her.

“Most likely forced me too” she said as she crossed her arms. “I need it though”

The two soon arrived at a club. Nari could already smell the alcohol from the outside, she knew that the smell would be even stronger when they walk in and she was right. People were already drunk and were drunkily dancing on the dance floor.

“I don’t really want to dance, so I’m just going to sit at the bar” she told Yunho as he nodded.

“Once you’re ready to go, just send me a text or find me” he said and then disappeared on the dance floor.

She sighed and sat on one of the barstools as she looked over everyone getting drunk off their minds. She played with her hands nervously and turned towards the bartender. “Can I just have something random?”

The bartender nodded and went to go make the drink.

“Aah, classic Nari. Always doing this randomly” a voice said beside her. She turned to see her ex, Minhyuck, staring at her.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be with that girl you cheated on me with?” She asked as she sipped on the drink that was brought to her.

“Come on! It was a misunderstanding” he said as he leaned his body towards her.

“So seeing you deep inside another girl is a misunderstanding?” She asked in a state of shock. “Wow you’re ridiculous!”

He smirked at her. “And besides, I broke up with her.”

Nari watched him down his drink and intrigued on why he broke up with her. Minhyuck wasn’t the type of person to break up with a girl, he most likely cheats on them. “What did she do?”

“She was very distant and I honestly got very bored of her” he said as he swirled his second drink. “And I’ve miss you.”

Nari scoffed and rolled her eyes as she drunk the last of drink. “I haven’t missed you.”

She stared at her empty glass and decided to order another one, but Minhyuck stopped her. “Just put it on my tab.”

The bartender nodded and went back to their job. Nari turned to him. “So I guess you’re a regular here?”

“Yeah and I’m friends with the bartenders here. They owe me for the things I did for them” he said as he drink his new drink.

The two chatted for awhile. Nari hated to admit it, but Minhyuck was great person to conversation with, despite his personality and the things he’s done in the past.

As the minutes go on, Nari felt herself get more intoxicated. She felt Minhyuck hands on her thighs, but she didn’t due to her being intoxicated. He then leaned in and kissed her on the lips and she returned the kiss. If Nari was sober, she would’ve slapped him right then and there. But her drunken state told her to continue. Soon the kiss turned into a heated make out session, Minhyuck’s hand was creeping closer and closer to her core.

She felt dizzy and like she would faint any second, but that didn’t stop Minhyuck from kissing her neck.

“Min...Minhyuck can you please stop. I feel dizzy.” But once when she said that, her vision started getting blurry and she felt someone carry her.

The person who was carrying here suddenly dropped her and soon dropped to the ground right beside her.

“I’m glad I was keeping my eye on you bastard!” The voice said as they punched the person on the ground and then pick Nari up, she soon fainted after that.

Nari then woke up in a different setting that wasn’t her bedroom. She looked up and saw a more fancy bedroom, with a super huge window that showed Seoul. She looked down and saw she was wearing a shirt that was very large on her and saw black sweat pants. She can hear the shower coming from the bathroom and a note on the bedside table.

Take this medicine and eat this granola bar. You can see yourself out.

She took the pain medicine for her hangover and ate the granola bar and walked into the living room. It was bigger than her whole apartment and she made her way to door. It wasn’t hard to find her shoes, since hers were the only female shoes in the pile of men shoes, and walked out the apartment. She mentally told herself to run away if she sees Minhyuck in a place.

She was going to take the rest of the days to find out who that mystery man was and thank him for saving her.

[oh-ranpo]

‘tis the season.

pairing: reggie x reader

an: so, I had the idea for this, and while it isn’t very long, I hope you guys like it! I’m just going to tag @n0wornever and @mamakitty187 since they responded to my post about it encouraging it to happen, so here it is! I hope you enjoy!

word count: 1.9k+

If you took one look around the city of Los Angeles, you would have no idea that it was nearing Christmas time. Sure, the city had their decorations up, but when you looked to the people, there was not an ounce of festive spirit to be found. You had no idea why everyone else was so hesitant to start spreading Christmas cheer, but you had been looking forward to celebrating practically since Halloween was over. You had refrained and made yourself wait until the first day of December to break out your favorite Christmas sweater, though it had taken everything in you to stay so patient. You thought that maybe other people might be feeling the spirit now that it was officially December, however, the second you stepped onto the bus that first morning to head to the mall, you realized that you had severely overestimated just how much everyone else loved the December holiday.

