#An alternative title I had for this concept was:
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pomrania · 1 day ago
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Ackermann's Demons by @arehera I always love coming across stuff that's just RPGified concepts from different fields. So I appreciate this as a piece of art in the RPG medium, but you couldn't pay me to play it.
LADY FIONA'S MANSE by @itskobold This is probably inadvisable to play with anyone other than close friends or bitter enemies. I do love the thing about making a veiled remark on the item you steal, that's always amusing.
Russian Roulette by @karlmarxmaybe This seems like a horrible idea, to play this game as written; but the same applies to "normal" Russian Roulette so I guess that's a feature not a bug. Also, the writing for this is just CHILLING in places, well done.
BUGKNIGHT by @corvidcorgi The game itself seems cool enough, but what really caught my interest was the notes for it. (…listen, I'm tired as I write this, my brain hasn't been braining well today.) Also "fuck it, that's out of scope" sounds like a motto for the whole event, actually.
I'M NOT LEARNING TO PLAY MAGICAL GATHERING by @txttletale I was predisposed to like this just from reading the title, as someone who's had negative experiences with being explained MtG rules; and as someone who thinks that the individual cards are pretty cool, the rest of it just seems tailor-made for my preferences. I want to play this dammit.
I'm too tired to write a proper RPG by yours truly Play this if you're tired. I'm not joking, I genuinely think it's a good idea. Despite that the thing itself is basically a shitpost I wrote; it has a core of "get some rest", but slightly gamified, and with an alternative to "setting an alarm".
The Machine War, and the people by @josie-like-the-girls-name I was going to make a comment on "how do you tell whether silver is white or grey", but on a reread I noticed "accept ambiguity", which… fits with what I know about war reporting. (And also what I know about counting how many cars of a given colour pass by somewhere.) This doesn't seem like it would be FUN, but it seems like it would be FITTING.
Rote 1st Edition by @sabrinahawthorne I always like things that give a particular curse associated with having a particular magic.
Six Weeks on a Wild Planet by @specialagentartemis It's cool. Nice and simple base mechanics, easy to reskin, rewards imagination on the part of the players but doesn't require too much from scratch.
Very Specific Thresholds by @bendandsnap-cummerbund Gotta love stuff that's basically a shitpost, especially when I'd already known the thing which inspired it. I'm vaguely curious about how the number totals were assigned, and if they lead to an even spread of results (and also at which point you'd be able to rule out certain subjects), but I don't want to nerd-snipe myself. I wouldn't be able to play this, because I'm horrible at that specific type of improv (and it just grates against me when I try), but I'd love to watch some skilled improv people do it.
You are on the moon. etc by @moon-of-curses I'm not writing the whole title, it's a literal paragraph. Still love stuff based off memes, especially when they make it make sense; both gameplay, and WHY one guy might want to kill another guy on the moon (and that just in the space of one sentence).
Continuation from my previous thread (because it got long), of stuff from @200-word-rpgs that I find interesting.
THE CURSE: A Rabbit and Steel Fangame by @ringedretrospective I'm not sure I've even HEARD of "Rabbit and Steel" before, let alone know what it's like. But having "apologize for what you did last night", as the single sentence for the "day" phase, amuses me greatly.
Make Brown by @thee-rat-king I like colour stuff; I also appreciate how "should or shouldn't end up brown" is a 50% thing determined at the start of the game. And that's just SUCH a cool concept, how one player gets their colour combined with that of the other.
Paleolithic Fantasy by @cavetalesz I agree with the writer (whose url is PERFECTLY fitted for this game), we need more stuff set in this… setting. And also more FANTASY stuff in that setting; heck, if we're going from the thing we commonly see in fantasy of "magic has been fading from the world", then the earlier back we go, the more room there is for magic (and also it's not like there's any written documentation to contradict it). As to the game itself, I appreciate how the "stuff you find" table includes entries with relevant stats, and then at the end there's just "the antlered man", no detail given.
Elegy For A Better Yesterday by @notsomeoneyouknow I don't have enough familiarity with John Woo movies to properly appreciate this. But from the design notes, it seems like a lot of thought went into mechanics that properly match the theme.
Mires by @i-exist-for-spleen and manguypersondude I appreciate something that, as they put it, turns "how partial a GM is inevitably going to be" into a feature and not a bug. Also, something that started with a design requirement ("no dice math") and then built from there. And yeah, when you just stumble upon a theme or concept that ties everything neatly together, that is SUCH a good feeling; the spark of inspiration that lights up the tinder you've prepared from your own efforts.
You Know How This Story Ends by @indraklyr I just think it's cool; everyone has things that will happen, then those things get placed in an order, then you play out how the things happen.
You Sunk My Battleship! by @ineffable-gallimaufry Gotta respect something that finds a way to turn BATTLESHIP, of all things, into an RPG.
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sinvulkt · 7 months ago
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Cogito, ergo sum
Time/Place: Canon Divergence before Act 1, the Mindflayer colony
Characters: The Team
Main tropes: Non consensual body modification, ’spy infiltration’, eventual mind control
Summary: The Nautiloid manages to reach the illithids colony and the Thralls transform. They become mindflayers but for one thing: their mind is still mostly theirs. How to escape when any sane person would kill them on sight?
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Snippet:
Walking hurt. Standing hurt. Moving hurt.
Gale could bet eating would hurt too. How did a Mindflayer even eat? Past studies of the tentacles and their role in Brain-eater anatomy flashed in front of his eye. He shuddered at the thought.
He took another step, tensing as newborn neural connections screamed in complaint. Next to him, other freshly transformed mindflayers did the same. A pulse in the back of his mind insisted he meet the Elders, pushing him forward despite the pain. When Gale tried to resist, it backlashed and the consequent headache sent him on his knees. Gale didn’t insist on fighting the impulsion after that. 
Being a Mindflayer was… weird. Gale would have thought he would not have enough of himself left to think after the transformation. All books he had found about the matter pointed to a thrall identity being erased under the worm’s evolution. And yet, here he was. Gale of waterdeep, magicien extraordinaire, trapped in a squishy body he could barely control.
A wise man once said: “I think, so I am.”
Gale wondered how much of the adage remained true when applied to his current predicament. Adages, he had found, often did not account for cursed luck.
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Plot Description:
The Nautiloid vessel doesn’t crash after the attack. Rather  it arrives at its intended destination: illithid colonies. 
Furthermore, the infected that were on the vessel all transform, including Gale and co. The trick is, their larva have still been tempered with. As a result, while their bodies undergo ceremorphosis, their mind remain their ‘true’ individual selves. 
Now they have to navigate the illithid society while hiding their intact ego, all while fighting against the new instincts their mindflayer body provide them with. Will the Emperor, responsible for their tempering, contact them? Will they find each other, cooperate and escape? Or will they struggle alone, unaware other illithids of the same ‘batch’ are in 
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vyrion · 4 months ago
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following the rules.
wikipedia, prophetic perfect tense // cemetarything // sleepacross, hand jumper // haruki murakami, dance dance dance // josé saramago, cain // silas denver melvin, love as an act of merciful conquer // glass beach, motions
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echoekhi · 1 year ago
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I’m Declaring War Against “What If” Videos: Project Copy-Knight
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What Are “What If” Videos?
These videos follow a common recipe: A narrator, given a fandom (usually anime ones like My Hero Academia and Naruto), explores an alternative timeline where something is different. Maybe the main character has extra powers, maybe a key plot point goes differently. They then go on and make up a whole new story, detailing the conflicts and romance between characters, much like an ordinary fanfic.
Except, they are fanfics. Actual fanfics, pulled off AO3, FFN and Wattpad, given a different title, with random thumbnail and background images added to them, narrated by computer text-to-speech synthesizers.
They are very easy to make: pick a fanfic, copy all the text into a text-to-speech generator, mix the resulting audio file with some generic art from the fandom as the background, give it a snappy title like “What if Deku had the Power of Ten Rings”, photoshop an attention-grabbing thumbnail, dump it onto YouTube and get thousands of views.
In fact, the process is so straightforward and requires so little effort, it’s pretty clear some of these channels have automated pipelines to pump these out en-masse. They don’t bother with asking the fic authors for permission. Sometimes they don’t even bother with putting the fic’s link in the description or crediting the author. These content-farms then monetise these videos, so they get a cut from YouTube’s ads.
In short, an industry has emerged from the systematic copyright theft of fanfiction, for profit.
Project Copy-Knight
Since the adversaries almost certainly have automated systems set up for this, the only realistic countermeasure is with another automated system. Identifying fanfics manually by listening to the videos and searching them up with tags is just too slow and impractical.
And so, I came up with a simple automated pipeline to identify the original authors of “What If” videos.
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It would go download these videos, run speech recognition on it, search the text through a database full of AO3 fics, and identify which work it came from. After manual confirmation, the original authors will be notified that their works have been subject to copyright theft, and instructions provided on how to DMCA-strike the channel out of existence.
I built a prototype over the weekend, and it works surprisingly well:
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On a randomly-selected YouTube channel (in this case Infinite Paradox Fanfic), the toolchain was able to identify the origin of half of the content. The raw output, after manual verification, turned out to be extremely accurate. The time taken to identify the source of a video was about 5 minutes, most of those were spent running Whisper, and the actual full-text-search query and Levenshtein analysis was less than 5 seconds.
The other videos probably came from fanfiction websites other than AO3, like fanfiction.net or Wattpad. As I do not have access to archives of those websites, I cannot identify the other ones, but they are almost certainly not original.
Armed with this fantastic proof-of-concept, I’m officially declaring war against “What If” videos. The mission statement of Project Copy-Knight will be the elimination of “What If” videos based on the theft of AO3 content on YouTube.
I Need Your Help
I am acutely aware that I cannot accomplish this on my own. There are many moving parts in this system that simply cannot be completely automated – like the selection of YouTube channels to feed into the toolchain, the manual verification step to prevent false-positives being sent to authors, the reaching-out to authors who have comments disabled, etc, etc.
So, if you are interested in helping to defend fanworks, or just want to have a chat or ask about the technical details of the toolchain, please consider joining my Discord server. I could really use your help.
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See full blog article and acknowledgements here: https://echoekhi.com/2023/11/25/project-copy-knight/
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azullumi · 8 months ago
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"once more to see you" ; aventurine
summary — to him, love was like a religion waiting to be discovered and he’ll find god in the way the sun looks on your skin; alternatively, aventurine thinks he’s rotten work and tiring to take care of but not to you, not if it's him (please get the reference).
pairing — aventurine (w/ gender-neutral reader)
tags — established relationship (but aventurine wants to de-establish it), somewhat fluff, slight angst with comfort, never proofread never what?!!, 1.3k ; ficlet
note — 2.1 broke me (the whole quest knocked at the door of my house, shook my hands, congratulated me, and invited itself into my home before pouring water on my face, slapping me, throwing me around, and left with the door open, all the while, my family watched). this is day 1 of writing for aventurine until i have him.
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“you have a lot of moles.” his voice, despite a gentle whisper, tears through the silence of the night like a drop of water that ruptured and disturbed the surface of the pond. “especially here.” he gently taps on your skin; they seem like stars, he swallows the words back down. 
you feel aventurine’s finger trace on the back of your neck and the curve of your shoulders, seemingly drawing—or connecting something. it was ticklish, the way he gently drags his hand and ghosts over your skin, a soft laugh slipping past your lips (you’ll capture his touch on your skin as if you were a sinner remembering how forgiveness tasted on your lips). there was something intimate that lingers in the air between you two as you lay in his bed with him, a fleeting moment that will be inked into your mind. 
(the both of you leave your titles behind, mixed together with the scattered objects on the floor, laid on the cold ground to be picked up and worn later like a shiny medal even if you weren’t proud to have them.)
“they say it’s where your lover kissed you the most in your past life.” you stir in your position as you speak, coming to face him and meet his pretty jewel-like eyes—how alluring it was, painted with vivid colors yet it never shines. the sound of mirth laughter bubbles from his throat, a pleasant melody to your ears.
he asks, curiosity tracing the tone of his voice, “and from where did you even hear that?” and you shrug, bringing your form closer to him as you seek for more warmth, “i can’t recall. perhaps i heard it from topaz or maybe from one of the members of the ipc? they’re the only ones i often see and talk to.”
“the doctor?” he wraps his arm around your figure, his hand settling on the small of your back.
“that man will only scorn at that idea and call it stupid. he’ll most likely say that ‘only fools would believe such concepts.’” you mimic the way the esteemed doctor spoke, from the serious expression that he always don on his face to the deepening of his voice. your seemingly successful imitation earned a chuckle from the blonde-haired man before you.
“i’m sure he will.”
silence falls between you two and you took this time to adore each and every line of his being. a few strands of hair fall over his eyes—beautiful, captivating, mesmerizing, you could list out every word to describe his eyes but it would never be enough. you had always wondered why he would hide it until you witnessed the reason why he does so. 
aventurine seems to study your expression at the same also, a soft look on his face as he did, and you can’t help but be curious. “what are you thinking about?” you ask him, breaking the silence that nurtured itself in the space between you and him.
you, he wishes to answer. how you look at this moment in his embrace: you were wearing one of his shirts, albeit, not exactly to your size but you insisted, saying that you liked it as it smelled like him. how gentle, loving, adoring, you were everything; he looks and thinks of you as if you were his everything (he doesn’t deserve you). but he doesn’t say it—the thought weighs too heavily on his mind, claws at his throat, and suffocates him—, instead he utters something entirely different that creates a shift in the air between you two. 
“i don’t think i can do this.” he turns his head to look away from you, staring at the ceiling instead. it seems to extend itself far and far away from him.
the horrible part of being human is the tendency for destruction that lies in your bones. stained palms, calloused pads, despite the gentleness of your touch and the comfort of your caress. the desire to devour flesh and bones, to understand the underlying thoughts and meanings behind words and unexpressed feelings by consuming them. to submerge and drown in the depths of one's despair and desire (too close that the line blurs into one). the horrible part of being him was his tendency to destroy—hesitation and doubt lies in his being and aches at his chest, tugging on his heart’s strings, and settles on his throat—, it’s not like he doesn’t want to hold you, it’s just that he can’t.
“do what?”
“this.” you know exactly what he was referring to, know what he’s afraid of. he has laid himself bare and vulnerable in front of you countless of times that you have memorized the constellations that adorns his skin. you know him, you have known him enough to recognize the fear that tugs on his voice and see the walls that he tries to build up in front of you. you know him enough to know what thoughts are plaguing his mind.
“why do you think so?”
“don’t you think i’m too much to take care of?” he tries not to choke on his words and bite his tongue, careful not to let his voice crack lest he crumbles underneath your caress. i am undeserving of it. worthless. failure. selfish. discarded. coward. loser. nothing. you are bound to leave. 
“not for me.” you caress his cheek and guide him to look at you—instead of the ceiling that seems to appear farther than it originally was in each passing second as the walls glean over him like a shadow—, to meet your gaze and see the sincerity that lurks deep within. “never will i get tired of you. so, let me carry your burden.”
he takes a few seconds to answer, uncertainty lingering in his tone: “it’s not yours to have.”
“it may not be.” you answer with no hesitation, “but it doesn’t mean that you must shoulder them alone.”
he opens his mouth to speak but unable to find the words to say, he closes them. there was a moment of stillness shared between you two. comfort, relief, assurance seeps into the ache of his bones and you say something too heavy even for this steady and silent night to hold, the words too much to be held—light spills in like a flood as if it was pouring out from the sun itself.
“i love you.”
“you utter such words as if it’s something easy for you.” as if loving him was just as simple as waking up in the morning and adoring the way the honey-light hugs your form as the dust settles in the corner of your room. when he’s stripped of everything and left with nothing, would you still love him the same? would you still kiss him as gently as you did? would you still hold the shards of his form even if it makes your hand bleed? 
you spoke in a gentle yet firm croon, gaze unwavering, “because it is.”
you see the falter in his expression: his face, that once was crumpled, relaxed and so did his gaze soften. and you smile at him with only adoration in your eyes—like a devout follower to a divine being. “are you still afraid?”
“i don’t know.” he whispers.
“it’s alright. you have all the time in the world.” your hand weaves itself into his own, fingers lacing with one another, and you gently squeeze. it was a form of reassurance, a way of telling him that you’re here with him through all of it.
the warmth has settled in your being and you spill yourself into the cracks of his vulnerability. “i love you.” you say once more and you kiss the mark on his neck—lingering and soft as if you wish that it would take all his hurt away. the way he shudders underneath your touch, the hitch of his breath soon followed by a gentle sigh as he cradles you closer to him tells you everything that you wish to hear.
for once, he sleeps as if he had nothing to carry, nothing that shackles him to the stars that forsakes him.
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© azullumi — do not plagiarize, copy, repost, nor translate any of my works.
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dandelionjack · 5 months ago
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We Invest Things With Significance, or: Why Sutekh Isn’t Sutekh, But Death Itself. alternative title: Fear Is the Mind Killer.
the Doctor Who Series 14/1 thesis statement
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i don’t think that sutekh has literally been attached to the TARDIS since Pyramids of Mars. i think that the salt at the edge of the universe — the grievous mistake that caused all myths to become a reality — was what made him appear. and he’s not the same character as sutekh the osiran, a powerful alien that delusionally believed himself to be a god. he *is* a god. nuwho-Sutekh is Death Incarnate.
ergo, this version of Sutekh is the literal psychic manifestation of the Doctor’s deep-seated, guilt-motivated fear of the idea that his arrival brings death wherever he treads. this death-anxiety was turned into a physical presence, haunting the TARDIS all through the Doctor’s timestream, because of the salt. that’s the reason why the Doctor didn’t spot any Susan Twists before Wild Blue Yonder…
there are two timelines in Doctor Who — relative time and universal time. universal time is the history of the universe. relative time is how the Doctor experiences it. in universal time, Sutekh has supposedly been hitchhiking through the vortex for millenia. in relative time, he has only been doing so since Fourteen accidentally invited myths back into the world.
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the Doctor was insecure and afraid and believed the above quote (from the very first episode!! spoken by the very first named character in nuwho to die on screen, no less!) to be true. but until WBY it had only been true on a symbolic, metaphorical level. myths, legends, concepts and stories becoming real after the salt caused the Doctor’s anxiety about being a death-bringer to take the shape of a black dog — a universally recognised symbol of death — wearing the name and voice of his most formidable enemy, Sutekh.
in a way, this plotline mirrors The Woman from 73 Yards similarly being a manifestation of Ruby’s worst fear — that of being abandoned by everyone she loves for something intrinsic and incorrigible inside her that she cannot change. Ruby fears being left completely alone, so “The Woman” causes everyone in her life to leave her. the Doctor fears that his coming always heralds mass destruction (“maybe i’m the bad luck”), so “Sutekh” makes sure that the TARDIS literally becomes an altar of death.
ever since Wild Blue Yonder, stories in doctor who have become sources of immense power. the worst, most potent stories we tell ourselves are the lies that our sick brains whisper to us — secret anxieties that we’re not good enough, that all our loved ones will inevitably leave, that we carry nothing but bad luck in our wake. what better clay to mould a monster from than the protagonists’ own neuroses?
and if anybody’s still in doubt, here’s the plain text, all laid out below:
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we invest things with significance. that’s what the salt at the edge of the universe really meant. that’s what almost every episode this series has been about, thematically — the imaginary kastarions, the cosplaying chuldur, the bogeyman written into life because kids need a scary story. myths become real to us because we believe in them, love and death and monsters too.
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gowns · 2 years ago
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Why Kids Aren't Falling in Love With Reading - It's Not Just Screens
A shrinking number of kids are reading widely and voraciously for fun.
The ubiquity and allure of screens surely play a large part in this—most American children have smartphones by the age of 11—as does learning loss during the pandemic. But this isn’t the whole story. A survey just before the pandemic by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds who said they read daily for fun had dropped by double digits since 1984. I recently spoke with educators and librarians about this trend, and they gave many explanations, but one of the most compelling—and depressing—is rooted in how our education system teaches kids to relate to books.
What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.
This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.
For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room.
But as several educators explained to me, the advent of accountability laws and policies, starting with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and accompanying high-stakes assessments based on standards, be they Common Core or similar state alternatives, has put enormous pressure on instructors to teach to these tests at the expense of best practices. Jennifer LaGarde, who has more than 20 years of experience as a public-school teacher and librarian, described how one such practice—the class read-aloud—invariably resulted in kids asking her for comparable titles. But read-alouds are now imperiled by the need to make sure that kids have mastered all the standards that await them in evaluation, an even more daunting task since the start of the pandemic. “There’s a whole generation of kids who associate reading with assessment now,” LaGarde said.
By middle school, not only is there even less time for activities such as class read-alouds, but instruction also continues to center heavily on passage analysis, said LaGarde, who taught that age group. A friend recently told me that her child’s middle-school teacher had introduced To Kill a Mockingbird to the class, explaining that they would read it over a number of months—and might not have time to finish it. “How can they not get to the end of To Kill a Mockingbird?” she wondered. I’m right there with her. You can’t teach kids to love reading if you don’t even prioritize making it to a book’s end. The reward comes from the emotional payoff of the story’s climax; kids miss out on this essential feeling if they don’t reach Atticus Finch’s powerful defense of Tom Robinson in the courtroom or never get to solve the mystery of Boo Radley.
... Young people should experience the intrinsic pleasure of taking a narrative journey, making an emotional connection with a character (including ones different from themselves), and wondering what will happen next—then finding out. This is the spell that reading casts. And, like with any magician’s trick, picking a story apart and learning how it’s done before you have experienced its wonder risks destroying the magic.
-- article by katherine marsh, the atlantic (12 foot link, no paywall)
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halfvalid · 1 year ago
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Hiii! If its no trouble could I have a zoro and reader fic with the one bed trope? The others know about their crushes on each other so they force each other to share a room? Anyway they end up cuddling and its all cute (the others will tease them forever about it lol)?? Thankss
intertwined ribbons
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ABOUT
alternate title: opla zoro makes my hated tropes less hated
rating: general audiences/teen & up
characters: live action!roronoa zoro | fem!reader | live action!nami | live action!straw hats ensemble
pairing: live action!roronoa zoro x fem!reader
word count: 4.9k
description: unbeknownst to you, your crush on zoro is reciprocated. the rest of the straw hats take it upon themselves to get you together by locking you in his bedroom overnight.
tags: strawhat!reader, only one bed, forced proximity, confessions, no use of 'y/n', nami is a true instigator, cuddling, soft zoro, humor
author's note: thank you so much for the request and i hope it meets your expectations!! fun fact i actually used to hate the 'only one bed' trope, so i decided to challenge myself in writing this. and i think it's one of my fave tropes now lol
(you have an inner spirit that helps you make decisions except it’s just nami.)
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“I just think that maybe you should stop avoiding him,” Nami started. You bit your cheek, ignoring her as you tied up the last of the ship’s rigging into a careful knot. Nami had been going on for the past few minutes, and you’d zoned out exactly three seconds in, when the name Zoro had first been spoken. Because of this reason you weren’t really listening, so you blinked up at her in confusion. 
“Sorry? Who am I avoiding?” 
“You’re impossible,” Nami grumbled. “And you know exactly who I’m talking about.” Which, well, fair. The math added up: you heard the word Zoro, you stopped listening, Nami continued talking until she realized you’d stopped listening. “Especially since you’re, you know—” she gave you another look, eyes rolling over to stare dead into yours— “Avoiding him.” 
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you said innocently. Nami sighed, leaning over to tug the rope dangling from your hands out of your grip. You tried to reach back for it, but she didn’t let you. “Hey!” 
“Yes, you do. Face it. You’re avoiding Zoro.” 
You made a face at her. “I think there are ropes on the foredeck that I can attend to.” 
“No, there aren’t,” Nami answered. “Now stop changing the subject. There’s this wild concept called communication. It works wonders.” 
“Says you,” you muttered, though your arms crossed defensively across your chest. You noticed the action after a split-second and unwound your arms with a scowl. “Look, I just don’t see the point. And I haven’t been avoiding him.” 
You were, in fact, avoiding him. Ever since that dreadful night a week ago when Nami had gotten you tipsy and stuck her hand in your chest cavity fishing for secrets, you’d been avoiding him. The other girl was ridiculously good at prying truths out of you, and during the conversation, you’d accidentally spilled your crush on the Straw Hat crew’s resident swordsman. 
You’d managed to keep the secret for the months you’d been together, wherein the unfortunate feelings had developed, and you should’ve figured once somebody knew they wouldn’t leave you alone about it. Because Nami refused to talk about literally anything else. You’d expected this sort of behavior from Luffy, or maybe Sanji, but Nami? The world was more amatonormative than you'd thought. 
Nami cast you a look. “You’re blushing.” 
“Am not.”
“Are too. What’s the harm in talking to him?” Nami demanded, one hand on her hip as she stared you down. You gaped at her. 
