#And it was oddly endearing in the end

[not-equippedforthis]

putting To Be an Undertaker on blast by looping the episode end bit for 1 hour manually

[anxiously-going]

I had a weird dream this morning in which Dean Winchester and I body swapped and it has been eating my brain all day and as the pre-period insomnia sets in I am contemplating making it everyone's problem.

[meowdei]

Sukuna who was never close to his twin brother and never cared about the pipsqueak runt of a kid who’s his nephew.

He doesn’t care and doesn’t want to be associated with that bullshit. His brother doesn’t take the hint ever and invites him to everything. “My sons’s birthday party” this and “my son’s kindergarten graduation” that. What sort of graduation is meant for a kindergartener anyway? That’s a load of nonsense. But Jin is as annoying as ever with insisting on keeping contact and trying to get Sukuna involved and he hates it until by some tragedy out of nowhere, his brother and sister and law are dead. Yuuji’s left an orphan and no one can care for that kid because there’s no one left.

No one except Sukuna.

They ask him, too. The social workers. They turn to him and say some pitiful script about being “the only family left to take custody of him.” He knows pretty well what’s going to happen to the pipsqueak if he doesn’t agree. The foster care system and the possible horrors such a bright (even if annoying) kid could face makes him question saying no for a second. He’s surprisingly conflicted.

And it’s out of sheer impulsiveness alone does he end up as a single, grumpy, begrudging uncle who’s got custody of a child he never really cared to know in the first place.

And then he meets you.

Sweet, bubbly, warm, and so weirdly happy. Dictionary definition of what an elementary school teacher should be. Yuuji’s absolute favorite person on the planet as he waves hello at you enthusiastically every time that Sukuna drops him off and goodbye every time that Sukuna picks him up.

“I heard his new guardian would be his uncle. It’s nice to meet you,” you murmur to him the first day he picks up Yuuji after school, a look of pure melancholy on your face as you stare at him with an unearthly amount of compassion and sympathy. “Yuuji’s parents were wonderful people. I’m really sorry for your loss.”

“Wasn’t that close with either of them,” he grunts out. You look over at where Yuuji’s gleefully playing on the slide of the playground. Too young and innocent to realize that’s been ripped away from him. Too naive to understand what it means to grieve. Too hopeful about the world around him to realize just how cruel it can really be.

“Oh,” you murmur, nodding slowly.

He thinks that your unnaturally kind demeanor will finally be broken for a split second of judgement. What sort of heartless bastard doesn’t feel an ounce of grief for his own brother’s death? Instead, however, you seem to look at him with some weird sense of wonder.

“You’re a good uncle for stepping up regardless,” you say softly, “it’s more than what most would do in your shoes.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he clicks his teeth, unbearably uncomfortable with how weirdly sentimental this all is. “He’s just a five year old. How much trouble could he be?”

You raise a brow in amusement, eyeing him like he’s got one hell of a surprise waiting for him. He doesn’t like the vague way you hum, “Yeah. How could such a little human cause trouble, right?”

“I’ve got it under control,” he grumbles, a little annoyed that you seem to think that out of all things, a simple child would be enough to cause Sukuna any issues.

“Let me know if you need anything,” you smile.

Yuuji calls to you from the distance, squealing look what I can do! before he does a rather clumsy spin. Sukuna raises an unimpressed brow. You clap and praise him with an exaggerated gasp of approval.

It’s oddly endearing, he thinks to himself—you, not the kid. The kid’s barely tolerable.

“C’mon, you brat,” Sukuna calls. And then he looks at you and gruffly adds, “And I don’t need help.”

“Okay,” you grin brightly. It almost feels like you’re saying that a little sarcastically. “I’m sure you’ve got this parent thing down.”

Before he can even correct you that he’s an uncle, not parent, Yuuji comes running over on clumsy, short little legs and grabs onto Sukuna’s hand.

“C’mon, Uncle ‘Kuna!”

Sukuna doesn’t miss the way your eyes soften. Weirdly enough, he feels this odd sort of squeeze in his chest that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe he’s just getting old—that has to be it.

[allurearia]

Are you ladies alright?

Where Mattheo certainty didn't expect you of all people to open the door.

Mattheo riddle x reader. Fluff!!

 It was a typical Friday evening at Hogwarts, Marking the end of a busy week for everyone. Mattheo, Theodore, and Lorenzo were lounging in the Slytherin common room, bored out of their minds.

“Alright, I’ve got an idea,” Mattheo said with a smirk.

“What are you scheming now? Mattheo” Theodore asked, already suspicious.

Mattheo chuckled, tossing a ball of paper  he had folded up after fucking up his notes in charms and spilling ink over it. “You know that Muggle TikTok thing? Where a guy stands in front of a girl’s door, knocks, and someone throws a ball just in time for him to catch it and be all suave? I say we do it.”

Lorenzo laughed, shaking his head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me this won’t be fun. Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do.”

Theodore sighed but couldn’t hide his grin. “Alright, I’m in. Who’s the target?”

Mattheo’s eyes gleamed. “Let’s just start with Pansy’s dorm.”

Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. “You're sure about that?”

Mattheo just shrugged, unbothered. “What could go wrong?”

The three of them made their way to the girls' dormitory, carefully slipping past a prefect who knew better than to stop them at this point. They reached Pansy’s door, and Mattheo took his place in front of it. Theodore held the ball, and Lorenzo stood a little to the side, ready to jump in if the ball Theo throws suddenly changed paths.

Mattheo knocked on the door, face completely calm as if this was the most normal thing in the world. They could hear what they assumed to be Pansy’s footsteps approaching, the door creaking open just a crack.

But instead of Pansy, you stood there.

You had been hanging out in Pansy's dorm, just chatting and relaxing after the hectic week you all had, completely unaware of the chaos awaiting you on the other side of the door. The moment you appeared, everything froze.

Theo, ready to throw, panicked slightly spotting you first. His throw went way off course and slammed directly into Mattheo's chest instead of near his head where his hands were cupped to catch. Mattheo winced, muttering a low "bloody hell" under his breath as the ball rolled off his chest. He quickly scrambled to grab it, hoping to salvage the moment.

Despite the mishap, Mattheo was determined to play it cool. He turned around, ball in hand, and prepared to deliver the line but then he saw you.

His breath caught in his throat. Instead of Pansy’s usual sarcastic smirk or dismissive eye roll, he was greeted by your soft, curious expression. For a moment, Mattheo’s mind went blank. You stood there, looking effortlessly radiant in the dim hallway light, and all of his usual confidence seemed to fade away.

You blinked at him, clearly confused but amused. A small, awkward smile played on your lips, as if you were trying to figure out what exactly was going on but found the whole thing oddly funny.

Mattheo stared for a moment too long, the ball still clutched in his hand as he tried to remember what he was supposed to say. His heart pounded in his chest, not because of the ball that had just hit him, but because he wasn’t expecting you to be the one opening the door.

Finally, he managed to find his voice, but it wasn’t the smooth, cocky tone he was aiming for. “Uh… are you ladies alright?”

It came out awkwardly, almost like a question he wasn’t even sure of himself.

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, biting your lip to hold back more giggles. Your reaction made the whole situation even more endearing, and Mattheo felt his cheeks heat up, though he'd never admit it.

After a brief moment of awkward silence, you gave him a warm, amused smile, nodding slightly. “Yeah… we’re alright,” you replied with a chuckle, not really knowing what else to say. You shot a final glance at the trio behind him and then gently closed the door.

As soon as the door clicked shut, there was a beat of silence before Lorenzo and Theo erupted into laughter. Lorenzo clutched his stomach, practically howling. “Oh, Merlin Mattheo, you were speechless! Absolutely speechless!”

Theo wiped a fake tear from his eye, grinning wickedly. “You should’ve seen your face! All that attitude gone the moment you saw her. You looked like a lost puppy.”

Mattheo’s ears turned red as he glared at his two friends. “Shut up,” he muttered darkly, still gripping the ball in his hand as if it were Theo’s head he wanted to crush. “You’re the one who can’t throw for shit.”

“Oh, blame it on the throw, sure. But we all saw what really happened,” Theo teased, nudging Lorenzo. “Man gets taken down by a pretty girl. Never thought I’d see the day.”

Mattheo clenched his jaw, trying to shake off the flustered feeling creeping up his stoamch. “I’d worry about your Quidditch skills if I were you, Theo. Chaser with an arm like that? Surprised you haven’t been benched.”

Theo only laughed harder. “Mate, I don’t think Quidditch is the real problem here.”

Lorenzo, still grinning from ear to ear, slapped Mattheo on the back. “Hey, don’t worry, Riddle. It seems like you've finally met someone who knows how to make you shut the fuck up for once”  

Mattheo glowered at both of them, but deep down, his mind was still replaying the way you had smiled at him before closing the door.

Even if he’d never admit it out loud, he knew he was in trouble.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

Pt - 2 "is the lady alright?"

[helaintoloki]

Across the Hall

pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

warnings/notes: kind of a slow burn with fluff, angst, themes of insecurity, violence, reader has an abusive ex, eventual happy ending

a/n: this took me forever to write but hopefully you guys like it! and also friendly reminder that my requests are open so feel free to send in your ideas :)

summary: Bucky’s quiet life is disrupted when a new neighbor seeks his help

It starts with three knocks to his door.

Bucky had only been home for five minutes since returning from his workout when the noise startled him out of his contemplative state. He wasn’t exactly thrilled at the interruption considering he wasn’t expecting company so late into the evening, but he felt obligated to throw on a sweater to cover his arm and answer the door for whoever stood on the other side.

The man is taken aback when he finds you standing there before him nervously wringing your hands together with a timid smile. He doesn’t quite recognize you, but he vaguely recalls hearing word of a new tenant in the building and assumes that must be you. He notes the way your breath hitches in your throat at the sight of him and shifts uncomfortably in response, unsure as to what exactly it is you’re here for.

“Hi,” you promptly greet after regaining your composure. He’s much more handsome up close, and you hadn’t been prepared for that. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but I kind of have a bookshelf that’s a bit too heavy for me to move on my own and I was hoping you could help me? I just moved in across the hall so I’m trying to get settled in, but it’s proving to be more difficult than I anticipated.”

The stoic man can’t help but to let out an amused chuckle at your predicament; you appear so jumpy and nervous after asking such a mundane request, but he oddly finds it endearing. Bucky was known to keep to himself and avoid interactions with other tenants, but he figured he could make an exception for a new neighbor.

“Sure,” he offers with a friendly smile, feeling oddly proud at the look of relief that washes over your features in response. He didn’t exactly have any exciting plans for the evening, so he could spare some time to help you move your heavy shelf.

“Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver!” You exclaim before offering your hand for him to shake. “I’m y/n, by the way.”

“James,” he replies before cautiously taking your hand in his left one, thankful for the fact he’d left his leather gloves on when returning home. You don’t seem to notice his abnormality as you pull your hand away and lead the man into your apartment.

Unsurprisingly, it’s sparsely decorated and overflowing with boxes that have yet to be unpacked, but there are hints of personal touches spread throughout. The bookshelf in question sits in the center of the room, and by the scratches in the floor Bucky can tell you’d fruitlessly attempted to move it yourself before seeking his help.

“Just tell me where you want it,” he prompts you before grabbing the edges of the shelf.

“I was thinking of having it up against this wall next to the couch,” you explain while wildly gesturing with your hands towards the empty space. “At least, it will be against the couch once I buy one…”

“I take it you didn’t bring a lot of furniture with you,” he jokes lightheartedly despite how awkward he feels being in the apartment of a woman he’s only known for about three minutes. He moves the shelf with minimal effort, though he plays up the amount of strain he experiences so that you don’t become suspicious of how incredibly strong he is compared to the average man.

“I was kind of in a rush to leave the last place I was staying so I brought what I could,” you explain with a sheepish smile. “Thank you again for this, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replies easily before stepping back to admire his work. “This good?”

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

“Anything else you need?” He offers, but you simply shake your head in response.

“I think that should be it for now, but if something comes up you’ll be the first to know,” you joke with a smile, appearing more at ease now with the man. Your face brightens before you wordlessly disappear into the kitchen, leaving Bucky alone and unsure if he should make his exit or not. However, before he can make a decision you quickly return with a Tupperware full of muffins. “Here, I just baked these an hour ago so they’re still pretty fresh.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” he tries to deflect with a bashful smile, but you’re insistent he take the container from your grasp and practically shove it into his hands.

“Really, take them. Consider them thank you muffins for allowing me to briefly inconvenience you.”

Letting out a small huff of amusement, Bucky finally relents with a nod and accepts your offering. “Thank you.”

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer,” you proclaim with a sigh before walking him out the door. “Have a good rest of your night, and don’t be a stranger.”

You part with a friendly wave before gently shutting the door behind him, leaving Bucky to stand aimlessly in the hallway with the container of muffins in his hands. He feels oddly warm and content inside, emotions that rarely follow interactions with strangers, but he figures you’re not really a stranger now.

However, you have interrupted his evening, for Bucky spends the rest of the night thinking about your smile.

~~~

Three days pass before Bucky decides to seek you out.

He isn’t sure what compels him to become so bold, but he knows that he has to see you again. You haven’t left his mind in days despite how hard he tries to push the thoughts down, so he figures he might as well get it over with and attempt to start another conversation. He can’t exactly recall any of his old moves back from his own time or know if they’re still reliable, so he approaches the situation the only way he knows how.

“Hey, neighbor,” he greets with a timid smile when you finally open your door. You look surprised to see him, but he doesn’t miss the way your eyes brighten at his presence. You thought the man charming but quiet and assumed his reserved nature meant he liked to keep to himself, so you’re pleased to see him again after the bookshelf fiasco.

“Hi, James,” you say with a pleasant smile. “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping I could trouble you for a cup of sugar?” He asks, face immediately heating with embarrassment at the insanely cliche request. James had a perfectly good container of sugar in his own apartment, but you didn’t need to know that.

“Of course! I actually just went grocery shopping, come in.”

Your apartment looks vastly different from the last time he’d been here, more personal touches spread throughout and only a handful of unpacked boxes still remaining. It feels warm and inviting, and Bucky swallows nervously as he processes the fact that this is only his second time in your space. Maybe he should leave you alone before he gets in too deep, before he has to ruin your camaraderie by coming clean about the person he really is and you decide that you don’t want an ex-assassin in your apartment anymore. Instead, he chooses to make small talk.

“How are you liking it here so far?”

“It’s nice,” you hum thoughtfully as you reach for the sugar up on the shelf. Bucky quickly looks away when your shirt starts to ride up with your reach, but he can’t ignore the way his stomach flips at the sight of a little skin. “Everyone I’ve met so far is friendly and it seems really peaceful. I like having my own place again.”

“Were you living with someone before?” Bucky prods, hoping he’s not asking too many questions. You smile faintly as you begin to pour the sugar into a small jar, but he notes the way it doesn’t reach your eyes.

“Yeah, uh, my fiancé. Or, ex-fiancé now, I guess,” you murmur with a humorless chuckle. “It didn’t work out.”

Your usually cheerful demeanor has now dulled, and Bucky feels guilty for having brought it up in the first place. He isn’t exactly sure what to say or do to make it better, but thankfully you choose to save the conversation for him.

“What are you using the sugar for, by the way?”

Bucky stiffens, eyes widening slightly as he realizes he didn’t rehearse a script to go along with his lie. He wasn’t making anything, but he didn’t think he could flat out tell you that the sugar was just an excuse to see you again.

“Apple pie,” he quickly replies, wincing at the abruptness of his tone while you smile and carefully slide the jar of sugar across the counter his way.

“Sounds good. I’m more of a pumpkin pie girl, myself,” you hum thoughtfully.

“Yeah, I’m not really a pie person at all. Just thought I’d try something new,” Bucky offers with a sheepish grin, eyes glancing around the apartment only to notice the empty space next to the bookshelf. “Still haven’t found a couch?”

“Nope,” you relent with a tired sigh. “I’ve been meaning to go couch shopping, but I’m kind of worried about how I’m gonna even get it up the stairs and into the apartment by myself.”

“I can help you with that,” Bucky blurts before he can stop himself. You appear taken aback at first, but a look of relief soon washes over your features at his words.

“Oh my god, would you really?” You exclaim with delight, and before Bucky can even process what’s happening you’re quickly throwing your arms around the man in an appreciative hug. He stiffens immediately upon contact, not used to such acts of affection and especially not from a woman as pretty as yourself. You, however, don’t seem to notice his awkward demeanor in the slightest. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he offers bashfully as he tries not to let you see how much of an impact your touch has on him.

“Does tomorrow around one sound good?”

“It sounds perfect,” he replies earnestly.

It isn’t until later in the evening that he realizes he’s never been couch shopping before.

~~~

As Bucky promised, he accompanies you in your search for a couch and helps you carry it into your living room. It nestles in perfectly next to your shelf, and you couldn’t be more thrilled.

You invite him to stay for a movie in celebration of finally having a spot to sit, and though he promised Sam he’d meet him for dinner he doesn’t have the heart to say no to you. That’s how Bucky ends up nestled next to you on the couch enjoying his first ever viewing of Silence of the Lambs.

“So you’re telling me you’ve really never seen this movie before?”

“I guess you could say it’s been on my bucket list,” he admits with a diffident laugh, grateful you’re none the wiser to the truth his words hold.

“It’s one of my favorites!” You gush enthusiastically before passing him the bowl of untouched popcorn. “But I think that might make me sound crazy to admit out loud.”

“Crazy is good,” Bucky assures you with a tender smile, chest tightening at the way your eyes light up in response to his words. “I like crazy.”

You settle into the movie together with ease, enjoying snacks and answering any questions Bucky has about the film. It amazes him how naturally he can fall into spending time with you, almost as if you were merely long lost friends and not strangers who lived across the hall from one another. He hadn’t felt this way since Steve, but even then, what he felt with you was different. Special. You existed outside of his life as a Sargent or the Winter Soldier, and he enjoyed having you help him fulfill his need for normalcy.

A random sitcom now plays to provide background noise as you and Bucky continue to converse way past the movie’s end. You long to know more about the handsome stranger who has slowly become a normal part of your routine, and you hang onto every word he says no matter how heavy your eyelids feel.

“I’m not sure if I have a favorite song, but I definitely think I won’t be able to get ‘Goodbye, Horses’ out of my head for the next few days after watching that movie,” he confesses with a wry grin that has you quietly giggling into your hand.

“You seem like the type of guy who listens to oldies,” you note with a thoughtful hum, prompting him to shift uncomfortably from his place on the couch. “Would you say you have an old soul?”

“Something like that,” Bucky notes with a wince. He wants nothing more than to be completely honest with you, but he fears it may be too soon to unload his history on you. He’s not sure he could handle the hurt that would come from you pushing him away if you didn’t like the truth. “Do you like that type of music?”

“I did at one point, but I kind of fell out of it once I started dating my ex-fiancé. He hated it,” you note while scrunching your nose in distaste at the mere mention of the man. “He hated everything, if I’m being honest.”