A few people gave you strange looks as you walked up the steps in your bright green holiday sweater, the front of which was covered in colorful tinsel and fake ornaments. It was your favorite sweater that you owned, and you had been quite proud of it when you put it on that morning. Now, you weren’t so sure that it had been the right choice. Everyone else was dressed in their nice winter coats and muted colors, and here you were, sticking out like a sore thumb on a public bus where people would be able to judge you for the next thirty minutes of your ride.

You kept your head down as you moved down the aisle towards the back where you had seen an empty seat, but just as you passed the second to last row, you heard a voice that was unmistakably directed at you.

“Hey, I like your sweater!”

You were surprised to hear the compliment from anyone on this particular bus, but when you looked up to find the owner of the voice, you immediately realized why it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all. The boy that had just spoken to you was smiling brightly, and it only took a second for you to see that he was also wearing a rather festive looking outfit himself. Only, his sweater was red and green striped with a reindeer on the front of it. When he moved, you could hear the faint jingling from the small bells that decorated the cartoon deer’s antlers, and an involuntary smile immediately spread across your lips.

“Thanks. I really like yours too,” you replied, gesturing slightly at his chest. The boy’s eyes fell down to look at his sweater, even though he was well aware of what he was wearing, and then he lifted his head again to give you another bright smile.

“Thanks! Did you… did you want to sit?” It was a rather forward question you thought, but there was an empty seat right next to him, and you figured if you were going to make it through this bus ride without too much more embarrassment, you might as well sit with someone who clearly had a mind that worked like yours. So, you nodded, and slid into the seat next to the boy just as he lifted his hand up for you to shake. “I’m Reggie, by the way.”

You looked at his hand for a moment before happily accepting it and giving him your name as well. You felt yourself relax as you settled in next to him, and even though you had felt like everyone was staring at you before, when you took another quick glance around the bus, you were relieved to see that no one was looking in your direction at all. Maybe you had been overreacting just a bit.

“So, where are you heading too?” Reggie asked, as he attempted to keep the conversation going. You felt bad for being so quiet, and when you looked back over at him, you smiled again.

“To the mall. I was trying to get some of my Christmas shopping done early. You know, to beat the really bad crowds.” Reggie’s face lit up as his body turned towards you even more.

“That’s what I’m doing too! Well, to get some things for my friends, anyways. We’re doing our gift exchange a little early, so I want to make sure that I can get them something good.”

The excitement on Reggie’s face was one that directly mirrored yours, and you felt lucky that you had stumbled upon someone with the same enthusiasm for Christmas that you did. In fact, you spent the rest of the bus ride talking about your Christmas plans, and while Reggie constantly brought up his friends, you couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t mention much about his family. You knew better than to press, as he was still a stranger, but you became more and more intrigued as the conversation went on.

You were disappointed when you reached your stop, but when you went to stand up and Reggie did too, you looked at him curiously, and another bright smile formed on his lips.

“Is this your stop too?” you asked, even though you probably should have figured it was. He had said that he was going to the mall, and this was the closest one on your route. It didn’t really make sense for him to stay on to head to one farther away, especially since he had been on the bus longer than you had.

“Yep! It looks like we aren’t getting rid of each other quite yet,” he replied happily, and you felt a stirring in your chest as you stepped into the aisle and made your way towards the front of the bus. You didn’t look to see if people were staring as you walked because now, you weren’t quite as self-conscious about it. With Reggie right behind you, you barely noticed anyone else.

“So, these friends of yours,” you started, as the two of you walked across the parking lot of the mall side by side. “What kinds of things are they into?” You were hoping that his previous comment meant that you weren’t going to be parting just yet, as you had become quite fascinated by the Christmas sweater boy.