“Um, literally everything? One, Zoro can’t talk about feelings or emotions for shit, so when he rejects me it’ll be in the most excruciating, offhand manner that will probably leave me at the bottom of a barrel of rum, two, after being rejected I’m going to have to leave the Straw Hats, three—”
Nami rolled her eyes, looking increasingly fed up with you. “For someone so obsessed with not telling our resident grass-headed swordsman about your feelings for him, you’re talking rather loudly.” 
You shut up, snapping your jaw closed with a glare. “Stop it,” you hissed. 
“Besides, who knows if he actually will reject you?” Nami turned to work on the next section of rigging, glancing over her shoulder at you. “You’re catastrophizing.” 
“I’m being realistic,” you snapped. “Okay, fine. He reciprocates my feelings. Then what? We date, we break up because all relationships eventually end, it becomes awkward, and—voila—I’ll have to leave the Straw Hats anyway. It’s a bad idea all around.” 
Nami just let out a huff of breath, the exhale laced with irritation. “Catastrophizing,” she repeated. 
“I am not—”
“Sure. Go help Sanji with dinner.” 
You gave her an exasperated look, but at this point Nami wasn’t paying attention anymore, so you stormed off into the underbelly of the Going Merry. Speak of the devil, apparently, because once you entered the kitchen you spotted not only Sanji occupying it but also Zoro. He was lounging at the table, swords strapped to his waist and a bottle of something he was nursing in hand. 
You averted your gaze from him, head running a million miles a minute. Had he noticed you’d been avoiding him? You’d tried to be furtive about it, but if Nami had noticed, maybe—
“Well, hello there,” Sanji called from where he was in the midst of dinner preparations. “Come to help?” 
“Nami sent me,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. “I think she’s appointed herself queen of the Going Merry.” 
“Oh, she did that long ago,” Sanji chided. “You’re only noticing it now. Pick up a knife, then. I’d like some help dicing the carrots.” 
You stiffly moved over to the counter, ignoring Zoro as you went even as you felt his gaze following your figure. You picked up the first knife you found, positioning yourself in front of the cutting board to start dicing the vegetables already laid out for you. Abruptly, Zoro stood up. 
“Heading out,” he muttered. “Call me when dinner’s ready.” 
With that, he left the room, leaving you and Sanji to exchange looks. “He’s moody today,” you said. 
“Probably ‘cause you’ve been avoiding him.” 
You felt the familiar pinprick of a blush starting to warm your cheeks. “You too?” 
“You’re rather obvious about it,” Sanji said with a raised eyebrow. “But enough of that.” Weirdly enough, he didn’t seem to question why. There was no way Nami had told him, so you were left confused, but no matter. The point was that for now, you were safe. 
The hour dipped to evening, and soon the moon was glowing in the sky, a shining beacon of white amidst the ocean of stars and shimmering sea. You suppressed a yawn, busing the dishes from dinner as the rest of the crew got up from their respective seats to dissolve to their own rooms. Zoro had already retired for the night—if you were avoiding him, he seemed to be doing the exact same—so at least you didn’t have that to worry about. 
“Ah, wait,” Nami said, after you’d finished washing the dishes and was ready to head out. “Zoro wants to talk to you.” 
You jolted, glancing nervously around you before grabbing her wrist. “What did you do?” you hissed. Nami just laughed. 
“Calm down. I didn’t do anything.” Off your glare, she relented. “I promise. And I swear it’s not about feelings or emotions or whatever. Even though it’s obvious you’re avoiding him, you know Zoro wouldn’t say anything.” 
You were still suspicious, but you dropped your hand. “What, then?” 
Nami shrugged, tilting her chin up just so. “I guess you’re going to have to find out.” 
“I don’t trust you,” you muttered. There was that look in her eye, the one she got whenever she was thinking of something truly devious. Still, you couldn’t figure out what she was up to, so— “Fine, I’ll go to his room. Walk me.” 
Nami rolled her eyes, but she fell into step with you as you made your way across the ship. “You should bring it up to him, you know,” she started, but silenced after your sharp glare. “Okay, okay. I get the point. I’ll stop bothering you about it.” 
You stopped by the mouth of Zoro’s door. “Wait, really?” 
“Yes, really,” Nami said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. She leaned against the wall beside the door, arms crossing over her chest. “I’ll leave you alone about Mr. Prince Charming over there. Knock.” 
“You can't call him Mr. Prince Charming,” you said, though you did knock. “Prince’ is already a title.” 
Nami gave you a look. “Okay, smart-ass.” 
The door creaked open before you could give your response, and you turned, heart pounding in your throat as Zoro stared down at you. His arm was propped up by the open doorway, the other hand still clutching the doorknob. “What.” 
“Um, Nami said that you wanted to talk—” you swiveled your head towards the other girl, but before you could finish your sentence, Nami was raising up your arm and unceremoniously shoving you into the room. 
You shrieked in surprise as you fell into Zoro’s figure, stumbling into him and causing him to lose his balance. Your head shot up in offense, only to see the gleam of a golden padlock in Nami’s hand before she was yanking the door closed.
A dull click echoed through the room. The only thing you could hear for a few seconds was your own heavy breathing and the sound of Zoro gathering himself.
“Did she just—” You gaped at the closed door. “Lock us in?” 
Zoro swiftly pushed past you, jiggling the doorknob for a few moments before giving up. Sure enough, Nami had sealed it with the padlock from the outside, so there was no possibility of either of you getting out of the room. You could vaguely hear sounds from the outside—dull thuds and scrapes—and watched as Zoro started banging on the door. 
“Nami,” he called, voice dangerously low. “Let us out.” 
“Sorry, Zoro!” Your jaw practically unhinged from your skull once you heard your captain’s familiar voice, all bright and cheerful like always. “We’re putting barrels in front of the door, so don’t even try breaking it down. Have a good night!” 
“Luffy? What are you—” Zoro’s knocking quickened in pace, his voice getting increasingly louder. There was no response from outside, though you could hear snickers that sounded suspiciously like Usopp. What was going on? 
You kicked into action, joining Zoro by the door and trying the door handle again. “Nami!” you yelled. 
Nami’s soft laugh came from outside. “Sorry!” she called. “We’ll let you out in the morning.”
You gaped at the door, only aware of Zoro’s gaze sliding down to you as you dropped your hand from the doorknob. There were some more tigers from outside, and then receding footsteps. Zoro tried knocking one last time, but it was evident that the rest of the crew had all but abandoned you. 
“Okay,” Zoro muttered, moving away from the door. “I need a drink.” 
You watched him move across the room, picking up a glass from his bedside table that was only slightly full. He knocked it back in one swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “Um, what now?” you asked uncomfortably. 
“Nothing. Whatever,” Zoro said, turning to glance over at you. After a moment’s thought, you noticed that he refused to look you in his eye—his gaze was firmly trained at a spot beside your head. He turned away, stripping off his sword scabbard and setting them on the floor. 
You glanced around nervously. Zoro’s room wasn’t that different from yours, really—less decorated, but the constitution was the same. There was the bed, a wardrobe, a desk with various paraphernalia across it, and a little couch in the corner too. “You can look through the closet for something to sleep in. I’ll take the chair.” 
The words didn’t register at first, and you were left standing there, staring as Zoro kicked off his shoes and assumedly started getting ready to sleep. “Um, what?” 
Zoro glanced over his shoulder. He still wouldn’t look you in the eye. “They’re not letting us out until morning,” he said slowly. “You can take the bed. Might as well sleep.” 
“It’s your room,” you started, crossing your arms. “I can sleep in the chair. I’m smaller than you, anyway, so I’ll fit it better.” 
Zoro regarded you with such a reproachful look you almost wanted to laugh. “That’s ridiculous. Change.” With that, he turned around, leaving no room for discussion. You stared at him for a second before giving up, moving to his wardrobe and opening it up to search for something to sleep in. 
“So, uh, any ideas on why they stuck us in here?” You asked, although you already knew the answer. Whatever Nami thought locking you in a room with Zoro would achieve, you were stubbornly not going to let her be right. God, you were so going to kill her once you got out of there. 
“Nope,” Zoro said, with such a degree of finality you figured it wouldn’t be safe to question him further. “They’re just stupid.” 
“I mean, I feel like they would have a motive?” You rifled through his clothes, trying very hard to detach them from their owner. Wearing Zoro’s clothes was not something you wanted your mind to linger upon. Eventually you found a shirt of his that would undoubtedly be oversized on you, and you hastily changed into it, satisfied to find it draped well to your knees so you weren’t exposing too much skin. 
You stole a glance over your shoulder at Zoro, only to catch him in the action of peeling his shirt off. The stretch of the muscles in his back gleamed in the dim light of the room, and you tore your gaze away, heat rushing to your face. “Um. Anything?” 
“Nope,” Zoro repeated. Carefully, you closed the wardrobe door, lingering in one spot with your hands clenched together. Once you heard him start moving again, you deemed it safe enough to turn towards the rest of the room. He’d changed into a loose tan shirt, and had settled back into the chair. 
“I said I’d take the chair,” you told him hotly. 
“Yeah, and I said no,” Zoro said, tone dismissive. He had his eyes closed, and you stared at him in disbelief. 
“I’m not sleeping in your bed,” you said, and then, just to emphasize your point, plopped down on the floor. Zoro cracked an eye open and stared down at you. He sighed. 
“Get up. Don’t be stupid.” 
“I’m not being stupid,” you said. “It’s your room. It’s your bed. You will sleep on it. If you’re not giving me the chair, I’ll sleep on the floor.” 
Zoro let out a long sigh, closing both his eyes as if he was contemplating all his life decisions. “I’m not sleeping in the bed, you know,” he said. 
“Okay, so neither of us do.” 
Zoro’s brows creased, and he opened his eyes to glare down at you. “Seriously? At least take the chair, then. I’ll sleep on the flo—”
You gave him a sharp look. “Zoro.” 
“This conversation isn’t getting anywhere,” Zoro muttered, and finally got up from his chair. You glanced up at him expectantly. “What can I do to convince you to take the bed?” 
“Uh, nothing.” 
“We can work out a compromise,” Zoro said with a sigh. “I want you on it, and you want me on it, and neither of us are willing to take it ourselves.” He paused, brow creasing as an idea seemed to form in his head—one he didn’t seem to be a giant fan of, but an idea nonetheless. “How about.” His lips pursed, before he parted them again to finish his sentence. “How about we both take it?” 
It felt like someone had hit you square in the chest, air kicking out of your lungs and leaving you gasping for breath. Your windpipe was all raw, and you had to fight to tear any words out from your throat. “Ex—excuse me?” 
“It’s big enough,” Zoro said stiffly, though his hands were clenched at his sides. “I can take one side and you can take the other. Since you’re so dead-set on me sleeping on it.” 
“I—” You cut yourself off, suddenly far too aware of Zoro’s eyes fixed on you. Watching your every move. Oh, Nami was in for it now. How were you supposed to survive sleeping in the same bed as—you didn’t even want to think about it. 
“Well?” Zoro prompted. 
“Fine,” you agreed hastily, ducking your head lest Zoro catch any of the flush that was undoubtedly rising steadily up your cheeks. It was bad enough you were stuck in his bedroom and wearing his clothes—but this had quickly become your own personal circle of hell. “Good enough for me.” 
“Finally.” With that, Zoro climbed into bed, settling himself on the very edge of its side. Your throat had gone dry, and you stared at him for another second before hurriedly turning away to flick the lights off. You approached the other side of the bed with an extreme lack of enthusiasm, staring at the empty sheets like they were cackling up at you. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 
Eventually you slid into the bed, busying yourself with arranging the blankets around your figure. Zoro’s breaths were steady and deep from beside you. You didn’t know what to do for a second, but then Zoro’s voice was cutting through the darkness. “You’ve been avoiding me.” 
You jolted, then suppressed your sigh. “Have not.” 
“Yes, you have, and everyone knows it, and you’re not very subtle,” Zoro said, sounding almost bored as he rattled off the words. “Why.” 
“I haven’t—”
“Don’t.” 
You ran your tongue along your teeth, sucking at the valleys between them in annoyance. “It’s not important.” 
Zoro paused before speaking, like he was mulling over asking the question. “Did I do something?” 
“What? No.” You shook your head, despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to see. The sound did well enough to indicate the action to him, though—he scoffed, a low murmur from his chest that buzzed through your nerves. “I don’t want to talk about this. You’re giving the rest of the crew what they want.” 
“They definitely did not lock you in here to talk about why you’re avoiding me,” Zoro muttered. Now it was your turn to scoff, because if only he knew. “Are you sure I didn’t do anything?" 
“Positive. It’s all me.” 
“Okay, so why?” Zoro prompted. You swallowed hard, trying to dodge around the subject. “Are you sure—”
“Please just stop talking,” you said, one hand reaching out to grip his arm as if the physical contact would make him shut up. There was a stagnant moment of silence, your breath catching as your brain caught up to your body. Your hand was on Zoro’s arm. Your hand was on Zoro’s bicep, and you were in his bed. 
You cleared your throat, a panicked choke bursting from your lungs. “Um.” Your eyes skittered sideways, and then you finally turned on your side to stare at him. To stare at where your hand was still clutched around his arm.
You could just barely make out the angle of his jaw in the darkness, but you could see it was clenched, the vein along his neck protruding just slightly. Hastily, you removed your hand, the skin of your fingers tingling like you could still feel him underneath the tips. “Sorry. Why—why are you so certain that you did something for me to avoid you?” 
There were a few moments of silence that ticked by, nothing but the rock of the ship interrupting it. Finally, Zoro spoke. “Because the reason they locked you in my room is because—”
“What? The reason they locked me in your room is because of me,” you said. Zoro finally moved from his position, head tilting to face yours so you were eye-to-eye. You swallowed. “Nami, um—Nami specifically forced me in here so I would… talk to you.” 
There was a question evident in Zoro’s voice. “About?” 
Your lips parted, and then closed again. “Um.” 
“We can just sleep, if you want,” Zoro muttered. 
“What if they don’t let us out in the morning because we haven’t talked, though?” you hissed. Zoro let out a low laugh. 
“You realize you’re giving them exactly what they want.” 
“So you’d be more comfortable if we just… fell asleep?” you asked. Zoro shrugged. Since you weren’t exactly averse to the idea of not confessing, you nodded in agreement, heart beating a million miles a second. “Okay. Fine by me.” 
You settled back into your pillow, but soon came to realize that, due to the fluttering butterflies in your stomach and the fact you were very aware of the man of your affections being barely a foot to your right, you could not sleep. Evidently Zoro felt the same way, because he kept shifting around under the blankets—your hands brushed against each other a few times before he jolted away like you’d burnt him. 
“Sorry,” you muttered. Zoro didn’t say anything in response. Somewhere in the back of your head, you could hear Nami hissing at you—I didn’t shove you in a room with Mr. Prince Charming just for you to not take advantage of the opportunity. You tried to get her out of your brain—it was a bad idea all around—but the words kept reverberating around in your mind until you found yourself suddenly speaking. “Zoro?” 
“Hm?” 
“Nami stuck me in here so I would tell you that, um—” 
“You don’t have to say it,” Zoro murmured, and you shivered, his voice sounding suddenly closer. You squirmed, your hand brushing against Zoro’s again, except this time it took him a delayed moment to drift away. He had gotten closer—or maybe that was you, instinctually leaning towards the dip in the middle of the bed when you’d been lost in thought. 
“The reason they locked me in here with you is so I would tell you about my feelings towards you,” you blurted, the words slurring together, consonants and syllables all in one rush. “Because I have them. Feelings, I mean.”
Zoro’s voice was very low when he spoke. “Excuse me?” 
You sat straight up, the blankets previously nestled around your chin falling to your waist. “I have feelings for you and that’s why everyone locked me in here.” 
“I—” Zoro coughed, and then coughed again, ridding his throat of whatever was preventing him from making full sentences. He slowly sat up, and you stared down at the blankets in your lap as you saw him rise to his full height beside you. And oh, this was it. He was about to reject you in the most excruciating, offhand manner that would probably leave you at the bottom of a barrel of rum. “That’s not possible.” 
“Why is that—” you decided to shut up instead of finishing your sentence, allowing him to speak instead. There was a soft burning starting at your skin, all red hot, and your brain buzzed, regret filling up your lungs and making it hard to breathe. 
Zoro didn’t say anything, but you heard his hand before you felt it. It slid across the bedsheets before finally resting beside yours, fingertips grazing against your knuckles. “Zoro?” you whispered. 
“The reason they locked you in here with me is so I would tell you about my feelings towards you,” Zoro said blankly. You blinked. It took you a moment to realize that he wasn’t just quoting you—that he hadn’t switched the pronouns accordingly. Your heart dropped. 
Your voice was very faint when you spoke. “What?” 
“I like you,” Zoro said carefully. Languidly, the words dripping off his tongue all saccharine-sweet like molasses, or honey. You shivered, your hand accidentally knocking against his, and he took the opportunity to draw it in closer, fingers pushing up your palm, just a hair’s breadth away from interlacing with yours. “Luffy unfortunately found out. He doesn’t know how to keep a secret and told the rest of the crew.” 
You gaped at him. “I like you,” you said, dumbfounded. You could feel yourself trembling, fingers sliding against Zoro’s hand with every shake. “Nami yanked it out of me. Which is why I’ve been avoiding you for the past week.” 
“I thought you were avoiding me because you found out I liked you,” Zoro muttered. His fingertips brushed against the pads of your hand, and you swallowed, mouth all dry. “So.” 
You tentatively lifted your gaze, finding Zoro’s eyes even amidst the darkness. They were shining, a slight glint from the moon coming in through the window reflecting along the shadows of his face. Carefully, his hand slid fully into yours, fingers lacing together, and it was like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. 
Zoro slid back down onto his back, tugging you along with him. You settled back on your pillow, using your other hand to pull the blankets back over your chest. For a full stagnant minute the two of you lay there, hands intertwined in the space between. 
You were the one who made the first move, then, thumb running up and down the length of his index finger. Zoro ran with the action, tugging your hand just slightly until you were leaning into the dip of the mattress, gravity pulling you closer to his body. 
He lifted your entwined hands, tugging you towards him until your back was pressed right to his chest. Then he settled your arms back down again, the back of his palm resting against your belly. 
You swallowed hard, able to hear the sound of your throat in the utter silence. Zoro exhaled, his breath softly brushing against your neck. “Good night,” you whispered. 
Zoro pressed a soft kiss to the nape of your neck, a ghost of something that left tingles fluttering down your spine, the drunken butterflies in your stomach swaying at the action. “Good night,” he murmured, and your breath caught. 
He was warm, oh so warm, like a campfire with licks of flame that softened your hands in the dead of night. And even though you wanted to speak up, question when he’d started liking you, if he was lying or not—you were content to stay here in his arms and drift off to sleep.
So you did, settling back into his embrace with your head spinning and senses murmuring, all dizzy like you were caught in a dream. Eventually, your tiredness got the better of you, and you felt your senses fading as the world around you darkened to black. 
The two of you jolted awake to the knocking and the very unpleasant hum of Nami’s voice. “Rise and shine!” she called through the door, and you blinked, bleary eyes adjusting to the light as you suppressed your yawn. 
Zoro jolted up beside you, practically giving you whiplash as his arm was still comfortably around your waist. Your fingers tingled, and you realized that you’d fallen asleep with your hands laced together. 
“Nami,” you grumbled, about to rise out of bed before Zoro stopped you. You turned towards him in question, only to stop short as you registered the look in his eyes. His gaze was deep, piercing; those butterflies rose up again in your stomach, apparently awake after they’d passed out from their drunken stupor. You swallowed. “Hi?” 
“Hey,” he murmured. “They locked you in my room.” 
“I’m going to knock Nami over the head with a rowboat oar,” you said blandly, eyes flickering towards the door, which Nami was still pounding on. You vaguely heard shuffling sounds, like the crew were working to move the barrels they’d stuck in front of the door to free you from your prison. “You can have the rest of them, if you want.” 
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Zoro agreed. “But first…” 
“First?” you prompted. 
Zoro brought your hands—still intertwined—to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss along your knuckles. “Good morning,” he said, voice low and awkward, like he wasn’t used to letting the words out of his mouth. He let your hands drift to his lap, leaning forward until his forehead brushed against yours.
A faint sigh escaped your lips when he finally kissed you. It wasn’t rough or hard; it was a soft press, like your hands had been just a few hours ago. There was a degree of finality to it; a held-in breath that’d exhaled from your lungs, one you hadn’t realized was building up that much pressure until you finally let it all go. 
The door flung open, and you jolted away, but Zoro tilted your head back towards him before you could. At the mouth of the room, Luffy had started screaming. “Aww,” Nami cooed. Behind her, Usopp and Sanji were gripping onto each other like they were watching a particularly engaging fight. 
A steady blush rose along your cheeks, but Zoro was absolutely shameless, the hand not held in yours raising up to give them the finger. “Get out of my room.”
“Told you it’d be okay,” Nami sing-songed, and then you really did break away from Zoro, picking up the object nearest to you and barrelling towards her. She shrieked, dodging out of the doorway as Zoro laughed from behind you.
“Wait!” she stopped you from whacking your pillow against her head, raising up her arms in defense. “I was right. I saw you two—” 
“Nami,” you started, dangerously low. “You locked me in his room.”
“Yeah, to help you!” she cried defensively, slowly taking backwards steps as you gained on her. “Come on. We can talk about this.” 
“Good luck,” Zoro called out from behind you—you turned around, catching his gaze. He had gotten up, leaning against the doorway and watching you with a sparkle of fondness in his eye. “You’ll need it.” 
You blew him a kiss, ignoring the long groan it pulled out of Luffy from beside Zoro in the hallway. And then you turned around. Nami had darted off, taking the time you’d been distracted to run off. “Oh no you don’t!” you yelled, and then lunged after her with Zoro laughing all the while. 
Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing, you thought. But you were still going to beat Nami’s ass. 
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ckret2 · 2 months ago
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(I said earlier I had a fic excerpt about DEATH LAWYER AXOLOTL, here it is.)
The god hopefully turned to the time giant—
She shook her head, expression flat. "Nope. I'm a civil engineer, not a hostage negotiator."
—and then turned to the Axolotl. "You. You know how to talk to mortals like this triangle that's taken over Dimension Zero, don't you? Isn't he like the omnicidal monsters you represent every day?"
The Axolotl looked nervously at the wormhole into Dimension Zero. He could see blue fire and hear wails of pain on the other side. "Ah," he said.
####
Biologically there was really no such thing as a god, in the same way that botanically there is really no such thing as a vegetable. Tomatoes are fruits; spinach is a leaf; carrots are roots; broccoli is an unfinished flower. The word "vegetable" just indicates the cultural role a plant performs in the kitchen.
The word "god" indicated the cultural role an entity performed in cosmology: a god was anything that exerted enough power that mortals felt driven to worship it.
Different beings so honored with the title "god" handled it in different ways. For the Axolotl's part, he thought it was a useful designation to help with networking, but mostly it was a pain that meant he was put up on a pedestal for doing his job.
The Axolotl was a god of justice. Not the god of justice, but one. He held dominion over an abstract concept; over millions and billions of years, his words and decisions slowly, inexorably altered the idea of "justice" on a multiversal scale. Mercy, retribution, punishment, rehabilitation, equity, equality, fairness, and righteousness were like multicolored clays he could twist, squish, sculpt, and blend at his leisure, permanently altering what those ideas meant to the mortals they affected.
Which was to say: he was a lawyer.
He was also known as a god of rebirth. Which was to say: he specialized in afterlife law. Before going into law he'd only been a psychopomp, but after having to escort too many despairing souls to afterlives he felt were too severe for their sins, he'd decided he wanted a say in where he took his souls. Now he helped clients get their charges reduced so they were eligible for a higher-tier reincarnation, or got their purgatorial sentences reduced, or—on rare occasions—even helped them avoid damnation. (Although he didn't take many damnation cases. He didn't always win—and those ones were too depressing to lose.)
And lately, he'd been developing a reputation.
For the past few centuries, he'd been working on a damnation case. He was defending a supervillain who'd built a weapon that could slice open the fabric of spacetime—a crime against reality—and bisect planets in its wake. He'd died inside the jurisdiction of an afterlife that had legalized eternal damnation. Case law had long since established that the dead had to be sent either to the afterlife system of their native jurisdiction or an alternate afterlife system of their choice in order to be judged, provided that the proper afterlife accepted their transfer request.
But if this villain had been extradited to his home world, the heaviest sentence he could have faced was a thousand years purgatory, with an option for early reincarnation for good behavior after a hundred years. So the jurisdiction he'd died in had summoned up some bureaucratic red tape to dismiss his native afterlife's extradition request, and he'd been sentenced where he'd died. They'd wanted to establish via case law that the dead who had committed crimes against reality could be damned in whichever jurisdiction they happened to die in, and hoped they could get away with it just for lack of anyone protesting the move. After all, everyone involved much preferred that a mortal wicked enough to obliterate multiple populated planets and trillions of lives receive eternal punishment.
Everyone involved except the Axolotl. 