“Is that why you called it off and moved here?” Bucky asks before he can stop himself. He doesn’t mean to pry or be invasive of your past, but he wants to understand how any man could fumble an absolute gem like yourself.

“Well, that, and the fact that he had a habit of getting physical with me,” you confess casually with a despondent smile that fails to reach your eyes. Bucky rears back in shock at your confession, prompting you to quickly interject, “But I got out of there as fast as possible, and now I’m much happier on my own.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Bucky offers gently. “I hope you know how incredibly strong you are.”

Smiling, you carefully reach across and take his gloved hand in your own. Despite not being able to feel the touch of your skin, the warmth you emit is enough to have his heart racing in his chest when you tightly clasp his hand.

“You’re unlike any guy I’ve ever met, James.”

“Bucky,” he corrects you gently. Your brows furrow slightly in response, prompting him to let out a small chuckle at your puzzlement. He gently gives your hand a squeeze before continuing, “My friends just call me Bucky.”

Realization sets as your brows lower and lips pull into a delighted smile at his clarification. You gently return the squeeze before nodding in understanding, thrilled at the idea of having your first official friend in the city.

“Okay,” you agree softly, “Bucky it is.”

~~~

You knock on Bucky’s door with the hopes of having him over for dinner, but it isn’t your neighbor that greets you on the other side.

“Can I help you, little lady?” The man says with a playful smile. His stature is intimidating but his features are kind, and for a moment you find yourself forgetting what you even came for in the first place.

“Is Bucky home by chance?” You ask with a bashful smile, hoping your eagerness to see the man in question isn’t too obvious to his guest.

“He should be on his way back with some takeout,” the man explains. “You like Chinese?”

He doesn’t allow you to answer before opening the door wider and allowing you entry into the apartment. It feels wrong to do so without Bucky being present, but you don’t want to be rude by rejecting the kind man’s offer. You swallow nervously when stepping foot into his home for the first time; the apartment is tidy but scarcely furnished, though you’re not one to judge considering you went four days without a couch.

“You a friend of Bucky’s?” The man asks while pulling out a chair from the island counter for you to sit. You nod.

“I just moved in across the hall, and Bucky’s been helping me get settled in. I’m y/n, by the way.”

“Oh, so you’re y/n,” he says with a knowing smile before offering a hand for you to shake. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Name’s Sam.”

“Nice to meet you,” you smile politely before freezing as his words finally settle in your mind. “Wait, really?”

“Of course, Bucky speaks very highly of you,” Sam affirms with a wink.

“What do I speak highly about?” A voice interrupts, prompting you both to turn your heads towards the man juggling boxes of takeout in the doorway. His eyes widen in surprise at your presence before a careful smile settles on his face. “Y/n, what brings you here?”

“I came to see if you wanted to join me for dinner, but I guess I’m jointing you and Sam instead. If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” Sam answers for him, heartily clapping the man on the back. “A friend of Bucky’s is a friend of mine.”

You hide your laughter behind your hand at Bucky’s obvious annoyance towards his friend and decide to make yourself useful by setting the table for dinner. Despite this being your first time in his apartment, you’re easily able to find your way around his kitchen. It amazes him how quickly you’re able to make yourself comfortable in his space and how well you mesh into his life as if you’d always been a part of it.

“You never told me she was cute,” Sam murmurs under his breath with a playful nudge to Bucky’s side. The Sargent merely scowls in response before elbowing him back with more strength than necessary. However, the two immediately act inconspicuous when you turn your attention back to them and sit down to enjoy dinner.

“So how do you two know each other?” You ask before taking a bite of broccoli. Bucky gives Sam a pleading glance and attempts to convey his want for you to be kept in the dark about his true identity, and thankfully the Captain is able to pick up on his signals.

“We met through a mutual friend,” Sam answers with ease. “We actually hated each other at first.”

“Hate is a strong word,” Bucky tries to defend only to deflate at the pointed look Sam gives him.

“I don’t know how you can stand living across the hall from him,” Sam quips much to his friend’s chagrin.

“I’m actually really glad to be neighbors,” you confess with a sheepish smile, face heating with embarrassment while you try to avoid Bucky’s gaze. “I didn’t think I’d be able to make any friends when I first moved here, but he’s made it so much easier on me.”

“What are neighbors for?” Bucky offers with a careful smile before finally meeting your gaze. The room is charged with romantic tension as you two take in the other’s presence, and Sam makes sure to point this out to Bucky hours later when you finally return to your own apartment.

“I’m telling you, dude, she’s into you!” Sam exclaims from his place behind the sink. “You should go for it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky rebuffs with a scoff while taking a freshly washed plate from Sam and placing it on the drying rack.

“You’re kidding, right? You think I didn’t notice the eyes you were giving her?”

“What eyes?”

“You know, the eyes,” Sam emphasizes, immediately imitating the look of longing Bucky had worn earlier in your presence. The soldier’s face scrunches in bewilderment before he quickly shakes his head in displeasure.

“Don’t do that, that’s not what I look like.”

“That’s exactly what you look like,” his friend defends before handing him another plate. “Look, all I’m saying is it wouldn’t hurt to maybe tell the girl how you feel and invite her out for something nicer than Chinese takeout.”

“Alright, let’s say I ask her out. I pull out all the stops, and it goes perfect. She decides I’m the guy she wants to be with, and I decide that I need to come clean about who I really am in order for that to happen? What happens when I tell her she’s dating the Winter Soldier? When I tell her about the blood on my hands? She doesn’t even know about the arm.”

Sam is silent after Bucky’s line of questioning, and unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have an answer. The super soldier sighs before slumping against the island counter and allowing his head to hang in shame and regret.

“I’ve already lost one good friend. I don’t know if I can handle losing another,” he admits quietly, almost afraid to voice the thought aloud.

Sam rests a comforting hand on Bucky’s shoulder but remains silent, contemplating his next words before finally giving him a reassuring pat on the back.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” he reminds him gently. “And you and I both know this girl is worth the risk.”

Bucky smiles faintly at Sam’s words, thoughts already straying to you and the light you’ve managed to bring to his life. He knows his friend is right, but he still can’t bring himself to make a move, at least not yet.

All he can do is hope you won’t mind having an ex-assassin super soldier for a boyfriend.

~~~

A harsh thunderstorm plagues New York and cuts off the power to your building. Your apartment is shrouded in candlelight as you make the best of what you have, and you’re grateful for the fact that Bucky so graciously offered to come over and keep you company until the electricity is restored.

“I hate thunderstorms,” you shudder after lighting another candle to set on the coffee table. “They weren’t very common where I was from.”

“They’re a little loud,” Bucky agrees pensively. Each clap reminds him of his foggy past in the war, and he finds himself fighting to keep the unwelcome memories at bay.

You seat yourself on the couch across from the man and drape your throw over your legs to keep you warm. The living room is freezing now that the heater is out, and despite the amount of layers you throw on nothing seems to help.

“I don’t think I ever asked this, but what do you do for work?” You prompt him after a moment’s silence. Bucky shifts uncomfortably on the couch.

“I, uh, I’m retired,” he replies lamely while offering you a meager smile. “Army veteran.”

“You served in the army?” You ask with piqued interest, shifting a bit closer to the man. “What did you do?”

“I was a Sargent.”

“I never would have guessed,” you say thoughtfully.

“It was so long ago, I don’t… really like to talk about it,” Bucky confesses, refusing to meet your gaze. He knows he’s not technically lying to you, but he’s also aware of the fact that he’s not giving you the entire truth. He doesn’t know how to be straightforward with you, too petrified of risking you becoming afraid of him and withdrawing yourself, but he can only hide his true identity for so long before you find out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you immediately apologize only for Bucky to assure you it’s fine. “We can talk about something else. How’s Sam?”

“That topic actually might be worse,” he grimaces, but his lighthearted smile that follows signals he’s only kidding. “Sam is good, just busy.”

“Being Captain America?” You finish for him with a raised brow much to Bucky’s surprise.

“You know?”

“I don’t think it’s exactly a secret,” you reply with a sheepish smile while wrapping the throw tighter around yourself. “He looked so familiar when I first met him, and a quick internet search helped me put it together pretty quickly.”

Bucky’s heart leaps into his throat at your words. If you’d done your due diligence on Sam, who’s to say you hadn’t done the same for him? Knowing you, he feels it’s safe to assume you would have brought it up by now if you had found any real information about his past, and he tries to remind himself of this as he attempts to quell the panic bubbling inside him.

“I won’t tell anyone that I met him personally or that he visits this apartment building,” you assure him, incorrectly assuming the reason for his panic is a need to protect Sam’s privacy. “Not that I really have anyone to tell considering you’re my only friend here.”

“Thank you for that,” Bucky breathes out in relief, anxious to move on from the conversation. “But what about your friends back home?”

“I didn’t really have any,” you quietly admit. You look away almost shamefully and take a moment to collect yourself before you can meet his eyes again. “My friends were my fiancé’s friends, and I knew they would never pick my side over his if I told anyone the type of man he really was. I knew if I wanted to get away I had to cut them off too or they’d just tell him where I’d run off to.”

Bucky knows he has no right, but every time you mention your ex-fiancé he can almost feel the anger boiling inside him. He can’t comprehend how anyone could ever mistreat someone as wonderful and kind as you, and he knew if he ever got the chance to meet the man he’d make him pay for all the hurt and anguish he’d caused you. Bucky almost felt like your protector in a sense, like it was his responsibility to look after you now that you were alone in such a big city, and he hoped you didn’t mind the fact.

A sudden clap of thunder has you nearly jumping into the air as you immediately throw yourself at Bucky’s side and anxiously grip onto his arm. He’s grateful for the fact that it’s his right arm you hold onto, but he still finds himself stiffening at the sudden closeness. It’s been years since a beautiful dame has thrown herself at him like this, and his brain feels like it’s overloading as he tries to process the moment.

“I’m sorry,” you offer meekly, clearly embarrassed at your frightened outburst. You start to move away only for Bucky to pull you back, prompting you to look up at him in surprise.

“Don’t be sorry,” he assures you with a comforting smile. “That’s what I’m here for.”

You find yourself slowly relaxing at his benevolent demeanor, and with his permission you slowly ease yourself back into his side and allow him to wrap an arm around your trembling figure.

The rain continues to pour outside your modest apartment, but you find yourself able to fall asleep in the comfort of Bucky’s embrace. The man never makes an attempt to move, not even when the power returns and the lights finally turn on. Instead, he allows himself to enjoy the warmth your closeness brings and admires your relaxed features as you sleep soundly with your head resting comfortably against his shoulder.

He could get used to this.

~~~

You scored a job as a waitress at a nearby diner to help pay your bills now that you’re completely on your own and your savings are beginning to run low, and Bucky notices that you’re gone from your apartment more often than not. His knocks go unanswered, and he finds himself feeling sullen in response to your sudden absence. You’ve invited him multiple times to come visit you at work and enjoy a free slice of pie, and on this particular day he decides to take you up on your offer.

It isn’t a long walk from the building, and he appreciates having an excuse to leave his apartment for once. His stomach is twisted in nervous knots at the thought of finally getting to see you again while he rehearses what he plans to say. Bucky’s boyish charm isn’t what it used to be, and his romantic moves are rusty from years of inaction. However, he is able to remember one move in particular that always went over well with the girls back in his day, and for that reason he stops at a local flower stand to buy you the nicest bouquet of roses he can find.

Bucky is a man in love, and if his gift goes over well, he plans to finally come clean and tell you everything about his past so that he can have a chance at being with you. No more beating around the bush.

The diner is empty save for a few occupied booths, and this makes it easier to spot you when he sets foot through the front doors. Though the sight of you immediately brings a smile to his face, it quickly fades when he notes the distress on your features. Your eyes are wide with fear, hands moving frantically as you speak to a man Bucky doesn’t recognize, and he doesn’t miss the relief that seems to wash over you when you meet his eyes from across the room and silently plead for help.

“Bucky!” You call with a nervous smile, anxiously wringing your apron in your trembling hands. “Perfect timing.”

“Who’s this?” He asks with a raised brow, eyeing the stranger up and down methodically. Bucky could easily take the man without question, but he still didn’t like the look of him. The man’s eyes were shifty and calculating, and his demeanor was one of arrogance and callousness.

“Bucky, this is Michael-“

“Her fiancé,” Michael boasts proudly with a braggart smile.

“Ex-fiancé,” you correct him through gritted teeth, “and he was just leaving.”

“Fine, fine,” Michael offers before raising his hands in surrender. “I know when I’m not wanted, but don’t think this is over.”

Bucky grunts in irritation when Michael goes out of his way to harshly bump his shoulder against your friend as he pushes his way out of the diner, leaving you a terrified mess as you stand trembling in the middle of the walkway. You swallow thickly and meet Bucky’s gaze with an apologetic smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“I’m sorry about that,” you offer quietly, hands still nervously wringing your apron. Bucky notes the subtle quiver of your bottom lip and the way your lashes flutter quickly to hold back tears. You look terrified, and he hates to see you so wound up.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Bucky assures you gently as he sets the bouquet aside and takes your unsteady hands in his gloved ones. “Maybe you should sit down a minute and take a breath, yeah?”

“Yeah…” you murmur quietly before allowing him to gently ease you into the nearest booth. In your panic you hadn’t even noticed the flowers he’d brought, and despite your frenzied state you’re still able to offer him a bashful smile for his efforts. “Are these… are they for me?”

Nodding, Bucky grins before handing you the bouquet. “They’re for you, pretty girl. I thought they’d look nice in your apartment.”

“Thank you… for these, and for saving me back there. I can’t believe I froze like that.”

“What happened?” Bucky presses gently, wanting to know every detail possible so he can better protect you moving forward. You let out a shaky breath and absently fidget with the ribbon tying the flowers together as you begin to relay the events to your friend.

“I did everything I could to cover my tracks and start over, but he still managed to find me,” you murmur in defeat. “He wants me to come back home with him, and he says he won’t take no for answer. I don’t know what to do- he knows where I work, and it will only be a matter of time before he figures out where I live-“

“Hey,” Bucky urges gently, affectively stopping you from spiraling. “Nothing is going to happen to you under my watch. I’ll have Sam look into the guy, and in the meantime I’ll do whatever you need to feel safe, whether that’s walking you to work or crashing on your couch so you can sleep at night.”

You give him a watery smile and immediately rush to his side of the booth so you can throw yourself into his arms for a hug. He returns the embrace immediately, taking extra care not to use too much force with his vibranium arm while he holds you tightly to his chest. You don’t know when he’d managed to steal your heart, but you know that you’re falling in love with your neighbor from across the hall. He makes it so easy and has fallen into your life like a puzzle piece you hadn’t realized was missing from the picture. Unlike the men in your past, Bucky treats you with the utmost care and respect, and you adore him more than anything.

Bucky will keep good on his promise, and you trust him with your entire being to keep you safe.

~~~

As promised, Bucky has made it his own personal mission to be your bodyguard during your time of need. He drops you off and picks you up from work, accompanies you when you have to run out for groceries, and spends his nights sleeping on your couch. You feel guilty over the fact that the man is hardly ever in his own apartment anymore, so after some convincing you’re able to talk him into letting you cook him dinner at his place.

“Any word from Sam?” You prompt quietly while stirring a pot of marinara sauce on the stove. Life has been uneventful since Michael’s appearance at the diner, but you hate having to constantly look over your shoulder wherever you go. You don’t enjoy being on edge every waking moment and not being able to get a good night’s sleep, and you just want this whole situation to be over with.

“He hasn’t been able to find anything about your ex or his whereabouts. The man knows how to stay hidden,” Bucky replies with a scoff. The mere mention of him has the super soldier’s blood boiling, but he tries to remain composed for your sake. “But don’t worry. He can’t hide forever.”

Dinner is a quiet affair, and Bucky is disheartened to see how dejected and small you’ve become in the past few days. You aren’t yourself, not that he can blame you, but he just wishes there was something he could do to help you.

Nightfall comes soon after, and Bucky helps you get settled into bed. Despite being in his own apartment, he’s adamant that you take the mattress while he resumes his position on the couch. He thinks it will be safer that way, and he’ll be able to hear any threats before they make their way into the apartment.

“Try to get some sleep, doll,” Bucky utters softly, gently brushing his knuckles along your cheek before making his exit.

“Will you stay?” You blurt without thinking, surprising both you and Bucky as he stops in his tracks.

“Y/n, I… I don’t know,” he starts to say only for you to gently take hold of his hand and carefully tug him back towards you.

“I haven’t been able to sleep, and I’d feel better if you were here next to me,” you plead meekly, the exhaustion clear in your features. Bucky finds it hard to say no to you when you stare up at him with doe eyes and a trembling bottom lip; the sight pulls at his heartstrings, and so he finds himself carefully crawling into bed with you.

“Thank you,” you whisper gratefully as you shift onto your side to face him. Your noses are mere inches apart as you stare into each other’s eyes and enjoy the comfort of being together in bed.

“You’ll never have to thank me for wanting to take care of you,” Bucky whispers back while carefully pulling the blankets up higher over your shoulders. You feel the leather of his gloves brush against your bare skin and shudder before peering over at him.

“You sleep in those?” You voice curiously, prompting him to immediately stiffen in response. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without those gloves on.”

“I… have a prosthetic arm,” he confesses quietly, figuring now is as good a time as ever to tell you the truth. He refuses to meet your gaze as his lips pull tightly together into a frown, waiting for you to say something.

“Oh,” you hum softly. His heart pounds in his chest as he waits for judgement or disgust, but instead he feels your hand gently rest upon his left bicep. His entire body tenses, and he watches with bated breath as you run your fingers along the fabric of his long-sleeve shirt. You can’t feel the coolness of the metal, but you can sense the lack of flesh and muscle. He’s not sure how you’d never noticed before, but you weren’t exactly one for details.

“If it makes you uncomfortable I can sleep on the couch-“

“I think it’s cool,” you interrupt with a careful smile, no hint of insincerity or judgement in your tone. “You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to, but I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of.”

Bucky lets out an embarrassed huff of laughter and grapples with himself over your naivety. Would your opinion change if you knew what he’d done with his prosthetic arm as the Winter Soldier? He feels conflicted, but overall at ease with the fact that you seem receptive to his artificial appendage.

“You’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever met,” Bucky compliments you before leaning forward to press his lips against your forehead. You find yourself moving closer so that you’re pressed against his chest, and it almost feels natural to him when he wraps his arms around your frame and pulls you tightly against him.