“Well, we’re in a band and I know Luke is always in need of journals to write songs in, so I thought I would get him one of those. Alex and Bobby are a little bit harder, but I’m sure I’ll find something. I’ll know it when I see it.”

The fact that he was in a band was something that Reggie hadn’t mentioned yet, and it was something that peaked your interest even more. You loved going to local shows and small venues to see bands perform.

“You’re in a band? Really?” you asked excitedly, and once again, Reggie’s face lit up at the question. You could tell immediately that it was a subject he loved to talk about.

“Yeah! We’re called Sunset Curve. Tell your friends.” He added the last part with a quick finger-guns motion and you couldn’t help but laugh. His band wasn’t one that you could recall seeing, but either way, you loved his enthusiasm, and you were sure that was something that translated into his music.

You talked about the band and his music while you walked around various stores, and you learned that he played bass and while his band wasn’t well known yet, they had several gigs lined up in the near future.

“You should come to one,” he added as color filled his cheeks. You had just stepped out of one of the record stores located near the food court when he said it, and your steps hesitated a bit as you felt the familiar tug in your chest that you had experienced earlier when getting off the bus. You slowly looked up at him, and his eyes fixed on you, his cheeks a light pink at his rather forward suggestion. Not that it was the first one he had proposed that day.

“I’d love to,” you grinned, and relief flooded his features as you then started walking once again.

You had to admit, you liked spending time with Reggie. You had only met him a couple of hours before, but the fact that you got along so well made it seem longer. From an outsider looking in, you might not have guessed that you had just met on a bus on the way to the mall, and instead, you might have looked more like longtime friends doing their holiday shopping together.

“Thank you again, by the way,” you spoke about an hour later as you sat across from each other at a table in the food court. You had both already finished your shopping, so now you were recharging with some greasy mall food. Reggie tilted his head slightly in confusion at your words, encouraging you to explain yourself. “For saying something to me on the bus. Today has been a lot of fun, and I’m glad that I’m not the only one that seems to enjoy Christmas around here.”

Reggie’s expression softened as he smiled.

“Of course! I mean, I always have to appreciate a good sweater. Especially when the person wearing it is so…” His voice trailed off, and his eyes fell away from you as his face went red once more. Your heart jumped in your chest at his words, even though you weren’t sure how he was intending on ending that sentence.

“So… what?” you pressed. “So lost? So embarrassed? So-“

“Beautiful.”

His word caught you off guard, and you were sure that you looked incredibly silly as your mouth fell open slightly. It wasn’t really what you had been expecting, but a warmth spread through you when his eyes hesitantly lifted to meet yours. You didn’t know how to respond, and in the silence, it seemed that Reggie had taken your lack of response negatively.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said that. I just…when I first saw you, I thought ‘wow’, and I wanted to say something sooner, but I didn’t want to come off creepy. But, it seems like I did that anyways, and I am so, so, so, sorry-”

“Reggie,” you cut in, breaking up his panicked rambling. His mouth immediately clamped shut at the sound of your voice, and his wide eyes locked with yours as he waited for you to continue. “I don’t think it’s creepy at all. I think it’s sweet, actually. I just… as you can imagine, I don’t have a lot of strangers randomly compliment me.”

“I actually can’t imagine that,” Reggie piped in quickly, causing another flutter in your chest. “And I’m not really a stranger anymore either, if you think about it.” He was right, and you couldn’t deny it. You had spent most of the day together at this point, and you had shared quite a bit of your lives with one another, so ‘stranger’ didn’t really fit the description anymore.

You were sure that you looked like quite the pair, sitting together in your bright Christmas attire, chatting over overpriced pizza and smiling like fools. However, even though you had started the day caring what people were thinking about you, when you were in the presence of the boy sitting across from you, you found that it didn’t matter anymore. Reggie was special, and it took you no time at all to realize it. You were especially grateful for ugly Christmas sweaters that day.