Taking this case hadn't made him many friends. He didn't care; he had his principles. Let an interplanetary supervillain be dragged away to a foreign afterlife just so that he can be forced into damnation, and next it'll be a planetary dictator; let a dictator be dragged away, and next it'll be a murderer; and next it'll be a burglar; and next it'll be a jaywalker that a psychopomp has a personal grudge against. If the Axolotl could establish that even the most undeserving mortal imaginable, a criminal against reality, still deserved the right to be sentenced in the afterlife of his choice, then he could establish that everyone less evil deserved the same right.
If he had anything to say about it, in two or three trillion years he'd see eternal punishment outlawed completely; but untilthen, he was not going to sit idly by and let this flagrant abuse of interdimensional law become the new meaning of justice! He would get that supervillain out of eternal damnation, personally escort him to his native afterlife, and see him reincarnated on his own home world—and mark his words, he would rain so much bureaucratic hell on the judges and psychopomps that had let this abuse of justice take place that no god would dare keep a soul from its rightful afterlife ever again, or he wasn't the Axolotl!
All of which was to say:
Yes, unfortunately. This triangle was like the omnicidal monsters he represented every day.
And so he was appointed hostage negotiator.
####
(And that's why a trillion years later he's the guy helping Bill submit an insanity plea so that he can go to Theraprism rather than get the permadeath penalty.)
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reallyromealone · 17 days ago
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Part 3 to surprise you’re a dad plz 🥺
Title: surpsie you're a dad 3
Fandom: Tokyo revengers
Characters: Haitani brothers
Fic type: fluff
Pairings: Rindō x male reader
Warnings: male reader, reader insert, omegaverse, pregnancy, birth, angst, fluff, good uncle ran
Notes: short chapter low brain energy
Summary: birth and hard conversations
🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸
"Six weeks?"
"At minimum" the doctor said simply "and he isn't to lift anything heavier than his pup" Rindō and Ran nodded, glancing at a fast asleep (name) who just finished feeding the tiny baby that was (daughters name), said baby was tucked in Rans arms as Rindō was terrified of holding her.
It had been three hours and Rindō could barely look at his child or his mate, he was terrified.
He didn't know what to do in this situation.
He didn't know how to be a dad!
And Ran was somehow a way better parent figure to his kid and he was an uncle!
Ran watched his brother, he could see the things going on in his head and the stress he was under "you know you got this, right?" Ran said honestly, big brother mode activating while looking at his terrified baby brother, seeing the young boy who he always made sure had a meal on his plate. "Look at her" Ran said simply, gazing at the tiny bundle "this kid is a Haitani, she is one of us and as you're dad it's your duty to be better than ours could ever be" his voice serious while he gently put Rindōs daughter in his arms "she's so small..." Rindō choked out, holding her close and sitting in a chair "she is, even if you and (name) don't work, she will always be a consistent and by proxy so will he"
"Yeah..."
"Serious question, Rinny" Rans voice was methodical while gently tracing the wisps of hair from his nieces head "do you want it to work with (name)?" He asked so calm and collected while Rindō sighed "I fucked up enough" he grumbled out and Ran snorted "you sure did, you called him a whore in so many new fun ways! It's going to take a lot to earn his trust"
"I don't think he will, how would I even get him to do that?"
"Maybe start with an apology"
"An apology?" Rindō was incredulous and Rindō rolled his eyes and leaned into his chair "we are hardened criminals, we do what we want but he is the mother to your child, he is your mate" Ran said seriously "our world means nothing compared to family, an apology can fix a lot of things and open many doors" ran said before leaning close and locking eyes with his younger brother before whispering;
"So apologize"
And with that, Ran stood up and pulled his cigarette holder "I'm leaving now, you better make sure he isn't being stupid or I swear to god"
And with that, Rindō was left in the room with his sleeping mate who hated him and his infant daughter who gurgled up at him, wide eyed "hey..." He whispered and gently took the babies finger "I'm your dad..." He whispered to the little girl who looked at him with nothing but pure curiousity and Rindō couldn't help but smile at this pup.... His pup.
He was a dad now.
Looking up he stared at (name), the Omega spent and out cold in the comfortable bed with many pillows ran made sure (name) had.
Ran was right, he was so obsessed with (name) when he met him at that party... He was absolutely stunning...
Would (name) forgive him?
He was awful to him even up to the birth...
(Name) Held onto his son while being discharged, Ran returning with a BMW armored van and a shit eating grin "there's my beautiful neice~" ran cooed while he and Rindō helped (name) get situated, (name) glaring at Rindō while the Alpha buckled in (daughters name) into her car seat "I got you two some food! Also I stocked up your fridge, (name)!" Ran always the doting but brother knew Rindō still hadn't apologized but could see him working up the confidence for it.
"We'll be alternating whose with you, we worked out a schedule so you're never alone!" Ran said happily and (name) suppressed a sigh at the concept of having to be near his daughters sire for prolonged periods of time and hopefully not kill the Kanto manji member.
(Name) Ate his food quietly, exhausted "drive slower" (name) hissed out and Ran looked back from the rearview mirror "were going at the speed limit (name)"
"Don't care." (Name)s instincts were going haywire "drive. Slower." He hissed out and ran began driving slower at the furious pharamones that made Rindō crack a window "thank you" (name) focused his attention to (daughters name) who was so peaceful before pulling out his phone and placing the screen under her nose to check her breathing and let out a content sigh.
"Rindō is on first watch as I have business to attend to but don't worry I'll bring you two souvenirs!"
(Name) Glared at Rindō and Rindō looked anywhere but him "you know you don't have to, I know you're not thrilled about parenting" (name) didn't even ask for this...
"I want to be there for you two"
"Why...?" (Name) Was suspicious of the alphas words, he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him.
"...let's get (daughters name) in bed then let's talk"
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rickyriddle · 1 month ago
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Agatha All Along Theory: The Road isn't real
(Disclaimer: I'll be using Teen's real name at some point so you better be up to date before reading)
Here's a theory I need to post before the last episodes air in case I'm right.
The actual Witches Road never existed. It was just a con Agatha created to trick witches and steal their magic. The reason why people think you can't survive the road is because everyone who tried to get there died (killed by Agatha). Alice even said the Road was just a con, because it was. Agatha's first reaction to Teen mentioning the Road is that it's not real, because she knows it's not. She even told him the Road would kill him- because the Road was always a con to kill witches and take their powers.
Agatha never intended to get her current coven there, she always planned for the song to fail and to provoke them so they'd attack her and she could get her magic back. She didn't want Teen to be there to spare him that fate.
That's why Agatha looked genuinely surprised when the Road does appear, and she doesn't seem to actually be familiar with it. She probably spread the rumour that she is the only one who survived in order to lure witches who are interested. The reason why she said she takes power from the undeserving is because she considered that witches who want to walk the road are too lazy to learn magic on their own, it's a way for her to justify killing them. She even told Teen that he wanted to take a "shortcut" with a bit of contempt in her voice when he mentioned looking for the Road.
Now as for this Witches Road... it's prob a hex Billy created without realizing it. The door only appeared after he started to be afraid of the Salem Seven, and it had a hexagon shape. Sounds familiar? Just like Wanda's hex. And I bet Agatha always had a doubt it was him, since she knew damn well the Road wasn't real since she made it up. She looked genuinely confused when it first appeared and definitely do not know anything about it and kept bullshitting her way to the others and acting as an expert.
Billy said "this is exactly how I pictured it" and Agatha replied "it suits you" because she knew he made it. It actually suited him. A lot of the stuff in the hex are based on him, lots of reference to his room as Billy Kaplan. And that's what Agatha meant by "you and your mother have the same tell". They both created an alternate reality unconsciously due to strong emotions. That's how she knew he was Wanda's son, the major clue. His magic works similarly to hers.
That would also explain Agatha's reaction to Sharon's death. "I didn't know you had it in you" was directed at Billy. Agatha wasn't expecting people to actually die since he created the road. So at that moment, she realized that child created a deadly hex, and didn't think he had it in him (not that he killed Sharon on purpose, but the road he made did).
That might explain Rio's reaction, usually the con of the road doesn't go that far, so she's feeling impatient because these witches should have been dead a while ago when Agatha lured them. That could also explain why Rio herself didn't seem familiar with the Road, since it never existed before.
That could also explain why Agatha argued with Jen regarding the lyrics of the ballad. If the road is her con, then she wrote the original lyric and might be unaware that some terms changed over time (like two becoming through).
So, the current road was created by Billy subconsciously, but the concept of the road was created by Agatha as long time ago as a con and ironically, it became real because of Billy. So, the title is true. It really was... Agatha all Along.
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kaybreezy3000 · 4 months ago
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Looking for Happy Five Hargreeves X FTM Reader -anon request)
~Explicit sexual content -if no likey-stay away please.
Hilariously simple but true summary: Five Hargreeves is sad and horny and wants to fuck, and all he wants is you.
(Don't worry, I will try to take you a little emotional rollercoaster that's not all the dirty-dirty 👍)
~Reader is post-top surgery and pre-bottom surgery.
~This story was done as an anon request, asking if I'd be willing to do a pairing of Five X m reader, or Five X ftm reader. The request left the plot open for me to decide if it had much of one or how deep I went with it. Anon did give me a few fun ideas to include if I could, and I did my best to deliver and had a lot of fun doing it, so I hope you enjoy. Thank you, anon. And special thanks to my buddy Bad Kitty @badkitty3000 for proof reading this and catching my zillions of mistakes.❤️
(18,900 words)
Content Warnings and additional tags: Dom Five and some Sub Five, small 'Scream' movie add in per anon's personal love of the movie with sexy Billy and Stu, light praise kink, daddy kink, rough sex, choking, spanking, public sex, Five being sweet, Five being a cocky jerk, masturbation mentions, flirting)
NOTE: This story takes place during season four and after it, using a series of flashbacks, so it moves between past and present several times. Also, this was obviously written before season 4 came out, with an alternate season 4 ending written my way. It has lots of season 4 trailer and interview mentions to make it more fun and hopefully tie in a little with the real season 4.
~~~~~Looking for Happy~~~~~
Coming out of one of the empty offices at the Temps Commission headquarters, Five is met with silence. He still holds the title to the main building of the time controlling agency that he founded, but now, he and his family are the only ones that know it ever existed. 
He has no reason to be there.
It’s as it should be, but like always, he can’t seem to move on.
As Five told The Handler, he is a man that no longer belongs anywhere, only when he said that, he didn’t realize he was the driving force behind so much of his own suffering, or that in the end, it would all come down to him.
Everything he’s done was to restore life as it should be, and finally, this time they won. They are all alive. He should be happy. They are back in their original timeline where they should have always been, but the concept of time and Five’s place in it have always felt like pieces of a puzzle that were never meant to be solved. 
For everyone but the Hargreeves, with their exceptional powers given at birth, it’s as if the final battle that brought on the end, and then opened the door for the new beginning never happened.
That means you don’t remember him.
The rest of the world didn’t need to remember the terror. You just needed to live.
Strolling along, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast as the heels of his dress shoes echo down the vacant halls, despite his wins, Five feels empty. All he wants is to go back to a time and place that’s no more, back to when he could feel your lips pressed to his with a desperation that matched his own.
Reaching the end of the hall, he enters the narrow room filled with screens and panels of little white and blue blinking lights. He sinks into one of the industrial style chairs that’s placed in front of the Infinite Switchboard’s main frame.
Five clicks on the outdated looking monitor, his fingers turning the knobs, dialing.
~~~
Not long later, Five’s face is glued to the screen when Klaus peaks in at him from the hall.
Knowing Five would be here, Klaus passes over the threshold, loudly clearing his throat before saying, “Hey there, big bro…watcha doing?”
Five doesn’t even look up. “Yeah, lucky me. Is it time for our weekly check-in already?”
Treading lightly, Klaus approaches. “When you missed dinner tonight, we were a little worried you’d fallen asleep on the countertop in the break room again, but here you are...”
Klaus lightheartedly laughs at his attempt to make a joke about Five’s odd sleeping habits, but Five continues to ignore him.
“Thank goodness we still have a few of these things hanging around, otherwise the rest of us wouldn’t be able to visit this lovely place,” he says as he lugs up one of Five’s time traveling briefcases, waving it in his face.
Five glares at him.
“Really, man,” Klaus continues. “Everyone was there tonight. It was all the usual banter you’d expect from such an amazing group of misfits, but it would have been so much better if you were there too. Things even got a little out of hand when Diego insisted on coming here to force you to eat what was left of their disgusting vegan goulash, but don’t worry, I put him in his place.”
“Sure, you did,” Five mumbles.
Taking a step closer Klaus asks, “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Klaus’s eyes follow his brother’s unbroken gaze to the monitor, just as you enter your apartment building, where you stop in front of the wall of mailboxes. Your hand comes up, bringing your key to your lock, but your eyes remain fixed on the mailbox above yours.
“That was your mailbox,” Klaus points out, like Five doesn’t already know that.
Five once stood right there by you in that entryway. He hadn’t thought anyone that wasn’t part of his family would ever have the balls to try to put him in his place, but you did, and by doing it, you opened a part of him that before that, he hadn’t been willing to let anyone touch.
After shoving your mail in the back pocket of your baggy jeans, just like the day you met, with your face obscured by your sweatshirt, you stomp up the stairs, your anger evident.
The screen hisses with static as Five adjusts your location until it shows you walking into your bedroom. 
“Why don’t you just go there and talk to him? Maybe jump him in the shower or something. Sounds like something you kinky boys would both enjoy,” Klaus unhelpfully suggests.
“He’s not in the shower, you dumbass,” Five says, letting out an irritated sigh afterwards.
“He might be in a few minutes…”
“No.”
“Hey man, I know it wasn’t supposed to happen, but he remembers you,” Klaus insists, spinning Five’s chair around.
Swinging around, Five almost falls out of his chair. “What the fu-!"
“Five, I know you’re only trying to do what you think is right, but just look at him, something is wrong!”
Five does look, just as you pick up the stack of papers and news clippings from your bedside table. He doesn’t need to zoom in to see the one you are holding. It’s a famous image of him in his academy uniform, mask and all, standing like the smug little jerk he was while posing in line next to the rest of the superpowered Hargreeves children.
“There is no other explanation for why he is looking up all this stuff about you, and there’s other reason why he keeps coming by my old place,” Klaus furthers, “Why won’t you let me go talk to him? We were friends. He might remember me too.”
“Leave him alone!” Five snaps, but his bark has no bite, and his eyes can no longer hide how painful this is seeing you this way.
“Everyone is worried about you. We just want to help,” Klaus pleads.
“You can’t help me with THIS!” Hands shaking, Five jumps up, his voice breaking just a little as he says, “Klaus... I can’t.”  He looks back over at the screen, right as you furiously toss a tiny collector figurine version of him across the room. “Just because I want to see something in this doesn’t mean it’s real,” Five whispers, looking anywhere but at his brother, or you.
“He maybe wasn’t supposed to remember, but I think he does. As we all know, there are a lot of things that make no sense in this world,” Klaus disagrees. “There is something going on with him. Can’t you see he’s falling apart?”
Jaw working anxiously, Five drops back down in front of his screens again, flipping them to what is clearly a random time and date, somewhere in the past with ladies in long billowing skirts and the men in fancy dress coats, escorting them down muddy streets filled with steaming piles of horse shit.
It’s over.
This is how it always goes.
Klaus remains silent as Five pulls out a notebook, pretending to be taking notes on whatever he is pretending to get out of watching things from the past when there is no longer a reason to monitor it for corrections. 
Klaus knows that Five isn’t going to budge, but before he leaves, he says, “Five, I know you are only trying to do what you think is best for him, but what if it’s not best. It’s not too late to fix this part of what was broken too.”
Five’s pen slows as he looks up at his brother standing over by the door. He nods, trying to smile but Klaus can see it’s so hard for him to do it. “I promise I’ll be there next time. Tell Lila that I am sorry.”
“Tell her yourself,” Klaus shoots back, followed by a small chuckle, “She’s pissed. She worked for hours cutting up all those fancy organic carrots for you, so don’t be surprised if the next time you drop by, she chops something off that you find equally important as wanting us all to eat sustainably. And by important, I mean your wiener,” he unnecessarily clarifies.
The hint of a real smile fights to come out and wins this time as Five says, “Lila hates to cook, so I know she did not help make me dinner, and if she was going to chop off my dick, she would have done it by now.”
Klaus smiles too and shrugs. “Maybe… She was pretty mad at you though, so I guess you’ll have to come over to their place to find out if you are still besties. And hey, maybe think about bringing my friend along with you next time. Everyone is dying to meet him and see that adorable smiling face of yours. It’s not like we all don’t know how you like being perpetually grumpy, but seriously…you’re so much prettier when you smile.”
While Five is telling Klaus to fuck off, hoping he finally talked some sense into him, Klaus quickly rounds the corner, hoisting up his briefcase, his fingers punching in the correct date to go back to the present.
As soon as Klaus is gone, Five’s smile fades. He turns the dial, bringing up the footage of you also back in current time, right as you’re screaming into your pillow. “What the fuck is wrong with me!”
His heart breaks a little more.
Nothing is wrong with you. He is the problem, that is why he never should have done what he did. 
He should have let you walk away, but he didn’t.
~~~
The invisible string, a connection that refuses to be ignored, tugs at your mind and it won’t stop.
You’re going crazy.  
Like the miniature resin version Five you just sent flying, the pillow on your face joins it on the floor.
It makes no sense, but you can still feel the tickle of Five’s breath against your neck as you cuddled together on your couch, him contentedly holding you like he never wanted to let you go.
Your eyes remain focused on your motionless ceiling fan, but your brain refuses to come back to the present.
The pain inside your chest tightens.
You try to push it away, but it only gets worse the more you try to tell yourself to stop this.
This is insanity. You need help. That’s what people would say if you told them about the things going on inside your head.
From anything you can gather, Five’s family seem like they aren’t concerned about anything at all, but not that long ago you remember them being shown on every news channel, doing unimaginable things while defending themselves from the barrage of artillery being shot at them.
Five left you only hours before that, promising to be back, but he never came back.
Long after he said he’d be home, you watched in shock as the news blasted stories about him and other people associated with him that made no sense. They said they were aliens! They said they were superheroes from another dimension! They flashed images of Five’s much younger face alongside the other people he grew up with, including Klaus.
Then a war started in the streets.
Almost immediately, the news reporters had given up trying to maintain their façade of calm. The holiday lights beyond their lens twinkled eerily as the sound of explosions filled the air and rocked the ground.
People screamed and sirens blared, and not just on the TV. You could hear it coming from outside your windows.
As the collapsed news camera continued to stream live feed, out of nowhere, Five appeared in the frame, enveloped for a fraction of a second in a flash of violet hued light.
Your jaw nearly hit the floor. It couldn’t be real.
Five’s long coat tails flung like wings behind him as he grabbed ahold of the terrified girl whose picture you’d seen on the birthday invite Klaus had shown you. Five and the girl disappeared in another burst of light, just as bullets ripped through the metal garbage can she was hiding behind.
You smelled the smoke in the air when you ran outside. The earth shook, rattling your teeth as the echo of gunfire sent chills up your spine.
It all happened, only it didn’t. Nobody else remembers it.
Now, the Umbrella Academy is a thing of the past. The superpowered children that had once lived there are common knowledge, but they supposedly moved on with their lives long ago.
Klaus’s apartment isn’t his anymore, and the doors at the Umbrella Academy never open when you ring the bell.
The world in which you met is gone and the Five you knew is gone with it.
Five Hargreeves disappeared at the age of 13, never to be seen or heard from again.
Was any of it even real?
Again, you’re back to questioning your sanity.
“Fuck,” you curse, while raking your hand through your hair.
It’s been months. Three months and twenty-seven days to be exact since you first talked to Five, only then, you didn’t know that was his real name and not just a quirky nickname he preferred to go by.
He always had a nervous energy about him, and he always seemed distracted, so you usually paid no attention to him, but that day, something about the way he refused to acknowledge your presence set you off.
After he rudely stepped on your foot and pushed into you with his shoulder while reaching for his mailbox, you slammed your metal mailbox door closed, doing it much louder than needed.
You smiled with satisfaction when Five startled, even jumping a little.
He looked over at you with cartoon sized wide eyes.
Shaking your head, you’d said, “Not sure if you noticed, but you are not the only one trying to occupy this space. I exist too.”
Five’s eyes narrowed, the intensity of his glare slowly moving up and down as he took in your loose t-shirt and baggy jeans, comfortably paired with your favorite beat up low top sneakers.
You were sure the assessment he was making of you was not a good one. Especially when you consider that he was dressed impeccably as he always was, a long wool coat over a three-piece suit, with his hair a mess of chocolate brown strands, that though all over the place, only made him look even more unfairly attractive.
Compared to him, even though you stood over him by an inch or more, you suddenly felt like a tiny bug on the floor about to be obliterated under one of his shiny dress shoes. Your bodies outwardly didn’t look that much different, but you could tell that you were a little scrawny even when compared to his relative scrawniness. On top of that, he appeared to be close to the same age as you, but it was as if you were opposites, living in the same shitty apartment building, but he was somehow better than you.
You quickly concluded that he was a totally dickhead. Thinking about his stupid big black shoes, and then dicks as they related to shoe size, your mind started moving to certain ways that you were pretty sure you were different from him other than the fact that you weren’t an asshole.
You started to turn away, but before you did, you bitterly added, “I live here, by-the-way. We pass by each other almost daily. Not sure if you are aware of that?”
Ingrained manners getting the best of you, you extended a hand. Five looked at it like a foreign object.
He said nothing, so getting really mad, you casually as possible hooked a thumb under your waistline, while defiantly cocking your chin at him. “An I am sorry, or an excuse me, are just two options you could use to apologize when you just rudely rammed into someone, but it looks like you’re not going to do that since you lack even the most basic kindergarten level social skills.”
You tucked your mail in your back pocket and his eyes immediately moved down to your waist, openly checking out your striped boxers that were starting to show thanks to your pants sagging. Even more annoyed by this less than pleasant interaction, you started to walk away, quietly breathing out the word ‘jerk’ as you headed back towards the stairs.
“Wait!” he called out.
Surprised, you turned back to see the corner of Five’s mouth ticked up, the small movement hardly even noticeable if you hadn’t been suddenly hyper focused on the softness of his slightly parted lips.
“You aren’t wrong. Social graces aren’t where I excel,” he started. “I get lost inside my own head sometimes. I am sorry. Will you accept my apology, or is there something else I can do to make up for being so impolite? Wouldn’t want the neighbor boy thinking I’m a jerk.” 
He extended his hand. 
“You can call me Five, by-the-way.”
Fuck. He heard you, and what the hell, was he trying to be condescending? And Five? 
What the hell kind of name is that?
You looked back over at the name on his mailbox, it wasn’t Five.
“Five is a family nickname,” he explained. The dimple in Five’s cheek grew deeper the longer you dumbfoundedly stared at him. He lifted a brow. “I may be a lot of things, but deep down, I swear I’m a gentleman. I really am sorry for violating your personal space, but I am not that sorry about it because it meant we got to do this.”
What was with this guy?
Rarely did guys his age act so…
Shit… Was he hitting on you?
Five’s smile was like a superpower all its own and it was rendering you speechless, making you temporarily unable to maintain the level of irritation you’d had before. Feeling your face getting hotter, you couldn’t figure out why his words or his expression looked and sounded so flirty, but they did.
Maybe he was just trying to be nice?
Trying to play it cool, you threw a hand back through your slightly less shaggy looking haircut, then replied, “Sure… Nice to meet you and the apology is good enough. Very big of you. Thanks.”
Five’s taunting smile remained, as if you shooting him down was exactly what he wanted.
“Oh,” he breathed, digging through his stack of mail before pulling out an envelope, “I believe this is yours?” He frowned as he looked down at the feminine sounding name and your apartment number that was printed under the clear cellophane address window. “Your roommate, or girlfriend’s, I’m assuming?”
You took the mail from him. “No. No roommate and no girlfriend, just me.”
You were sure that Five looked relieved to hear that, and your breath caught, and your heart kicked up accordingly.
Adding the envelope to your back pocket, you breathed in, then slowly let it out as you rocked back on your heels. “That’s…my dead name,” you clarified.
Five said nothing. He seemed confused as his eyes wandered from yours and he rubbed his chin, but then his eyes suddenly came up, meeting yours again just as it seemed a lightbulb went off inside his brain.
His handsome smile took your breath away as he said, “I never would have guessed, but then again, there is a slightly unhinged, 64-year-old man hiding inside my head, and I am sure you never would have guessed that either.”
You laughed. You never would have guessed he’d be so funny or cute, but he was full of all sorts of surprises.
“You know, nobody reads the news that way anymore, other than grumpy old men, but I guess that makes sense since you’re a retiree,” you teased, trying to keep this whatever it was going by fucking with him again.
Unfazed by you making fun of him, Five nodded. “True,” he agreed, “When it comes to reading real newspapers and my other geriatric ways, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty from time to time on these ink smudged pages,” he waved his paper at you, “-or in other more challenging ways that are much more enjoyable. With the lifetime of experience I have under my belt, I’m sure I could teach you a lesson or two on how to have a good time the old-fashioned way.”