Nestled in Bucky’s warm embrace, you’re able to enjoy your first peaceful night of sleep since Michael’s return.

~~~

Bucky leaves your sleeping form behind the next morning to pick up breakfast sandwiches from the nearby bodega for you both. He doesn’t exactly have the supplies necessary to make a homemade breakfast, but he knows you’ll never say no to a coffee and your favorite sandwich. When he returns, he finds that his apartment is empty and you’re missing from the bedroom. Initially he figures you must have gone across the hall to your own place to freshen up for the morning, so he’s not worried.

Bucky decides it best to bring the food over to your apartment, but before he can even knock on your door he’s met with the sound of commotion coming from the other side. He hears your muffled voice frantically speaking to someone followed by the sound of shattered glass, your screams prompting him to break down the door and barge his way into the room.

You sit cowering against your bookshelf while Michael menacingly towers over you. A fresh bruise blooms along your cheek while hot tears make their way down your face, and you look to Bucky pathetically for help while curling in on yourself. The roses he’d bought for you now lay scattered on the ground with shards of glass accompanying them, allowing the man to easily piece together what had occurred in his absence.

“You again,” Michael scoffs before slowly making his approach towards the super soldier. He flashes a snide smile as he condescendingly speaks, “Thanks for looking after my fiancé while I was away, but I got it from here.”

Bucky is unmoving, his eyes cold and unrelenting as his hardened gaze stares down at the intruder. Through your tears you can note the enraged tick of his jaw and the way his hands are tightly clenched at his sides as he holds himself back from doing something he’ll regret.

“She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want you here,” he nearly growls through clenched teeth. “You need to leave.”

“Or what?” Your fiancé provokes with a disbelieving laugh. “You think just because she bats her lashes at you and spends the night in your bed that makes you special? She’s a little attention whore, and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise.”

“You can’t talk about a woman like that,” Bucky utters lowly. His body is vibrating with rage, his ears beginning to ring while the tension continues to build within him. He notes the way you watch on helplessly from your place on the floor, and the last thing he wants to do is scare you by becoming aggressive, but Michael was making this feat more difficult with each second that passed.

“I can talk however I want about my own fiancé, pal,” Michael speaks before giving Bucky a harsh shove. The man remains unmoving, and your attacker momentarily falters when realizing how sturdy his opponent is. “Now do yourself a favor and mind your business.”

“Bucky,” you softly cry out, shoulders trembling and eyes pleading for him not to leave you.

James finds himself taking a deep breath in while allowing his body to relax. Michael’s antagonistic voice drones on, and he knows there’s only one way to remove this man from your apartment and out of your life for good. He just hopes you won’t hate him after what is to come.

His hand immediately shoots out and catches Michael’s throat, effectively cutting off his air supply and his ability to speak. Your startled gasp fills the room as Bucky lifts the man before throwing him through your doorway. He slams against the opposite wall with a deafening thud before landing on the floor, and despite the excruciating pain he feels in his body he still desperately tries to crawl away as Bucky takes slow steps towards him.

“Not so fun when you’re on the receiving end, is it?” Bucky taunts before kneeling down next to him. “You’re lucky I’m letting you leave here while you’re still breathing. But if you ever come here again, if you ever put your hands on her again, if you ever even think about her again, I’ll make sure you leave in a body bag. Is that understood?”

Bucky doesn’t receive an answer, but he knows he’s made his point clear when your ex pathetically scrambles onto his feet and books it down the hallway. Resting his hands on his hips, Bucky lets his head hang with a sigh. He didn’t enjoy having to berate the man in front of you, but he can at least take pride in the fact that your ex-fiancé will never bother you again thanks to him.

Bucky quietly makes his way back into your apartment and finds you carefully picking up the scattered shards of glass. You remain silent, even when he kneels down to help you, and he begins to worry that maybe he had gone too far.

“You okay?” He asks you in the softest tone he can manage. Your tired eyes peer up at him through wet lashes, and it takes you a moment to gather your thoughts before you can reply.

“Your glove came off,” you murmur quietly, and Bucky almost isn’t able to catch it.

“What?” He repeats before slowly turning his gaze to his left hand. Sure enough, his usual leather glove is missing and his metal hand is on full display. He swallows down the lump in his throat despite the building anxiety he feels, clenching and unclenching his fingers before looking back up at you. He must have lost it in the scuffle, and he’d been too engrossed in making his point clear to notice.

“That’s not a normal prosthetic arm… is it?” You feebly prompt him. Bucky refuses to meet your gaze and quickly stands himself upright before slowly backing away from you. He feels suffocated by his shame and his guilt, and as he takes in his surroundings he realizes that his worst fear is manifesting itself into reality right before his very own eyes.

He wordlessly leaves your apartment and swiftly locks himself back into his own living space. The walls are closing in around him, and Bucky can do nothing but let his anguish consume him.

He’d ruined everything.

~~~

You haven’t heard from Bucky in over a week and your knocks to his door go unanswered. You’re all alone again, and the isolation is suffocating.

You miss the man who had became a part of your daily routine and infiltrated your space with his kindness and warmth. You had fallen in love with him, your heart aching for him every time he was away, and now only a tightness in your chest remained in his absence. You hadn’t meant to embarrass him when pointing out his arm, and you meant what you said when you told him he had nothing to be ashamed of. Everything had happened so quickly you hadn’t had a chance to explain yourself, to explain that despite the fact that you knew everything, your opinion hadn’t changed of him.

Your meeting with Sam had led to a deep dive into the history of Captain America, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that your search had led you to a plethora of information on the hero’s close friend James Buchanan Barnes. You knew you should have stopped yourself from reading further and instead asked Bucky to explain everything to you instead, but once you started reading you couldn’t stop. You were overloaded with information about his time in the war, his relationship with Steve Rogers, his affiliation with Hydra as the Winter Soldier, and his role in the fight against Thanos. It overwhelmed you, but it did not deter you from the man or prompt you to end your friendship with him. You weren’t afraid of him, and you worked desperately to get him to see that.

You hold a freshly baked batch of cookies in one hand while the other relentlessly knocks on his front door. You’ve been at this for about a good five minutes, and though it has earned you annoyed looks from neighbors that pass by you in the hallway, you’re determined not to give up until he sees you.

“Bucky, please,” you beg in exasperation, knuckles beginning to turn red from the constant impact against the wood of the door. “I know you’re in there so please come out. I can’t take this anymore.”

You’re met with silence, but this doesn’t deter you in the slightest; you know he’s in there and can hear your pathetic pleas. What you don’t know, however, is that he’s leaned right against the door on the other side watching you through the peephole. His mind is filled with turmoil as one part of him screams to open the door and let you in while the other insists this is for the best. What good does he have to offer you as an ex-assassin? What kind of life can you live tied down to the Winter Soldier? Bucky can’t bring himself to put you through the torment and the danger that comes with being his partner, and he curses himself for ever letting you get close to him in the first place.

“I miss you,” he hears you relent, voice wavering as you fight back tears. “You’re my best friend.”

Bucky can physically feel his chest tighten at your confession, and it takes everything in him to not open the door. He doesn’t think he can stand the torture any longer, and he begins to move towards his bedroom only for your voice to stop him in his tracks.

“I know everything,” you utter gently, prompting his heart to leap anxiously in his chest at your confession. “I know that you were a Sargent in World War ll, and your best friend was Steve Rogers. I know you’re the Winter Soldier. I know… I know that in spite of all of that, you’re the kindhearted man who befriended the complete stranger that knocked on your door and asked for help to move a bookshelf. You’re more than your past, and it doesn’t scare me like you think it does. I… I love you.”

You let your forehead fall against the door and shut your eyes, waiting with bated breath for any sort of response or movement from the other side of the door. You’re given nothing, and it’s now that you start to realize your friendship with Bucky is most likely over. You slowly back away from the door and set the plate of cookies beside it before taking one last longing look at his apartment.

“I’m sorry. I won’t bother you anymore,” you finally sigh, turning to make your way back to your own apartment. However, the click of the lock turning causes you to freeze in your tracks, and you hesitantly turn around to face the man whose door you’ve been assaulting for the past ten minutes.

His blue eyes are glossy with tears that threaten to fall, and his tired features display the torment he’s endured while isolating himself from you. He looks at you almost in astonishment, and for a moment neither of you dares to move or speak. You don’t know what to say or how much he’d heard.

“You…” he starts to say before taking a nervous swallow. “You said you loved me?”

You manage to flash him a meager smile while anxiously stuffing your hands in your pockets and casting your sheepish gaze to the floor. “I thought that was obvious. Why else would I be showing up at your door all the time?”

A quiet laugh of disbelief leaves him at your words, and Bucky feels confident enough now to leave the doorway of his apartment and take a step closer towards you.

“So this,” he says while raising his left hand and flexing his fingers, “doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it when that very arm kept me safe?” You utter gently, taking another step closer so that the space between you grows smaller. You hesitantly bite the inside of your cheek before slowly raising your hand and offering it to Bucky. A pregnant pause fills the air as he stares down at your outstretched fingers, his brows furrowing with uncertainty while he hesitantly clasps your hand in his artificial one.

The metal is cool against your palm and brings an instant sense of comfort as you lock your fingers together. You fit together perfectly as if your hand had been made for him, and a funny feeling tingles within his chest as Bucky comes to this realization.

“I’m sorry for shutting you out,” he professes earnestly, gently pulling you against his chest so that he can wrap his arms around your figure. “Everything felt too real, and I was terrified of the possibility that you might not want to be around me anymore.”

“You could never do anything to scare me away,” you assure him gently, your eyes full of sincerity as you peer up at him. “I meant what I said, Bucky. You’re my best friend, and I love you.”

“I love you too, doll,” he murmurs with an adoring smile. Using the tips of his metal fingers, Bucky gently angles your face so that he can meet your lips in a kiss. Your eyes immediately flutter shut as you melt against him and savor the feeling of being so close to the man you’d missed so dearly while you were apart.

It’s as if the rest of the world fades away while you share your tender embrace in the middle of the hallway where you’d first met months ago. You came to the city for a new start, but Bucky never would have guessed that your arrival would signal the start of his own new beginning.

A bookshelf brought you into each other’s worlds, and a kiss in the hallway would keep you together for the rest of your lives.

[parfaitblogs]

in a world of boys, he's a gentleman ❀ s. reid x reader

in which your night out comes to an end, and your boyfriend has to try to keep your wandering hands off of him. 

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader genre: fluff tags: alcohol consumption. reader is drunk. reader is a brat. spencer is so exasperated. but he loves you so bad. age gap probably. suggestive content. word count: 2.1k a/n: oh my god i miss having a man to pick me up and love me when im drunk #thisshouldbeme final boss level 1000. simple fun fluff i love when he's nice to us i should do this more often. circa summer 2024 ass title i'm rebuilding spencer reid tumblr brick by brick. 

You were never meant to be this drunk. 

Truly, you had grandeur plans for it to be a one and done night. Entertain the birthday girl — your best friend — with your presence and take care of her, for it is her night, and then go home and pass out early enough in dark green sheets and the sound of your boyfriend sleeping next to you. 

You'd even told him about these plans. 

Instead? He's staring down at his phone with a locked jaw, and four different messages from you glaring back up at him. Incomprehensible, if he weren't as smart as he were. If he weren't as attuned to you and your mannerisms down to the way you text. A man who doesn't even like texting, and he's memorised how you do. 

Something about him picking you up, maybe, if he wants. Another thing about you finding him pretty. Another with a photo of the — and he quotes — really good vodka coke the bartender made you (he's certain it tastes the same as the last three you mentioned drinking). Finally, a photo of you in the bathrooms, arms around your best friend, grinning at the mirror through your phone, showing off your outfit to him. As if he hadn't memorised, documented, the way the skirt looked on you when you left hours earlier. 

When he doesn't reply to a single message, you call him, and endearment for you grows, for he can hear the pout on your lips as you speak into the phone. 

"Why're you ignorin' me?" you mumble, which isn't much help considering how loud the world around you is, your voice nearly drowning out. 

"I'm not, honey," he says. "I only just checked your messages. I was about to respond."

"Liar. You're ignoring me. You hate me."

"I can assure you I don't," he's amused. He's so stupidly amused, you want to kick him for it. You don't. You can't. Instead, you let him keep sweet talking you out of your predisposed anger. "Are you having a good night?"

"Yes!" you brighten almost immediately. "Did you see the photo I sent?"

"Of your outfit? Yeah, angel. You look pretty," he's practically perfected how to talk to you when drunk. You're oblivious to it, always too intoxicated to register he is extra nice when you're barely able to hold yourself upright. 

"Thank you," you reply, and he can hear the fluster. "Look prettier in—in person."

"I know. I saw you before you left, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah," your cheeks heat, and you roll your bottom lip between your teeth. The bricks are a juxtaposing cold against your back. Rough, too. Oddly comforting. "Are you busy? Am I keeping you from somethin'? S'that why you were ignorin' me?"

"No," he replies. "I'm waiting for you to be ready to come home. Is that why you're calling?"

"Mm-mm," you shake your head, giggling to yourself because you remember he can't see that. He doesn't know why you're laughing, but he smiles at it nonetheless. "Jus' wanted to hear your voice. Miss you."

"I miss you too, honey," he says, and you can hear that smile in his voice. 

"What're you doin' then?" you ask, staring at the door to the club you had deserted, keeping an eye out for your friends to emerge. 

"Reading."

"Reading what?"

"Sofia Petrovna," he tells you, and, as if he can see the way your eyebrows furrow, he adds, "Russian novel by Lydia Chukovskaya. I'll find a translation so you can read it, I think you'd like it."

"You should jus' read it to me right now," you mumble, crouching down to the floor, resting your head on your knees. "Translate for me."

"You most certainly won't remember a thing I'm saying. Where are your friends?"

"In the club. It got overstimulating," you tell him. 

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and an excuse about how you can actually see your friends still — you can't — manifests on your tongue, preempting the scolding he's no doubt formulating. 

However, two simple, stern — but not too scary — words kill the faux reassurance immediately. "You're alone?" 

You hesitate. "...No?"

"Can you go find your friends, please? I don't want you outside alone."

"Yes, sir," you stand back up. His jaw clenches, biting back his reprimand. He doesn't have the energy to lecture you about the dangers of being this drunk alone, and he's sure you wouldn't appreciate it anyways. Or remember it. "I will call you back later! Bye! Love you!"

He continues to hear from you for the two hours following. A photo once you find your friends to assure him you're safe, a mistyped message about how you love him more than anything in the world, another asking if he's mad at you when he doesn't reply. Eventually, you're calling him again, chatter from the smoker's lounge you'd disappeared into loud, but he can faintly make out you asking him to pick you up. 

He finds himself in an empty enough street just a block away from the last club you told him you were going to, waiting. 

There were people everywhere, just past the corner of the street. Girls with their bags hanging limply down by their calves, fast food paper bags held up to some of their mouths. Never his scene, but he's shown up enough for you since you started dating to know what he's looking out for. 

He can see you before you spot him, but when you do, he can't fight the smile at the sight of you brightening up in an instant. Distantly, he hears you call his name, pointing him out to your friends and stumbling towards the car. 

"Hi!" you collapse against the passenger's seat door, window open and waiting for you, as you lean into the car. 

Recognising the offer for what it was, he leans across the console to kiss you before you can start drunkenly accusing him of not loving you. Or whatever you can come up with to start a baseless, completely harmless argument with him. 

"Hi, honey. Good night?" he asks as you finally pull open the door, settling into the seat with a sigh, head nodding as you peel your shoes off of your feet and curl up. 

"I think so," you murmur, hair covering your face as you drop your head, and a yawn stretches your mouth open. "I'll tell you all about it t'morrow."

"Can't wait," he muses. 

"You never answered me," you then say — which is generous, considering he could barely make out a word — looking over at him. "'Bout if you're mad."

"I wasn't mad," he reassures you. "Just worried. Thought we talked about not being out and alone when you're this intoxicated?"

"Yeah. I know. Sorry."

Tomorrow, as it turns out, follows a quiet drive home for you to collect your thoughts, and his helping hands at removing your makeup and getting you into the shower. A year old promise that he will always force you under the water before bed no matter what protests you come up with.

Now, here you are, rambling his ear off animatedly on the edge of the bathroom sink, as he brushes a wet comb through your hair. 

He's listening intently, soaking in every word you were saying about your night out, even if it entirely made no sense to him. Your attempt at stringing together your night's events was poor at best, and he's pretty sure you've re-explained four times that you went into then night with fake names and backstories to try and fool everyone.

"And then we went to... um... I forgot the name. But it was free entry, so we went in, obviously, and this guy bought us drinks because of the birthday sash she was wearing, so that was awesome. That was the vodka coke I sent you, it was so goo—can I have a kiss?"

Your request catches him off guard, and the comb clatters to the basin beside you when his hand drops from your hair. 

"Is that all you want?" he hums, leaning forwards. His lips brush against your own, and you smile.

"Yep. Just a kiss," you chirp, slouching your shoulders so you could look up at him with wide eyes you know all too well he can't deny. "Please?"

You just had to ask so nicely, and he was left with very little choice in the matter in the end. 

He kisses you for only a second, aiming to pull away and successfully get you into bed before you can take this any further. 

Ever so sneaky, though, you catch your fingers into his hair and tug him back into you, legs hooking around his waist to keep him locked. His hips knock the cabinets, but he's distracted by your lips back on his to fully register the hit. 

"Honey," he mumbles against your lips. A warning, you think. It sounds it. 

You don't listen. 

Instead, you inch closer to the edge of the basin until he's forced to roll his hips into yours to push you back, saving you from falling off. 

You whine, and the sound has him coming back to reality, deftly pulling away from your lips. You protest, quietly, and he's forced to tangle a hand in your hair to tug your head back, keeping you away from him.

"No," he says, firmly. If you were sober, maybe you'd back down under the demand. Then again, if you were sober, he wouldn't be saying no to you. Instead, his tone of voice only makes your smile widen, and your skin tingle. 

"It was just a kiss," you protest, slipping off the sink once he steps back, letting him guide you like a lost puppy back into his bedroom. "Spencer?"

"No it wasn't," he says, hand on your back as he navigates you over to his bed. "We've talked about this."

He sits down before you, and despite the scolding, lets you climb over him into the bed anyways, hips straddling his waist as he lays back on the bed. 

"Just a kiss. I promise," you affirm, breath warm against his lips. 

He gives in, as he always does, and lets you kiss him again. 

Hips square above his, chest pressing on his, fingers ruffling the sheets beside his head. You kiss him until you're out of air, and convinced he's drunk enough on your taste to let you go further. 

He isn't. 

"Behave," he quips when your hand drops to his waistband, his fingers catching your wrist and lifting it back up. You're too focussed on the way his hand fits around the joint to argue. 

"I am," you huff, tilting your head with a lopsided grin. "Didn't do anything!"

"Brat," he pinches your hip, and you squirm, bursting into a fit of giggles. "Go to bed."

"Can't. You've got me caged up on top of you," you jut your chin out. "Maybe you're the problem."

"Yep. Sure am," he confirms, letting his arms around you go slack, just to watch you fall off his chest and to the mattress beside him. "Sleep."

"Or what?"

He pushes air out of his nose, but it's all too difficult to stay frustrated with you when you're staring up at him with the hugest smile on your face. You know exactly what you're doing — and he's just letting you.

He thinks he will forever.

He pauses in choosing a response. "Do you want me to be nice when I wake you up tomorrow?"

"Depends," you study him, eyes narrowing; drunken skepticism. "What's your version of nice?"