[wefoundloveunderthelight]

The Love Cruise - by GleefullyCaptainSwan

Read on AO3: Chapter 1

Or on FF

Tagging: @kmomof4 @lfh1226-linda @teamhook

Summary:

When Emma Swan’s boss & co-workers decided they are tired of waiting for her to start dating again, they reluctantly convince her to join them on The Love Cruise, a new experience where singles go to meet and flirt their cares away in the middle of the ocean. Dragging her brother, David along for the ride, she embarked on a two-week adventure that was about to change her life.

Killian Jones, former Navy Lieutenant and widower, swore off dating for the rest of his life. Which is why when his best friend Robin convinced him to take a job as the Captain of the newest ship in the fleet, a floating dating cesspool of horny men and women, it seemed a cruel twist of fate. Little did he know, one of the guests about to board his ship, would alter his own course in life forever.

Chapter 1: The Adventure of a Lifetime

“First he runs off and gets married and then he goes and gets himself a promotion. I guess you would say the world is his oyster.”

“Or he’s having his cake and eating it to.” The man at the back of the bar shouts.

“Aye, so today as we celebrate, I want everyone to raise your glass to our newest Lieutenant, and my little brother, Killian Jones. I’m so proud of you.”

“To Killian Jones.” The crowd roared.

 5 years later

“That’s not how I remember it at all, I’m pretty sure you were the one who walked in on them.”

“I would have remembered that.”

“I doubt that, you were drunk as a skunk and before you left the room, you yelled to the poor girl, and I quote, I'm no weatherman but I know you're going to get 3 inches tonight.”

“God, I thought you said that.”

“That was all you man, I thought the Captain was gonna throw you in the brig.”

“I’m pretty sure Liam saved my ass that night.” Killian laughed, remembering how many times his brother kept him out of trouble in his years in the Navy.

“I think Liam saved your ass most nights.”

“Aye.” He nodded sadly and Robin held up his glass.

“To Liam, gone too soon.”

“To Liam.” He swallowed the warm liquid, gulping it down and putting his glass back on the table in front of him. “I can’t believe it’s been two years.” He added solemnly, memories of his brother’s urn as he was released out to sea, being presented with the flag, the sound of each pop of the as the rifles went off, staring out to sea to the sound of the bugle.

“Sometimes it feels like yesterday.” Robin responded and Killian closed his eyes, pinched his nose, before shaking off the memories and waiving the waitress over for another order. “So, what’s your next move?”

Killian sighed. “I don’t know yet, I’ve got a few interviews this week.”

Robin cut him off, “Cancel them.”

“I’m sorry, you want me to cancel all my interviews?”

“Yes, cancel them, I have a great opportunity for both of us.”

“Working together?”

“Yes, I told you that I got a job last week, right? Well, they need a Captain and I put in a good word for you.” Killian knew he had gotten some amazing opportunity the last time they spoke on the phone, but he didn’t provide many details on what exactly that opportunity was.

“What’s the catch?” Killian regarded him suspiciously.

“Why does there have to be a catch?” He smiled innocently.

“Because you would have told me about it sooner unless you’ve been trying to figure out the best way to bring it up. And you conveniently chose a night when we have been drinking heavily, so that tells me there is a catch, Rob. So, spit it out.”

“Ok, so there’s a catch, but hear me out first.” Killian groaned but put his hand to his lips with a locking motion and gestured for him to continue. “She’s the newest ship in the fleet, top of the line technology, she would be any Captain’s wet dream to sail.” Killian chuckled, sitting up on his stool. “3600 passengers, 1300 crew members, including the best purser any ship could ask for.” He grinned widely pointing to himself.

“Get to the part where you tell me this ship sails to the Underworld and has an excursion to visit Hades himself or some other ungodly reason to explain why you waited til I was piss drunk to ask me.”

“Ok, but I haven’t even told you about the size of the Captain’s quarters yet…” Robin frowned as he shifted impatiently in his seat. “Alright, it’s the maiden voyage of…” He covered his mouth, “The wurv ruse.”

“I’m sorry what?”