Taking his rolled newspaper, Five slapped it into his opposite hand, making a spanking gesture, all the while never taking his eyes off you.
You rubbed your palms down the front of your jeans. “Wha-what kind of fun?” you stammered, your brain clicking off as blood rushed between your legs.
“The crossword puzzle,” he clarified, followed by a cocky little chuckle. “There’s much more to the newspaper than doom and gloom news stories. It’s all about the delayed gratification. Seeing all those empty squares filled in the only words that can solve the puzzle is a sight well worth the effort.”
“You’re talking about doing crossword puzzles from the newspaper?”
“What else would I be talking about?” he countered.
Holy shit, you wanted to deck him.
~~~
A few days went by, and you didn’t run into your charmingly arrogant neighbor again, not until you were coming home late and you walked into a neighborhood pub to grab some dinner. You looked over, and to your surprise, you saw the familiar profile of a dark-haired asshole sitting alone at the bar.
“You can’t be twenty-one,” you said, sliding in next to him.
Five’s lips pulled to the side as he gave you the most mischievous looking side eye you’d ever seen. “So, you’re stalking me now? If my coworkers at the CIA knew how easily you tracked me down, I’d be fired.”
You scoffed, “You wish,” meaning both to the stalking and him working for the CIA.
Smirking fully, as if acknowledging he did wish you were stalking him, Five self-assuredly tipped his glass your way before sending the rest of the amber colored liquid down his throat.
With his head tipped back, tie pulled loose, and the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone, try as you might, you couldn’t stop looking at the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Really. How old are you?” you pushed, trying not to drool.
Five let out a cocky sounding laugh, his eyes a mossy calm as his gaze flicked down and up, drinking you in like he was a lion, sizing up its prey. “19 going on 64, give or take. Doesn’t matter because here, the drinks are strong, and the bartenders don’t care.”
“Right…” Shaking your head at him as you smiled, you flagged down a server.
Knowing what you wanted already, you ordered, but when you asked for it to-go, Five unexpectedly interrupted. “Make that for here, and for two, and put it on my tab, please.”
The bartender looked at you and you nodded that it was okay.
When you were alone again and Five realized you were still looking at him like he was nuts, he calmly said, “What? I thought we were friends now, and I owe you, remember?”
“I suppose that talking smack to each other for five minutes, one time, means we’re friends,” you pointed out, before adding, “And as long as you don’t try to plow into me again, you don’t owe me shit.”
Five shifted his weight, leaning closer, so only you could hear him since the seats on both sides of you had just been taken. “As a man that hasn’t come close to mastering traveling through time, both forwards or backwards, and can no longer do either anymore anyway, I can’t promise anything with it comes to my spatial awareness issues, but that’s a whole different problem of mine among the many. When it comes to sticking my landings and running into you accidentally or not, I tend to think you like the idea of me plowing into you again.”
Your mouth opened and closed a few times, like you were a brainless fish, nothing coming out, because what the hell do you say to that!
Five burst out laughing. “You are so easy to fuck with.”
“And you are a dick,” you duly noted.
“A dick that you’re apparently not opposed to eating dinner with, and hey, I’ll even buy you a drink too, but only if you’re a good boy and keep looking at me with that handsome little smirk of yours.”
Jesus… Did he just say that?
He did, and his patronizingly suggestive comments weren’t the only thing getting you worked up. You could smell the heady scent of his cologne every time you had to move closer to him to let someone else get up to the bar, and damn did he smell good.
“Confident much?” you cocked off.
Five shrugged. “Yes,” he said, matter of fact. “But the truth is, most of the time I am not great with people. I’ve spent most of my life alone, and I have only ever been with one other person intimately, and that relationship wasn’t what anyone would call normal, and abstaining from any sexual relationship since then is definitely not my penis’s first choice, it's more of an existential problem.”
“Oh, my God!” You burst out laughing.
Your second conversation with Five was starting no less shocking and confusing than the first, and like the time before, you were loving it.
For the next few hours, you sat there with him, getting to know each other, having several more drinks that went down with plenty of laughs and hardly concealed innuendoes that proved over and over that what was going on between you was much more than just friendly chatter.
With his dark strands of hair dangling in his eyes and his perfectly tailored three-piece suit, Five looked hot as hell, and because of that, he was getting checked out constantly the entire time, but he never seemed to notice, and that was because his eyes were always on you.
You didn’t even think about leaving until the band that had been setting up since you got there started to play, and it got way too loud to hold a conversation. As you offered to pay again, Five refused. Then, having already had his foot resting on the rung of your barstool, he abruptly spun you around to face him more directly, giving you an innocent looking smile as he let the tip of his shoe glide up your ankle.
“I’m not ready to let you go yet,” he said, his voice low.
“You’re not?” you sputtered, trying not to spray the liquid you’d just tried to swallow all over him.
“This has been nice,” he said, velvety soft as he moved closer “Thank you for keeping me company.”
“That’s not all I want to do,” you found yourself saying back, your lips brushing his cheek as your hand lowered to his knee, your palm running along the smooth wool fabric, stopping mid-thigh.
Five’s leg tensed. For the first time since you got there, he was tongue tied.
He suddenly moved back, and you instantly removed your hand. You were sure you’d just freaked him out, but then he quickly said, “Maybe we should move?”
Not a second later, you were both making your way through the mob of people, all the way to the edge of the dance floor in front of the stage.
Five seemed so at ease in the crowd, even having fun listening to the live music. He was not at all who you thought he was, and just looking at him next to you made it feel like you had a swarm of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach.
With eyes glossed over, standing as close as you were, the music wasn’t the only thing Five seemed to be enjoying. Taking full advantage of there being no room to move, every now and then, his hand would brush against the side of your thigh, staying there a little longer than necessary. Then, after both of you were getting repeatedly shoved around in the crowd of inebriated people, Five strategically placed himself behind you, as he was trying to protect you.
With him standing behind you, your body got even warmer, and you smiled to yourself, remembering how Five had claimed to be such a gentleman. Whether he did it to be gentlemanly or not, Five seemed all too happy to have a reason to press up against your backside, because now he had an even better reason to place his face next to yours, humming in your ear as he said absurd things to make you laugh.
You weren’t so much dancing together as the people around you were trying to do, but that didn’t mean Five wasn’t intentionally or unintentionally moving himself against you to the rhythm of the music. Trying to figure out which one it was, you reached back taking him his belt, tugging him flush as you dropped your head back and arched your back into him.
Five let out a pained sounding whimper as his hard-on poked the back of your leg and almost just as fast, the tip of his nose brushed your neck as the warmth of his breath caressed your skin. “I’m sorry, but fuck, you’re making me hard,” he whispered before you felt his lips gently kiss your already tingling skin.
He had no reason to be sorry.
Turning around, you slipped your hand around his, assertively leading him through the crowd. You weren’t even off the main floor, a few feet down a side hall near the bathrooms, when Five was on you, taking your face in his hands, pulling you into a kiss. He was so excited, his lips actually trembled as they pressed against yours, a low moan coming from deep inside his chest when you eagerly reciprocated.
It had to be a whole minute later before he let you up for air, gazing at you with darkened eyes as he smiled. "I really like you.”
Sliding your other hand around his neck, you grabbed at the soft tangle of hair brushing the crisp edge of his shirt collar, tugging it sharply. "You’re going to like me even more in a second,” you shot back, while moving your other hand lower.
Five let out the cutest sound as you started fondling him while also giving his mane another tug, but it must not have been all that upsetting that you were manhandling him because as you tightened your grip in his hair, his hips reactively bucked into yours.
Five’s hard cock pressed up against the crotch of your jeans as he ground himself against you, his hands hungrily groping your ass, pulling you back and forth over his dick.
"Fffiv-vvve," you panted into his frantic kiss.
He smiled against your lips and kept on kissing.
You trailed a hand up his inner thigh, cupping his erection through his clothing as your mouths parted wider. The heat of his tongue entered you, engaging you in a sloppy kiss that ended with biting and tugging at your bottom lip before he said, “You have no idea how bad I wanted this.”
Five let out a shaky sigh as he glanced over at the man carrying several cases of liquor, trudging by, heading towards one of the bars' storage rooms.
You were a little taken aback by how vulnerable he looked, his face flushed, and his lips wet and full from kissing you. You stayed silent for a few seconds, just looking at him.
You weren’t sure if he was going to stop. Something seemed off, only you couldn’t put your finger on it. Not that you were trying that hard. Your fingers were still busy doing something else.
Before you got too worried that he’d changed his mind, Five started kissing again, your oversized sweatshirt hood falling over your heads.
Going at it hard, with his hands latched on your ass, Five dry humped you into the wall, not even stopping when the door across from you flung open. Coming to your senses only slightly, you shoved Five backwards, forcing him into the men’s room.
Your adrenaline was pumping hard, and your heart was racing as the door closed behind you.
Five came at you again. Your hands went around him as he grabbed a handful of your ass, nearly lifting you off the floor. He pinned you to the wall again, his cock slamming between your legs.
His hands ran down your sides, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he kissed and sucked your collarbone, trailing teeth and kisses gently up your neck.
Breathing heavily as you momentarily broke apart, Five anxiously said, “You need to tell me to stop if this is too much, okay?”
You didn’t reply verbally, instead you kept kissing him. Five groaned into the kiss and pushed your crotches together with more determination.
Miraculously for as busy as the bar was, the bathroom was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long. Not even breaking apart, you walked Five backwards again, moving him inside the largest bathroom stall. Thankfully it didn’t appear that dirty, but again, you weren’t really looking.
You kicked the door closed, hand only leaving Five long enough to twist the lock. Lips coming off your neck, Five’s eyes trailed up and down your taller frame. He reached out as you cornered him, brushing some of your hair away from your ear while his other hand snuck between your legs and squeezed your crotch. Looking pleased with himself and what he was feeling, he tilted his head to kiss your neck while he rubbed his hand over your clothed sex repeatedly.
In return, you moved your hand over his dick again, unzipping and then tugging his pants down. His cock sprung forward with no underwear to prevent it from happening.
Naturally you both looked down, and wow did Five look proud as your eyes went wide.
“Impressed?” he asked.
“Hardly.”
He was clearly not buying that lie because fuck…
With no further ado, you lowered to your knees, and he watched you do it as if transfixed. Your hand wrapped around his ankle, then trailed up a bit further, before you stopped under his knee, rubbing lightly.
Five reactively opened his legs a little, and so did you in a futile effort to ease the slight feeling of friction you were experiencing against your briefs.  
You were buzzed and horny, and this was nuts, but fuck it. This was happening!
Five’s cock was already leaking. You licked your lips and positioned yourself. With the hand not already holding him, you reached out and gave his long cock a tentative pump, spreading the precum around with your thumb. He pulled back a little.
“You okay, big shot?” you teased.
A smile crept onto Five’s face, but his voice came out so broken it caught you off guard. “You don’t have to do this.”
Okay… Maybe he was nervous, that was fair, especially if all his arrogance was just a show and what he said about being inexperienced was true, but considering how he had just been all over you, and now you were on your knees in a bathroom stall with his dick in your face, you looked up at him in disbelief as you said, “I know I don’t have to do this. I want to. Now stop being so damn frustrating and let me suck your dick!”
It was as if something in him snapped, the darkness in Five’s eyes smoldered as he purred, "Just remember, pretty boy, you asked for it. I am going to fuck your face so hard you’ll think twice before smarting off to daddy again.”
Holy fuck that was fucked but it only made you wetter.
Just then, someone walked in, going straight to the urinals. Your heads both flung that way. If they looked behind them, they for sure would see Five’s shoes lined up against your knees. There was no question what was happening, and even more turned on by that, you started stroking Five gently as you could while playfully sticking out your tongue to lick up the glistening fluid running down his shaft.
Falling back against the partition between the stalls, Five’s head made a hilariously loud thunking sound.
You kept at it, kissing the slit of his rounded tip, working it in a circular pattern. Five let out the quietest hum of approval as his fingers at his sides clenched and unclenched repeatedly.
You kept toying with him, enjoying how he was struggling to stay quiet, but only until the door closed and you were alone again, then he brought his hand to your cheek.
You looked up as his hand moved into your hair. “You look so good with your mouth on my cock.”
To that, the throbbing between your legs had you tensing your thighs to increase the sensation but it wasn’t enough and you let out a moan of complaint over it that made the darkness in Five’s eyes look all the more wicked with delight.
You put his whole tip in your mouth, opening and closing your kiss reddened lips around it, grazing it just barely with your teeth. From above, Five let out a moan as his hand in your hair moved, brushing your fringe of hair out of your face.
He couldn’t take his eyes off you and God did you love it.
He was letting out breathy sighs and grunts as you serviced them, his free hand pushing back through his hair the more agitated he got.
Wanting to send him over the edge, with the hand you were holding him with, slowly pumping him at just the tip, you leaned in even more, letting the musky scent of him fill your senses as your tongue ran along his balls. You were rewarded for that with a deep groan and an unsteady hand coming to the top of your shoulder.
That was all the praise you needed.
“Fuck yeah,” Five hissed, then he bit down on his lower lip, as you took him in your mouth, moving over him just little deeper and faster.
Almost right away, Five started rocking his hips in strained, shallow nudges. Each time he entered you and hit the back of your throat, he’d break apart a little more, and you swore you’d never seen anything so beautiful in your life.
Petting you, and making your hair all sorts of fucked up, Five encouragingly murmured “You are so fucking good at this. Fuck- Ohh-ffffff-you’re amazing,” he gasped.
Even though it was happening, you could hardly believe you were seeing this normally composed man turning into such a stuttering, red-faced mess.
Tipping your head back and opening your throat to him, the thick head of Five’s cock moved inside with ease, fucking you deep and hard enough in quick but controlled thrusts that it took away your ability to breathe.
Your eyes instantly began to water.
“Fu-ck-ye-ah-take-my-dick,” Five stammered as he wildly fucked into you.
The door opened again, the music getting louder for a moment before it shut again. This time there were several guys in there, but between the sound of them pissing, and their talking, and the thrum of the bass coming from outside, it still wasn’t enough to hide Five’s sharply cut off breaths and curses.
They knew, but the way Five’s eyes kept drooping closed proved his brain was no longer running the show and he didn’t care.
His fingers gripped tighter, yanking at your hair. You took the abuse, gagging on him until Five suddenly clasped his hands on the sides of your face, stopping you. “I’m gonna-cum,” he quietly cried.
He had a panicked look in his eyes. His teeth were clenched, and it was clear he was trying so hard not to orgasm, but it was coming one way or another, even with the guys outside your stall snickering and making lewd comments.
“Fuck yeah you are, and you’re going to do it my mouth,” you commanded, right before sucking him raw again, taking him all the way to the hilt.
Losing all self control, Five started railing your face again.
You couldn’t breathe at all, and were choking on your own spit. Your fingers dug into his thighs as your body instinctively fought back, but Five held the back of your head tight, forcing you down on him over and over.
Then, while violently scrambling your brains with his throbbing cock, hot spurts of Five’s seed started shooting down your throat. His hips jerked uncontrollably as he dug his heels into the floor. He fell back against the wall again. The waves of his shuddering release came out in a cadence of grunted curses as he moved himself in and out of your gaping mouth, moving slower and slower with each thrust until he was spent.
Having dumped his load, he started to slide out. Getting oxygen again, your blurred eyes took in the sight above you as you gave his well worked shaft a few more loving licks and twirls of your tongue. Sure that you just blew his mind, you popped your mouth off and smirked.
Five’s doe eyes were only slightly open and the dreamy way he was looking down at you was priceless.
~~~
Five was temporarily out of commission but you were both still horny as fuck as you burst out in the cool night air onto the sidewalk. Both riding the high, you fully intended to take your fun back to one of your apartments. As worked up as you were, coming out of that bathroom, hand-in-hand, quickly cutting through the crowded bar, your discussion hadn’t gone much past both of you smiling like idiots, but you knew the night wasn’t over, that was until you saw Klaus.
“Five?” he questioned, sounding totally shocked to see him as he approached from the opposite direction with his colorful meditation robe bundled around him.
Five slowed to a stop, back peddling a little. You looked from him to your friend, as his hand slipped from yours.
“Hey there, little brother,” Klaus said, “Would have never thought I’d see you out this late. What’s this?” He pointed at you with one of his latex covered gloves, the motion exposing his usual weird bubble wrap inner padding system that he liked to keep secured around him, so as he put it, he didn’t die while accidentally getting run over. “I didn’t know you guys knew each other,” Klaus added as he waved the hand holding his Styrofoam cup between the two of you.
It was subtle, but Five moved away from you a little more as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying even harder to hide that he’d been touching you.
Looking very uncomfortable, Five cleared his throat. “Well, Klaus, what with the nature of my employment, I am known to leave my apartment from time to time, and it’s not like I see you that often, so you wouldn’t know that. I also wasn’t aware that I needed to keep you updated with who my acquaintances are.”
Five looked at you for the briefest of moments, no indication of the sweet guy he had been in his now hardened eyes.
“We live in the same building,” Five irritatedly furthered, as he looked at Klaus again. “Happened to run into each other a bit ago while picking up dinner, so yeah… That’s it.”
“You guys going anywhere else fun? I’d love to join you, catch-up on life before the big family reunion b-day party next weekend.” Klaus held up his drink again. “This tea is amazing. I got it at a place about a block down. I’ll buy you guys one,” he pushed as you silently tried not to let it show how confused you were.
You’d met Klaus over a year before while at a park. He was there alone, sitting under a shady tree, legs crossed, eyes closed while positioned in namaste, when one of your friends threw a frisbee that glided over and clocked him in the side of the head, which was the only part of him not covered with protection from germs or flying projectiles.
Running over to apologize, from that point on, you’d been friends with the slightly odd, but always interesting spiritualist. The fact that Klaus was Five’s older brother, one of the other six orphans he’d told you he’d grown up with, was as crazy and unsettling as the way Five was acting all of a sudden.
As if you weren’t already feeling like shit, then Five said, “No thanks. I’ll have to pass on the tea. I have work to do at the office. I’ll see you around.”
“You still doing cool secret government stuff?” Klaus questioned, but Five didn’t answer him, or specify if he meant he’d see you around, or just his brother, then he strode off, his breath a plume of white in the night air as he quickly rounded the corner like he couldn’t get away quick enough.
~~~
The work week came and went, and you didn’t run into Five again, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t thought about him about a million times.
Of course, you asked Klaus about him, and he asked you about you and Five. Klaus said that his brother was super secretive. He said that he thought Five worked for the government in some capacity, but really, he wasn’t sure, but you were pretty sure that was a lie.
Klaus said Five was a loner and that he didn’t get out socially that much, so he was floored when he saw him laughing and smiling, walking down the street with you, and that part you figured was true.
When Klaus pressed you about Five, you could tell that he knew you were lying when you went along with Five’s story, by not giving him anything new, other than you’d eaten dinner with him since you both happened to be sitting at the same bar.
You said you were being neighborly. That was it.
You both weren’t telling the whole truth, and you both knew it.
As much as you wanted to tell someone how mad you were about what Five had done, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his older brother. The way Five played you was dirty, but you weren’t the type to start shit.
Five was a prick. End of story.
You didn’t know if he was ashamed of people knowing about him being with you, or it was just his family knowing about it, or if he just used you to get off and that’s all it ever was.
It didn’t matter.
You felt so stupid because you had felt like you had something real with him, something that was maybe a bit too much based on an intense sexual attraction and a shared craving to one up the other with cocky remarks and flirty jokes, but there was also something else. When you were with Five, it felt like you were all that he could see. And even more important, he saw you how you wanted to be seen.
You wanted to get lost in him and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but you were wrong.
What Five did hurt. There was no other way to put it.
When you came and went from your place, a part of you wanted to run into him, and another part of you never wanted to see him again. Some days when you couldn’t stop thinking about that asshole’s smile and those dark lashes of his fanning his pale cheeks, you contemplated going up a floor to kick his door in, to either jump his bones or kick him in the nuts, maybe both.
You didn’t.
It had been a long day, and the last thing you wanted was to go out. You were planning on having over a group of guys to watch a horror movie marathon. It was going to be a mixed group, old friends and Klaus.
Klaus always seemed lonely, too obsessed with keeping himself from getting sick or avoiding quicker, more gruesome forms of death, so you weren’t about to leave him out. He needed to get outside of his head and so did you. Klaus was someone that needed a friend and you were happy to bring him into your fold, even if he often remained quiet, or nervously excitable. He could be so hot and cold, and so detached, and something about that reminded you of Five.
They were brothers, so…
No. 
No, you were not going there.
Fuck Five.
You dropped some bags of chips and other junk food on the table in front of the couch, busying yourself with getting things ready for your guests, rather than wasting your time thinking about Five.
Life goes on, your friends showed up and as usual, Klaus was late, but when he knocked on your door with his brother in tow, you naturally did a double take because you were so floored.  
“Mind if I join you?” Five sheepishly asked while handing you a bottle of very expensive looking Scotch, the same brand he kept buying you at the bar.
There you were, wearing your favorite sweats and frumpy faded t-shirt, and there he was, looking amazing as always in his slim fit white dress shirt and usual black slacks, but gone was the self-assured guy who strutted into your life and then stomped on your dick.
He looked so nervous and unlike himself that all you could bring yourself to do was take the bottle as you nodded your head, stepping aside to let them in.
Klaus came waltzing in, minus his usual bubble wrap bumper vest, which you assumed he left at Five’s apartment before coming down to yours. He instantly took his place on your recliner since you’d abandoned it.
“Since, my dearest little brother lives in your building and you two are friends, I figured I’d stop by and see if he wanted to join us,” he explained, clearly aware that you weren’t thrilled. “With how chummy you two looked the other night, I was surprised that you hadn’t already plucked Five out of his boring man cave,” he added while wagging his eyebrows at you.
“Funny, when inviting my friends over, thinking anything about Five and our chumminess totally slipped my mind,” you muttered, as you glared at the jerk you did not want there who was still expectantly staring at you.
The asshole was standing there on your door mat, looking about as clueless as ever, so you waved him on. “Don’t just stand there. Come on in. Join the party. We’re about thirty minutes into the first ‘Scream’ movie.”
“Are you sure this is, okay?” Five quietly asked, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear as you shut the door behind him.
“Why wouldn’t it be,” you shot back, the anger in your voice impossible to hide.
“It’s not what you think. I am sorry,” he tried.
“Whatever,” you snapped. “Hey, Klaus!” He looked up with his mouth full of popcorn. “Introduce your brother, please.”
After dismissing him, with no other choice Five walked out to meet your friends.
Entering your kitchen, you got down some tumblers to pour everyone a glass of Five’s ‘you sucked my dick and then I rejected you,’ peace offering or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be.
“Gentleman, my ass,” you breathed before coming out to the living room with your hands full of the sloshing liquid.
Of course, there was nowhere to sit but next to him on your L-shaped couch. Five was at the hooked end, doing his best to look somewhat comfortable.
Like before they came, mostly everyone ignored the addition to the party as they zoned out, watching the movie, making comments here and there. As it was before, everyone was just chilling, lounged out on your furniture. Deputy Duey was being a dipshit that you couldn’t help but love, and terrified girls with big tits, and stupid horny guys ran for their life, screaming as the ghost-faced killer sliced and diced them.
It would have been great, exactly what you needed, but Five’s presence was making it anything but relaxing for you. He was so close; you could feel the heat of his leg next to yours as the silent tension between you grew. The way he was bouncing his knee made it clear he wasn’t feeling very comfortable either, but fuck him.
Nearing the end, when the masks came off, Five’s agitation had gotten noticeably worse. He could hardly hold still. You could tell he wasn’t okay. His hand laying against his leg was shaking. Not even thinking, you reached over, placing yours over it.
His breath hitched as he looked at you. “Excuse me,” he whispered, abruptly pushing himself up off the couch.
As he passed, Klaus gave his brother a worried glance, but you told him to stay put as you got up to follow Five.
Coming around the partition dividing your small living space, you saw that Five had himself leaned back against your kitchen counter, head down, pinching his forehead between two fingers.
“Not enjoying the movie?” you sarcastically asked.
Five pulled in a long breath AS he looked up at you. “I am afraid that as an ex-assassin, there is something about these tragically misguided young men happily stalking their prey before slicing them apart with blunt objects that hits a little too close to home.”
You blinked rapidly. “You’re kidding?”
His lip quirked up. “Not entirely.”
“Ah-huh,” you breathed before taking a long pull of your drink while glancing around the corner at the TV in the other room.
“At least part of the motivation for these two bonehead murderers being their secret love affair made this otherwise less than thrilling teen slasher film less boring,” Five furthered, seemingly a little less upset, almost playful as he smiled a little more when you looked at him again.
“What! NO! I love this movie,” you argued, forgetting that you hated him, even playing up how offended you were by his comment over your favorite scary movie. “And hell yes, them being mad as fuck for each other makes this better,” you agreed, followed by a laugh.
Five’s smile fell. “I wish I hadn’t done what I did the other night.”
“Then why did you?”