"You're a smart girl. Figure it out," he kisses your nose, "and go to sleep."

"Are you being suggestive?" you sit up abruptly, and his palms find comfort in his face, running down it. "Spencer."

"I'm not answering that. Go to sleep, honey."

"I can't. Why would you say that? You're such a tease. Oh my God. I hate you," you moan, dramatically falling back down to the bed, head finding the space between his shoulder and his neck. "Do you promise?"

It's like he knows you're giving up, for his voice has dropped into a drawl, exhaustion he'd been expertly masking coming out as he speaks. "Promise what?" 

"To wake me up nicely?"

"If you're good and go to sleep now, yes."

"Pinky promise?" his eyes are now closed, but you still search his face with keen interest. He smiles. He can feel it. 

"Pinky promise," he affirms, and he finally — finally — fully relaxes as he feels you curl into him. "Goodnight, honey."

"G'night, Spence."

[leviathanxprincess]

Introducing Homicipher Characters to Your Plushies - Pt. 1

The Homicipher Characters come to you in hopes for whatever insanity they plan to drag you into, you instead have a different plan! Showing them your plushies!

Based off my series for the whb devils ! Consider this is scenario where you brought them back to your world with you and they understand your language fully now and vice versa !

Notes: Some very light suggestive content. Gender neutral reader ! This round of characters includes: Mr. Crawling, Mr. Scarletella, Mr. Chopped. Mr. Silvair, Mr. Gap, Mr. Hood, & Mr. Machete !

Mr. Crawling

Honestly you could do anything and it would just make him love you more.

But especially in this case!

He will sit and listen intently to every last thing you have to say about your plushies!

And he's memorized all of their names for you!! He knows which ones are your favorites and which ones you find the most comforting when you're upset.

He thinks you're so cute when you talk about them too!

He gives you and your plushies pets as you talk about them!!

Squishes your cheeks, you're the most adorable person to him and he's glad you shared with him such an important part of your life.

Will go out and find even more plushies for you. He would do anything for you after all!

Mr. Scarletella

If I'm being honest you could honestly talk about anything and he would just listen.

It wouldn't matter the topic. You wanna talk about your plushies? Then yeah of course he's gonna listen and eat up every detail.

He loves seeing your smile, and admittedly he does get a bit of cuteness aggression from it so prepare yourself for that lol.

However.... He does get kind of jealous of them too.

What do you mean he's not the only being you've given names to? Not to mention the amount of attention and affection you give to them.

Yes, these aren't living creatures and he knows this but he can't help himself!

He gets irritated about it, if you notice his jealousy right away and stop and give him attention then he'll get over it quick.

If it takes you longer to notice however. Things might end up requiring a much more bigger solution than just a few kisses and cuddles.

Mr. Chopped

They're very cute!! He likes your plushies and how excited and cute you get when you talk about them!!

But... They're not as cute as him, right?

Expect to be showing him an equal amount of attention as you are your plushies as your introducing him to them.

He just gets so grumpy and jealous way too easily.

He very much requires you to gush about him just as much as you gush about these inanimate objects.

And as long as you do so he is pleased and content and can live in harmony with your plushies.

He takes note of the names and while he might not remember every last detail, he does like talking to you about them!!

He knows it's an easy way to make you happy and he very much likes making you happy!!

However you'll never know that sometimes when you're not looking, he's glaring at them.

Mr. Silvair

While I don't think he really cares that much about the plushies, he is interested in humans. And you.

So he'll listen. It gives him a bit of insight to how not human minds work, but specifically yours.

This odd cute stuffed creatures bring you immense joy, he's not sure why, but he knows it does and he would like to know why.

Honestly it doesn't really matter what you do, everything to him provides him with more research.

That being said, it's not like it ends up being solely about his research.

He does end up finding himself being oddly endeared by your behavior and how happy you when talking about your plushies.

He's taking to placing them on your whenever you're upset or need comfort. Especially since he knows it works.

He can soft and sweet sometimes. At least when it comes to his favorite human, of course.

Mr. Gap

The idea came to you when you saw him peeking out of a dark gap that was in your plushie pile!

He came to ask one of his typical questions, but you didn't let him get a word in!

You immediately just picked up one of your plushies and started talking about them!

He doesn't really quite find anything interesting about the plushies, but he is interested in you so!

He will listen to what you have to say. And he does know some of your plushies by name after you tell him about them.

Will occasionally show up with plushies he's found that he thinks you will like.

Of course you need to give him your heart to have them though!

You won't?

Well... he guesses he can settle for a kiss or something instead....

Mr. Hood

He doesn't quite fully understand your deep attachment to these objects, but he'll support your love for them fully.

We already know he's a good teacher, but he's also one of the best listeners as well.

He will sit for however long it takes for you to share with him all of your plushies and their names and even lore if you have that for them as well.

He does find it rather endearing, even if he's not quite sure why he enjoys you talking about something for so long.

Will pat your head occasionally, if only he had a head that you could see because if he did he would have the softest smile on it as he watches you talk.

Truly experiencing you share this with him just puts an even deeper desire in him to protect you from any and all harm.

He will make sure and be guaranteed to protect that bright, beaming smile on your face that you have in this moment. At any cost.

Mr. Machete

He does not give a shit.

Or at least that's what he says.

And well, to be fair, he is annoyed by your focus on these cute nonthreatening soft things instead of just sparing with him or something.

Don't ask him if he's jealous of your plushies, he'll deny it to ends of the earth.

Ignore that he's been acting grumpy since.

Just give him a little extra attention and he'll be fine.

Also seems like the kind to get cuteness aggression. But his cuteness aggression just leads to him wanting to fight you. And bite you. Maybe some scratching too. Basically he's not gonna be nice about it and just give you squeezing hugs or something lol

[satori-runa]

—Past the barrier

Summary: You try to communicate with your new friend but end up with more than expected.

Tags: Fluff, Mr Crawling is just a big puppy

Words: 0,6k

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

It had been a while since Mr. Crawling joined you in your search for the elusive exit. The strange, puppy-like ghost had been a mysterious yet oddly comforting presence at your side. Over time, your casual companionship turned into something deeper, though you couldn’t quite pinpoint when you first realized you had feelings for him.

Your interactions with Mr. Crawling were always endearing. He would sometimes try to teach you words in his own funny way, and in turn, you would teach him about the little things he seemed curious about: The words you use, the touches you like, or how to fold paper into a crane. His face would light up, head tilting like a confused puppy as he observed you with eager interest. You hadn’t expected it, but you began to notice that he would often mimic your actions, his tall form reflecting your movements with an innocence that made you smile.

The language barrier between you two was daunting, so you started using hand signs to communicate. You were determined to get your message across as clearly as possible, fingers moving slowly and carefully. The first time you tried it, however, Mr. Crawling simply watched you with a wide smile before attempting to copy your signs. His ghostly fingers moved in a clumsy imitation, and you both ended up staring at each other in confusion.

A small giggle escaped your lips, and Mr. Crawling’s face softened as if he understood your amusement. He tilted his head, then mimicked the sound of your laugh with a faint, high-pitched chuckle of his own. It was a simple moment, but you realized then just how fond you had become of him.

One day, while taking a brief rest in a quiet corner, you decided to teach him a new hand sign. You carefully held up your hand, forming a simple gesture for "together." It felt like a fitting sign to share with him, a small way to show your gratitude for his company. But instead of copying your motion like he usually did, Mr. Crawling paused, his smile growing.

Slowly, he reached out, his rough fingers brushing against yours. He didn’t mimic the sign this time. Instead, his cold fingers intertwined with yours, clasping your hand in a way that was unmistakably tender. The unexpected gesture made your breath hitch. His grip was delicate, almost hesitant, as if he was worried you might pull away.

You glanced up at his face, expecting to find confusion there, but instead, you saw something far softer. His expression had lost its usual puppy-like curiosity: there was a sincerity in his expression now, a look that felt both innocent and full of yearning. He tilted his head, almost as if asking if this was okay, if you felt the same unspoken connection he did. “You okay? You like hand?”

Your heart fluttered, warmth spreading through you despite the cold touch of his hand. You squeezed his fingers gently, offering a small nod and a smile. At that moment, no words or hand signs were needed. He seemed to understand, a soft, relieved noise escaping his lips as he relaxed against you, holding your hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

You leaned closer, your shoulders brushing, and he mimicked the action with a excited, bubbly hum. The two of you stayed like that for a long while, fingers intertwined, sharing a quiet moment in a place that seemed devoid of any other warmth but the one growing between you.

Before you knew it, he spoke up again. His words were easy to understand this time.

“I like you.”

[deatheaterv]

ENDEARING

pairing : james potter x fem!reader

genre : fluff

summary : james potter teases you ALOT

it started small. james potter, hogwarts’ golden boy, had taken a liking to you, and the entire school seemed to know it. at first, it was easy to ignore—the odd smirk across the great hall, a wave during transfiguration, and the occasional “you’re looking radiant today, y/n!” whenever he passed you in the corridors.

but then he ramped it up.

one morning, you were walking to charms when you heard it.

“oi, y/n! i’ve decided i’m gonna marry you!”

you froze mid-step, the bustling corridor falling silent as every single person turned to look at you. your eyes widened in horror, and you whipped around to see james standing at the other end, his hands cupped around his mouth as he grinned like a lunatic.

“what do you say? sound like a good plan?” he called out, his voice echoing down the corridor.

“i say you’re insufferable, potter!” you shouted back, your face burning.

he clutched his chest dramatically, pretending to stagger backward. “ah, rejection. but don’t worry, love, i’ll win you over eventually!”

you stormed off, ignoring the muffled laughter and whispers from the other students.

it didn’t stop there.

a week later, you were in herbology, carefully trimming a particularly aggressive fanged geranium when james sauntered up to your station.

“looking good, y/n,” he said, leaning against the table with a cocky grin. “but you’d look even better if you let me take you out.”

you didn’t even look up. “potter, if you don’t leave me alone, i’ll feed you to this plant.”

“you’re feisty. i like that,” he teased, wagging his eyebrows.

“and you’re annoying,” you shot back, finally meeting his gaze.

he clutched his heart as if you’d stabbed him. “you wound me again, darling. one of these days, you’ll see how charming i am.”

“don’t hold your breath,” you muttered, focusing back on the plant.

the next day, he upped the ante.

you were sitting in the library, enjoying a rare moment of peace, when james appeared, plopping down in the seat across from you.

“potter,” you groaned, not even looking up.

“just thought i’d keep you company,” he said, resting his chin on his hand as he stared at you.

“don’t you have quidditch practice or something?”

“i canceled it. you’re more important.”

you rolled your eyes. “please stay away.”

“sure, but a kiss first?”

“you’re unbelievably irritating,” you finally looking up to glare him.

he just laughed, completely unfazed. “come on, y/n, admit it. you’d regret it if you don’t want to.”

“not likely,” you muttered, though the faint smile tugging at your lips betrayed you.

the teasing didn’t stop, but over time, you found yourself less annoyed by it. there was something about james’ relentless determination that was almost endearing.

one afternoon, you were sitting by the lake, enjoying the quiet, when james appeared out of nowhere, flopping down beside you.

“don’t you ever get tired of bothering me?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“never,” he said, grinning. “so, what do you say? want to grab dinner with me tonight?”

“is this your way of asking me out?” you asked, giving him a skeptical look.

“obviously. i’m very subtle,” he said, smirking.

you couldn’t help but laugh. “you’re ridiculous, potter.”

“ridiculously in love with you,” he shot back, his grin widening.

you rolled your eyes, but your cheeks warmed at his words.

then there was the moment that truly caught you off guard.

it was a late afternoon in the courtyard, and you were sitting with lily evans, enjoying the crisp autumn air. james, as usual, appeared out of nowhere, his hair even messier than usual.

“y/n,” he said loudly, dropping to one knee in front of you.

“what are you doing?” you asked, your eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“making a declaration,” he said, pulling a small flower out of his pocket. it was slightly squished, but the gesture was oddly sweet.

“oh, merlin,” lily muttered.

“y/n, will you do me the honor of..”

“potter, i swear to god—“

“-letting me carry your books for the rest of the week?” he finished, grinning as he held out the flower.

you couldn’t help it, you laughed. james potter, for all his arrogance and teasing, was nothing if not persistent.

“fine,” you said, taking the flower. “but just for this week.”

“that’s all i need,” he said, standing up and flashing you a triumphant grin.

as much as you hated to admit it, james potter was growing on you. and maybe, just maybe, you didn’t mind being the center of his attention.

[tinyfandomknight]

Show of Teeth | Snotlout Jorgensen

Pairing: Snotlout Jorgenson x Reader Summary: You're Snotlout's girl. No one, absolutely no one, messes with you. Themes & Warnings: slight violence i guess, protective!snotlout 🥰, fluff towards the beginning and end, bullying/harassment

He wasn't even sure how he'd managed to get you to be with him of all people.

He was a true viking, yes, which was great. But.. He was everything you weren't. You were gentle, humble, and quiet. You were beautiful in every way -- your face, your body, your soul. Snotlout knew that he was none of those things. He was aggressive, brash, arrogant and over-confident. He was rough around the edges, had dirty hair and sooty skin more times than not, and had a nasty temper.

How did you fall for him? How did you manage to love him for over a couple of days, let alone a year?

Snotlout was so shocked and so afraid to lose the opportunity that he began thanking Thor every morning, as soon as he got out of bed.

Little did he know, though, that you were more than happy with him. There was no one else in the world for you, you were certain of it. You loved that he was confident. You took your time to give your attention to every crack and flaw that Snotlout had, showing him your support and letting him know that someone was proud of him. You even loved his temper.. Oddly, you found it kind of hot when it flared, especially when it came to defending you.

Snotlout would defend you with his life. There was never a day that he hadn't been the first to dive into a situation where you needed to be protected, whether it was physically, emotionally, or both.

He may have been a bit overprotective, but you even loved that. You found it endearing how Snotlout and Hookfang, his dragon (who was literally only sweet and gentle with you), escorted you on all of your long walks, no matter where to, or slept in your hut when you had one of your pesky night terrors.

There was a rhythm to life with Snotlout -- chaotic, loud, sometimes exhausting -- but it had become your favorite kind of normal.

He liked to pretend he wasn’t soft for you, especially in front of the others, but it didn’t take much to pull back the curtain.

When you were cold, he’d toss his fur cloak over your shoulders and grumble something about “you being too weak to survive a Berk winter,” but the way he’d adjust it to make sure it covered your ears betrayed him. When you were tired, he’d scowl and bark at anyone who tried to talk to you, folding his arms and daring anyone to challenge his right to carry you home -- which he often did, whether you asked or not.

And then there was Hookfang, who somehow matched his rider in both energy and attitude -- except when it came to you.

You were the only person Hookfang willingly let ride with Snotlout, the only one he’d lean his massive, fire-warmed head against in greeting, rumbling low and satisfied. He’d nudge you gently with his snout if you seemed upset, and more than once, Snotlout had returned from training to find the dragon curled protectively around your hut, shielding it from the wind like a living wall.

Snotlout teased you about it, of course.

“Great. Now he likes you more than me,” he’d huff, crossing his arms dramatically as Hookfang rested his chin on your lap like a giant cat. “Don’t forget who feeds you, bud.”

Hookfang didn’t even look at him.

You’d just laugh, running your fingers along the dragon’s warm scales. “He has good taste.”

Snotlout would scoff, but his smirk always gave him away.

He claimed to be annoyed by the way Hookfang doted on you, but you caught him smiling every single time the dragon nuzzled your side or let out a huff of smoke when you giggled. Once, he even said -- in a very offhand, totally-not-emotional way -- that if anything ever happened to him, he knew you’d still be safe because Hookfang would burn the entire island to the ground for you.

And you didn’t doubt it.

When you had a rough day, both of them showed up at your door -- Snotlout with food he probably stole from the hall, and Hookfang settling just outside your window, warming your home like a dragon-shaped hearth. On those nights, Snotlout never pushed. He’d just sit with you, arm around your shoulders, letting you lean into his warmth while Hookfang’s slow breaths rumbled in the background.

You never had to ask for comfort. It just showed up, messy and loud and loyal.

And when you smiled at Snotlout -- really smiled -- you could always tell he didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d blink, flustered, and try to make some joke about how “devastatingly attractive” he was, but he always ended up staring a little too long, looking like he couldn’t believe his luck.

Maybe he couldn’t.

But you never let him forget he deserved it.

It started on one of those days where the air was cold and sharp, and the clouds hung low enough to bite.

You had gone to the forge to pick up some supplies for Gobber, who'd thrown his back out trying to lift a saddle hook with his bad arm again. Snotlout had offered to come with you -- loudly, and repeatedly -- but you’d waved him off, teasing that you could handle a walk to the forge without being escorted like royalty.

He didn’t love it, but he let you go. Hookfang watched you leave with a grumble, wings twitching. Maybe you should’ve listened to both of them.

Because that’s where it happened.

It started off with a voice that made your eye twitch.

“Y’know, I been thinkin’,” he said, leaning lazily against a post near the docks, gnawing on something that looked questionably like jerky. “You’re way too pretty to be with that guy.”

You turned your head, blinking. “Excuse me?”

He smiled -- or at least, showed his teeth in something that tried to be a smile. “Snotlout. That’s who you’re with, right? Big muscles, loud voice, thinks he’s Thor’s gift to the village?”

You knew who you were speaking to. Sven, one of the small breed dragon stablehands. He was annoying, the smell of him could clear a room, and he was way overconfident. Not like Snotlout, who could back himself up, but in a pathetic way.

Your expression flattened. “Yes. That’s him.”

“Yeah, see, that’s wild to me,” he said, like he wasn’t actively digging a hole for himself. “Like, no offense, but you? You’re all soft and smart and… not him. I mean, come on. You could do better. Like, way better. Like, me better.”

You blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, clearly thinking he was being charming. “Snotlout’s probably fun for a bit. Y’know, until the yelling and chest-thumping gets old. But guys like him? They burn out. He’s not a long-term investment. But me? I’m the kind of man you settle down with.”

You stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “Do you hear yourself when you talk?”

“Sure do. That’s how I know I’m making sense.” He looked at you like he expected you to laugh. “Come on, sweetheart. You don’t really want a guy who spends more time flexing than thinking. You want someone who appreciates you. Someone mature. Someone with two brain cells to rub together.”

“Right. And that’s supposed to be you?”

He pointed both thumbs at his chest. “Bingo.”

You gave a long, slow blink. “Wow.”

“I mean, it’s not too late,” he added, leaning in slightly. “People make bad choices all the time. You’re young. You’ve got time to course correct. Ditch the viking bobblehead and I’ll show you what real affection looks like.”

You took a step back. “I’m not interested.”

“Oh, come on,” he whined, suddenly irritated. “You don’t even know what you’re missing. I’d treat you like a queen. Not like a trophy he can strut around with.”

“I said I’m not interested.”

That should’ve been the end of it. But he grabbed your arm.

“Don’t be like that--”

“Let. Go.”

“You think that guy’s gonna be around forever? You think he can protect you from everything?”