“Fine, it’s a Love Cruise.” He shouted louder than he meant to. “One of those singles cruises where people go to meet each other.”

He tossed a brochure down onto the table and Killian flipped through it, his groan vibrating as he read the tag line out loud. “The Love Cruise, where singles meet on the adventure of a lifetime. Don’t you deserve a little TLC.” He tossed the brochure onto the table. “Oh, bloody hell.” He cursed. “Ma’am…” He gestured for the waitress. “I’m not fucking drunk enough to listen to this man anymore, if you could please bring a few more of those shots as quick as possible and make them doubles.” He added before turning back to Robin. “Are you out of your mind? What would give you the foggiest reason to think I would be interested in this?”

“It’s not like you would be signing up to be part of the singles cruise, you would just Captain her.”

“Why are you doing this?” He asked suspiciously. “You and Marian have been divorced for years and it’s not like you’re desperate for women.” His friend glanced to the table and Killian knew there was more he wasn’t telling him. “Out with it.”

“You know that woman I met last year?”

Killian chuckled, “How long do I have to answer, mate. You’re going to have to be more specific than that?”

“You’re hilarious. No, remember that entertainer I met when we took that cruise to Mexico last year, Regina Mills.”

“The lass we met who threw her drink in your face and told you to get lost? How can I forget, she’s given me months of pleasure just thinking about that moment.”

“Anyway, they hired her as the Cruise Director for this sailing, and it’s my opportunity to actually get to know her. You know because she won’t have anywhere else to go to continue avoiding me.”

“So, your selling point is that if I Captain this ship, I might get to see this woman destroy you on a daily basis?”

“Would it convince you to say yes?”

“I don’t know.”

“Killian it’s been three years. If you want to be celibate for the rest of your life, that’s your business, but you’d be an idiot to pass up this opportunity.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket and slid it across the table. On it was a six-figure dollar amount, Killian grabbed the paper and pulled it closer to his face.

“How many years is the contract for this amount?”

“That’s per year, Killian.”

“Bloody hell.”

“It’s a lot more than the Navy paid us, and no one is going to be trying to sink our ship.”

He pushed the paper back across the table to Robin. “I just don’t know if this is a good idea, I have responsibilities here.”

“Brother, Milah wouldn’t want you hiding out on that damn houseboat, rotting away in your own depression. She’d kick you in the ass and tell you that you were being a bloody prat for walking away from this kind of opportunity.”

“Don’t invoke my dead wife, Mate.” He said angrily. Robin raised his hands in defeat and Killian knew he meant no harm. He sighed and looked over at the paper again. It was more money than he had seen in his entire life, and it was a real ship. He’d been working as Skipper on a fishing skiff for the last year, and while he enjoyed the security of being out on the water, it sure didn’t pay much.

“You know there’s no rule that says the Captain has to date the passengers, in fact, I’m pretty sure they frown on that type of behavior?”

“I get that, but I don’t particularly want to watch all the debauchery either.”

“I told you the Captain’s quarters are huge, right?”

“And they know about my hand?” He looked down at his scarred hand, he had lost the full use of it on one of the worst nights of his life, the night he lost his brother.

“They don’t care, you are a skilled Captain, trust me, they are very interested in you, Killian. All you have to do is be at the interview tomorrow, and the job is yours.”

Killian groaned, “I’ll sleep on it.” Judging by the smile his friend was displaying on the other end of the table, he already knew that Killian was going to show up to that interview.

~*~

“Have you seen that guy before?” Ruby walked over to Emma’s spot by the front door.

Emma glanced to the end of the bar. She hadn’t noticed the man until Ruby pointed him out. He wasn’t familiar to her, he was very nice looking, but also very intoxicated. “Don’t recognize him, but Will needs to cut him off.”

“That’s what you’re focused on, instead of how hot he is or the fact he’s new in town?”

“He’s ok, I guess. But honestly, I’m going to go tell Will to stop serving him. I don’t want to have to throw him out later.”

“Boo, you’re so boring, Emma.”