He ran his hand back, pushing his hair out his eyes, but it fell right back. “Because, when it comes to my family, it’s complicated, and not even factoring them into my life, I don’t know how to be with anyone, and I don’t know if I should be with anyone with the way I am anyway.”
“I don’t get it. If you’re ashamed-"
“It’s not that,” he interrupted, then he raised his voice. “I don’t care if the entire world knows how I feel about you!”
Klaus had been talking, but hearing that, the other room got very quiet.
“You are the first person I want to open myself to like this, or who has ever made me feel this way,” Five said, coming to you, his hands finding yours at your sides as he leaned into you. “I still want this more than anything, I just messed up because I am messed up.”
Coming closer, his lips touched yours so softly for just a fraction of a second. His eyes like gems, implored you-asking forgiveness.
“Since the other night, other than hating myself, I have wanted nothing more than to see your smile again,” he whispered, “even though what I did made it seem like I don’t care about you, that is about the farthest thing from the truth. Will you give me a second chance to show you how much you mean to me?”
You were pretty sure you couldn’t have made your lips form the word no, no matter how hard you tried.
“Are you sure you’re not embarrassed about this?” you questioned, your fingers making soothing circles along the undersides of his wrists.
Five smiled again. “I’m sure.”
“Prove it.”
“You forgive me then?”
“I’m working on it, but you have a lot of making up to do.”
Five’s hand moved around to your lower back, sliding up the back of your shirt, pulling you closer. You nudged his nose with yours.
“Like I said, prove it,” you softly repeated, daring him to show you that he meant what he said about not caring if his family or anyone else knew.
Five glanced over your shoulder, as if he could see your guests even though there was a wall in the way. His hand moved along your hip, slipping below the waistband of your sweatpants. “What do you have in mind for how I can prove it to you, handsome?”
He plucked the knot in your drawstring free, pulling the bunched cotton at your waist, loosening it so his hand could slip inside your pants.
“This, maybe?” he hummed against your ear, his fingers just under the elastic of your briefs.
You looked back at him with pleading eyes.
“Your bedroom is right over there but you want it right here, don’t you dirty boy?” he taunted.
There was no time for a comeback, only a shuttered breath before Five’s hand dove lower and you gasped at the sudden feeling of his finger abruptly entering you.
A devilish smile lit up Five’s face. “Awww… Wet for me already? Such a good boy,” he chuckled as his finger began to move, lovingly stroking the lubrication upwards.
You lowered your head against his neck, your body already tightening with pleasure from the feel of his finger rubbing against your clit.
Five kissed your forehead as you clung to him, his words tickling the shell of your ear as he spoke. "Wanna give our audience a show? You were amazing the other night, but I’m sure if we both try really hard, we can do better this time.”
You whimpered, trying to put your thighs together so you could increase the friction. Five brought another finger into the game trailing his digits up and down before flicking them against you, making you let out a small moan.
A shout came from the other room. “Hey! While you guys are in there, you should make some more popcorn!”
Twisting just enough, you snatched a bag of microwave pop off the counter, furiously tearing into the plastic with your teeth before spitting it out. You reached back, yanking the microwave open, carelessly tossing it in there without looking.
After you slammed the door shut, while smiling at you looking so fucking cocky, Five helpfully reached up, punching in the popcorn button before he hit start. He raised a brow. “Looks like I better get to work. We have a countdown, sweetheart.”
Moving his fingers quickly, jerking you hard, you let out a low groan that got much higher pitched when you felt the warmth of his erection nudging your hip.
Riding Five’s glorious fingers, but thinking of him slowly entering you with his heavy cock instead had your eyes rolling back in your head. The agonizing pace he was setting making your moans of complaint louder.
“That’s it, baby, louder,” he encouraged, gazing at you with half lidded eyes that were so beautiful.
“I need more,” you hissed, gritting your teeth.
“So needy,” he teased, just before his finger dipped inside you again, only this time crooked up just a little before he pulled it out again.
Then, just as you thought the bastard was going to really start finger fucking you, he slipped his hand out of your pants leaving your cunt clenching around nothing. After your waistband snapped against your tensed abs, Five brought his slicked finger to his mouth, making a naughty show of sucking it clean.  
“I fucking hate you!” you growled.
If he tried to leave you with blue balls again, you were going to kill him!
Five gave you a sly grin and you frowned. “I’m going to make you take that back,” he menacingly sang, then suddenly your pants and underwear were tugged down, and your legs were forcefully spread open by his knees wedging yours wide.
His hands come up your sides, moving under your shirt, over your rib cage. His eyes looked into yours, watching you for signs of distress as his fingers moved up, traveling over the flattened planes of your pecs.
You closed your eyes and you felt Five rest his forehead against yours.
His hand smoothed down to your hips again, stopping.
You took a deep breath.
“You are the most handsome man I have ever seen,” he breathed, throwing you off even more.
To say your senses were heightened was an understatement. Every sound your friends made in the other room only added to the tension brewing. All they had to do was come around the corner and they could see you back up against your counter with Five dominatingly standing between your legs as your pants and underwear lay in a heap at your ankles.
Five moved his forehead away from yours. “I will stop if you want me to. If not, you know what to say,” he soothed. “You want me to suck you off, right here. Right now. With them listening.”
 Little explosions started to go off inside the microwave.
 You had never been so hot and bothered in your life. You moaned desperately, “Five, you fucking-!"
"Shh...” Five teased as his hand moved up over your mouth to silence you. "Can’t have you getting too loud. Don’t want anyone thinking I’m in here doing awful things to you.” He leaned in, his breath ruffling the short ends of your hair, his words ominously intimidating. “I want to hear you beg.”
“Please,” you whimpered under his hot fingers.
"Sorry, what was that?" Five asked, sweet as honey while moving his hand a little so you could say it louder.
“Please!”
“That’s it.” Five’s sinful looking grin spread across his entire face.
He got down on his knees. Not taking his eyes off you, he pushed up your t-shirt just a little so he could leave a trail of wet kisses along the fine trail of hair leading from your belly button downward.
He let out a heavy breath, hovering over your sex. “You’re perfect, you know that, right?” he said, then his tongue drug along your length before flicking against the tip of your swollen clit.
“Oh, FUCK,” you loudly cursed.
You tried to relax and keep your hips still as Five licked at you slowly, but with the way his tongue was pushing between your thickened folds it was impossible
A bitten whimper croaked out of you as he licked up a stripe while slowly palming his own dick. You lowered to your head, your fingers threading through his hair, tightening.
You gasped when Five began sucking you. His hum of approval and the sting of pleasure from his teeth accidentally dragging as he sucked a little too roughly, left your thighs shaking and the next thing you knew, you were grinding down on him trying to get more.
Undeterred, by you humping his face, Five continued to contentedly lap at you. At this point, you didn’t know what to focus on, the pleasure that was tearing through your veins, the screams coming for movie, the people who could come in the kitchen at any second, or the fact that there was no way Five was able to breathe correctly with the way he was going at it, his whole face buried between your legs, fucking you.
Everything clouded over. His hands were plastered to your thighs, his hair was sticking out in a million places, and his tongue kept probing inside your entrance, devouring you before he came back up to harshly flick at your clit again.
Your body fought against the invasive sensation. Vulgar noises were being forced out of you, but you couldn’t cum no matter how badly you wanted to.
The microwave beeped.
“I-I fff-fu-ah-ck,” you stammered as you tugged at Five’s dark waves, attempting to separate your throbbing sex from his mouth, but he wasn’t having any of that.
He grasped your waist, holding you in place, hungrily demolishing you. He was like an animal, the scratchiness of his very light stubble only adding to the brutality of what he was doing to you.
It felt like every nerve in your body was being touched at once. You were being torn apart more and more with each trail of his tongue and rub of his fingers, pinching and pulling you between forefinger and thumb as he sucked your clit like a dick.
As your orgasm hit, it felt electric, a flash after flash of hot white light.
Five made you cum so hard that you totally forgot that he was fisting his own cock, but he sure was, and he was loudly moaning while doing it and still sucking you with the most tender of kisses, making sure not to leave you until you’d ridden out all your crashing waves of pleasure.  
When he finally came up for air, his face from his eyes down was shining and his smug grin proved that he could have cared less that he was a mess.
 “So, did you enjoy cumming on my face?” he rhetorically questioned.
He lifted himself off the ground, staring at you as he leaned in, connecting your lips, making you taste yourself on his tongue.
“I am not sure. It was okay, I guess,” you said, smirking when he pulled away, wiping his face and then yours with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Maybe one more try, with a little more tongue and teeth this time and you’ll have a more definitive answer?” he suggested.
He started to drop back down, and even though your body felt like jello, you pulled him back up easily enough.
As you were reaching to pick up your pants, Five took advantage of you dropping your guard to quickly spin you around, your socked feet slipping on the floor before he aggressively pulled your hips out, making you present your ass to him.
You heard him hastily unhooking his belt, the metal clanking together before you heard his zipper coming down, then his body molded to your backside, the tip of his thick cock dangling between your legs.
“We aren’t done and I’m not stopping until they know you’re mine,” he said while lovingly massaging the side of your ass.
He started nudging himself against your inner thigh and you let out a little whimper. “So cute, just like your little dick,” he mocked. Then he moved his hand around you, tugging you out a little more from the counter so he could grope you, making you shudder.
He slapped your ass hard, the thwack sure to make everyone’s head in the other room spin in your direction. You jolted up. You heard your friends laughing, then Five spanked you again. "Fuck!” you cried, moving your ass against his cock even tighter.
“You really want it, don’t you baby,” Five growled in your ear, slapping your ass again.
“Please!" you begged with your head falling back against Five’s shoulder before rolling to the side so you could see him.
“You want danger?” he purred as he yanked up his shirt, letting his predatory eyes narrow at the sight of his cock wedged between your cheeks.
You said nothing, so, looking like a mad man, he reached up, taking hold of your neck.
You whined and squirmed in his grasp as his other hand cupped you bare. He slid his fingers inside as his thumb swirled over your slippery clit. Before you could make a sound, he started to choke you. 
He fingered your hole roughly, as he cut off the flow of oxygen to your brain. You couldn’t even think. You were drowning with desire, your body submitting.
Five started to rut his hips into you as you lost your mind, moaning into the palm of his hand.
That’s when Klaus called out. “How’s that popcorn coming, boys? Better not be any dick in it!”
As Five fucked into you and his second finger slide inside, you all but screamed through his fingers. “Mmmfff-fuck, Ff-ive!”
If Five hadn’t thought to muzzle you, you were being so loud, it wouldn’t just be the people in the living room aware of what he was doing to you.
As if that wasn’t enough, Five bit down on your shoulder through your shirt, thrusting as hard and as fast as he could go.
You felt your orgasm building all the way from your toes to your stomach. Your calves painfully flexed as you bucked your hips, trying to get more.
Five let out a moan of his own, and the pleasure of his fingers, the dizziness of being choked, along with the pain from his teeth marking had you clenching around his fingers.
The only sounds that could be heard in the room were the sounds of squelching, your moans, and Five’s sexy grunting.
Yanking your face back, he took his hand off your mouth, forcing his tongue onto yours, aiming to take you for all you were worth.
Your walls contracted around him, spilling fresh liquid pleasure with his every thrust.
His breath and his movements started getting more erratic, and he let out a few manic sounding noises.
He only stopped slipping his dick up and down your crack for a second to reposition himself. Apparently, the new angle was even better for him because when he started back up, his fingers in you started to move again too and that got you cursing and gasping into his hand again.
"Good boy. Let it out. Your pussy is mine now,” he growled, but he didn’t let you let it out as he clamped down on your mouth harder and slammed into you with all the energy he had.
You peaked again, him clinging to you, your stifled gasps hissing through his fingers.
“So perfect,” he breathed, then he let you free, the air filling your lungs doing nothing to clear your clouded mind and you helplessly slumped over.
One of his hands kept a tight hold on your hip, the other taking care of his own need. The sight of you bent over on the counter in front of him had Five grunting and growling as he stroked himself, his cum splattering all over your abused ass.
When Five was done, he crashed into you, pulling you up in a lovers embrace from behind, panting harder than he had been the entire time. The second he had enough air to speak, he did. “That was- Fuck."
You were out of it, legs shaking, mouth agape, head lolling to the side. He grabbed your face and languidly kissed you before breaking away, his lips moving along your sweat moistened neck as he said, “I want you and only you and I don’t care who knows. Don’t you ever question that again.”
“Ready or not, the men out here are demanding a proof of life check after that beautiful screaming performance, and we need more sustenance, so pull your pants up! I am coming in,” Klaus suddenly shouted.
Scrambling, you and Five both untangled yourselves. He snatched your hand towel off the counter, taking it to your butt cheeks, doing his best to wipe you first, then himself.
Dropping to the floor, he started pulling your sweatpants up, then sure you had them in hand, Five started trying to fix his own rumpled clothing.
“Is my little brother behaving himself?” Klaus questioned and by the way he said it, you could tell he had a huge smile even before he rounded the corner, eyeing you both up proudly.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Five fired back, with his pants only just zipped up, the ends of his belt hanging in front of the prominent tent he was still sporting. 
“Oh, I don’t know… Sounded like you were getting a little frisky in here is all,” Klaus replied.
Five reached over, opening the microwave, throwing the bag of popcorn at his brother.
As one would expect, Klaus started tossing the bag, hand to hand. “Ouch! Hot! Hot!”
You couldn’t help but laugh. That’s how mind blowingly dazed you were. You could tell it took a great deal of effort for Five to pry himself from you and you were still having a hard time standing up straight, so you had no idea how he was composing himself so well but then again, he didn’t just cum three times.
“If only I could blink us out of here,” he muttered while sticking the prong of his belt through the length, tightening it as he looked at you fumbling the strings on your sweatpants.
“Blink?” you questioned, unable to stop laughing as you said it because for the life of you, you couldn’t perform the simple task of tying a knot.
“What my adorable brother is referring to,” Klaus said, “is a thing we used to call a thing he used to do.” He reached out, ruffling Five’s already fucked up hair. “He’s super fast, but you already knew that,” he said while winking at you, “He used to be able to blink or as the common man says, telapor-"
“If you don’t shut your yapper, I am going to shut it for you,” Five snapped, while reaching over to tie your pants up since you’d failed and they were already slipping down.
“Oh… Not going there yet. Okay,” Klaus said as he shrugged off whatever Five was angrily trying to get him to shut up about. “You two joining us for the second movie?” Klaus mumbled with a handful of freshly popped kernels in his mouth.
You looked at Five. He took you by the hand, grabbing the bottle of liquor off the counter in his other, leading you out there.
Moving to your spot on the couch, Five sat down first, pulling you down next to him. As soon as you were seated, he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you in tighter, his lower leg hooking yours to him as he took your throw blanket, tossing it over you both.
“So, you guys a thing now,” your buddy next to him asked while giving you a smart-ass grin.
Five glanced at you. He squeezed his hand that was already in yours. “Yes,” you firmly stated and just like the amazing friends they were, they all let it go. They could see this is what you wanted. It was written all over your hopeful face.
You leaned back against Five’s warmth, the comforting rise and fall of his chest reassuring you that everything was as perfect as it seemed.
Every so often, as his fingers absentmindedly trailed down your arm, Five would softly kiss the side of your cheek, then nuzzle his face into your hair.
~~~
When you woke, hours later to one of your friends leaving and Five attempting not to wake you as he quietly answered something his brother had just said, you had no idea what time it was.
“Klaus was planning on staying at my place,” Five whispered. “We have that family birthday thing early in the morning and we are riding together.” He slid you out from under him. “You want me to carry you to your room?” he asked, as he righted himself.
“I doubt you could,” you said back while smiling up at him in the dim light as you stretched your legs out, accidentally kicking your zonked out friend who was sprawled out on the other end of the couch.
“Goodnite,” Klaus whispered, before he went out the door.
Swooping down, Five gently kissed you and kept on kissing you until you started to laugh over how obviously he didn’t want to go. “Best night of my life,” he chuckled, his own smile stretching as he finally pulled away. “I’ll be back sometime early afternoon. Can I see you again?”
Stroking your fingers along his jaw, you whispered back, “You better.”
Five’s tired eyes softened even more. He brushed his lips against yours one more time.
Then he was gone.
~~~
Back to reality, your mind lost in a past that doesn’t exist anymore while your body remains stuck in a present form of hell you can’t escape, lying there in your bed, you keep trying to work through your memories of Five.
For his part, like he always does at night, Five stays with you in the only way he feels that he can, over 60 years of time separating you as he sits in his chair in front of the Infinite Switchboard.
After thrashing around in your blankets, reliving things you don’t want to let go, giving into your body’s most primal urges, you shove your hand in your pants, digging your fingers against your clit, tugging and pulling and rubbing. Breathing heavily, your release comes and goes way too fast, giving you nothing to replace the man you refuse to let go.
Finally, worn out and mentally broken, your breathing slows, and your eyes close.
You fall into a fitful sleep, your face pinched with the same stress it’s had since you entered your apartment earlier that night.
A few minutes before this, with his reddened eyes darting around as he tries to squash his own anguish, trying in vain to convince himself that what he’s seeing isn’t because of him, Five throws his arms down on the messy desk space, burying his face in the fold of his arm.
You’re upset, that much he is willing to admit.
You have old news clippings of him and his faded collector cards, and other silly trinkets from the days the Umbrella Academy meant something to the world.
You only have his.
Going through the list of issues in his head, Five comes up with only more problems with all this.
All that is something, but it's not like you would be harboring some old crush on the nerdy little 13-year-old he was in those pictures, because back when those cards were cool, you were only four years old! Back then, you probably didn't even know your address, let alone who the kids who lived at the Umbrella Academy were. But despite that, you clearly have something going on and it’s clearly aimed at him.
You moan repeatedly as the blankets covering you shuffle.
“Fuck…” Five breathes as he looks up, realizing what you are doing.
What you have going on is clearly at least partially a horny thing, and an angry thing, and fuck, fuck, FUCK!
Five can’t stop looking at you writhing against your hand.
He shifts his legs apart, refusing to give his hardening cock the attention it's screaming for. It’s bad enough that he’s watching you jerk off, but doing that with you, like this…
No.
“God damn it!” he curses, kicking his legs out, throwing his hands back behind his head as he forces himself to look at the floor.
No one else remembers, so there is no way you do! 
This has to be something else causing this, right?
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looks back up. Your breaths are slowing. Your hand slips up along your stomach, laying limply against your t-shirt.
Your eyes stay closed and Five wants so badly to kiss the lids covering them. Since he can’t, he does what he’s always done, he imagines the things he wants.
Shutting his own eyes, he imagines himself there with you, protectively folded around you, your bodies illuminated by the muted silhouettes from the leaves fluttering outside in the canopy of trees outside your window. 
He can almost feel himself kissing the moonbeam dancing across your cheek, flickering along the ridge of your nose-almost.
There’s no warmth to this dream, no sensation of your touch lovingly holding him back.
This is all there had ever been for Five for nearly a lifetime, but now, thanks to you, he knows what it’s like to have something real, and now he is drowning in the shocking reality of his endless loneliness.
Chilled, but unwilling to move to an office to throw himself down on something more comfortable, when his breathing melts into a rhythm of rest, Five floats away with you, going into a nightmarish dreamscape, a place moments before the world fell apart and he lost you.
~~~
As your sleep deepens, you start tossing and turning, your mind projecting images of you bursting out the doors of your apartment. You didn’t care how terrified you were or that you had no weapon to defend yourself against whatever was happening. You had to get to Five.
You took off, sprinting down the sidewalk in the direction of the explosions, rather than in the opposite direction like everyone else was doing.
The sky was casting a strange glow of orange and violet light over everything. It looked like an alien landscape, not the loud city with its shops and business filled with people doing normal things, unless you considered running for their life normal.
You knew it was crazy for you of all people to think you could do anything to help, but it was also crazy that the Five apparently had superpowers, but you'd seen it for yourself on your TV, and the people with him did too.
You kept on, moving along, seeing the destruction getting worse the closer you got to where the news had shown the fighting.
The air near the ground was thick with black smoke as you got closer, but you kept going, knowing from what you’d seen on the news that Five was there, but nothing could have prepared you for it when you rounded a corner and saw all of them. Like some kind of science fiction movie on crack, everywhere you looked, unexplainable things were happening that shouldn’t be.
It was madness, all of it, the way Five was disappearing and reappearing, the way they were shooting laser beams from their eyes and throwing cars like they were nothing. Klaus was there too, like some kind of oracle, casting his hands out, making phantom-like figures appear out of nowhere, all the luminous bodies he’d created readily joining the fight.
Either brave or stupid, you started to cross the battlefield of flipped cars that lay between you and them, staying down, trying not to get hit by the barrage of bullets and other things flying in your direction.  
Five was yelling, calling for everyone to get together. He wasn’t okay, you could see that. He was staggering, trying so hard to stand in the storm that was enveloping him.
He fell to his knees, screaming for them. 
Blood smeared across his face as his hand came up, wiping his cheek. 
The blood was gushing from his nose and seeping down his neck from his ears, but he kept screaming for them. The near blinding light kept growing, extending out from his hands and entire body.
Between broken car windows, you watched as the group gathered around him, two of them looking like they were sending out some kind of force field that was keeping them safe from the bullets and the fire-like aura that was glowing down from the sky.
Then, to your horror, you realized the fire was actually coming from some of them. Their flesh was cracked and blackened, like lava was running under their skin.
They were burning. 
Five was burning!
Your voice cut through the air, penetrating the chaos. “FIVE!”
Just then, extreme pain was the only way to describe what you felt. 
A deafening blast sent you flying, slamming your spine against the door of an upside-down car. Pain radiated through you. You reactively curled in on yourself. You desperately clasped your hands over your ears, trying to block out the high-pitched sound that was trying to stab your brains out, but you painfully realized that the ringing wasn’t something you could stop.
You could hardly move, gasping for air that wouldn’t fill your lungs, but then suddenly Five was next to you, eyes wide, searching you over, saying something, but all you could see was his lips moving as his hands frantically moved over you, trying to cover all the places where your clothes were becoming wet with blooming circles of red.
You watched Five’s mouth repeating the words, “I will fix this.” He was saying it over and over.
Then, just like that, stinging pelts of liquid hit your face as the side of Five’s skull ripped open.
You watched as if in slow motion as the inside of his head spilled out like a macabre brain soup. Then you watched in horror as he tumbled over, your shell-shocked body not working fast enough to catch him.
The side of Five’s ashen face slammed into the glass covered concrete.
Scrambling to your knees, you pulled him to you, his broken head rolling limply in your lap as you screamed. 
Your tears mixed with his blood. 
You didn’t even notice Klaus until he was right there. He came sprinting to a stop a few yards away, seeing you and his brother.
“Help him,” you begged. You refused to take your eyes from Five’s, then Klaus took off, shouting something.
“No, no, no! Please, no!” you wailed as Five remained motionless, legs twisted in a way that made him look so small.
Five was not small. He was strong and he was…
He was everything.
Suddenly a wind from nowhere started whipping up tiny bits of debris from all around you. Looking up, you saw the impossible. There was a ghostly image of Five out in the street next to his brother where they were standing in a blue-ish purple electrical storm filled with glistening marigold, fire and light.
You could see Five over there, but he was also still with you, his warm blood matting his dark strands of hair, coating your fingers as you cradled his head as if you could fix the damage done to him if you willed the hole in him closed, but his empty green eyes continued to stare off at nothing.
The torrents of energy that Five had been violently projecting before he’d appeared over by you grew stronger, making it near impossible to make out anything happening over by them, but you were able to see him out there, lightning filled hands clenched like claws as fire like sparkles swirled around him and the strange static and twinkling lights of power weren’t just coming from Five. It was coming from all of them, as if mixing.
Dazed, and evidently not stable, they all simultaneously fell to their knees, but Five didn’t this time.
His face was no longer spattered with his blood as he looked up, past his siblings as they fell to the ground as if they were puppets whose strings had just been cut.
As your eyes met, it was as if you were seeing Five for the first time ever, seeing all versions of him, and it wasn’t just happening to him, though the ghostlike projections of Five were dramatically different compared to those of his siblings. He was older in some of them, but you were sure it was him, with that funny mustache and his same soft eyes.
Five was that man, and then he wasn’t again, he was just a boy, so young, so angry, nothing but skin and bones, his tormented face covered in ash and grime. 
All of them, all the different versions of them were morphing, snapping together with alternate images of themselves, like a flip book that’s pages clapped with thunder as they turned.
Then, out of nowhere, out of anyone who could have been out there in all that madness, Reginald Hargreeves, the richest man in the world, was towering over you. His expression was serene as he looked down at the dead boy you were crying over. Then he looked up, his expression not scared at all as he said, “Hold on to him. It will all be over soon.”
Bleeding out and going into shock, you looked back out at the other Five. Even in the distance, you could see his mouth. 
His mouth! The one you knew intimately, pulled up just a little as he gave you a dreamy smile, as if he was seeing something in all this that you couldn’t.
You screamed Five’s name as the ball of fire inside him began to consume what was left of his crumbling body.