“Last warning.”

And then, there it was, the boots slamming onto the dock like thunder, that familiar growl that rumbled through your spine before the voice you loved broke through the tension like a war horn:

“Get your filthy hands off her.”

The man jumped, but didn’t let go fast enough.

Snotlout stormed up, shoving him back so hard he stumbled and landed square on his butt.

“You deaf and dumb?” Snotlout spat, standing over him.

"I-I--"

You could practically see Snotlout’s fury crackling off of him like fire.

“She said no,” he spat, voice low, dark, dangerous. “She tried to walk away. You think you’re better than me?” He laughed, humorless. “Try surviving me first.”

Hookfang growled again, smoke curling from his nostrils as he moved to flank Snotlout’s side -- tall, burning hot, and clearly seconds away from unleashing a very non-lethal but definitely scarring shot of flame.

The guy backed off fast, hands up, eyes darting between the livid Viking and the increasingly irritated dragon.

“I was just joking,” he stammered.

Snotlout stepped forward. “You touch her again, look at her wrong, breathe in her direction, and I’ll make sure your food has to be mashed for the rest of your life.” He smiled -- all teeth. “Then I’ll let Hookfang explain it in a way you’ll never forget.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Just turned, stalked to your side, and gently tugged you behind him with a hand on your waist. When he looked at you, his expression softened instantly.

His eyes scanned you -- not just your face, but your arms, your hands -- searching for bruises or any sign that the guy had hurt you. “Did he grab you hard? Where’d he touch you?”

You held up your wrist where the guy had gripped you, red but not bruised. “Just here. I’m fine, really.”

Snotlout didn’t answer. He just took your wrist carefully in his hands and lifted it to his lips, kissing the skin with a surprising gentleness for someone who’d just threatened to reduce a man to a puddle of ash.

He leaned in, touching his forehead to yours for a second. “He’s lucky I didn’t break his nose.”

Hookfang snorted in agreement.

Snotlout pulled you closer, his tone grumbling now. “Told you I should’ve come with you. You’re too nice. You give people the benefit of the doubt. Me? I give ‘em free dental work.”

You rolled your eyes, smiling softly at him. "I know, babe. I figured that after they saw the Tuffnut incident, the men in this village would learn."

Snotlout huffed, pulling you flush against his chest. “Yeah, well, clearly that guy missed the show. Maybe I should host a rerun. With better lighting. Bigger audience.”

You snorted. “You just want to punch someone again.”

“I want people to remember what happens when they mess with you,” he grumbled into your hair. “You’re my girl. Any good viking defends his own.”

Hookfang let out a low rumble behind him, smoke curling lazily from his nostrils. Snotlout glanced back and gave his dragon a smug nod. “See? Even Hookfang agrees. You’re our girl.”

You tilted your head, amused. “Our girl, huh?”

Snotlout blinked. “I mean, I don’t share you with him exactly, but like… emotionally, he’s got a stake. You do pet him more than you pet me.”

You laughed, pressing your forehead into his chest. “He doesn’t whine about cuddle time.”

Snotlout gasped. “Rude.”

“I’m just saying,” you teased. “You could take notes.”

Snotlout narrowed his eyes playfully, then leaned in to nip lightly at your jaw, pulling a surprised yelp from you. “Fine. New rule. No more walking around alone. No more letting creeps catch you without backup. You’re gonna wear my arm like jewelry everywhere you go.”

“Oh yeah?” you asked, lips twitching. “And what about when I’m bathing? Or training with Astrid?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “I’m waterproof and very durable.”

You were still giggling when he kissed you -- a firm, claiming press of lips that made it clear you belonged to him. But when he pulled back, his hand stayed against your cheek, thumb brushing your skin in that tender way only you ever got to see.

And behind you both, Hookfang made a low purring sound -- yes, purring -- before flopping dramatically to the ground with a thud that shook the dirt.

Snotlout glanced over, grinning. “Told you. Totally whipped.”

You blinked. “Were you talking about you or the dragon?”

“...Yes.”

Then, from behind a nearby fish cart, a familiar voice cut through the moment like a knife:

“Wow,” Tuffnut deadpanned, peeking over the crates. “That was terrifying and romantic. Ten out of ten. Solid performance. You guys gonna smooch it up big time now, or should I give you privacy?”

Snotlout rolled his eyes. “Privacy would be great, thanks.”

“No promises!” Tuffnut called, already walking off. “Just remember, when your kids ask where babies come from, this was the moment it started.”

You buried your face in Snotlout’s shoulder, groaning. “Why is he like this?”

Snotlout snorted, arms still snug around you. “Ignore him. You’re mine. He’s just jealous.”

He tilted your chin up and kissed you again -- slow, certain, full of everything he couldn’t say out loud without shouting it to the whole island.

And yeah, you were his. But more importantly?

He was yours. And he definitely wasn't afraid to show some teeth in your honor.

[juniferyw]

𝐌𝐲 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞.

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬: nothing was ever meant to be yours, so why does this strange man insist he is?

masterlist | ao3 | mdni | take heed: könig x f!reader, afab reader, medieval au, ambiguous religion, size difference, extremely dubious consent, possessive behaviour, forced marriage, horrible courting, power imbalance, angst, stockholm syndrome, dark romance, stalking.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢. | prev

Twelve newly anointed knights calls for a festivity of revelry in the peak of harvest season. The royalty highly favours this traditional induction. It was a chance for the new men to show off their swordsmanship and honour towards the public, all the while displaying the great, militant strength of his majesty. 

The common folks are relieved to have strong men to protect them, and the crown is satisfied with the agenda of the social stratum. 

You’ve stolen simple glances at the new cavalry as they’re gathered along the courtyard. One in particular, Ser Eaton, you have taken a shine to. A nobleman, guided by great swordmasters before him, has been raised proper and pure to the life of men at arms. 

It didn’t help that he had a boyish curl in his smile that reached his eyes, faint dimples appear everytime they do too. His light brown eyes twinkle at a challenge and his hair—the colour of golden barley—fitting him right just for the season. It is as if mother nature had accommodated solely for his arrival. 

The ladies-in-waiting share snide comments and snicker upon eavesdropping the mindless daydreams of maids winning the favour of men at their calibre. However, you kept yourself grounded. You did not let your affection stray into something you could not have. They were what they always were to you, just fantasies. 

But you are also well into the age where you were expected to marry. These days, love fills your endless thoughts; hope fuels your days and nights. You remember turning your nose up at the very subject as a child. Now as countless summers pass, your heart has now softened and grown weary from age. No longer having the strength to see through life on your own, you begin to think that there are no worldly materials that could fill the longingness that you yearn for other than what must be love.

Therefore, you will yourself that by the end of summer you are determined to be matched. 

When the sun hovers just above the horizon after every shift, you make your way to the great altar, praying in earnest on sore knees and raw hands with three repeated mantra:

Let him be good.

Let him be kind.

Let him be loyal.

This faceless man of yours possesses no riches beyond belief, no title to bequeath, and no land to his name. He is made pure of your image. He is love and service reincarnate; he exists only for you and you to him. 

The mountain of candles flicker in the darkness as you silently profess your truest desires in front of holy presence. Wax rolls slowly from the flame as dusk passes by. Indistinguishable figures enter and leave during your hour here, none ever lingers for too long, so it was a surprise when you finally took notice of a much larger company taking residence across from you. 

You flutter your eyelids open, adjusting to the dimness of the room. As you do, you almost expect him to dissipate with the bleariness from your eyes—but alas, he remains.

König.

It was an oddly endearing thought. The knight who is made a spectacle before the public, to be known as a cruel god amongst the average men, on his knees praying. 

You wonder if he believes in the same god as you do—or if this is what he was forced to assimilate to. You wonder what he desires, what burdens he’d like alleviated. Then somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if he was ever praying at all.

His eyes hold a sea of storm beneath them, never breaking your gaze once you had set your sights upon him. Instinctually, as if you were conditioned, you place a soft smile on your features as a silent acknowledgement before placing your hands to the cold, stone platform to stand.

König mirrors your move as you rise from the altar. His steps were like a shadow to yours, exiting the chapel in the same stride and pace. Your cold hands brace the heavy, timber doors, ready to exert some effort this entrance always requires. However, your attempt was intercepted. Instead, a single large hand had extended from behind, grazing the back of your hand so softly you wanted to pull away from the innocuous intimacy. 

The warmth from the candles sets a jarring contrast to the cool autumn breeze, prickling uncomfortably at your skin as you breathe in the fresh air. At least that’s what you tell yourself as König still lingers close from behind, making no move to surpass you. 

Turning with a courteous demeanour prepared, you bow your head in respect as you offer your meek appreciation. 

“Thank you, Ser König.” You say, too afraid to meet his face up this close for fear of encroaching social boundaries. Even so, he has breached your senses instead, involuntarily filling you with smells of smoke and iron. 

You do not allow for him a chance to speak as you say your regards for the night before turning away promptly, following the direction to your home. 

Perhaps that was the most you had ever interacted with the mysterious knight. You think about him for a while as you sort your sleeping quarters for the evening. Your hands suddenly went still from your woollen quilt as your mind takes you to the earlier recurrence. 

How people have misjudged this poor man. If they have just a slight empathy within their hearts, they would see he was no threat. Rather his action today resembled that highly of a gentleman. 

How funny, you think. A breath of a laugh escapes you at the thought of sharing news that the local monster had more couth than most of the village men could ever possess. 

There never was enough time in the day. Usually after your shift had ceased, maids of all work would gather in groups and head to the stream to scrub all the dust and grime off their skin. It was much safer in numbers as well, for fear of any indecent men taking advantage and preying on vulnerable women.

Fortunately there hasn’t been a case of any voyeurs. The path down the stream was kept well hidden and guarded by others, taking turns and rotating on which group was to wash up first and who were to keep watch. It was enough to deter any unfortunate predicaments from occurring.

However, your newly added time dedicated to your prayers took up most of your respite with the sun, and so you often missed the chance to string along to bathe with the others. 

It was perhaps the comfort of habit that you dare to venture out into the stream all alone. You speculate most of the people had already arrived and settled well into their homes at this hour. Reasonably, there should not be one soul wandering this area by chance. To further add to your precaution, you also choose a stream further down where river rocks and boulders amassed. It made for a suitable cover should anything happen, but it also wasn’t the most comfortable to wade around in. 

You lay your day’s clothes out in the highest part of the rock where sunlight could reach and unfastened the pins from your hair. Leaving your possessions easily behind, you eagerly step into the body of water. The water was cold upon the first touch but grew tepid as you ease your way in further down. 

Sighing in relief, you dip your head below the waters before resurfacing with a soft gasp. Your hands automatically begin to work at your arms with a cloth that was dampened with sweet smelling oils you concocted yourself. Scrubbing your skin to your fingertips meticulously, the smell of wild lavenders now follows you around sweetly. 

You lather your hair with the same product. Letting your fingers run past your strands, you made sure to rid of all the built up grease that accumulated from the day’s work. There was still around half an hour to spare before the sun had completely set. Looking up at the sky to see the third quarter moon hanging high, you decide to soak yourself a little while longer to admire the tranquility of having the river belonging to you just for a short while.

Basking in the fresh air and the lulling sound of the babbling brooks, you begin to notice something was amiss when you identify another sound—the sound of soft labored breaths that did not belong to you. Your body freezes all at once; your heart missing a beat.

This is not real. This cannot be real—Please don’t let it be real.

With a flicker of bravery, you cautiously turn your head to look from behind your shoulder—and to your horror, you confirm your worst fear.

König stands formidably, naked in all his glory—apart from his grim hood that religiously cloaks his face. His hips above the waters, hands furiously gripping at the girth of his cock, stroking it back and forth offhandedly.

He doesn’t stop when he’s caught, instead his breath hitches when your eyes lay on his thick cock and fists himself harder. The desperate jerking motion forces a pearlescent seed to drip from his slit and into the running stream.

You’ve never seen anything of this nature before. Always prudishly looking away even when the men worked in the fields clad with only their slacks and their caps to shield them from the sun’s rays. Though you had an idea of what they appeared to be, it was only ever described through hearsay from the girls who enjoyed recounting their latest rendezvous.

So when you gaze upon the sex that could supposedly anchor heavens down to earth, you are sick to your core. 

It was abominably everything like him. 

Big. Ugly. Disgusting. Monstrous. 

There is a film of lust over his eyes, uncaring just how unseemingly he looks. The thick coarse hair at the base did very little to cover what strains under his vigorous grip. His balls swing obscenely at the thrust of his motions as his manhood curves—pulsing furiously as pleasure buzzes through his veins, menacingly growing bigger at each passing second. 

The deep, scarlet tip of his swollen mushroom-like head sprays pre-cum in your direction and it takes everything in you to breathe and grasp your conscience back to your control. 

Dashing beneath the surface, you scramble through the maze of boulders and snatch the clothes you had left behind to haphazardly dress yourself quickly from his sight. You hear him bellow as you leave; staggering sounds of waters being pushed through his heavy, powerful strides alarm you as if he is hailing hell bound for your soul. 

Cotton sticks to you like a second skin as you weave through the woods, desperately leaving behind an angry praetor calling out your name, beseeching you to stay. You cannot hear him—you would not hear him. Squeezing through the tightest crevices from a particularly narrow path you have chosen, you run as if you were escaping your own shadow. 

By the time you reach the safety of your own home, you do not dare to look back until you have shut and locked the door behind you. Your lungs were burning fire by the time you catch your breath, your body trembles from the cold and the adrenaline all the while sweat trickles down your face. You do not even spare the time to change into something dry, instead you reinforce your door with the heaviest desk you could find and anxiously wait by the windowsill, anticipating for the worst.

You imagine seeing him over the horizon; hear the terrible ringing of his chain links, and when he finally arrives at the threshold of your home, you imagine König tearing down your walls pursuing you like a man possessed—a vindictive spirit who won’t rest until he has your head. 

You wait and wait until the moon is at its peak, until your hair is dry—until you can not tell the difference between the shadow of a tree and the silhouette of a man. 

In the late hours of the night, you fall asleep on your kitchen tiles; in the depths of your psyche, you dream of him.

A shadow pursues you relentlessly from behind. In your dreams, you did not gaze upon the creature’s form but you knew just exactly what face this monster wears. He has steel nails for teeth, his open jaw fixed with a permanent smile, his eyes burn hellfire white while he howls his awful laugh. 

You feel taunting sliver of touches at your heel. It is as if the monster knows you cannot outrun him, that he’s just biding his time until he finally swallows you whole—like a predator playing with his food. 

You will your legs to run faster but they are sluggish at your behest. Your heart rate picks up from your arduous labour as you hear the laughter beginning to grow to a deafening screech. The familiar ringing of the chain links was the last thing you hear before a sudden force jolts you awake.

Once you are brought back to the land of the living, your heart continues to pound against your chest. Twisting to sit up from your sleeping position, your back strains painfully from the cold, hard floor. 

Looking up to the sky from your window, you catch the dawn beginning to break. 

Even the most terrible nightmare could not even cease your circadian rhythm. Even worse that it could not even make you shirk your own duties.

The events replayed through your mind incessantly as you prepare yourself some new set of cloths with the current one smelling nauseatingly of mildew. The looming purple sky beginning to turn ochre yellow heralding a new day did little to calm your mental plague. 

You find yourself bending over the toilet from your worries. With no food sitting in your stomach to spill out, your body unnaturally rejects bile. The powerful contractions quakes your entire being. The bitter taste lingers even after you rinse your mouth with water and mint. Your mind becomes light, however your feet feel as if they’ve been dragging the world with them.

Fear consumes you.

You cannot go on like this. You refuse to set your sights on him after what you had seen, but you cannot afford such luxuries to abandon your post. And so you acquiesce like an ever faithful servant, only this time you decide to sequence your own schedule out of order. 

Instead of entering through the gatehouse as you would countless times before, you inconspicuously slip through the back of the kitchens, hiking through an old hidden path that’s been reconquered by nature. In spite of the difficult trek, it was thankfully to your advantage, concealing you from any sentinel that may have been stationed on the bridges or towers anticipating for your arrival. 

Ordering your tasks in reverse was easy. You work in the shadows; cleaning the mud, dirt, blood whatever the men could get themselves in from their capes. As the others heave the baskets onto their hips, you do not make any intention to join them out in the fields. Rather, you busy yourself by attending to another who called out for anyone who had the capacity to help her with husking ten baskets of maize. 

Time passes you by easily like a stranger in a crowd. You even find yourself letting your guard down and enjoying the mundane routine of the day. Wiping the dishes dry in communion with the other maids of your stature, you exchange with small talk to relieve the weight that you carry over your shoulders. 

It wasn’t until you felt a firm hand turning you around to replace your damp rags with a silver ewer of water and clean cloths did the familiar pit of mass resume to drag you down to the underworld. 

“The physician needs assistance while his apprentice is away.” In lieu of a request or a demand, the head of the Housekeeper informs you, expecting your recognised, dutiful obedience. Rather than seeing you off to adhere to her words, she observes a momentary frozen mien. Neither speaking nor moving to your newly assigned task.

“I recall you being of help in his ward, yes?” Her tone is short, eager to get on with the endless work she has ahead. 

You balance the heavy pitcher carefully with both hands; your teeth gnawing on your bottom lip in apprehension. “Yes, ma’am.” Your voice was meek but polite—though your reply did not appease her in the slightest.

“Well?” 

There are no words you can construct in haste to explain why you would rather die than to come across that vulgar man again. 

“You waste a second more of my time and I will write you up for insubordination, is that what you wish?” Her voice is now audible above the surrounding noise.

“No, ma’am.” Her punitive measures against your idleness is enough for you to venture away from the safety of the basement walls. 

Her warning is like coals beneath your feet, and as you move along the halls and away from the formidable woman, the fire wavers into something weak and cold. With each step you take is like a step towards an impending doom, marching slowly towards your own demise. 

You know the schedule of each station like the back of your hand. You know that if you take your post by the physician’s side, you are to be confronted by the man who undoubtedly will look at you as if he is ready to tear the flesh from your bones—for the apothecary pavilion was set up conveniently by the training grounds. 

They would always keep a physician stationed at every session, the appointment being arranged partly due to damages exacerbated by the infamous knight who doesn’t know—nor care—for the sheer strength he unleashes against his comrades. 

Piercing sounds of steel against steel bears the tiding that you have reached your journey’s end. Men at arms here exercise their instincts against nature to slay and bludgeon another. Though they employ their moves with restraint, the sight of blood smeared across their teeth and cuts from their blades was a usual sight. 

You cast your eyes down towards the solid ground of dirt, making yourself small and scarce by endeavouring no sounds from your timid steps, all the while holding your breath as you reach the familiar ivory colour of the tent—as if depriving yourself of oxygen would make you invisible. 

It could just be part of your own making but you feel eyes on you like sunlight on your skin. You choose to ignore it. Like you ignore the ghost haunting your hallway, creaking your floorboards in the dead of night. So you eye your feet, the way it scuffs the sand beneath you. You then busy yourself with the ivy that grows mighty on the stone walls instead of the glorious savagery in front of you; pretending to study its branches and twines as if it was the most fascinating foliage you’ve ever seen. 