Emma turned and flashed her friend the middle finger before approaching the bar. “Hey, brown suede jacket.” She pointed to the man at the end of the bar. “How many has he had?”

“Oi, I was thinking of cutting him off. He’s been nursing that beer for an hour, but the three shots he drank with them seem to have accelerated his inebriation.”

“Yeah, cut him off, he’s swaying in his seat, let me know if he gives you any trouble.”

Emma walked back toward the door, surveying the tables as she walked past. She’d been working at The Wooden Nickle since moving back to Boston from New York almost seven years ago. Working nights as a bouncer wasn’t the most prestigious job in the world, but it allowed her to spend her days with her 6-year-old son, Henry.

“Everything good down here?”

Emma turned to see her boss; August Booth walking down the stairs from the above office. “Yeah, got a live one at the bar, Will’s already cut him off. I had to break up the two over at the pool table a few times.” She gestured to the man and woman currently making out against the wall. “I’m gonna head back there in a minute, before they start losing clothes.”

“I can always count on you, Emma.” August gave her a light tap on the shoulder and then headed back upstairs. “Tell everyone I want to talk to them before we shut down tonight.”

“Everything alright, boss?” He nodded with a mischievous smile and then bounded up the stairs.

She loved working for August. When she moved back to Boston, she hadn’t maintained a relationship with anyone except her brother, David, and her high school friends, Ruby and Will. Moving to a small town meant her skills as a bail bond agent wasn’t exactly needed, but August found room for her as a bouncer at his tiny but very busy bar. He’d treated her like family ever since.

She passed through the room, pausing at the couple in the back, to break up their make out session and then stopped at the bar. “Aug wants to talk to all of us after we close up.”

“Oi, did he seem upset? Shit, I bet he knows I was nipping at the whiskey last week.”

“What are we talking about?” Ruby approached and sat down her tray on the bar top. “Are we drinking whiskey?”

Emma laughed. “Aug wants to talk to all of us tonight, so I would probably say no, right?”

“That was a question, not a demand, so I say one shot can’t hurt us. If we’re all about to be canned, I want to take the news with some liquid courage.”

“You’ll use any excuse to drink whiskey.” Ruby mocked as he lined up the shots and poured. They each tossed back the glass and slammed it down on the bar.

“Ok get back to work.” She demanded with a smirk and headed back to the door to prepare for the close of shift. It was her favorite part of work, watching as the patrons exited the bar, some joyfully laughing, others grumbling with complaints of the upcoming next day, but mostly it was the time when they were alone, simply cleaning the bar and laughing together that she cherished the most. This was her family, and she loved them dearly.

“All clear.” She hollered an hour later as she finished helping the tipsy customer to a cab and reminded the overly zealous couple to remember condoms.

Ruby turned up the volume on the music and they spent the next hour cleaning the bar, Ruby dancing with her broomstick, Will singing loudly into the beer tap, and Emma watching them all with a smile as she wiped down the tables. She could hardly believe how much her life had changed in the last seven years. Ruby referred to these last few years as the years AN.

After Neal.

She had been devastated when Neal took off, draining their savings account of the money she had earned, leaving her alone and pregnant in New York City. Two months later, she came home with her tail between her legs, everything she owned in her tiny yellow beetle, and was left to explain to her brother David, that things with her and Neal had gone exactly how he had predicted they would.

She had been mortified to venture out of the home she shared with David for fear of judgement from their small town. Instead, she was embraced by old friends who came out of the woodwork to donate baby clothes, feed her, and offer emotional support.

“When did I start paying you lot to have a good time?” August boomed from across the room before breaking out into a smile and pulling Emma into his arms to dance across the room. He spun her around as they reached Ruby, switching to dance with the brunette until the song ended.

“The place looks great as usual.” He remarked to the three of them as he hopped onto one of the bar stools. “Come on, lets all chat.” Will gulped and August laughed. “This isn’t about the whiskey, Will.”