“No!” you cried, but this time Five couldn’t hear it.
The bubble around them burst, life and death, creation and destruction, you, Five, all of it and time itself, all tied to him and the tale of rebirth, and it was coming for you in a wall of fire.
Your own terrified scream echoing inside your head was the last thing you heard.
Then you were all gone.
~~~
“NO!” You cry out, trying to free yourself from your knotted blankets. You’re in the darkness of your bedroom again, no longer holding Five’s dead body while you watched the ghost of him in the distance, being taken away by an otherworldly fire.
Your heart feels like it could rip out of your chest, it's pounding so hard.
Your hands come up, digging at your eyes as if you can make it all go away, but the heat of your tears is as real as the pain of losing him. “Please no,” you helplessly whimper as you pull your legs up under your arms so you can drop your head between your knees. “I need you, Five,” you sob, your body shuddering.
“I am here, please don’t cry, I am so sorry.”
Your head shoots up, your eyebrows flying halfway up your face, the thumping in your chest threatening to do you in as you blink, over and over, seeing Five right there, at the side of your bed, looking like he just woke up, but looking as beautifully disheveled in his three-piece suit as he always does.
“Ff-Five?” your voice cracks.
“Hey, handsome,” he quietly breathes as he sinks down on the bed next to you, his legs dangling over the side as he reaches over, gently brushing a sweat-dampened piece of hair out of your eyes.
“You you-you-"
“I know,” Five says, pulling you to him.
Arms around him, he squeezes you tight. You breathe in, your face buried against his collar because you’re still not sure he’s real.
“I didn’t think it was possible, but-” He stops, pulling back enough to make you look at him. His eyes glaze over in thought as he lets out a shaky breath. “No one else but us remembered, and I didn’t-" His teary words catch in his throat. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never should have-” A single tear rolls down his cheek. “I never should have let this happen, but nothing could have prepared me for you and how you made me feel, and I- Even if you remember me, I shouldn’t be here, but I heard you crying, and I had to-"
He tries to pull away.
“NO! Don’t you dare go!” You give Five’s shoulders a little shake, “Don’t you dare leave me again! And what the hell do you mean you heard me? Where were you, in my fucking closet!”
“No, I was pathetically hiding out in a musty old office building in 1955.”
“Okay- Okay-" Your heart is racing so hard you can’t think but that makes no sense. “What the fuck, Five!”
He lowers his face like he wants to disappear and that only makes you cling to him tighter.
“The place I am talking about, and my association with it is a long story,” he starts, “-and I promise I will tell you everything if you want me to, but the reason I was there now was because it’s the only place I could go to see you.” He looks up, his eyes filling. “There’s a machine I invented, it lets the operator dial in places and times. I have missed you so fucking much,” he rambles, clearly spiraling, but you refuse to let him go no matter how confused and mad you are.
“Look, the things you say are just- Yeah.” You let out a puff of air, shaking your head over all this craziness. “But I want you! I don’t care about the rest!"
“I’m not who you think I am. I have done so many horrible things,” he interrupts.
“Five, I know that you are so many more things than what I thought you were in the beginning, but I want all of them. I saw you! All of you! You had a mustache for Christ Sake! I know who you are!”
“You don’t know all of it,” he whispers.
“I don’t care! You saved us. I don’t understand it, but I know you did. You were the only one in the end before everything disappeared. I thought you were dead!”
“I know.”
“You told me that I’m the first person you wanted to open yourself up to,” you continue, “Did you mean it when you said that?”
His lower lip quivers as he nods. “I meant every word of it, and you are still all I want.”
“Then don’t leave me again!” you shout at him, pushing him down on your bed.
Five still looks totally lost but with your insistence, he surrenders himself to you heavily crawling on top of him.
Fully reclined, you throw your leg over his, coming down at his side to tuck your head under his chin, effectively detaining him but letting him breathe. You can hear his heart hammering in his chest as he looks down at you peering up at him. 
His eyes search yours he quietly asks, “Are you sure you still want this?”
“Yes, I am sure,” you insist.
His long fingers trace a line up your back, skating the surface of your shirt.
“Please talk to me, Five. I meant it when I said I want this with you more than anything.”
“Why?” he questions, sounding so dejected.
You sit up, straddling him so you can keep him trapped but also take him on, face to face. “Because even with all the crazy things you told me, knowing what I know now, I think you were telling me the truth about all of it, and you know what, I am not scared. I don’t care how old you are, or if you were an assassin. I don’t care what you’ve done to get here. All that matters is you are.”
“You mean that?” he whispers, reaching around you, his long fingers tracing a soothing line up your back.
You nod and his hand comes up, moving to the back of your head, pulling your lips to his in a chaste kiss that ends all too fast.
You try to kiss him again but Five turns his head, squirming away, not letting you.
Your eyebrows come together in frustration.
“You know… For all my mistakes, I finally thought I had it all figured out, but then this…” His voice trails off as his hands move around your backside, grabbing your ass. “This never should have happened. You weren’t supposed to remember, but you evidently do, or you wouldn’t be trying to hump my leg because you know that getting me hard is going to help you get your way.”
You look down where your crotch is pinning his quad, and he laughs.
You’re just about to tell the asshole you are not trying to hump his leg when he says, “The reason I think you remember,” He cracks a sad smile, making him look so beautifully broken, “The reason you remembered, is because I fell in love with you. A part of you was with me in the end and I couldn’t let it go. You’re a part of me now whether you like it or not.”
“You love me?”
“More than anything.”
In the subsequent silence, your shoulders wither, a single thought floating among the sea of worries in your mind.
You love him too.
You come at him, there’s no stopping you from kissing him. Like you are doing to him, Five’s hands grasp at your body, everywhere they can reach, caressing, groping, pinching, anything to feel each other. 
Jutting your cunt across his thigh, you assault his lips, drawing your teeth across his pout in retribution for him thinking you wouldn’t want this.
Stroking his neck, his hands holding you in place, he moans as you grind his leg. Adding to your pleasure, Five begins exploring your neck with his tongue, tasting your skin, licking the sweat of your nightmare clean off as you rut into him, panting and gasping, filling the quiet of the small room.
Boldly sticking your hand down your pants, rubbing your cock, you lower your voice as deep as you can as you ask, “Did you watch me do this?”
“Yes,” Five rasps, his hands moving down, suddenly taking you by the waist. Like lightning striking, the air around you lights up, every nerve ending in your body comes alive as you’re flung through a swirling storm of sapphire, coming back to the present a millisecond later with your back slamming on your mattress.
Head still spinning, Five falls over you from the air, his body still glowing in his whirl of magical light. His irises dance with embers as he dives in, kissing your neck again.
“What. The Fuck Was That? Did you just teleport me?” you deliriously groan as he attacks you.
"No, I blinked you," he corrects, "It's a spontaneous reaction to having a very naughty boy trying to fuck my lap,” Five informs you with his lips at your earlobe, before kissing down, gnawing on your jaw, as he attempts to blindly unbutton his shirt.
Oh, my God, this man...
Not satisfied with the speed, you begin to help him, and his smile at your impatience is almost as hot as the sight of him laying over you, shrugging it off. Five is nothing but lean valleys of muscle, all pointing to the dangerous weapon he’s packing in his pants, but interestingly enough, his famous Umbrella Academy tattoo on his wrist isn’t the only tattoo he’s got.
Seeing geometrically balanced circles and lines criss-crossing in the middle of his chest must have you making the funniest looking face because Five starts laughing.
“This,” He points to the black and gray washes of ink marking him. “This is evidence of one of my many blunders through time, but it’s worth the pain and looking like a fucking idiot if it means I get to see you looking at me like that.”
You trace the lines. “You are beautiful, Five, all of you.”
“As long as you think so, because I think I’m stuck with it now,. I am a complete package of the old me, the young me, and the tattooed and very fucking horny me,” he says before much more seriously asking, "You ok taking yours off too?"
You nod and Five dips low, using his nose, he starts nudging your t-shirt shirt up. He playfully sucks and nips you all the way up to one of the darkened pink scars under your pecs. Your breath hitches as he traces a line over it with his fingertip, then slowly begins to kiss you there too, his teeth grazing your nipple for good measure.
“So perfect,” he hums, sending a direct signal from you’re the now hardened nub all the way down to your groin. 
As you’re reeling over him saying that and the feeling of him flicking his tongue across your other pec, Five’s hands start moving up your sides, slowly lifting your shirt over your head.
Your legs tense, fighting against the growing ache between them as Five kisses down your torso, marking you where the skin dips at your hip, the palm of his hand hot as it rests over your abs, firmly holding you down.
Already trembling, you let out a small cry of desperation.
Gazing up at you with his pupils blown dark with desire, Five tears open the button holding your jeans closed. Lifting for him, he pushes your remaining clothes down your flushed thighs.
With you fully naked, your bodies roll slightly as Five comes down on the bed next to you. You spread your legs and just as fast, he reaches between them, rolling your clit between thumb and forefinger.
You gasp your approval, “Fuck yeah, don’t stop.”
“Fuck, you’re so hard for me,” Five groans, just below your ear, sending a shiver zipping up your spine as a gush of wet drips out of you. “I can’t get enough of your dick,” he says while playfully pecking your jaw.
“Same,” you gasp, your enlarged clit so sensitive, you can’t help but whine like a puppy when his hand starts to firmly rub it.
Your hand reactively grips his shoulder painfully hard the faster he goes, and his eyes narrow dangerously in response.
Knowing without words what you need, barely thirty seconds into it, two fingers start jabbing inside you, aiming at your sweet spot.
“Holy fuck,” you breath before Five can capture your mouth in a hard kiss again.
As your hips jerk into his hand, Five’s hand snakes down along your side to rub his own cock, all the while he never stops sucking at your neck or giving you needly little licks in between his kisses. Soon the nips get hard enough to make you throw your head back, thrashing.
With Five jerking himself, bucking against you, your hands grip at the sheets, hanging on for dear life as your walls start spasming.
Even though you’re flailing, moaning loud as your hips jerkily fuck into his fingers, you can hear that Five is humming all sorts of dirty things, the vibrations of his words against your throat sending your brain even further down the spiral of your fuckedy fuck land.
Having brought you over the edge, he pulls out. His hand on your thigh moves around you, gripping your ass to pull you in closer as he rolls on top of you.
Five licks at your lips before he slides his hands down to the back of your thighs to pick you up, grinding your crotch into his restrained shaft. “God, I want to fuck you so badly,’ he growls before crashing your lips together again.
Five’s powerful body bears down on you, the drag of his cock between your legs too much but also not enough. Encouraging him to keep up what he was doing, only with his pants off, you try to push his pants down, even as he’s still urgently rocking his hips into you.
“Fuck,” he groans, his teeth grazing your neck as he gasps for air. His hips twitch to a stop at the feeling of his cock about to spring free.
“I want all of you, Five,” you breathe, holding his cheeks under your palms as you pull his head up, making him look at you.
“Are you sure?”
“More than anything. I love you, Five.”
His soft eyes light up as if this wasn’t already obvious. He smiles down at you with an adoring look, caressing your face and pushing your hair aside as you blush under his loving gaze. He leans in to kiss along your jaw and down your neck as he scrambles to remove his pants with you helping him along, hooking your fingers under his tailored waistband, dragging them down his thighs, pushing them the rest of the way off with your feet.
“Oh Fuck,” Five groans as he lowers back down and his cock slips over the moist heat between your legs.
Instinctively, he starts to rut against you again. Before you can do more than hum a moan through your pinched lips, you feel the head of Five’s dick align with your throbbing hole. 
“Protection?” Five impatiently asks, coming to a full stop.
Drunk with desire, all you can do is shake your head no, but the message is clear. You don’t need it.
Tenderly squeezing your ass, with his eyes locked to yours and his voice barely above a whisper, Five asks, “You ready?”
“Yes,” you breathe, keeping your fingers threaded in his thick dark hair, holding him in place with one hand, the other sliding from his muscular back to gripe his shoulder.
He starts to push slowly. “Aw fuck” you moan as just the head of his cock slips in. You throw your head into the pillow, biting your lip to keep from crying out.
Five’s warm breath slowly fans over your neck. He’s not moving a single inch. “Does it hurt?”
“It- It’s good,” you huff, letting out a tense breath as you lift your hips higher, letting him know you can take it.
“That’s it, baby,” he soothes, as your body tightens and quivers along the thick length slowly filling you.
Not even full deep, your brain feels like it’s just flashed on and off and it’s not at all working right.
"You’re so fucking gorgeous," Five patiently huffs, his focus on gauging your every reaction, holding himself still as possible.
“More,” you whine.
You clench involuntarily, letting out a low moan when Five works his hips forward, then back a little, a pleasant change that has you twitching for him even more.
He dips to kiss you, gasping for breath as he opens you even more. Too much for him at once, he takes his kisses to your neck.
He takes a moment to pull half-out of you before digging back in. Firm, slow, and steady, he fucks his hips into you while he bears down with a hiss. Your walls clench him tight, the extra pressure drawing out a moan from both of you.
Your eyes flutter closed as your fingers scratch against Five back. His hips press up, aiming to get as deep as possible, where he stays for one moment before pulling out and thrusting halfway in again and again.
"Fuck, Five, fuck," you slur out as your body begins to slip and slide across your sheets.
He grabs hold of your knee, pushing it back to meet your shoulder, falling into you deeper on his next thrust and you let out wet gasp, before he starts fucking you at a maddening pace, in and out, in shallow thrusts.
As he looks between your bodies, watching with an adorable fascination as his cock disappears inside you, you cry out, “Faster.”
Five obliges.
He really starts moving and the feel of him pumping his whole length inside you has your body arching and writhing up from the bed, lips parted in broken moans that fill the room and your entire apartment and probably your entire floor.
“Yes, Five. Fuck yes! “Don’t stop-fucking-fff,” you stammer, moving your ass up slightly which drives him deeper and brings on more breathless curses from you both. He’s so deep each time his body meets yours he’s knocking the wind from your lungs in breathy consonants and vowels of nonsense.
“Mmmmffff- aaah-ahhh-"
“Fuck-you-rrr-such-ah-good-boy, so tight,” he incoherently gasps along with you, as he pistons his cock into you, his thick tip fucking your cunt just right.
You’re plunging into a freefall, the coiling inside you causing you to cry out his name. At the sound of it, Five’s mouth finds yours, sloppily kissing you.
You’re both breathing too heavily for the kiss to last very long because breathing through your noses isn’t giving either of you enough oxygen. Breaking away, his forehead presses to your shoulder, a curtain of his dark hair falling around it as his strong pelvic slams into you.
"Please- fuck- harder-" you plead, and your magical super boy grants your wish.
Your eyes roll back in your head as Five pounds you harder and faster. Head spinning, your heart feeling like it might burst, your entire body is screaming for release.
“Come on, cum for me,” Five growls before resting his palm over your clit, thrusting his hand in time to his hips.
Your brain is getting shook loose with each slam of his body smacking into yours, and your bed frame isn't doing much better as it creaks and thumps into the wall in a pattern that matches your curses.
"Fuck- Fuck- FUCK-"
You’re reduced to disjointed moans as you fall apart. Shaking head to toe through a mind-melting orgasm, the throbbing intensity as you cum hits you over and over until it completely overwhelms your senses and leaves you speechless.
“That’s right, cream on daddy’s cock,” Five encourages as he quickly flips his head back, his dampened hair falling right back in front of his eyes as he smirks.
“Five- Fu-ffff,” you wetly gasp.
“Ready for another one?” he asks, still undulating his cock as he quirks an eyebrow.
“Ww-wah? How are you doing this,” you ask, meaning how the fuck is he still fucking you! He said he’d been with someone else before, but… Fuck!
His smirk only gets bigger. “Lots of practice with a very receptive inanimate object, named Dolores,” he replies. “Now roll over. Don’t make me count to three,” he warns, before suddenly pulling out, leaving you reeling, his hands on your hips, rolling you over before he pulls your ass high in the air.
The heat of his cock hits your entrance with zero resistance and your body jumps forward when you feel his balls hit your ass.
That move gets you both hissing out strings of discombobulated profanities again as Five holds himself stock still, his eyes closing tight as if he’s in pain..
“Dolores?” you manage to choke.
“Desperate times,” he huffs in way of explanation, then just as the shocking statement he just made and the jolt of him bottoming out is starting to subside, Five smacks your ass, and he’s back to it, fucking into you with a relentless pace.
“Fu-ua-uch-yea-ah, so good,” he disjointedly praises as he rides your ass, hooking his feet inside your ankles so you can’t close your legs.
Your body tightens as his thrusts speed up. You shudder, mouth falling open with a shocked moan as you feel Five’s cock rutting against your insides, demanding every inch of your attention.
With your face down in your mattress, you gasp against moistened fabric. Your shaky fingers clutch at your fitted bedsheet, Five’s brutal pace making steady smack, smack, smack sounds.
You still have no idea how he’s doing it, but Five just keeps on going like his real superpower is that he’s the fucking Energizer Bunny.
Pulling your limp body up to his, Five’s face nuzzles against the back of your neck, hips rolling hard and fast, the sweat from your flush bodies only making it easier for him to fuck into like he’s a well-oiled machine.
“God, you’re magnificent. You feel so fucking good,” he breathes.
"Hnn-mm-unh, uh, uh, please, please-" you moan.
“I’m gonna cum inside you. And you’re gonna cum with me,” Five growls, bearing down on you harder.
You cry out, your next orgasm hitting you as Earth shattering at the first two. You’re shivering, open-mouthed and helpless as you start to feel his warmth spreading with each thrust, Five’s hips jerking slower and slower as he empties his throbbing cock.
He hisses, moaning out a melody of expletives as his hips stutter to a near halt. He just came hard, but that doesn’t stop him as he rolls you against the mattress, coming down next to you, his cock pumping into you a few more times until you’re both left panting and boneless.
He kisses the nape of your neck and tenderly brushes a sweaty strand of your hair from the side of your face. Five stays connected to you until your chests are both rising and falling much slower, then his softening length slips out on its own, a white ribbon of cum immediately spilling out of you, the feel and sight of it making Five let out the softest whimper of distress.
Not letting you go, he kisses your temple.
"That was amazing," he contentedly breathes.
You huff out a sigh in agreement, cheeks flushed, gaze half lidded.
"I didn’t hurt you?" he whispers, a hand coming up to brush over your jaw, so gently. The concern for your wellbeing is reflected in Five’s soft green eyes as he pulls himself up on a wobbly elbow to look at you better.
“Not at all," you mutter with a weak smile as you pull your blankets over, throwing them over both of you.
Five’s hair is sticking up in just about every direction and it’s only adding to the beauty of his dazed grin.
“I’m never leaving you again, that’s unless you make me,” Five murmurs as he lays back down, kissing your shoulder. 
“I can’t see that happening, unless you get all boring, getting up early, only to take afternoon naps on my couch before you finish your old man day with one of your exhilarating crossword puzzles rather than finding new ways you can pounce on me and spank my ass.”
He laughs. There’s an impish glint in his eyes, like the twinkles of distant starlight.
“Awww, sweetheart,” he mocks. “You make all my favorite hobbies sound like bad things” 
You lean into his touch, sighing in contempt before gently whispering, “Go to sleep and I’ll deal with you in the morning.”
Obediently shutting his droopy eyes, he whispers I love you. Then the prick sneakily pulls his hand back, then smacks you in the ass, making you yelp like a little girl.
Ass burning, your heart is full.
This is Five. The wonderful, amazing, sexy jerk you fell in love with.
Next to you, almost as soon as the quiet fills the space between you again, you can tell he’s drifting off to sleep.
Five is finally home.
You roll over just enough to watch him sleeping. 
He looks so peaceful. Like a very naughty angel. The best kind.
You kiss his forehead, and he pulls you back in, making you his little spoon.
Laying there, still trying to take in everything that just happened, you think about all the times Five made jokes about his traumatic life and his loneliness. You caught stolen glimpses of his pain in his sweet but sad smiles, shaking his head, eyelids fluttering closed as he determinedly set his jaw, acting like his memories didn’t hurt him.
Five tried to build a wall around his heart, the barriers entrenched by years of grief, but it all came crashing down at the world’s end. 
Now it’s time for happiness. 
~~~~~~~
Masterpost
Link to my other Tumblr story/art/and asks
Link to visit me direct on A03tua
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itstheghostofmypast · 2 months ago
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Screw You!
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Soulmate/Corporate AU Choi San x (F)Reader
Summary: Never had she met someone who would say their boss was a good boss, but if you ask her, the corporate warlord she slaved away for was the worst. A true hypocrite, with a pretty face, nice smile, and a rotten,ugly heart- an overtime loving prick. One she was stuck with on HER day, happy birthday to her.
Genre: Fluff
Rating: SFW
Warnings: None
Word Count: 2.6k
Est.Read Time: 13 min
Networks: @cromernet @k-labels @illusionnet
Banner: @cafekitsune
A/N: Yes, I did write myself a birthday fic- I am not delusional. Also, I had been keeping @justsomekpopstuff 's request literally for this day!
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Soulmates, the concept of love, the proof of your "other half" sounds like a load of fun until you realise there's an expiry date on that fun little deal. The beauty of this ideal world was that each soul is blessed with an ink, an ink that morphs into a phrase or a sentence, one that is uttered by their other half at one point of their lonely lives.
In this fundamentally twisted world, she was one of the few who had been blessed with one of the most horrendous soulmate one liners, "Being on time means, no overtime." One she'd gladly cover up with a long sleeved shirt, a cardigan, coat or whatever she could find- yes, she had once thought of getting a tattoo over it, but apparently that was illegal? Like, okay?
As a child, she'd stare at her forearm before glancing at her parents' palms. Both had a single word on their palms, their names. Her bestfriend had a cute phrase on her wrist, one that had her taste the bitter sweet awe at the back of tongue when she saw the boy mumble that question to her platonic soulmate, "Be my starlight?" It was sweet, adorable, swoonworthy even, but like any normal teenagers, her hormones told her a different story, "You're dying single."
As the years passed by she still clung onto some form of hope, wishing that whoever this was, was some good-looking corporate hunk and NOT SOME OLD MAN- mind you, this thought had only occurred to her when her sister had stumbled across her soulmate by accident at a cafe. The young but clumsy barista had almost dropped her coffee on her. Instead, he placed his hand in the way, smiling through the pain as he hissed, "Ain't hotter than you." Granted, Mingi was a weird dude, but he was the one her sister was destined with and as much as she admired the two pair in their late teens, the girl who had hit 21 had an epiphany, "Fate hates me."
Life went on, though. People around her were slowly reuniting with their other halves, but her- screw Plato's theory of other halves. He didn't know anything. Soon enough, she found herself coming home to an empty apartment, waking up in a cold bed, staring up at the dull ceiling, letting the silence hug her with its melancholic tune. There was not much she could do anyway, everyone would remind her not to lose hope, the ugly, rude, black ink in cursive was a sign of assurity that there was someone out there for her. Yeah, an old balding, stubby man, probably with a beer belly and all that crap- yes, this could be a horrid over exaggeration. Looks didn't matter. Personality did. That was true, but then, even if he was a sweet person, why would her other half say something so pointless? Something so blunt and rude?
Yes, that was the paradoxical dilemma that had her up on alternate nights. What if he is a good-looking hunk, but is a total prick! There was no winning in this situation. To top it all off, she had managed to somehow land herself a small little place on the corporate world- now proudly titled as a team leader, she could gladly say that this world was nothing more than a dog eat dog world and she was the bone fate had been chewing on for almost 26 years.
And when our poor, little, angel-hearted, extremely polite and definitely not bitterly sarcastic protagonist was not wailing about the ink on her forearm, she was daydreaming about choking the man on the 28th floor. The bastard who had been the bane of her existence, joining on the same day together but, oh, since he was oh so great at licking them boots, he'd managed to score a bit higher than her. Misogyny at its finest. Who cared if he wasn't even aiming for the same goal as her? Who cares if he was part of the finance team!? Sure it wasn't his fault the advertising head wasn't a fan of her, delaying her promotion till the old prick had finally retired- still, her current higher up, should have at least suffered the same way! To some extent.
"Some people are just lucky." She grimaced at the way her annoyingly sweet best friend had uttered during one of their afternoon coffees, placing a hand on hers, "And, if we remember correctly, you're the competitive one. I told you not to turn it into a competition." Yes, she did handle that situation maturely, chugging down her coffee, grumbling about how break was almost over, leaving the cafe with a, "I'll tell Seonghwa you've been eying up Choi Stupid from work."
Choi Stupid. Technically, that wasn't his name, but let's call him that. Initially, she had thought he was kinda nice, cute too, but then he was just too nice? How do you get everyone to like you? Can you actually be this nice? No, she was sure he was a snarky, mean bastard deep down- yes, he did manage to get the intern manager to like him as well, yes that man would praise Choi Stupid even if he was in the wrong, even if she did better than Choi Stupid, he was somehow appreciated that day too. Eventually she had just began to ignore him, only give him one word responses, but one thing was for sure, Choi Stupid was as competitive as her, but unlike her, luck had been on his side since the start, which is why his boss was a nice lady, while her's was Satan's retired manwhore- for sure.