Finally, you reach the threshold of the medical bay, skipping your last steps with haste as you open the tarp. 

König sits at the bed, his shirt strewn across the floor. He leans back with his hands spread behind him. Across his shoulder bleeds maroon from a slight superficial cut. A light cock of his head to the side and the strongest intuition that he is hiding a saccharine smile tells you that he doesn’t need any form of medical attention.

Turning your head behind your shoulder, you quickly learn that the physician is occupied with attending to a concussed knight on the other side of the yard.

“Mein entlaufenes, Frau."

He sighs endearingly, as if he was awaiting his woman in the privacy of his bedroom. 

“Don’t you see your fighter is hurting?” He says when you remain unmoved. “Come; take care of your bleeding Romeo.”

You avert your eyes and begrudgingly do as you are paid to. Making yourself useful, you readjust your grip on the heavy pitcher, careful as to not slosh the water around too much around the rim. You conclude the sooner you finish your work, the sooner you would be rid of his presence once more. 

You avoid facing directly from him—despite it providing you the easiest access to dress his wound; the way his wide thighs lecherously invites you in deter you from encouraging him. Instead you set down your burdens on a small desk nearby and begin to skilfully coat a clean white rag with alcohol from the side. 

If he is displeased by your aversion, he would most definitely be pulling a face from behind his hood. 

You oscillate your line of sight from his cold, cyan-like eyes to the cut; nervously approaching the wound slowly as if he was an animal ready to strike at any moment. 

“This might sting,” you whisper, so lightly you could mistake it for a wind blowing in the breeze. 

He doesn’t flinch when the alcohol meets the break of his skin. König watches attentively like a dog, eyeing your delicate fingers, cleaning and patching up his lesion with the utmost care. An act he deems akin to devotion. 

In the midst of dressing his wound with a gentle adhesive, his indecent hand travels to your working one, gripping with purpose. 

“Gute Arbeit, Schatzi," he praises. “But you are not finished yet.”

König leans closer towards you. His hood brushes your hot cheeks as you stare dead ahead—paralysed with fear. 

“I am hurting..” His hand guides you down his chest. “Elsewhere.” 

You pull your hand before he could direct it to his crotch but he keeps the grip around your wrist, preventing your untimely departure. You forget your station and resist him when he pulls you closer by the waist, making you stumble across your own feet and into the arms of a perverted, war-mongering mercenary. With a struggling yelp, your futile efforts to push him away only encouraged him to lock his hold on you even more.

“It’s so painful, Schatzi,” he rasps desperately against your ear. 

König groans when you inadvertently brush against his swelling cock in the middle of your attempt to escape. 

“You feel that?.. My mighty sword?” There is a smile in his question as he suspends you against him fiercely. “You saw it too—ahh.. Had you hiding in your burrow didn't it, mein kleines Häschen?”

“Ja, I know–hah–it’s massive. Don’t be scared, I mean to prepare you for our first time.” His breathing grows haggard; you feel the wild beating of his heart against your terrified ones. 

“S-Ser König! This is–is highly inappropriate,” you beseech, but it falls on deaf ears. He already has a hold of your laces from behind and means to tear it apart. 

You have to do something—

Cry out for help!

Incapacitate him—anything!

SLAP!! 

As if merely possessed for a single moment, you gasp at the inconceivable notion that you had just struck the crown’s most favourable knight. The world has grown quiet and time seems to slow. Your hand, one not currently restrained by him, is raised high and throbbed at the sting of skin meeting his through thin fabric. 

You have not yet considered the weight of your actions. For the only thing you know is how loud the sound of your heart beating inside your chest and how tight the air around you is to even breathe. 

König stares at you with indecipherable eyes. Yours widen; mouth slightly agape at the ready to spill a litany of apologies. 

However, the sound of the tarp fluttering was enough to break the spell that enchants you both. 

Scurrying from his hold and to your feet was surprisingly easy, given how hard it was for you to pull him away with all the strength you could muster just a minute before.

A new figure steps into the closed canopy, but you don’t dare bare your face freely to meet their scathing gaze. Instead, you hurriedly take the pitcher you came in with and take your leave promptly. 

König must have let you, for you did not hear any protest coming from his end.

Taking forceful steps away from the tent, the tears that you fight to hold back suddenly come breaching at your waterline and down your cheeks. Angrily swiping them with the back of your hand, you twist your face and tightly purse your lips, terrified a sudden sob would escape. 

No—you do not want to make this real. Not yet. Only when you’re in the safety of your own self would you then collapse down to the floor, wailing pathetically like a banshee howling in the dead of the night—only then would it become real. 

At that moment you renounce him vehemently. You renounce your sympathies for the seemingly pitiful man who hails beyond the mountains. You renounce his harmless disposition and any vestige of kindness you thought he might hold. 

From now, König has now become the monster everyone says he is.

[shadykazama]

Sun Wukong/The destined one (mostly relationship) headcanons!

The people have spoken and the people crave monkey business. So let's get down to it!

❤

Post journey Wukong is a wiser, stronger monkey, but don't let him fool you he's still a trickster at heart.

When you first meet, he has you refer to him as 'Great Sage'.

Earning the right to say his given name isn't so much a big moment as it is just him beginning to care for you. You slip up, whether it be because you were sick or injured or just not thinking, and he doesn't correct you. In fact he kind of likes it.

He doesn't make a big deal out of it, but if you watch closely you can see his tail twitch and his eyes lost in thought.

One character flaw you'll have to deal with, even when you're just friends, is Wukong thinks he knows what's best. He's old and wisened and POWERFUL; if he thinks he knows something will be best for you, he'll do it without so much as telling you.

Credit to Hanibalistic! Their one shot about Wukong and stealing an immortal peach for a mortal reader was perfect and exactly how I think he'd act! That impulsive, "I care about this person and will do what I think is best for them regardless of the consequences or their opinion" is very... him.

Hey, we all have our flaws. (Just don't tell him that.)

On the positive side, he wouldn't let a scratch befall you. At some point you'll stop instinctually defending yourself because of how safe you feel with him. Which is heavily ironic considering how often he himself will put you in dangerous situations just to pull a prank.

But besides your poor heart from getting scared so often, you have nothing to worry about. Wukong won't leave room for even one mistake to slip by him.

Expect him to never call you by your name, almost ever. He chronically tends to call people by titles or nicknames. From calling the tang monk, master, or how he'd call Bajie 'idiot' for most of the book- just expect something. He'd only refer to you by name if he were really serious.

Something I personally find really funny that isn't represented in many medias with him is that he's OLD. He's old as hell and he knows it. In the book he'll often refer to basically everyone as 'nephew' or 'little brother' which is oddly endearing and also really funny.

I feel as though most people don't utilize how heavy he is- even in movies and stuff. His staff is like thousands of pounds! You aren't moving him unless he wants you to. God forbid you end up cuddling. Even while resting I never think he'd put his full weight on you, but you'd definitely be stuck.

Will never refuse to help you, but will tease you endlessly for needing it. "Helpless little thing aren't you?"

His love language is gift giving and acts of service.

He's impulsive with words, but look at how he treats you and you'll see how he cares.

Considering his connections, expect to have the world at your fingertips. He'll never leave you wanting, you'll always be satisfied. There is no gift beyond his reach. Just be careful what you ask for, because he WILL get it one way or another.

He is a king, a leader- it's basically second nature to be serviced, and that's why it's so important how he acts toward you. For you, he stays vigilant, ready to catch you if you fall or feed you when you're hungry. For you, he'll carry you in his arms if you're tired. For you he'd put himself in servitude.

Monkeys also show affection to one another by grabbing at each other for attention, and grooming one another's hair.

I don't think he'd have any trouble getting your attention, he's very vocal! So he'd focus more on your hair. Don't be surprised if he randomly starts combing through with his fingers or just playing with it. It's calming for him, and another form of affection.

You've changed him for the better... And for the worse. He happier, more content and occupied (which is good for everyone). BUT, should you ever disappear or get stolen from him he would surely devastate heaven and earth to get you back. The last thing anyone needs is another, more wrathful, Wukong rampage.

Expect to get shown off at every convenience! You're his king/queen and he'll make sure everyone knows it.

You have the BIGGEST wedding. And I think the best part would've been the Chuangmen, which is a wedding game tradition, usually meant for the groom to prove his loyalty, devotion, and desire to marry the bride by completing tests made by her bridesmaids. There are a ton of really interesting Chinese wedding traditions that I would recommend reading about, but with the sheer power of Wukong, these challenges in particular could've been absolutely ridiculous!

Wukong isn't jealous, no that would be ridiculous, he has nothing to fear. That by no means doesn't mean that he doesn't get offended on your behalf. He's gotten upset at not being greeted properly, there's no way in HELL he doesn't get pissed if someone were to flirt with you. They're lucky if all he does is kill them.

Feel free to make fun of him for not being able to swim. He'll absolutely make you regret it, but do it anyway it'll be funny.

Am I the only one that thinks he'd be great with kids? 🤚

Like COME ON- the dude probably helps take care of the baby monkeys on his mountain. He tells them cool stories to get them riled up. Will lay down and let them play with his hair while you read or sing to him.

Give this man kids I dare you.

That's a topic for a different post 😌

Likes kissing you on the top of the head, will also lay his forehead against yours just to be close to you.

These two designs I really like for him! Y'all let me know in the comments which version is your favorite <3

💙

The destined one may look like Wukong, but they're certainly different in... most areas.

Being selectively mute makes things a good share more difficult to communicate with him than Wukong, but it has it's charms.

You'd just been... tagging along with him. He didn't mind, unlike the wolves and undead he'd been beating through, you proved no threat to him.

He figured you would just leave on your own- or die. But by some miracle even he didn't understand, you stuck by him through rain and dust storms alike. By the time you made it to the New West he felt obligated to keep you around.

For the first time since you started following him, you were actually in danger. And to both of your surprises, he dropped what he was doing to protect you.

Don't bother asking him why. Whether you do, or simply tell him thank you, he'll just wave you off. But you notice him walking closer to you than normal after that. No longer were you left to catch up with him while he sprinted off; he'd keep stride with you now, glancing at you every now and then.

He CAN talk, and he probably surprises you the first time he does. It's not even for something important. It's just one fateful night where you happen to decide to mess with his hair. You'd pull away after a moment and he'd rumble out a little, "Don't stop."

Now that you KNOW he can talk, it's even more annoying when he refuses to answer you.

He finds it amusing when you get frustrated with him about it. He can't help it. The whole time you're grumbling or ranting at him, he's just staring at you with his stoic face... thinking about how cute you are.

Feel free to give him a name. Not like he'll argue with whatever you pick-

But really, please call him something other than "the destined one". He'd never really needed a name before, but he'd treasure whatever you decide to call him.

He probably has a nickname for you too, he just only says it in his head...

Will click his tongue at you to get your attention. (Absolutely does the 'tsk tsk tsk' thing people do to call their cats)

Speaking of getting your attention- ^ remember how monkeys show affection by just kind of grabbing each other and squeezing and pressing their head against each other?

Yeeeeah. He's a touchy monkey. He won't ask for affection, so he kind of just does it himself. Will rub his head on you, not unlike how cats or rabbits do to mark things they like. Except he's just doing it to be affectionate.

Gets cuteness aggression and WILL just grab you.

If it wasn't obvious, his love languages are physical touch and quality time.

Doesn't need help putting armor on, but if you want to help he won't stop you. (The closeness makes his heart beat fast)

If you were ever both in a bad spot- being threatened and not in a place to put up a good fight, he'd cover your body with his and bare his fangs at whatever was trying to hurt you guys to intimidate it. (It probably wouldn't work- but it's an instinctual response.)

If your feet got cold in the snow in the New West he'd pick you up and let you rest on his back for awhile.

Likes when you rely on him like that, it makes him feel stronger. And besides it just "being his destiny", knowing you'll get hurt if he loses helps him focus during fights.

Terribly jealous individual.

The glare he would give someone is straight up deadly. Watch out for how his tail flicks around when he's irritated too 🤭.

Absolutely adores the sound of your voice, it could bring him out of a coma fr.

Doesn't mind being little or big spoon, he just likes cuddling. Wraps his tail around you when you do.

Always always makes sure you eat before he does, even though he's the one doing all the fighting.

Will let you win play fights (most of the time).

Hearing him laugh is the cutest thing ever I swear- It probably took you off guard the first time you manage it.

Doesn't know how to take compliments.

Probably short circuited the first time you complimented his appearance.

Very gentle, slow kisser. Likes having you in his lap, but will grab cheeky kisses every now and then too. Will tilt your chin up when you kiss, every time.

Art by @marcu-bug

[txjis]

gojo being overly dramatic about you getting hit on in public

cw: none, he’s just being a DIVA

wc: uhhh 550 ish?

it was a sunny tuesday. birds were chirping, the vending machine outside the café wasn’t broken for once, and you were just trying to enjoy your iced matcha in peace when he appeared.

not gojo. which in reality it was rare for him to be your peace, but at least he was your headache.

it was some random guy in a leather jacket.

“hey,” leather jacket guy said, leaning casually against your table like it was a scene from a CW drama. “you come here often?”

you blinked. “seriously?”

“i just had to say, you’ve got a smile that could end wars.” before you could answer—or groan loudly—an intense shift in the atmosphere rolled through the café like a tsunami of egotism and infinity.

the bell above the door jangled. in walked gojo satoru. wearing three pairs of sunglasses for no apparent reason and holding a churro. he stopped, froze, and slowly removed one pair of sunglasses to squint at the scene before him.

“you’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered, as though witnessing a shakespearean betrayal. “is this…? is this a flirtation? in my presence? in broad daylight?”

you sighed. “toru’—”

“no, no. don’t defend him, pookiebear. don’t defend this man, this… don juan cosplay reject. i am wounded.” he dramatically clutched his chest like a victorian widow, churro trembling in his hand.

the random man glanced between you and gojo, raising an eyebrow. “uh, is this guy bothering you?” gojo gasped so hard the barista dropped a tray in the background.

“am i bothering you? i— the light of your life, the infinity in your domain, the six-eyed snack of tokyo—bothering you?” you covered your face with your hands. gojo stepped forward, dramatically tossing his churro into a trash bin like a samurai abandoning his sword.

“you have exactly three seconds to remove yourself from this table, sir, before i begin quoting poetry. LOUDLY.”

“…poetry?” the guy said, confused.

“bad poetry,” you added solemnly. “he means his own poetry.” leather jacket guy mumbled something about needing to feed his dog and left so fast the door almost came off its hinges.

gojo turned to you, victorious.

“you’re welcome.”

you sipped your matcha, staring at him over the rim. “are you done?”

gojo slumped into the seat across from you, fanning himself. “barely. do you know what that did to me emotionally? i saw someone trying to flirt with you, and i went through all five stages of grief in ten seconds. it was like watching you get proposed to by a hedgehog with a credit card.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” you sighed.

“neither does the pain I feel in my soul,” he said, reaching across the table dramatically, knocking over the napkin holder. “i was this close to activating my domain expansion. right in the middle of the café. you would’ve been impressed.”

“you would’ve gotten banned.” you tried to point out, knowing the logistics of the statement would fall on deaf ears.

“a small price to pay for love.”

later that evening, you caught gojo writing in a small black notebook.

“what are you doing?” you asked, shifting your feet that were originally sat in his lap while you two were lounging around in the livingroom.

“crafting a haiku about betrayal,” he said, not looking up. “it’s called ‘leather jackets can’t protect you from infinity.’”

“do i even want to hear it?” he looked up, eyes glittering behind his remaining pair of sunglasses. he must’ve took the second pair off sometime earlier. “you always want to hear my poetry.”

you definitely did not.

but it was oddly endearing how passionate he was about any and everything revolving around you.

even if he kept trying to avenge your honor over a mildly flirtatious greeting like it was the plot of a k-drama written by a drunk raccoon.

leather jackets can’t protect you from infinity

by gojo satoru (a very wounded man)

sunglasses stacked high—

he flirted. i saw. i wept.

infinity burns.

[tojicide]

FRENCH BOYS! ☆ RAFAYEL.

summary. when your paintings were featured in the same gallery walk as rafayel’s, he can’t help but commission you with an oddly cheeky request — ❛ paint me like one of your french boys. ❜

warnings. fem!reader, artist!reader, body appreciation, reader paints rafayel in the nude, terms of endearment, oral ( m. receiving ), cowgirl, p in v, unprotected but he pulls out. wc. 3.6k. portrait inspo!

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ✧ masterlist | request

❛ Paint me like one of your French boys. ❜

You feel like you’ve read the line enough to have it engraved into your skull by now. You were still having trouble assessing whether or not the words were actually printed on the page or if you’d somehow misread them a million times over.

After all, who in their right mind would add that at the end of a memo for an art commission? Rafayel, you learned. That’s exactly who.

Rafayel has heard of you in passing, of your astounding professionalism and the unique ways in which you depict your subjects. He didn’t know you personally though. In fact, he’s only ever seen you at the art exhibitions that your promoters put on for you.

And even then, you never truly gave him the time of day. Why should you? In the grand scheme of things, he’s a stranger.

Rafayel has never been the biggest fan of the unknown, which was why it surprised him that he was such a big fan of yours.

Call him crazy, but he wanted to get to know you. He’d even reached out to your studio a few times on the basis of collaborating on an art piece together, but when he was met with the generic excuse of your busy schedule preventing you from meeting with him, he was left to resort to the extreme.

He was quite familiar with the art style that you possess. He thought that your knack for figure painting made you interesting, made you admirable. Paying homage to the Renaissance period was a lost art in and of itself, and you managed to do so with nearly every single piece you created.

Now, here’s why he would absolutely understand if you called him crazy…

He would even understand if you called him self-concerned, if you called him vain—if you called him anything your heart desires, because all adjectives of the like are spectacular words to describe him… especially after he sent you that forsaken commission.

A commission that piqued your interest enough for you to accept, but a forsaken commission nonetheless. He knew that it made him look like an arrogant fool, because all things considered, who commissions a nude portrait of themself?

He tried not to dwell on it, because that was exactly how he ended up here, in your presence. Sure, he was posing nude in front of the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on, but at least you were here…

“Soooo… how’s it going?” he asks, desperately trying to fill the silence between you two that only the sound of your paintbrush scraping against the canvas interrupted.

You peek your head out from behind the canvas, catching another glimpse of him sitting on the grand throne that he had custom made just for this moment.

(He was paying good money for this, alright? If he was going to have a painting of his naked body lying around, he wanted it to depict him in his godliest form.)

“Pretty good,” you shortly answer, sweeping your tongue over your bottom lip as you paint the shadow of a particularly sharp line on his abdomen. Seriously, he was absolutely jacked. At least you had that to keep you from growing bored.

Rafayel smiles as you keep your answers to his questions brief. That’s about the third ‘pretty good’ he’s gotten out of you in the last hour, and don’t even get him started on the sheer number of ‘alright’s you’ve given him.