“What whiskey?” Will mimed. “I haven’t the foggiest idea…”

“I’m closing the bar.” Emma’s heart dropped. August sat solemnly looking down at his hands. He looked up peering around the room as a smile grew on his mouth. “For two weeks,” he added, “and before you all freak out on me, I’m still paying you.”

Emma breathed out a sigh of relief. Losing two weeks of pay would have killed her. She lived paycheck to paycheck trying to raise her son, missing a single day was enough to give her anxiety.

“On one condition.” He added and everyone in the group exchanged cautious glances. “We’ve all been working really hard and I wouldn’t have any of this if you all didn’t come to work every single day, even with William drinking my whiskey.” Will ducked his head. “However as much as I love you guys, I’m really tired of being alone.”

Emma was surprised to hear how sad August’s voice sounded; she knew he had been alone at home after his father Marco had passed. Emma had never heard of August going on any dates, or ever being involved with anyone romantically. But Emma wasn’t one to talk about putting yourself out there, she hadn’t dated or wanted to date anyone since Neal ran out on her.

“And let’s be honest,” August continued, “you lot don’t get out much either.”

“Hey, I’m just waiting until Ana comes around.” Will argued and she snorted to herself. Ana was Will’s ex-girlfriend. She had packed up and left town a year ago, leaving only a note stating it was over and she was moving to England with a guy she met online. Everyone knew it was over, except for Will. He still had his Facebook relationship status as “It’s complicated.”

“She’s gone man, it’s time to move on.” August said seriously. “And Ruby, I mean no offense when I say this, but you’ve practically dated everyone in town, present company excluded.”

“Speak for yourself, we went on a date once.” Will announced.

“That was a field trip you idiot, and the rest of the school was with us.”

“Ok but my point is, no one in town has been worthy of your affection.” August interrupted and then turned to her, “And Emma.”

“Don’t even go there, I have a six-year-old kid, I don’t have time for another child in my life.”

“Well, here it is, I’m going on a cruise for two weeks. And I’m willing to pay you each your two-week salary, as long as you come with me.”

“Oi, do you think you pay us enough money to afford to go on some fancy cruise ship?”

“Nope, that’s why I’m paying for that too.” He stared at Emma. “But it has to be all or nothing. Either you all come, or you all get a two-week unpaid vacation.”

“That’s hardly fair.” Emma complained. “I can’t just walk away for two weeks, Henry needs me.”

“First off, I already know that he’s about to head to summer camp for four weeks, so your excuse doesn’t exactly work.” Emma crossed her arms against her chest, she hadn’t expected him to know about that. “Ok, one excuse down, who’s next?”

“You aren’t going to get one from me. If you want to pay me to go on a cruise, I’m down.” Ruby hopped up on the bar.

“What’s the catch, Mate? Two weeks pay, a cruise vacation, something’s not adding up here.” Emma had to agree with Will, he wasn’t telling them the entire truth.

“Fine, it’s a singles cruise.”

“No way, I’m out.” Emma grunted, as she furiously wiped down the table in front of her for the second time that evening.

“Oh, come on Emma, who cares? There is nothing that says you have to hook up with anyone there.” Ruby pleaded, “I really want to try out my new bikini I bought last week. It would look so much better on a cruise ship than it would on our stupid beach.”

“I can’t go on a single’s cruise, I’m not single.” Will argued.

“She dumped you.” The three of them all shouted in unison.

“Come on you guys, we can all be there together, and just have fun.” Ruby continued to plead her case.

“Did I mention the alcohol is all paid for up front?” August announced with a wink.

“Bloody hell, I’m in.”

Suddenly all eyes were on here. “Please Emma.” Ruby whined.

“Free Alcohol, lass. We can just sit at the damn bar and drink all day. I’ll be your date.” Will flirted from the back of the bar.

“Brining a date would defeat the singles part, don’t you think?”

“Emma, you’re out of excuses.” August shrugged.

“Fine. But I have one condition.” She said angrily, coming up with a fool proof plan to get out of going. “If I’m going to be forced to go on this trip, then I’m not going without David.”

August laughed and surprisingly shook his head. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Dammit.