And as fate would have it, with the annual dinner approaching, the teams and departments were working insynch, collaborating, especially the marketing and the finance department and although she loved such creative opportunities there was one problem- Choi Stupid by default was her boss during this project. And he had made sure to make her already miserable life ten times worse.
Never had she met someone who would say their boss was a good boss, but if you ask her, the corporate warlord she slaved away for was the worst. A true hypocrite, with a pretty face, nice smile, and a rotten,ugly heart- an overtime loving prick. One she was stuck with on HER day, happy birthday to her.
It all started when she had woken up to the doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, opening the door to her family and friends who had come to give her a surprise birthday party- hey, not her fault her birthday landed on a 'working Saturday'. So yes, like any unlucky, lonely, sad 26 year old she had celebrated her special day till around 3 A.M. before knocking out cold and waking up late for work- the best way to celebrate the new year.
With a sigh she leaned back against the chair, unsure if the creaking was coming from it or her poor back, before glancing at the wall clock, leave it to Choi Stupid to have her finishing up everyone else's tasks- technically the reports were her domain, she was team leader after all, but still, she has been here since morning, she had missed her lunch with her family and her usual afternoon coffee with her friends- what a way to enjoy the day.
There was no one else on the floor but her, a part of her wanted to abandon the work and just leave, but the more responsible portion of her soul was already busy beating her up for slacking off like this. Yawning in defeat, she hunched over the desk, glaring at the screen of her desktop, audibly sighing when the familiar clicking of shoes approached her, ignoring the way they progressively got closer.
She actually forgot about him for a moment, busy reading a report, thinking of what to add when she felt him hovering next to her, "It's bad enough you have me working on my birthday, I don't need you to baby me."
With a heavy sigh, he controlled the urge to roll his eyes, placing the coffee cup on her desk in a civil manner. What was she five? Complaining about her birthday like that, it's not his fault she was late. In fact, he had to stay overtime as well, because of her! Her presence was irritating enough, but the constant pestering of his friends about his lack of significant other had him huffing all day, especially when the boss-man asked him today, "Sannie boy, you better look for her quick, you seem to be sulking these days." He only gave the bastard a tight-lipped smile, easy to say for a man who apparently found his other half at the age of ten - oh how San would give anything remotely like that. Imagine knowing your other half for so long, hell, the only people he'd known for a while her of course, his family and friends....and....her.
"What you staring at, Choi? This part of your overtime punishment?" She snapped him back to reality, snatching the cup off the desk in a graceless manner. He didn't deserve a thank you.
He could only scoff at her reaction, pushing up his glasses before shaking his head, she was hopeless, whoever gets stuck with her probably would be sent directly to heaven- considering his punishment would be to spend the rest of his life with this creature. Giving her one more glare, he mumbled, walking away, "Being on time means no overtime."
Her body jerked at the sudden realisation, twitching as her head whipped in his direction, staring at that disgusting-or not- broad back, her lips moving quicker than her brain to process, her automatic defense system kicking in before she could stop herself, instantly having him freeze in his tracks as her voice echoed, "Oh, SCREW YOU!"
An audible gasped caught his burning ears, though he stood there in place, ever so slowly the pieces coming together, forming a picture that had him laughing at the irony.
Her hand slapped against her mouth, eyes widening when she saw him turn around and glare at her, slowly walking towards her, staring her down hard. Clearing her throat, she tried to mumble an apology- wonderful girl, make sure he hates you the moment you meet him, HELL HOW WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT WAS HIM THIS ENTIRE TIME!?
"S-San I-"
Her words caught up in her throat when she realised what he was doing. Approaching her with careful steps he tugged on his tie in an aggressive manner, ignoring her when she tried to speak as he trapped her between the desk and his body, popping open the first two buttons of his crisp white dressshirt with one hand, his other hand gripping her shoulder, rolling his eyes when he noticed her close hers in fear, hande covering her face.
"THIS IS HARRASSMENT-"
"Read." His calm voice cut her off, gently giving her shoulder a squeeze, signalling her to do as told.
She peeked through her fingers, scanning the exposed neck line, about to scream, or possibly kick him down south. That is when her eyes caught trace of a cursive right above his collar bone.
"What...the...hell. " With a faint whisper she lowered her hands, not noticing how he was now looking at her with a certain softness, not noticing how his hands were on her waist, too busy to notice how his face was flushed, his ears burning a bright pink when she traced the phrase on his skin with the tip of her fingers, mumbling, "Oh, screw you..."
"I can't believe it, all this time, it was you." He mumbled, letting her have her moment, but not stopping with his, staring at her with a new kind of tenderness, "I spent my entire life thinking this meant my other half would reject me...I was made fun of till this day....I just...If I had known-"
"I thought I'd be married to an old, bald suited man."
His eyes flickered from her lips to her eyes, "What...do you mean..."
"This, you fool, who says this to someone you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with?" She snorted, unbuttoning her cuff and rolling up her sleeve to show the statement on her forearm, letting him gently grip her wrist, bringing her closer so he could read, "I...yeah I see what you mean-Wow, we just had really weird things to say, huh?" He smiled, looking up at her, and for some ungodly reason, those dimpled and stupid glasses suddenly made her heart beat a little too fast for her liking.
"Speak for yourself. What I said was cool as hell." She mumbled, trying to distract herself, trying not to jump into his arms and break down, to think they met three years ago, and never knew any of this.
His brows raised at her statement, almost about to say something before choosing to lean closer to her, smirking at the way her eyes widened like a dear caught in headlights. Her hands gripped the lapels of his coat, eyes closing when he was a breath away - until she heard a soft click and his warmth disappeared.
"Oh, look, I guess you don't need to work overtime anymore." He chuckled, eying how she stood there dumbfounded, staring at the desktop he had turned off, while he placed her things in her bag for her before slinging the laptop bag over his shoulder, "I'd take your purse too...but...the red doesn't go well with my outfit."
A loud cackle resonated across the empty floor, causing Choi Stupid to smile like a mad man at the woman who was running towards the elevator with him hot on her heels behind her.
The doors closed with a ding as he glanced at her, blushing at how she was shamelessly staring back at him, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the wall of the elevator with a smirk.
"What?" He asked, tilting his head, knowing he wasn't gonna like whatever was coming next.
"Lady luck ain't on your side no more, buddy."
"Why'd you say that??" He asked, raising a brow, somewhat amused at this sudden boost of energy she was now blessed with.
"Gotta spend the rest of my your pathetic life with me."
"Actually, I think I'm pretty lucky. Not only do I get to do that, I still have an hour or so before your day ends...so technically, I think you're finally getting a bit lucky there...having your other half save you and take you out on a nice relaxing dinner for your birthday."
The doors opened as he walked out, chuckling at her gasp, amusing how quick she was even in those heels.
"Save me!? From who!?"
Opening the car door for her, he gestured for her to sit and smiled while closing it, "From Choi Stupid." Laughing at the muffled whining that he could hear while he walked over to his side of the door. Truly lady luck had never left his side, because from the day he had seen her, he had wished she was the one, even when she was being her gremlin self- a part of him wished it was him.
By the time the two had gotten to the road a comfortable silence had settled between them, and a small smile had graced his lips, especially when he had felt her lace their fingers together, giving his hand a light squeeze.
She glanced at their hands, sighing in relief, grateful and somewhat pleasantly surprised, feeling a bit too giddy when he raised her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to the back of her hand, before casually beginning to drive again.
What a birthday surprise indeed.
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Taglist: @edenesth @skteezcursed @mlysalt @the-kpop-simp @spooo00oky @bunnyluvr25 @s-h-y-a @ateezswonderland
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sanarkeo · 10 months ago
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they can’t love you like i love you
nayeon wants to show her girl off to the world.
alternatively: look at you getting fucked by someone you barely know on your first date!! nayeon x reader smut - exhibitionism - humiliation - dom!nayeon w sub!reader - idol!nayeon w idol!reader - power dynamics? unnie kink sorry lol... 4+k words long for some reason
-
it all started at music bank a week into your group’s promotions for the new title track, when your manager entered the waiting room and yelled out that she had a surprise for all of you. you looked up from your phone just as the hairstylist had fixed your bangs and shot an intrigued look over to your closest friend in the group. she raised her eyebrows at you and mouthed: “twice?”
you knew then that it was all over for you.
even being at the music program today, occupying the same building as them brought you a rush you’d only felt going up on a stage and seeing a thousand fans gush over you. you were finally going to be able to meet them, actually meet them. not smile and wave from afar. you could finally talk about how much they’d inspired you, even take a picture with them. but you’d be lying to yourself if you said your heart wasn’t in full on palpitation mode thinking about finally seeing your favorite girl face to face like this.
you’d even set her as your lockscreen for god’s sake. but maybe then the rumors were true and her face does bring good luck or whatever. embarrassed just wondering what’d happen if she ever saw it, you shoved it into the shallow pocket of the tightest mini skirt the stylists could’ve fit you into and left the room with your members.
the meeting with twice was brief and took place in the most random of kbs corridors. most of what you’d remembered of it was tripping over your words, bowing a bit too much and too fervently, and staring at how gorgeous they looked in person. seeing them in concert was nothing like this.
“congratulations on your new song!” sana shrieked, pulling your leader into a hug and beaming at the rest of you. “ah, i love seeing juniors with so much passion!”
they took turns wishing your group the best and exchanging some encouraging words. you were avoiding eye contact with one of the girls in fear you’d combust, but felt her gaze lay heavily on you. The way im nayeon stared you down stirred something in your stomach and made your fingertips tremble against the copies of signed albums.
Unlike jihyo or dahyun, she barely said a word beyond the niceties. Which was odd, because nayeon was nayeon. Her expression was fixed and ambiguous, and you swore at yourself for giving into looking her up and down. She was wearing that outfit from the concept photos. the one with that fucking jacket and the tube top and that skirt. nayeon had her gloved hands on her hips and you had to tear your eyes away, afraid of letting your stare wander too much.
when your manager signalled for the group to get to rehearsals, you hurried to bow once more with your members and hastily presented the signed albums to twice. when you gave a copy to nayeon, she accepted it with both hands and a closed smile.
“thank you, y/n-ah~”
you turned on your heels and ran back to the waiting room to get ready. your members teased you for how pink your face had turned even with all your makeup on.
-
when filming was done, your body felt the pressure of the late nights and intense practices come crashing through. you were just glad you’d be able to get a full night’s sleep. stepping into the waiting room ready to change back into your clothes, the sight of your manager glowering at you made you wince.
“how many times do you have to lose your phone? you know, twice’s manager had to come all the way here to hand it to me.”
she sighed and handed you your phone, now with long, deep cracks sustained from a corner - it must’ve fallen out of your pocket while you were running.
you and half your members got into a van to get back to the dorms. as soon as you settled into your seat and got comfortable though, they started to take sneaky glances at each other and giggled.
“i used to think you liked nayeon-sunbaenim too much but i think she actually likes you back,” one of them teased.
“oh my god, did you see how she was looking at you?”
“or maybe she hates you somehow? either way, even i began blushing…”
“-please, please, please guys i think she was just like ill or something.” you were tired, sure, but the annoyance also had something to do with wanting to never think about the stray possibility of her liking you at all. you turned on your phone to send a text to a friend when you saw it. just as you were going to attach some pictures, you were greeted with a flood of selfies of nayeon.
you first raised an eyebrow at your members who were also busy on their phones, as if they played some lame prank on you. but you soon realised that you’d never seen those nayeon selfies before (you were surprisingly on top of twice content for someone who clocked an average of 4 hours of sleep), and that those selfies looked really fucking recent. taken today, recent.
there she was, standing in front of a bathroom mirror, your phone looking small in her hand, a thumb slipped under the waistband, pulling it ever so slightly down. as soon as you saw it, you dropped your phone onto your lap and took a deep breath. nayeon found your phone, nayeon took your phone, nayeon saw your lockscreen and nayeon used your phone to take insanely hot mirror selfies in the kbs bathroom.
all the other images you flicked through were just slight variations of the first, till you landed on a short video. playing it, you saw nayeon moving your phone back and forth from the mirror as she cycled through an array of poses, mouthing… something?
one of your favorite things about im nayeon was how she could sing like an absolute angel, light and airy, while having this depth and hoarseness in her speech. you pressed the speaker against your ear and upped the volume ever so slightly. the sound of her voice, nearly whispering, soft and sultry, forced a sigh out of you. you’d thought she was just spewing random numbers, which you would’ve accepted anyway, but then it hit you.
it was her number.
-
you [9:01 pm]
hello?
nayeon [9:05 pm]
what took you so long?
-
before your first date, all she’d given you was a date, a time, and an instruction: wait for me outside your building. the surprise in it made your breath hitch as you stepped out the front door to your dorm. the fact that you kept it a secret from your members and managers gave it the mildest sense of danger you craved after years of obedience. when you got down to the entrance, you saw nayeon leaned against her coupe in an off the shoulder midi and heels.
“you got down here a lil early… you this eager for our date?”
in an instant, your cheeks flushed red. first, because in the 3 weeks you’d been texting each other, you must’ve forgotten how beautiful she looked in person. then, because you looked down at yourself and realized how underdressed you were. nayeon clocked this, and you didn’t notice how she tried her best to resist smirking.
“sorry, umm… i didn’t know we were going somewhere fancy…”
it didn’t click that maybe she’d left that bit out intentionally.
“don’t worry babe, a pretty face like yours doesn’t need a flashy dress to make an impression.”
she opened the door for you then got into the driver’s seat. all the way to the restaurant, you held in the urge to ask her to keep her eyes on the road. it was surreal. being in im nayeon’s car and her driving you to your first date at a restaurant you could hardly afford on your rookie checks. her looking into your eyes, staring at your body like she’d eat you whole.
you’d admit you felt uncomfortably warm as she cursed out other drivers. you’d admit you leaked through your underwear when she gripped your bare thigh with her left hand and drew lines with her thumb. you felt her grip loosen and her fingers trace your thigh higher and higher until she pulled it back to hold the wheel.
“ahh! we’re just around the corner. i hope you like french food?”
-
you had a curfew, you had dozens of unanswered texts and yet you were tipsy in im nayeon’s apartment. putting down your glass of wine on her coffee table, you looked over at her floor-to-ceiling windows - a view of the han river at midnight framed perfectly - and shook your head at your stupidity.
your leader might kill you. your company could set your contract on fire.
then, you turned and saw nayeon there, bathed in yellow light, head propped against her hand, biting her bottom lip.
“thank you for tonight,” she said and set her glass down to take your hand and stroke the back of it gently with her thumb.
your leader was going to kill you. your contract was up in flames. whatever.
throughout dinner, all that initial embarrassment of feeling out of place in a dimly lit restaurant full of finely plated dishes and women decked out in jewelry, died down and was replaced by a heat that grew up your neck and between your legs. nayeon made you feel like you were the only girl in the room. like you were worthy of everything. like you were beautiful and good. you tried to play it cool but when she got the bill and asked you if you wanted to come over to her place, you’d never felt more easy in your life.
so there you were, the wine’s acidity coating your tongue, your throat dry, just craving her lips that were parted slightly, right in front of you.
“why did you give me your number?” you asked.
“because.”
nayeon licked her lips and you wondered how desperate you looked at that moment.
“and… and why did you take all those pictures?”
as brazen as nayeon was, you still caught her sheepish smile when it appeared for the briefest moment.
“i knew i had to have you from the moment i laid eyes on you.”
you didn’t know then how long she’d actually kept tabs on you for. she scooted closer and intertwined her fingers in yours, never once breaking eye contact. the smell of bergamot and citrus was intoxicating.
“and it worked didn’t it, babe?”
you hummed in agreement and tore your gaze away from her. but your sight landed on her cleavage and you turned dumb. at once, nayeon lifted up your chin and chuckled, just knowing how much you wanted her.
“texting me straight away like a good girl?"
“i had to.”
nayeon exhaled, closed her eyes and moved her hands to your hips.
“such a good girl for me.”
she kissed you and you never realized how soft lips could be. you laid your arms on her shoulders as she slid her tongue between your teeth, then sucked on your bottom lip till it was sore. when you shifted, you felt how wet you were getting just fantasizing about what that tongue could do to you.
when she pulled away, you saw the desire set deep in her eyes. she tilted her head and sunk her teeth onto your neck. she sucked and licked on your sensitive skin, and you didn’t notice how her hands got under your blouse. you were so sure she’d leave hickeys (and what will you even tell your makeup artists tomorrow?), but the way nayeon’s fingertips traced the curves of your waist left goosebumps on your thighs.
“i-i don’t think i should stay overnight though,” you whined, helping nayeon take off your blouse. “i’m already in so much trouble unnie.”
her bunny-toothed grin appeared as soon as you said that last word and she hurried to get your bra off. “don’t worry, unnie will take care of you.” she tossed your bra aside and steadied her breath staring at your tits. “fuck,” she breathed. “i wish all of seoul could see them.”
she played with your nipples for a while before wrapping her lips around one of them. you threw your head back and moaned, feeling her tongue flick at it and encircle it. she planted kisses across your chest making her way to your other breast and slipped her hands beneath the band of your skirt. you resisted the urge to just spread your legs wide open for her when she pulled it down. you never felt more like a slut than then.
after you kicked the skirt to the side, nayeon kissed you and you whimpered into her mouth. “can i taste you?” she asked, and you nodded and ogled at how the pinkness of her full cheeks spread to her nose.
you squirmed in your seat as you watched her carelessly push back her coffee table and get on her knees. it was mesmerizing seeing her fix her bangs the same way she’d always done when you watched her vlogs or interviews, except this time it was in person, and this time, she’d done it before forcefully dragging you closer to the edge of the sofa.
“fuck…” she groaned. ever since she saw you in that mini skirt, she’d been touching herself to the thought of taking it off of you. now you were in front of her, legs inching apart somewhat unconsciously, she was going to have you. all of you. with your underwear still on, she pressed your thighs further back and took a second to admire the sight of you.
“you’re so wet.” nayeon smirked and dragged her tongue from the bottom of your slit to your clit, the friction from the fabric driving you insane. “so wet for me.” she nearly tore your panties forcing it off of you.
she parted your pussy lips with her long fingers and lapped at your cunt with broad strokes. you writhed and wriggled, sobbing at the way her thick tongue moved onto brushing back and forth over your clit.
“nay-nayeon unnie…”
you bit your lip and looked down, catching her gazing up at you like she was going to devour you. you moaned with each shape she drew with the tip of her tongue.
“my little slut got wet even on the drive over to the restaurant right?”
her tongue teased at your hole, dripping with juices, then sunk into it. you tried moving your hips, grinding against her face to get more of it in, wanting so badly to be filled with her warmth.
“mmh…”
“what a slut,” she muttered, pulling away.
nayeon stood up and ordered you to do the same. she grabbed you by the wrist and yanked you to the window. instinctively, you tried to cover yourself up with your hands and angled your body to the side, nervous at who in those officetels and apartments across the river could’ve seen you.
“no, no,” she said in a low voice, getting behind you and taking your hands in hers, exposing you to the skyline of east seoul. you knew the odds were tiny, but reddened uncontrollably at the thought of some stranger being able to watch. your reputation could’ve been wiped just like that. everyone could’ve found out how much of a slut you were for nayeon. yet, she gently pushed your shoulders down and you obediently took that as a cue to kneel.
“what if someone sees?”
nayeon sighed and sat down, her thighs holding you in place, her clothed chest pressed against your bare back. “you’ll put on a show for them then,” she whispered, and gestured for you to sit down. “you’re good at that aren’t you?”
she forced your legs open, but you tried resisting even to come across faintly as having some sense of dignity. digging her nails into your skin, nayeon spread your legs wide open and you instantly felt the cold air on your pussy again. looking down at all those tiny cars stuck in traffic, at all the red and yellow lights of the city, you shuddered but gulped your doubts straight down. as one of her hands slid down your chest to your abs and finally to your needy pussy, the other groped your breast and rubbed your nipple between a finger and a thumb.
you couldn’t get over how warm and smooth her touch was. she rested her chin on your shoulder and you felt her lips hover behind your ear. “baby, i want the whole world to see you get fucked.”
the moment her fingers skimmed over your clit, you jerked your head back, resting it on her shoulder, and whined. she giggled right in your ear and you felt a wave of tingles run down the small of your back. the image of her eating you out was still burned into your mind.
this was the first time you thought that maybe she just liked to torture you, enjoyed the tension in your thighs as you tried your best to keep them apart. not squeeze them together to get a little more pleasure like a bitch in heat. no, you had more patience than that. just enough to to be able to feel the rise and fall of her chest on your back and not collapse to her feet, pleading to be fucked.
with her index and middle fingers, she slowly parted your folds and you heard the subtle sound of her smacking her lips. “such a pretty pink pussy. i can’t wait to ruin you. can’t wait to hear you beg and cry.” nayeon smacked your cunt and removed a hand from your tits to squeeze your cheeks as you winced in pain. “what do you want? say it.”
“i want you…”
she spanked your pussy again.
“you want unnie to what?”
“i want you use my holes and fuck me like i’m your fuck toy!”
just like that, the pent up horniness from nights wasted fingering yourself senseless to imagined scenarios with her spilled right out. you couldn’t tell how badly that sent her on a power trip, but you had somewhat of an idea. because nayeon dragged her fingers up and down your pussy like it was fucking nothing at all then shoved them so far down your mouth you felt them at the back of your throat.
“suck it,” she ordered.
you obeyed her and wrapped your tongue around the salty slickness of her fingers. you bobbed your head up and down, coating their entire length in your spit. all you could think about was them ripping you open. how she so easily held your tits in the palm of her hand. how much more they would stretch your pussy out than your own fingers.
she pulled them out of your greedy mouth and deftly brought them to your entrance. her fingertips dipped in and out like she was testing you, and the frustration nearly made you break free from her hold.
“please, please, please agh… please fuck me, please!”
she kissed your cheek and held your throat in her free hand. “if you say so,” she quipped, and thrust two of her fingers deep into your hole. she plunged into you fast and hard, you were just dumbstruck at how much they filled you up. she curled her fingers to hit your walls at an angle that made you see stars. your breathing grew ragged as she picked up the pace. nayeon’s grip on your throat tightened and you felt yourself reaching a point where you were so blissed out you would’ve done anything to keep her fucking you at that tempo.
“f-fuck me, fuck oh fuck, please i need you, i need more of you-”
without another word, she forced another finger into you and grunted at how tight you felt, clenched around them. “oh my god, you’re so tight for me,” she sneered, the thought of you feeling so vulnerable and small in her hands made her feel ecstatic. at that point, your brain was mush, and every word that left your tongue was some form of: please, fuck, more, or deeper.
“what was that? d’you want me to slow down honey?” she taunted, and drew her fingers back ever so leisurely. the pressure that was building down in you dissipated and you couldn’t help but grasp at her forearm.
“no- no i was gonna- nayeon… fuck!” you felt tears form and the corners of your eyes. how miserable you must’ve looked to anyone who might’ve peered into the window to see you just there, grinding and fucking onto her unmoving hand until it disappeared. her other hand still on your throat, she shoved you down so you were on all fours.
“you can’t cum now, no, not just yet,” she near growled in your ear. she pushed you around and shifted till your ass was up and facing out onto the skyline. it hadn’t crossed your mind until that night how thrilling it was being treated like a piece of meat in nayeon’s hands. your knees and arms yelped at the cold hard marble tiles, but your belly was hot against the silkyness of her thighs.
then, a hard spank landed on your ass cheek. you shrieked but why were you sticking your ass out even more after that? nayeon massaged your ass and rubbed down to the back of your upper thigh.
“i feel so sorry for giving such a good girl such a bad punishment, but i couldn’t stop myself…” she slapped your ass harder this time and you felt the heat and the pinkness form on your skin. “should i? should i stop?”
you shook your head.
“spank me and fuck me until i’m sore,” you sniffled and rested your cheek on the ground.
nayeon shoved all three fingers back into your sopping wet cunt and pistoned them in and out. the only times she’d ever paused for second were to land a slap on your ass. it stung like hell and each subsequent smack made your clit that bit more sensitive to the accidental brushes of her knuckles.
with every pump deeper into you, nayeon felt your walls squeeze tighter and tighter around her fingers. her arms grew tired and yet she just went faster, knowing how close you were getting.
“cum for me baby, cum for unnie.”
as another smack landed on you, the searing pain combined with the overwhelming pleasure was almost too much to handle. your breath hitched and you clawed at the tiles, nayeon’s pace becoming so unforgiving that you just had to-
“fuck- oh fuck! i’m gonna-”
nayeon nearly came to the sound of your scream. you came so hard you felt like your eyes had rolled back into your skull. speechless, shaking, shivering, even when you felt so overstimulated just having her still fingers inside of you, you could only swipe at her arm. feeling liquid stream down your thigh, you whimpered.
when nayeon pulled your exposed form into her arms, you were enveloped in her warmth and her scent. wordlessly, she rubbed your back and planted tender kisses on your shoulder, up to your jawline and onto your lips.