So, he presses on.

“Not much of a talker, are ya?” he asks, absentmindedly tilting his head to the side as he speaks, only for you to quickly lean around the canvas to look at him. “Uh oh. Am I in trouble?” he asks with just about the cheekiest grin you’ve ever seen.

You sigh. “Yes. You should really stop talking.”

Rafayel raises an eyebrow at you, his smirk still tugging on his lips. “Should I? Here I was, thinking that you were enjoying this dazzling conversation of ours.”

That earns an eye roll from you, which is about the most expression he’s gotten out of you thus far. “You’re too expressive when you speak, Rafayel. You’re a horrible subject.”

He huffs at that, knitting his eyebrows together. “Am not. You mean to tell me that this body of mine makes for a horrible subject? Tsk tsk.”

“That body of yours?” you echo with a small breath of laughter. “Please. Am I supposed to be fawning?”

Rafayel gives you a sulky expression. “Puh-lease,” he mimics you, “I have abs, okay? I’m not saying you have to do anything with that information, but if you were to fawn, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You think quite highly of yourself,” you say, tucking behind the canvas as you stroke the paintbrush over the area that you were currently working on.

He rolls his eyes at that. “Jeez, woman. Sue a guy for being confident.”

When he’s met with your silence and the sound of your paintbrush splashing in a nearby cup of misty water, he sighs. “I’m just joking with you. I’ll—”

“Even when I give you the silent treatment,” you lean out from behind the canvas to look at him, “you still won’t stop your yapping.”

Rafayel furrows his brows, cocking his head to the side as he gives you a deadpan expression. “Lady, please. I was about to tell you that I was going to shut up from now on, but come to think of it, I don’t wanna.”

You found it ironic that your own inability to shut up is what led you to this position. You bite your tongue, shifting to sit behind the canvas again, but his voice is what reminds you that he’s still there.

“Anywho,” he continues. “You’re a hard woman to track down. What made you accept my commission?”

“Good pay,” you deadpan, though a smile curves on your lips. “And the final line of the memo you sent me.”

Rafayel is doing his best to keep his stoic demeanor, but once he finds out that his risky behavior has paid off, he’s internally celebrating. Very much so.

“Tell me,” you continue, peeking at him. “Are you even French?”

He shakes his head, the soft strands of blue hair that hang just above his eyes moving just the same. “No,” he admits. “But my tiny fib got you here, didn’t it?”

You press your lips into a line as his movement ruins the stillness of his pose, but you try not to scold him for it. “Sure it did,” you answer. “Some nerve you have.”

“The nerve,” he echoes through a soft chuckle.

However, the nerves that he’s truly concerned about right now are the ones in his cock that are very quickly waking up. He does his best to not shift around in his seat, but once you disappear behind the canvas again, he does just that.

He really hadn’t thought this through. How embarrassing. Not only is he erect, but he’s erect from purely talking to you. What a mess he is.

The bright side is that there’s a thin layer of silk fabric draped over the lower half of his body, but with the rapid swelling of his erection, he’s realizing that it’ll do very little to help him out.

“Uh…” he clears his throat. His ears are as red as a fire truck, he’s sure of it. “Can we take a quick break?”

You don’t look at him from behind the canvas as you answer. “I’d prefer it if you gave me a bit longer. I’m almost done with this section, I don’t want to disturb the pose just yet.”

He curses himself for hiring such a professional. “Alright,” he murmurs.

You continue working for a few seconds before you speak up this time. “What made you seek me out, Raf? I mean, you’re a pretty good painter yourself.”

Raf. He didn’t think that he’d done enough to earn that level of familiarity to get you to give him a nickname, but he’ll gladly take what he can get.

“I dunno,” he lies. “I guess I just wanted to be the muse for once,” he adds. That time, however, he was being truthful.

He’s always wanted to be the subject, the one in front of the easel, the one who is paid attention to. Call him an attention whore if you must, because he’ll gladly claim that title. Especially if it’s attention coming from you. He’ll pull out all of the stops to get it, just like he has today.

“That’s almost poetic,” you joke.

“Almost?” he repeats. “Alright, you’ve really hurt my feelings now.”

You shortly hum. “If that’ll get you to stop talking and sit still then I’m glad.”

He huffs quietly, sitting still and silent for a grand total of two minutes. He tried to keep it up, but the silence was gnawing at him.

“What are you currently working on?” he eventually asks.

To answer his question, you’d have to blatantly say that you’re painting his crotch… so instead, you stand up to turn the easel around entirely.

Rafayel takes a moment to gaze at the canvas, his eyes blown wide in wonder. You really were talented, and you’ve managed to make him look absolutely unreal in a way that he believes only you can.

His eyes settle on the section you painted last, judging by how most of the wet paint conjugated in that area. He swallows the growing lump in his throat, studying the way you even painted the faint outline of his length beneath the silk cloth.

“You’re finished with it?” he asks, raising his eyes to meet yours. “That part, I mean.”

You nod, turning the easel around to face you again. “Yeah,” you answer.

Rafayel clears his throat as he glances down at his crotch, which was sporting a full erection beneath the silky fabric. That had changed since you began to paint him, which wasn’t exactly your fault, but he curses his horny brain for what he says next.

“You got it a little wrong,” he tells you.

Your eyebrows raise as you drop your gaze down to the part of the canvas he’s currently correcting. “What? No, I…” you say as you peek at him from behind the canvas.

He shifts a bit under your gaze, watching quite intensely as you eye compare your painting to how he looks right now.

“Hm. I guess I did get it a little wrong, yeah,” you murmur, more so to yourself than to him.

Rafayel nearly smiles at your tone of indifference. “I hear that visual learning is the most efficient,” he suggests, cocking a brow at you. “Gets you well acquainted with the… material.”

“And by visual learning do you mean physical learning?” you counter.

…So yeah, physical learning definitely sounded more appealing to the both of you, which is exactly how you wound up kneeling in front of him with his cock in your mouth.

Your tongue flattens on the underside of his shaft as you sink lower, prompting him to collect a bit of your hair in one of his hands. “Gods, woman, are you trying to kill me?” he huffs, a sly grin on his face as he keeps his eyes closed.

Unsurprisingly, he can’t bear the thought of seeing your beautiful face be made of a mess of. He knows he shouldn’t feel this way, that he’s the reason you’re in this position, but he still does.

His large hand on the back of your head guides your movements as you suck him off, his head tilted back as you use your tongue on him. His stomach muscles are taut, and you’re finding yourself fawning over him after all, because his abs truly are that magnificent.

“Holy shiiiit,” he pants, finally cracking his eyes open to look down at you. He really shouldn’t have done that, because now he feels like he’s about to cum in your mouth. “Fuck, ‘m sorry, pretty,” he stammers, closing his eyes again. “Can’t… can’t help it. Feels too good.”

You don’t think he has anything to be sorry about, and if anything, you should be assuring him of the opposite. It was one thing to stare at him from afar, but it was another to look at him from this angle—with his eyes screwed shut while his forehead glistens with sweat especially.

He almost feels embarrassed for how loud he’s moaning, his thick thigh tensing as you rest your hand on it to brace yourself. You’re making him feel like a virgin with the way you take him in, the sensation of your tongue making him feel fuzzy.

“Just like—shit—just like that, cutie, yeah,” he babbles, hardly sure of what he’s saying anymore. All he knows is that if he opens his eyes and sees your gorgeous mouth stuffed with his cock, he’s going to cum.

You pat his hand on the back of your head as a means of getting him to guide your movements to his liking, noticing the way he so clearly hesitates with you. You can’t blame him. He doesn’t know you well enough to know that you actually like this sort of thing.

But with the way your mouth feels around his cock, he’s in absolutely no rush to deny you or himself this wish. He pushes your head a bit faster now, listening to the lewd sounds of your spit sloshing around with every thrust he gives you.

“Too fucking good,” he rasps through a moan. He’s almost too lost in you, his lips permanently parting as he lets his vocal cords roll out the most filthy words you’ve ever heard. “Mm-hmm, use that—fuck—pretty mouth of yours, gorgeous.”

As if the sight of him reacting so visually to your mouth wasn’t enough, the words he gives you are more than enough to have your heat pooling between your thighs. You’re both a mess here.

He flings his head back, his eyes shutting even tighter as your nose brushes against the tufts of dark purple hair at the base of his cock. It was safe to say that the curtains certainly matched the drapes…

You gag as he pushes you a bit too far on his length, his eyes snapping open almost immediately. “Oh, honey, ‘m sorry,” he huffs out, releasing your hair to let you off of him.

You shake your head as you cough, pulling your mouth off of him for a brief moment. A thick string of saliva still connects your bottom lip to the base of his shaft, and that alone has his cock twitching right in front of you.

“You’re so pretty,” he breathes as he shakes his head, almost dumbfounded by the sight in front of him. He may be out of breath, but he’s still very in tune with his abundant attraction for you. “Come up here, gimme a kiss.”

Rafayel is pulling you and you’re complying, and his lips are slotting against yours within seconds. He holds your jaw in his hand, his other moving to the small of your back to pull you closer until you’re kneeling between his spread thighs.

The kiss is sloppy, the saliva on your face immediately transferring onto his skin, though he doesn’t seem to mind. Not one bit. Instead, he’s slipping his tongue into your mouth, gathering more of your taste on his tongue.

“Don’t think I’m well acquainted enough,” you murmur against his lips, planting your hands on the back of the throne while you shift to straddle his lap. “Do you?”

He shakes his head without thinking. “Nuh-uh. Think you need a little more,” he replies, running his hands along your thighs until they slip beneath your dress.

One of his hands cup your mound while the other rests on your hip, and he nearly moans at the feeling of the sopping wet fabric clothing the needy area between your legs.

“This all for me?” he asks with a lopsided grin, his eyes hooded as he looks at you. You nod your head, a soft whine leaving you as he pulls the fabric to the side, running two fingers along your slick pussy. “Mm, I wanna taste her.”

You shake your head, your hand reaching to stroke his throbbing cock, brushing your thumb along the tip as a spurt of pre-cum leaks from it. Denying head isn’t exactly your go-to, but you can’t help it. You want to feel him inside of you.

He follows your hand down to his shaft before he raises his eyes to meet yours again, giving you the sweetest smile imaginable. “Alright, silly girl. Pussy’s all mine next time though, promise?”

“Promise,” you whisper with a smile.

Rafayel seems pleased with that, so he gives your thighs a light squeeze as he shifts to stand up, only for you to gently nudge him back down.

He raises a brow at you, a smirk quickly growing on his face. “Oh? Pretty baby wants to ride me, is that it?”

His pet names for you nearly make you buckle, and you’re not sure how considering you’re already sitting down, but it almost happened—you’re positive.

“Yeah,” you answer, slowly rubbing the head of his cock along your folds. “Look me in the eyes this time?” you tease.

He’s too drunk on the feeling of your pussy teasing his tip to realize that you’re joking with him. “Huh? Oh right, yeah, cutie, whatever you want.”

If you thought he was whiny there, it was no match for the man he became once the head of his cock pushed into your hole.

“Holy shit, woman, you really are trying to kill me,” he moans, resting his head back. “I was only joking before.”

You chuckle as you slowly lower yourself on his length, feeling the way his girth stretches you out, earning a whine from your lips in return. He smiles at you, cupping your cheek with his hand.

“You feel so good, pretty,” he whispers, his other hand resting on your hip as you begin to bounce on his cock. Up and down, up and down. “Shiiiiit, baby. Fuck me like that, yeah, just like that.”

A smile stretches across your lips as you watch his expression go from one of eagerness to one of absolute bliss, his eyes half-lidded as he watches you.

“Gods,” he breathes as his cock slides between your walls. “Pussy’s so tight—fuck,” he gasps out as he grips onto your hips, slowing your movements. “Gonna want more if you keep doing me like that.”

And by more, he means he’s going to start fucking up into you. He really didn’t want to, not with how pretty you looked riding him on your own, tits bouncing in his face and all.

You whine as he slows you down, and you come to a complete stop for a moment as you sit in his lap, cockwarming him. “Is that not the point?”

Rafayel raises a brow at you, a lazy grin on his lips. “Pfft. Alright, woman, you asked for it.”

You really did ask for it, though when he grasped onto your hips to make you slightly hover over him, you’re quickly realizing that his words were anything but empty.

His cock rams into you before you can even register that he’s moving beneath you, his thrusts hard and fast. You moan nearly every time the tip of his shaft reaches the back of your walls. Without much thought, you lean forward, resting your head on his shoulder as he continues to fuck into you.

“Ah-ah,” he playfully scolds, leaning forward to nip at the neckline of your dress. “Pull ‘em out for me, cutie.”

You do it without hesitation, shrugging the straps of your dress off your shoulders just enough for your tits to be revealed to him. He moans at the sight, leaning in to press a kiss on your perked nipple.

“Such pretty tits, honey,” he murmurs against your skin as he sucks your nipple into his mouth, the pace of his cock pushing into you not letting up whatsoever.

It’s your turn to moan embarrassingly loud now, your eyes squeezing shut as you feel heat pool in your lower stomach. He’s far too preoccupied with sucking on your tits to notice, but once he does, he nips at the sensitive skin of your breast.

“I thought we were looking each other in the eyes this time,” he says, leaning up to press a kiss on your cheek. And when you open your eyes, he smiles. “Thaaat’s more like it, pretty.”

You return the smile, but not for long. Another moan rips through you, your forehead moving to rest on his, though you keep your eyes open.

“Oh… ‘m gonna cum,” you choke out, earning a chaste kiss from him.

He nods. “Let me have it, baby. Need you.”

And it’s not like you had a choice in the matter. You’re shaking in his lap as your orgasm washes over you, another airy moan leaving your swollen lips as you find your release on his cock.

“So perfect, so beautiful,” he coos, leaning forward to kiss you again, slowing the pace of his hips down as he fucks you through your high. “Mhm, so sweet for me too.”

A soft whine leaves his lips as he pulls out of you. You watch as his hand strokes along his cock, a guttural sound leaving his mouth as he paints his own stomach with thick, white ropes of cum.

He pants as he keeps his eyes on yours, leaning forward to press another kiss to your cheek. You lean into his touch while your other hand threads into his hair.

“Well, won’t you look at that. Guess you’re your own muse after all,” you joke, giving him a suggestive wink. “Y’know, since you painted your own—”

“Mhm, I got the joke, gorgeous,” he deadpans, leaning in to press a kiss on your lips. “You’re just hilarious, aren’t you?”

“…Yeah, I think I’m pretty funny.”

note. helloooooo! i really enjoyed writing this lol, i like the lightheartedness of it all. i might write a pt2 for the hell of it buuuuut i hope you enjoyed reading <3 all interactions are greatly appreciated :)))

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ✧ masterlist | request

[dreamersparacosm]

jeon jungkook - if we were us (part one)

warnings ; none

prompt ; in which life gives you and Jungkook one more chance to hold on.

note ; AH. IT'S HERE. i won't lie, finding where i wanted this story to start was extremely difficult and took me way longer than i want to admit. but after 2939393 cups of coffee and 393949 emhen inspirational quotes i made it. i have never been more excited about a piece of writing in my life!! for context, i began writing when i was 12 and have written numerous works over 200k words, but once i got to college, diverted to only one-shots and shorter fics to give myself time to live. now that i'm way too old to be on this app, i have time on my hands to actually enjoy writing stories and it both terrifies and excites me if you could see the notion file i have on this story you'd prob understand my anxiety a little more. on the bright side though, this is basically me signing a contract to stay on tumblr for at least another 6-8 months (or however long this story will take to complete.) all this to say, this story is incredibly nuanced and every character has flaws, trials, tribulations, yada yada. i hope your world is just as chaotic, devastating, exciting and messy as theirs. this is for all the lovers in the world who want a second chance. may it be sweeter than the first.

playlist here

series masterlist here

wc ; 3.9k

[YOUR POV]

You’ve always liked the rain. 

There’s something oddly comforting about it. The quiet hush of the droplets. The way it softens the edge of the world, but follows no pattern to its madness. 

Pretty much all your firsts have happened in the rain.

The first time you were dropped off for a playdate without crying, your shoes squelched against the pavement, raincoat sticking to the backs of your knees. The first time a friend hugged you was in middle school, outside of a 7-Eleven. The sky had opened up without warning, and you both laughed through it, soaked to the bone. Your first kiss was under a shared umbrella that kept tipping sideways, clumsy and warm and like two puzzle pieces that wouldn’t fully fit together but gave the illusion they might for a moment in time. He tasted like cherry gum and a thunderstorm that was gone too quickly.

The rain reminds you of beginnings. Unlike endings, they require no permission. They simply appear, uninvited, leaving behind fertile ground for whatever comes next. 

Morning light creeps in between the cracks of the blinds. A familiar heaviness weighs your eyes down, the air in the room cold in the way it always is when it rains outside. You shift slightly beneath the comforter, legs stretching out until your toes hit the edge of the mattress. Behind you, his arm tightens instinctively around your waist. 

You feel a soft groan rumble against your spine, breath fanning the back of your neck. Your body pauses its movement for a second, suspended between comfort and obligation. 

Outside, the rain taps against the window louder now. A familiar sound that makes you want to follow his actions and bury yourself into the thick sheets, pretend you have nowhere else to be. 

You really don’t want to get up. Clearly, neither does he. 

The pads of his fingers shift against your hip, digging into the bare skin. You can’t help but smile a little, even though it’s tired and small. 

“Joonie,” you murmur, voice thick with slumber. “I need to get up.”

That earns you another groan. A little louder, more dramatic. His face presses into your shoulder. “Mm. Five more minutes,” he mumbles. “World won’t end if you’re late.”

You want to believe him, but the kids in your class would say otherwise. 

You appease him, stay for one more breath. Maybe two. Normally, you wouldn't give yourself the extra grace. But it’s raining and beginnings are easier this morning. Plus, your boyfriend seems to be the human version of a teddy bear right now and you’re finding it quite endearing. 

Five more minutes, that’s what you give yourself. You don’t look at the clock or count the seconds. Time slips past slowly as you turn over and press your face into the side of his, kissing his cheek, jaw, the patch of skin just below his ear that’s always so soft. 

He doesn’t react much besides a sigh. His hold on your waist loosens as he recognizes your signal, your quiet touch that says you’re getting up. 

You slip out of bed carefully, trying not to shake the mattress too much. His t-shirt is bunched around your hips, creased and bunched from sleep. When you stand, it falls low to your thighs, brushing against your skin. 

The hardwood floor is cold under your feet. Rubbing at your eyes with the back of your hand, you drag yourself back into consciousness the best you can at 7 AM in the morning. 

You cross the room, flip the bathroom light on and begin your routine. It’s nothing glamorous, but when you work with children all day, this is the one part of the day you get to yourself. The version of you that isn’t constantly giving, fixing or soothing. Some mornings, it’s the only thing that keeps you sane. 