“i like you,” she confessed. and though it sounded so simple and so light, it gave you butterflies.
she cleared her throat and picked you up. you were initially surprised at how strong she was, then blushed when you thought about the definition in her muscles as she fucked you. she kicked open the door to her bedroom and softly laid you onto her bed. tucking you under her heavy blanket, she gave your forehead a peck and slid into the other side. with how dim the lighting was, you could barely make out how nayeon was just looking at you with a goofy smile plastered on her face.
“i like you too,” you admitted. she stroked your cheek and hummed in contentment. you looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the time on her clock. “fuck. my-my manager, i need to let them know i-”
“shh, shh… darling please don’t worry.” all that fear and anxiety was washed away when nayeon shushed you.
“i’ll handle it, princess.”
-
rahhh first fic! lemme know what you think :D i might continue it but we'll see how it goes... title inspired by underwater by red velvet hehe
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yanderes-galore · 1 month ago
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Lamb vs TOWW (COTL) (Both Platonic)
4/8. Thats halfway.
Hm... I'll see what I can do, yeah. Sharing may have worked better but we'll see.
Yandere! Platonic! The Lamb vs TOWW
(Bishop! Darling)
Pairing: Platonic - Rivalry
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Overprotective behavior, Isolation, Cults, Violence, Blood, Jealousy implied, Forced companionship.
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I feel in this situation, you'd have to be one of two things.
You'd have to either be a Bishop or a Follower.
Yet Bishop would make the most sense.
As then you'd be a sibling of Narinder and The Lamb, as your sibling's pawn, would naturally take a liking to you.
But there's also the option of being a Follower.
Maybe even one who was a Bishop.
Either way, this rivalry seems a little strange as the power is imbalanced.
For this concept I'll make you a Bishop.
It would probably also be an alternate version of a concept I've already done. (Which I'll link here)
I imagine you wouldn't like either of them.
Narinder was your brother.
While he loved you, he began to resent you for siding with your other siblings.
Narinder was close to you when you were both Bishops, before he was sealed away.
He adores you, his beloved sibling.
You could have been older or younger, either way you two often visited each other's domains.
Narinder visited you the most, however.
He was always the most protective of you.
Although you both felt betrayed later on.
Due to Narinder defying natural order, you felt betrayed he was stealing your Followers from you and expected support.
Meanwhile, Narinder felt betrayed that you sided with Shamura instead of him.
As a result, you were brutally injured just like your other siblings, leading to Narinder being locked away and you guarding a chain.
You despise him, The One Who Waits....
That was the title Narinder went by once locked away.
There's times you catch yourself missing your protective brother, he and his deep purr brought you comfort.
Yet whenever you caught yourself thinking like that, you'd just touch your bloody wound to remind yourself of what he's done.
You'd never heal from his scars.
He didn't hurt you as severely as your siblings, yet it was enough to remind you of your fight.
Narinder, even now, probably still loves you.
He's always been obsessively attentive to you and your flock.
He regrets hurting you, but you had to learn you made the wrong choice siding with Shamura.
He should've mattered more to you.
Now, many years later, you're reminded of Narinder through the Red Crown.
Lambs were meant to be sacrificed to prevent the return of your brother.
You were there when the last one was executed, their large eyes looking at you with such despair.
You never enjoyed watching them die.
It was pointless to attempt to stop it.
Yet you wished you did when that Red Crown was at your doorstep.
This could end one of two ways.
You're slain, or Narinder orders you to not be killed.
If you simply surrendered your crown to this Lamb, you could live.
Although, there's a good chance you're slain like the rest.
The Lamb does not view you in any special way until you're reformed.
If you are slain, Narinder laments the loss quite a bit.
Narinder admits you were too proud or scared of your siblings for your own good.
Said emotions are what made you falter years ago, and it appears you still never learned your lesson.
So maybe it was for the best... one more punishment towards your disobedience....
If you were spared by The Lamb, Narinder is amused yet grateful.
The exiled Bishop muses that The Lamb must be fond of his sweet sibling if they spared you.
It's good you surrendered your crown and unlocked your chain...
Narinder for now allows The Lamb to care for you.
Soon Narinder will have no need of The Lamb anyways once he's free... then he can look after you like before....
If you surrender, it gives The Lamb time to cultivate a friendship with you.
Upon learning your story and attempting to heal your wound, The Lamb begins to wonder if they should really be following TOWW.
If this was after you were slain, they'd have to befriend you slowly after pulling you out of Purgatory.
Eventually, Narinder and The Lamb will fight, stripping the former Bishop of his powers.
The Lamb becomes a God and now looks over you both.
You and Narinder barely talk, and depending on how you're converted, you may struggle to speak with The Lamb too.
You have good reasons to hate them both and their former partnership.
Yet both of them appear to selfishly care for you.
Narinder wants to make amends, to show he still loves you, his dearest sibling.
Meanwhile The Lamb tends to separate you, wanting to protect you from Narinder.
A platonic rivalry would definitely have the dynamic of Narinder wanting to be closer but The Lamb protecting you.
You and your siblings certainly struggle to trust Narinder again.
You not trusting him hurts Narinder.
He's powerless now, he won't hurt you again!
Please just come back to him.
The Lamb, however, keeps dragging your attention back to them.
They distract you from the issues between you and your brother.
They want you fully dedicated to them.
Essentially, The Lamb steals the sibling and friend role from Narinder.
Which leaves the cat baffled.
It would mostly be manipulation from both sides.
Narinder keeps reminding you of times you two got along years ago.
He pulls you close, purrs against you, admits he regrets what he did and misses you...
The Lamb, in response, starts encouraging you to stay beside them.
They make you a disciple, they give you gifts, they remind you that they helped you when Narinder hurt you.
They pull you close into their wool, bleating gently to soothe you.
They give you everything, as if trying to heal your wounds and heart.
Truth is, you just wish to relax.
You're tired of them both acting like snakes, hissing in your ear temptations.
Out of care or not, you don't like either of them.
Narinder can't get rid of The Lamb, but The Lamb could get rid of him.
The only reason The Lamb doesn't is because you still care for Narinder somewhat.
Yet the longer this rivalry goes on...
The Lamb may just lock Narinder in a prison or get rid of him entirely to keep you to themselves...
After all, who will you trust more?
The sibling who harmed you...
Or The Lamb who wishes to protect you from such pain happening ever again in this new life they gave you.
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Pairing: Jake Kiszka x Reader Word Count: 3.9 K CW: 18+, minors DNI. (spoilers) fake weapons, tight spaces, alcohol consumption, minor character minor injury, some steaminess, but no smut (in this part). {Author Commentary: Here's my (belated) Halloween party fic! I hope it can offer a pleasant distraction. Here's an 80s/90's music playlist I listened to, to give the party vibes. I still ended up writing myself into a part two, oops. I hope you all find this brief trip (back) in the closet enjoyable. (tell me you laughed.)}
“Because the 80s just understood horror. The 80s were the HIGHT of horror-”
“Josh might argue that with you, but I see the vision…”
You stood next to your friend at her kitchen island, looking out at the gaudy Halloween decor expertly placed in every corner, and along every wall. The atmosphere was made complete by a series of alternating colored lights, and scattered light-up decorations, beaming through the generally dark apartment, -and a booming 80s rock/ballad playlist. It really did feel like a movie.
Because you’d had work that day, you’d arrived a bit later than some, but not the majority. Some friends had arrived early to set up, and others to help each other finish assembling their costumes. The energy was immaculate as you’d strutted in in your costume. The lights were already down, the music loud, and your friends had turned from pouring their drinks in the kitchen to greet you jovially, and squeal in support as you gave a twirl.
A ‘Huntress’ was the title you’d officially given your costume, though it wasn’t based on a particular franchise character, just a high fantasy concept you liked. You’d landed on a long, dark green dress, with high, high slits up both thighs, a fitted bodice, and draped sleeves that hung around your arms in a goddess-esque fashion leaving your shoulders bare. Of course, the key accessory was a faux gold archer’s bow that you wore over your shoulder, cross-body style, and a quiver of arrows ‘-a clever disguise for a purse-’ , all complimented by your smokey metallic eyeshadow, delicate gold hair jewelry, and body chains. You loved Halloween, and your friends knew to expect nothing less than an all-out costume. 
You’d joined them in the kitchen to secure your first drink of the night. As you were laughing along and adding a silly eyeball candy and gummy worm garnish to your drink. Another gaggle of people exited the bathroom down the hall. Amid the mixed chatter you heard Jake’s distinctive soft rasp, laughing in mock distress “no, really- I think it’s enough- please let me go free- this outfit doesn’t even require makeup-” and a responding laugh “Yeah, but of all the days to wear makeup- how could you deny me??” Your other friend, a big makeup enthusiast, and nothing short of an artist, followed him down the hall, giving him a playful shove. 
The group all ended up in the kitchen, to refresh their drinks. “Oh yay!!” they welcomed your new presence, and you mutually geeked over each others’ costumes. “You two!” The host jokingly huffed, gesturing with her raised glass between you and Jake, who was in the corner, filling a flask he’d pulled from his pocket, avoiding the swarm of welcomes, “Leave it to you two to go the hardest, in your own fucking direction.” You and Jake took in each other’s costumes, laughing along. They were certainly of a similar genre, and in sharp contrast to the general decor. 
His knight costume consisted of a shiny silver gorget and pauldrons, adorning his chest and shoulders, and a chainmail mesh top that barely covered his midriff. One of his beloved swords was secured by a leather belt on top of his dark, drapey, high-waisted trousers which were cuffed just over his signature boots. Your eyes made their way back up, smirking again at his midriff, before properly seeing his eyes. They had the faintest smudge of charcoal grey concentrated around his water line, expertly blended out by your friend to be almost unnoticeable, blending seamlessly to the faintest shift of iridescence around his eyes and the highlights of his face. It didn’t even register as makeup, alongside his already distinguished features, and long half-waved hair, it simply enhanced his mystical aura, making him look like a character from a fantasy game. 
He grinned after giving you another once over while screwing the top on his flask and slipping it in his pocket.
“Damn, maybe I should’ve let her go full smokey eye on me, if im up against you” He made his way around the kitchen island to properly greet you in a half-hug, careful not to spill the drink in your hand. 
“Hmm, are you sure you’d want to compete with me?” You narrowed your eyes in a playfully challenging way.
His smirk twisted to the side before he deftly slipped your drink from your hand and took a sip. 
“Mm. Wouldn’t dream of it.” 
He returned the drink to you, drying his mustache with his free hand before giving your arm a final squeeze with the other and following the crowd to the living room. You laughed and shook your head, turning back to your friend who was hosting. 
“Damn, he’s really dialed up to 11 tonight.” You chuckled, glancing back towards him before making your way to the buffet covered with snacks. Your friend just raised her eyebrows and smirked at your turned back. You stocked up a little plate of snacks before the two of you went to find a comfy seat among your friends in the living room as the apartment filled with people.
Several hours, and many rounds of drinks later, you were sat in an armchair, almost falling over the arm in an enthused conversation with a friend of a friend you had recently bonded with over an underrated album preference ‘-and a decent level of tipsyness.’
You paused as you heard a group of people enthusiastically cheering. You looked up at the group as the host stepped toward the middle of the living room.
“Ok, party people! Who’s ready… for Hide-n-Seek?”
Normally getting a group of adults to play Hide-n-Seek would be a hard sell, but the energy in the room was just right, and loud cheers could be heard from around the apartment. The host announced she’d be seeking first, and that would be starting “riiiigghhhhht.. Now.” with a clap of her hands and som gleeful shrieks, people began darting around. The apartment was nice, thanks to her success in the arts. It had multiple floors, and even guest rooms, perfect for a game like this. You giggled to yourself after waving to the person you’d been talking to and scurrying off to find a spot. You made your way upstairs, as many others had. At the third and final landing, facing down the hallway of the smaller third floor, you saw a double-door closet but walked right by it. ‘Wayyy too obvious.’
You passed a bathroom and heard some muffled giggling. You made your way to the spare bedroom at the end of the hall. You opened it and instantly heard a yelp. You quickly stepped back into the hall, slammed the door closed in front of you, sparing the blur of two people, that had apparently been making out in the room. You backed away from the door, giggling and covering your reddening face. “So sorry!”, you called before making your way back down the hall. The seeker’s countdown was already nearly over, causing you to quickly settle for the closet.
You suddenly realized your drink was still on the coffee table in the living room. However, ywour thoughts of sneaking down to get it were cut short. You heard footsteps climbing the stairs, and you instantly felt crestfallen, knowing it was likely the seeker, and of course, if they came to this floor they’d be checking the closet first. You found yourself holding your breath as the footsteps approached. One of the doors creaked open, and you were ready to let out a defeated groan when a finger pressed softly to your lips. Your eyes widened as a grinning Jake stepped in. He effectively backed you into the other half of the closet as he hastily pulled the door closed behind him. Your brow creased in annoyance as you realized what was happening. You pulled his hand away, removing his shushing finger from your lips as you whispered indignantly; 
“Jake, this is my hiding spot.”
“Yeah I’m kinda surprised by that, actually, it seems kinda too obvious to be your first choice…”, he whispered, still grinning at you. You rolled your eyes, “And what? Were you too busy batting your eyelashes at someone to secure a better spot?” you snarked back at him. His eyes narrowed curiously, his smirk remaining.
“I was gonna ask what could’ve possibly stopped you from getting a good spot, but now I’m much more curious about that little statement… Why does the thought of me flirting with someone ruffle your feathers so much?”
Your face reddened, thankfully he couldn’t see it in this lighting, right? You didn’t want to validate his implication with a response. 
“Did you at least fill your flask before coming to commandeer my hiding spot?”
He smiled at you devilishly, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling it out. He unscrewed the top before handing it to you.
“How chivalrous” You took a sip, your eyes taking him in before meeting his smirk with a challenging one. “Tell me, was it customary for knights to wear eyeliner?”
“Hazards of the side gig,” he joked, “something of a habit I picked up on the last tour… and a lot of warriors historically wore face markings and stuff…” 
He unsheathed his prop sword, resting the dulled tip on the floor, striking a knightly pose; chin held high, his lips pursed slightly in the same way they often did when he was playing, and his chest puffed exaggeratedly. You giggled slightly, covering your own mouth to stifle it.
He smiled down at you, satisfied that he’d made you laugh. He let his eyes run down you slowly in the dim light. 
“And for …Archers…?” 
You were about to correct him but you inhaled abruptly as he skimmed the cool flat side of the blade along the exposed side of your upper thigh.
“Is this… ‘customary’?” His voice was still low and soft as his eyes trailed the tip of the blade.
You swallowed, looking down at the blade. His eyes flitted to yours. “It’s a prop sword, it’s not sharp, you can touch it.” He assured you. You hadn’t been worried about that, but still, the invitation intrigued you. You reached down and lifted the the tip of the sword, experimentally pressing the pad of your thumb to the thin, but inevitably dull edge.
“Hmh.”
You lifted it to your eye line, inspecting the dulled tip before pressing the pad of your thumb over it. 
“Careful now…” His voice was hushed and deep. His warm hand rested over yours, gently prying your fingers off the blade. He chuckled at you as his other hand sheathed his sword. You retrieved your hand, clearing your throat as you adjusted the string of your bow. 
“Just had to verify, I do have the superior weapon.” You shrugged one shoulder matter-of-factly.
“Pardon?” He raised an eyebrow at you, tilting his head in a challenging manner. 
You smirked, deciding to push it. “Not just in prop form,either. Swords have no range, they’re only good if you want to walk right up to your opponent.” 
“And what’s that bow gonna do for you when there’s someone right in front of you?” 
The two of you had grown closer, “Hmh, I don’t know, I’m pretty good with my hands. …And legs.” Your leg swung around to playfully hook the back of your calf around his. To your surprise his warm, calloused hand caught your leg under the knee, hiking it up so your leg hooked around his hip. The silky fabric of your skirt slid back, parting fully and leaving your entire upper thigh exposed. You’d reached for him as your balance wavered. One of your hands had grasped the back of his neck, the other landing on his waist -half of your palm met the fine chainmail, half met his warm, soft skin. He was already holding you steady though. His other arm had wrapped around you, holding the small of your back. 
“Jake- ‽” you gasped in surprise.
Your faces are now inches apart. The sound of each other's breaths become the only audible thing. A streak of golden orange light from between the double doors illuminated a segment of his face; a fanned dark eyelash, a golden streak in his deep brown iris, the peak in the bridge of his nose, and the seemingly permanent upward curl in the corner of his full lips.
“fuck-” it escaped you in a hushed exhale, though not for entirely the same reason you'd previously been whispering. Jake's head tilted ever so slightly as he took in your reaction. You gathered your wits before he could open his mouth to say anything.
“Jake. We’d be heard.” -‘Certainly not a circumstance you'd ever thought you'd have to voice that sentiment to someone.’
His smile widened, as you confirmed what you’d been considering. He pivoted smoothly till your back was pressed against the back wall of the surprisingly shallow closet. As he leaned in to speak close to your ear the side of his face brushed yours, so, so, tantalizingly.
“You don’t think you could stay quiet? Is that all you’re worried about?”
As he spoke lowly, his thumb began trailing back and forth across your thigh. A suppressed but undeniably desperate whine sounded from you. 
“If I recall,” his hand had started gliding up the back of your thigh, “you’re particularly competitive…” his grip tightened slightly, gripping the fullest part of your thigh, “and you love a challenge…”
His words trailed off as he inhaled your scent and slowly exhaled, his warm breath cascading down your neck. Your hand that had held the back of his neck now found his jaw. You urgently lifted his head so you could finally press your lips to his. God, his lips were like nirvana, full and soft, and fervently melding with yours as he kissed you.
Your hand gripped his side, pressing the chainmail into his skin momentarily before you adjusted your grip to sink your nails into the lush curve of his waist unobstructed. He hummed against your lips as his hips pressed harder into yours. Your bow pressed sharply into your upper back but didn’t register as a problem. His hand that was still resting on your lower back kept it from the wall, furthering the sweet pressure of his hips against yours.
You’d just pulled your lips from his to take a desperate breath when suddenly a tumbling crash and an obscene exclamation came from the stairs.
You both jumped apart as your heads whipped around. By the sound of it, someone had fallen down the top flight of stairs. Instinctively you both stepped through the doors to go help your friend. As you peered down the stairs, the bathroom and bedroom doors down the hall both opened and your friends poured out of their hiding spots to see what had happened.
You and Jake had made your way to the landing, urgently attempting to assist your friend who’d landed on the second floor. A gaggle of people had gathered around as they’d made their way up and down the respective staircases to the landing. Several voices called out asking what had happened, and if everyone was ok. Someone had paused the music so you called out “It’s ok, we’ve got her.” Your friend had tried waving you off saying it wasn’t bad, that she’d just slipped on a portion of the string lights that were woven between the balusters. You refused, asserting that you were going to get her some ice as soon as she got downstairs. After she’d stood up and waivered from a clear pain in her ankle, Jake eventually convinced her to let him help her down the stairs.
You watched him shift his belt so his sword was out of the way and he stooped to lift her -her arm around his shoulder, and her legs draped across his arm. He made his way slowly and steadily down the stairs. The colored lights glinted off the armor still adorning his shoulders, and his hair that fluttered behind him as he descended. ‘He really is a knight in shining armor…’. You snapped back to reality as you all got to the ground floor and Jake swiftly turned towards the couch. You headed to the kitchen and got a soft ice pack before hurrying back to the living room. Jake had set her on the couch and she was chatting and giggling with the people gathering around.
The crowd parted for you and gradually people dispersed to other areas of the room as the music started up again and the party resumed. You knelt by the couch, gingerly resting the pack on her ankle. You looked at her and shook your head with a light laugh. “Do you have an ace bandage or something? This is gonna need some compression unless you want your ankle to swell up. ” She sighed exasperatedly, not one to accept doting. “Yeah, it’s in the bathroom cabinet.” You glanced over your shoulder at Jake, who’d stepped aside for you to apply the ice pack. “Can you grab it? And an aspirin or aleve or something.” Jake nodded and headed off.
When you looked back at your friend her eyes were locked on you. Knowingly. She broke out into giggles as you looked around curiously.
“You know… I wouldn’t judge if the two of you wanted to slip out early.”
“--What?” You practically spluttered.
“You. And Jake.” She stated she stated with a self-assured grin.
The question of how she knew formed on your face, but before you could ask she pointed to your thigh. “It left a mark.” You looked down and saw a wide pink stripe across your exposed thigh, mirroring where Jake’s sheath had pressed into it while you were against the wall. Your face instantly heated up. 
“That and the tension is THICK, tonight, like even worse than usual.”
“Usual?”
She gave you a deadpan look before chuckling again. Jake had returned with an ankle wrap, a bottle of painkillers, and a cup. “Here we are.” He handed the wrap to you with a quick smile before handing her the cup and opening the bottle, beginning to shake two pills into the cap. “Ooh, a drink?” she took it before looking into the cup and frowning. Jake just chuckled “That’s called water.” You chuckled as you gently wrapped her ankle, and secured the end. She took the pills from the cap in his outstretched hand and downed them with the water before holding the cup up to him “Now can you get us a real drink, pretty please?” 
He pursed his lips, glancing at you. You nodded and he bowed his head with a pursed smirk. “Alright, what d’you each want?” “Something strong, whatever inspires you when you get to the kitchen,” she waved him off as he chuckled and shook his head, heading for the kitchen. 
The moment he was out of earshot she locked in on you again. “I’m serious, you should give it a chance. I’ll be fiiinnne. I’ll find someone to help me to bed, -you should have him help you to bed- ” You scoffed and swatted her leg as she giggled. “Uegh, that was bad.” “Yeah, yeah, …but you’re thinking about it.” You sighed exaggeratedly. She reached for your hand and gave it a squeeze. “He’s a good one. Gallant. Noble.“, you both giggled before she continued in a genuine tone, ”And not just as a knight. I’ve known him a while, this isn’t even the first time he’s saved my ass. If you’re interested, you should go for it.” You chewed on your lip as Jake rounded the corner of the couch. He handed your friend her drink, then you yours, smiling down at you. 
“How’s our patient?” 
You couldn’t help but smile back at him. Your friend’s knee nudged you and your eyes snapped back to see hers smirking over her cup at you as she took a sip. You took a gulp of your drink -strong but sweet, perfectly blended as usual- and stood off the couch.  
“She’ll be fine.”
You took Jake’s hand and abruptly started towards the door. You could hear your friend giggling into her cup. He fell into step with you without question, despite the slight bewilderment in his face.
“-Where…?”
“We’re leaving.“ 
“Oh- good.”
You set your cup on a random surface as you grabbed your bag from the hooks in the front hall. You turned to see Jake taking a large black corduroy jacket from the front hall closet. He curled a finger around the string of your bow. “May I…?” You nodded and ducked your head as he lifted it up and off of you. You held it as he placed his jacket around your shoulders. Your eyes gleamed up at him as he straightened the collar.
“Did you drive here or-?”
“Yep.” he nodded.
“And are you…?”
He chuckled, “Yeah, I’m good to drive.”
As he closed the passenger door behind you, you marveled at the car’s interior. ‘It’s definitely vintage…’. The seats were black and teal leather, bench-style -‘maybe a Mustang, or a Camero…’. The back door on his side opened, startling you. Jake leaned in, placing his armor in the back seat. “Just me,” he reassured, “want to put that back here?”. He held out a hand for your bow, and you nodded, handing it to him. 
As soon as he settled in the driver’s seat and pulled his own door closed, you leaned over, holding the side of his face and kissing him urgently. He kissed you back, and you felt him smile against your lips. His hand turned the key and the motor rattled to life. A soft rock ballad started from the radio as he lifted his hand to mirror yours, gently cupping the side of your face. You shrugged off his coat, as the car started warming up significantly. His kiss was slow and sweet, even as you shifted to face him more fully, kneeling on the seat next to him. 
You pulled away, resting your forehead against his. 
“Mine? Or yours? Or we could just find somewhere to par-?”
“Taco Bell?”
“What?” you pulled back slightly, giggling at his suggestion. 
“Are you hungry at all?”, he offered, "I’m happy to sleep at either of ours, I just thought I’d get something to eat before we head home.” His free hand stroked your upper arm as he waited for your response. You deflated slightly as it registered. 
“You don’t want to…”
“Of course I want you,” his thrumb stroked your cheek, “but you’re drunk, darling. You don’t want it like this, trust me.”
“Why’d you agree to leave with me then?”
“Well, I’d still like to hang out with you… but if you want to be dropped off, or you want to go back into the party, that’s obviously fine too.”
You considered for a moment. Being away from the loud music and colored lights of the party atmosphere, you were acutely more aware of just how much the alcohol had caught up with you. 
“...Are tacos still on the table?” you met his eyes again.
 He nodded “Of course.” 
You grinned at each other before you leaned in and pecked his lips again. 
“...and a sleepover?”, you asked quietly.
“I’d love to.” He placed a soft kiss on your cheek.
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