Your reflection in the mirror blinks back at you, fogged at the edges by the sleep still lingering in your expression. Halfway through brushing your teeth, you hear the creak of the mattress followed by the shuffle of feet across the floor.

Namjoon appears in the mirror, hair poking in ten different directions, leaning against the doorframe like his weight is too heavy to carry upright at this hour. 

“You look serious,” he teases. 

You glare at him sarcastically through the mirror and shrug, mouth full of minty toothpaste. 

“Deep thoughts?” he asks, stepping closer. He places a warm hand on your waist, his thumb dragging lightly across his shirt you’re still wearing. “Existential crisis already, and it’s not even 7:30, baby.”

You hum in acknowledgement around your toothbrush, raising an eyebrow. He presses a kiss to the side of your head. 

“What does your day look like?” he questions, reaching around you to grab the floss on the counter. 

You spit the foamy paste, wipe your mouth with the sink water. “I’ve got this new lesson plan I’m trying out. I’m hoping it lands well but knowing my kids, they’re going to make a mess.”

“Mess?” He cuts the piece of floss. 

“We’re using paint to help solve math problems.” Not your best idea. In hindsight, it sounded like it would heal your inner child but in practice, it’s definitely going to end with you cleaning paint off your jeans for the next two weeks. 

“Sounds exhausting,” He leans into the mirror to see his teeth better.

“And you?” You meet his eyes in the reflection, smiling briefly. 

“Mm,” he pauses to run the floss between his teeth before speaking. “Work call at 10. Then coding a shit ton of our new website features. Jin also asked me to look at paint samples with him, which will take approximately four more hours than it needs to.”

You snort out a laugh, “That’s what you get for agreeing to help with his kitchen.”

“Thought I was being a good friend,” he throws out his floss, grabbing his toothbrush out of the holder. “Kinda also wanted the free lunch.”

“Jin already thinks you’re a great friend, baby,” You splash some cold water on your face, trying to liven up your skin. “You know that.”

You’ve known Jin since college. He was always loyal — the kind of friend who showed up with takeout boxes when you were sad, who knew your exam schedules better than you did, who cracked your shell before others even brought out the hammer. You don't talk everyday, but when you do, it always feels like you’re picking up mid-conversation. 

Back when you and Namjoon were just hooking up, seeing where life took you, you introduced Jin to him. He was overprotective like an older brother in a sitcom, side-eyeing Namjoon between bites of ramyeon. Now, the two of them argue about kitchen appliances like they’re married and have a shared spreadsheet for wine recommendations you’re not allowed to edit. 

Sometimes you wonder if Namjoon fell in love with Jin and you were an afterthought. 

Namjoon chuckles while putting paste on his toothbrush, “He better. I sat in his house for two hours last week listening to him talk about that new guy he’s seeing and I… heard things no one should have to hear.”

“I thought we agreed not to talk about Jin’s sex life with him,” You poke his side as you lean against the sink, watching your boyfriend with amusement. 

He spits out the toothpaste, waving the brush in the air animatedly. “You agreed. I tried to agree and got roped into it anyway.”

Rolling your eyes, you push yourself off the sink with your palms and go, “Breakfast?” 

He nods at you, and you disappear down the hall, arms wrapped tightly around your body to block off as much of the cold air as possible. 

Your mornings have always been trivial. Insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. You move on autopilot: pan on low heat, fridge door creaking open, eggs gathered in one hand, butter in the other. The coffee machine gurgles in the corner. His favorite mug  — the one with the chipped rim and the ugly cartoon bear on it  — is already out on the counter. You know he likes his eggs over easy, toast not too burnt, coffee with a splash of creamer. 

You barely think about these things anymore. 

It’s not like he ever asked you to be this way in the morning. Never said a word about it, or gave any sort of hint, never played helpless in front of the stove. But it was an invisible task that folded in on your routine without ever being discussed. 

It’s what love looks like, you remind yourself. The quiet dig of learning each other’s habits, small sacrifices piling up like layers beneath your feet. 

It doesn’t bother you. You like to give. You remember birthdays without setting calendar reminders, refill the Brita before it’s empty. And it’s not that people don’t love you back. You're just always a few steps ahead, already halfway into caring before anyone else even notices there was something to do. 

Namjoon walks in as you’re cracking the eggs, eyes still droopy with sleep. He’s no longer shirtless, now in his forest green hoodie he always wears when he works from home, which these days, appears to be more often than not. He yawns into his fist before grabbing two plates from the cabinet and setting them down beside you. 

“You beat me to it,” he taunts, gently bumping your hip. 

You hum, flipping the eggs with the new spatula his mom got you last week. “Didn't know it was a race.”

He chuckles, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “I was gonna offer. Technically, last week, I made the coffee.”

“Mm. The machine made coffee, baby. You pressed the button.”

He doesn’t respond to you.There’s not much more to say to that. Instead he leans down and presses a kiss to your cheek. It almost feels like punctuation. Like a period that stops any other words from leaving your mouth. 

He’s quiet for another second, then breaks the silence in the air, “We still good to go to that baby shower on Sunday?”

You vaguely remember him telling you about his coworker’s pregnancy. All you know is it was an event that showed up on your shared calendar in the kitchen, circled in red and scrawled in messy handwriting. 

You nod as you plate the eggs, “Yup. Two o’clock, right?”

“Precisely.” Namjoon runs a hand through his unruly dark brown hair. “Seo-yeon mentioned something about a bouncy house?” 

“A bouncy house?” you repeat incredulously as you hand him his plate. “At a baby shower?” 

“She said the baby can’t use it but the adults should still have fun.” He shrugs like it makes perfect sense. Seo-yeon, his coworker at the tech startup he works for, has always been an eccentric female. You’ve met her a handful of times, but that was more than enough to understand why Namjoon refers to her as an ‘old soul.’ A bouncy house at her baby shower doesn’t even crack the top ten on the list of things that surprise you.

You giggle under your breath, passing him the plate. “If you catch me in the bouncy house, just know I had one too many mimosas.”

Namjoon rounds your tiny kitchen table, settling down in the chair. “Do we need to bring anything?” 

You hesitate for a moment. You don’t really have the heart to tell him you went down to the market last week to pick up a blanket and bear set for her. But you know if you dodge the question, he’ll ask again in a few days. “I already got the gift.”

You hear him start to chew, fork scraping against the plate. “Cool. Thanks, baby.” 

You think he’ll ask you what you got Seo-yeon, but he doesn’t.

You walk over to the coffee machine, pouring out the dark liquid into your respective mugs. Splash of cream for him. Three sugars and milk for you. You set his cup in front of him, ceramic clinking softly against the table, before heading back to the countertop and retrieving your own plate and mug to match.

When you settle in front of him, he peers into your mug. “I don’t know how you drink that.” 

To further prove his own point, he takes a sip, immediately wincing. “God,” he mumbles. “That’s not coffee. That���s dessert.”

“I like it sweet.”

“Offensively sweet.” He deposits your mug back down on your side of the table as if quarantining a biohazard. He’s a broken record at this point, always reminding you that one day, you’ll get a cavity from how sugary you prefer your drinks. Like a ghost that haunts every breakfast table discussion about your choice of beverage. 

“Well.” You tuck a piece of toast into your mouth. “Not all of us are fueled by burnt beans and overpriced creamer.”

He laughs at that, the sound ricocheting across kitchen surfaces. He’s always been easy to talk to, to sit beside in the stillness of early mornings where the world hasn’t quite remembered it exists yet. 

“One day, I’m going to get you to drink black coffee,” he teases. “Whatever it takes.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” you laugh as you cut up another piece of your eggs. 

“You still doing the bug project with your kids?” he asks, and you feel a wash of gratitude for the change in conversation topic. 

You nod, sighing, “Day three. Which means today’s the day someone accidentally steps on an ant farm and cries about it like it was their childhood pet.”

His mouth curves upward, eyes crinkling, “Weren’t you the one who said this year’s class was your most emotionally stable?”

“They are,” you insist around a mouthful of toast. “However, they did stage a protest yesterday when I tried to throw out a dead butterfly. Held a moment of silence and everything. I’m pretty sure they’re building it a grave out of popsicle sticks.”

Namjoon nearly chokes on his eggs. “I’m impressed.”

“You should come by sometime. Meet the little fuckers who take up all my time.” You’re half-joking, half-not. The last (and only) time he visited your classroom was the holiday party where you first met, when he was someone else’s reluctant plus one. You often watch other teachers partners’ appearing at classroom doors, bearing lunch and casual affection. 

He shakes his head. “I barely survived kindergarten on my own.” 

Between bites, he adds, “Got that deployment to push through today. Something’s breaking in the new UI, but I can't tell if it’s the framework or the entire infrastructure.”

You blink at him, chewing thoughtfully. “Wow. Sexy.”

“I know,” he smirks. “Almost as sexy as your bug project.”

You place a hand over your heart, sarcastically swooning. “God, nothing gets me going like scalable infrastructure.” Words harvested from his work calls — incomprehensible things you say without understanding the origins.

He lifts a hand in mock warning. “You better pray I don’t start talking about data streams before you finish breakfast.”

You snort, taking another sip of your coffee. “Enjoy your precious code. I’ll be elbows deep in glue and paint by 9 AM.”

Namjoon finishes his coffee before you do, setting the mug on the sink. When he passes, he kisses your temple, hand grazing your back like water over stones, “Have a good day, baby.”

You nod, already pushing your chair back once your eyes catch on the kitchen clock’s accusatory hands. “You too.”

He disappears down the hall towards his makeshift home office, leaving behind the scent of coffee and the cologne you bought him last Christmas. You stay at the table a second longer. Long enough to sip what’s left of your coffee, now lukewarm and overly sweet. Long enough to listen to the rain tapping against the windows like it’s trying to say something you can’t make out. 

Long enough for you to wonder when sweet started tasting like something you needed to apologize for. 

“An iced mocha latte? Did anyone order the iced mocha latte?” 

Your favorite barista's voice rings throughout the quaint coffee shop, bystanders perking up in hopes of hearing their order called. Everyone collectively deflates when they see a frantic woman barrel past apologetically, reaching for a drink that clearly isn’t theirs. 

You don’t bother lifting your head up. Poor Jiwoo. She’s been manhandling the coffee shop by the school you work at since the day you started, and she might be the only barista who understands how much sugar you typically prefer in your coffee. 

If she ever leaves the shop, you’re pretty sure you’d have to transfer school districts out of grief alone. 

You prefer to leave early for work, leaving ample time to collect your candied coffee, run through your lesson plan, and gossip with the other teachers for at least ten minutes in the lounge.

Unfortunately, today, you might have to exclude the gossip session you enjoy so much. A tragedy in three acts. 

There are two new students starting today, and while you normally enjoy fresh faces in the classroom with different personality types to tame, you already have your hands full between the bug project and the ‘paint your 2+2’s’ activity you very ill-advisedly volunteered to lead. 

“Hey, [Y/N],” Jiwoo solemnly leans over the counter where you're perched, waiting patiently as any good samaritan does if they don't want their coffee spat into. Her hair is frizzing at the edges, apron already stained. “I’m so sorry for the wait. Normally I put a rush on yours, but this Monday is really kicking my ass.”

She looks so stressed you almost want to go back there and put on an apron, maybe start whipping up some Iced Americanos.

“It’s no problem,” you wave her away. “You know I always come way too early.”

She gives you an appreciative smile, rushing back to the counter to take more orders. You turn your back to the crowd, enjoying the view outside. There’s a few kids clutching their mother’s hands, businessmen holding briefcases while fighting with umbrellas, a teenage boy hopping puddles like he’s in a video game. Against the windowpane, the rain sticks to the glass, slowly sliding to make space for new ones. 

“Hi, can I get an iced vanilla latte?”

You’re close enough to the counter that you’ve started eavesdropping on other’s orders without meaning to. Honestly, an iced vanilla latte sounds pretty good. You once got an iced caramel macchiato before 9 AM though, and you were vibrating like a tuning fork until your last kid went home at 2 PM. The girl’s voice is distressed as she taps her card against the reader, probably running late to work now from the long line. 

“Hey, can I get a black coffee? Hot?”

The second voice is different. 

It’s a man’s. Can’t be older than mid-30s. It’s lower, calmer. Unrushed. Like honey poured over gravel. 

Everything in your body stops functioning. 

It’s as if someone snipped the film reel mid-scene. The cafe around you doesn’t gradually fade. It’s replaced by a silence so loud you can hear your own blood rushing through your veins. The clink of cups, the hiss of the milk steamer, the shuffle of feet becomes background collateral, dissolving into white noise. 

Your hands clench around nothing. Lungs forget their one job. Your heart reverberates against your ribs like it’s trying to signal an emergency to anyone within radius. 

No, that second voice is a voice you haven’t heard in ten years but would recognize in a burning building. 

The second voice is a voice that has set up permanent residence in your bone marrow, lingering even after you thought you’d evicted every last trace of him from your system. 

You don’t dare turn around.

You stand there, statue-still, staring out the rain-streaked window as if memories don’t curl up and hibernate in your throat, waiting for precisely this moment to wake and stretch. 

Your eyes close for a brief second. 

When you open them again, the world outside continues its persistent motions. But you, you remain perfectly still, a pause button pressed in the center of the city. 

Seoul is a big city. You’re 32 now and far too old to believe in ghosts.

He wouldn’t be here. He made that very clear a decade ago. 

You hear another voice begin to recite their order. He’s probably off to the side, somewhere in the shop that is now dwindling down the number of patrons inside as work hours creep up on the clock. You’re too scared to breathe, to even glance one foot in the other direction. 

Your eyes instead train ahead on the bag of coffee beans untouched on the counter. 

“Iced coffee, three sugars and milk?” Jiwoo comes running over to you, a triumphant grin on her face as if she just defeated the morning rush. “God, I’m so sorry for the wait. Yours is on the house next time.” 

“No, it’s no problem,” You lean over and pat her hand, like you’re trying to prove your heart hasn’t actually stopped and you’re still a live human, even though it feels like it might. 

You shuffle over to the side station where the honey, tiny wooden stirrers, and other small distractions meant to keep your hands busy are. You grab a few napkins for yourself. You can’t trust your grip right now. In the distance, Jiwoo rattles off some other orders you can’t make out. One of her coworkers comes rushing in, red-faced and apologetic. 

You glance up at the clock on the wall. 8:30 AM. You’ve made great time despite the numerous coffee mishaps. And clearly, you need to sit in your chair and take a moment to yourself, because you’re now hallucinating the ghost of college’s past, and it’s too early to do that. 

You stir in some honey into your coffee. Taking a slow, deep breath, you turn a half-step with coffee in tow. 

And then, because the universe has a spectacular gift for comedic timing, you collide with someone. 

Your shoulder meets theirs, your cup shifting in your hand and sending a small wave over the lid’s edge. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry—”

Your eyes are already tracking the damage, focusing on white sneakers now marked with a small splash of brown. Nothing ruinous, but your body finds itself crouching, napkins in hand, some deeply ingrained instinct to make things right taking over.

“No, it’s okay,” the voice says.

It’s the second voice. Gentle. That same calm. 

You know this voice the way you know the road home in the dark, the way plants know to grow toward sunlight. 

Slowly, you lift your gaze upwards. 

He’s older, of course. More settled into himself. The lines around his eyes weren’t there before, shoulders carrying the weight of ten more years of living. His eyes stare into yours, somehow still reading every inch of you despite the decade-long gap. 

Reality blurs at the edges. The rain against the window falls silent. The coffee shop with its morning bustle recedes. Your heart hangs suspended from one beat and the next. The napkins fall to the floor, your wobbly legs struggling to stand upright. 

On a rainy Monday morning, where beginnings are endless, your ex boyfriend from university, Jeon Jungkook, stands in front of you holding a cup of black coffee in his right hand. 

masterlist + ask

taglist ; @arcanekookz @writesvani @yooniepot @whoa-jo @nimmmnikk @readingbee44 @jungshaking @starlight-1010 @jadaocon1 @phoenixxxxstarrrr @jkaxl @butterymin @almatiarau @lovingkoalaface @carriereadsbooks @bhonbhon @lola75111 @yoonstaar @namkookie222 @jeonjenny @lachimochala @kissyfacekoo @libra04 @minimoninini @goldenjeonkoo @ot7even @kopiosuam @annpeachy @literallyjimin @prxdajeon @purplelanterns @neg-l3ct @gguk-lvr @misakiminaa @wisebouquetbarbarian

[xdjville]

what p1harmony calls you

pairing: p1harmony x gn!reader

cw: none

author's note: first post after 10 months, and the first time for p1h! i honestly lost motivation for a long time but i saw piwon live back in january and i'm lowkey (highkey) obsessed so...

#keeho

keeho's a babe kinda guy, through and through. and i mean explicitly, with no exceptions, to the point where your name starts to sound a bit foreign coming from his mouth. he also overuses it (he knows it and refuses to stop), almost every sentence that he says in your direction has to start or end with the petname or else he'd genuinely be sick. your contact name in his phone is 'ma babe 🫶' and he only occasionally changes the emoji.

#theo

your full name, full government name. honestly, with theo i feel like people who don't know he's in a relationship wouldn't realize that from the way he's referring to you, and you will not catch him using a petname, ever. also, if y'all remember that one interview where keeho said that theo has a lot of 'natural aegyo' and keeps talking in that whiny voice, he'd use that tone for you all of the time, purposefully making it more dramatic than what it's worth. it's all out of love though.

#jiung

jiung gets very creative with petnames for you, poetic even, and he's loud and proud about it. no amount of gagging sounds from intak can stop him from calling you his cupcake or angel, and he pays lots of attention to how you're reacting to each one, making sure you're comfortable and trying to find the one you seem to like the most. when you're not around, he'd refer to you as his partner or his baby, the words sliding from his tongue like it's your actual name.

#intak

intak's favorites are babe or baby as well, mixed with an occasional short version of your name here and there. he'd only use your full name when he's upset about something, not necessarily because of you, but it'd be the first sign that something's wrong. when talking about you he definitely calls you his partner, because damn, you are his partner. he just can't stop himself from boasting a little, and honestly, how can you blame him?

#soul

soul would definitely go with either a weird variation of your name that he finds oddly endearing or an inside joke, one that may sound confusing to other people without context. generally, i feel like he'd like something that's really yours, that only the two of you understand or that no one else uses for you except him, like some kind of secret language. he'd use the same words to refer to you while talking to other people, and he honestly couldn't care less if they even understand who he's talking about. and no, he will not explain.

#jongseob

like theo, i honestly don't see jongseob as a petname kind of person, he'd probably just call you by your name, usually your full name (unless you don't like it). a little baby or love might slip from his mouth every now and then, usually when he's in a good mood, but it would usually still come next to your name. when it's in writing though? you're his sunshine, his biggest inspiration, the light of his life, and his one and only (see what i did here). whether it's notes he leaves in your bag or lyrics he writes with you in his mind, new adjectives keep coming to his mind like it's the only thing he can think about.

#taglist ➼♡ @0-hoony @suzayaaa (pls lmk if you'd like to be tagged for piwon as well!)

©xdjville