#BUT THAT TOP ONE WITH A PLACE TO KEEP STATIONERY IS REALLY NICE AND ONLY LIKE A HUNDRED BUCKS.... 👀

[blujayonthewing]

not that I'm not the kind of person to want one of these anyway but god if only Ambrose's in-person campaign had been able to continue, and also if only 'trying to minimize the amount of space my stuff takes up at the table' wasn't such a priority for me, because having an old-fashioned travel writing desk be my dnd dice holder/ rolling tray/ pencil case/ note taking surface for him would be so cool

[melancholymetropolis]

No Idea

Pairings: Athlete!Kirishima x PlusSize!Reader

Summary: College AU The reader is Kirishima's History tutor and they kinda have a crush on each other. It takes an afterparty filled with horny guys and a skin-tight dress for Kiri to realize he wants them all to himself.

Warning: Do I even need to say it at this point? It's smut, obvi. Kinda unedited. The reader and her best friend are black. Kirishima is a football player; he's VERY possessive over the reader. Her best friend is a little gay for her as well.

Author's Note: This was a commission!!!!! The client gave me this insane prompt and I had no choice but to go over the word limit. If you want to commission me, click here! Your support really means the world to me. Enjoy!

Word Count: 5,300

“You’re back early!” My roommate, Liza, yelled from the other side of the apartment-style dorm room. The sound of her chair scraping the floor followed shortly after, along with the light footsteps of her sock-clad feet. “I left you a plate in the microwave, in case you were hungry. I could heat it up, if you’re too tired— why the long face? What happened?”

“He didn’t show up,” I sighed as I dropped my books on the table and sank into a chair.

“How can he not show up?” Liza fumed crossing her arms. “His GPA is already in the gutter from all the other quizzes he seemed to fail before the semester even started.”

“I know,” I replied in a bored tone.

“He’s on academic probation—”

“I know.”

“One more hiccup and he’ll be off the football team—”

“I know.”

“Not to mention how you practically have to bend backward to make time for him—”

“Mhm.”

“Just for him to flake on you for the third time! I just—”

“Liza, please,” I rose from my seat and stood in front of her. “You don’t have to be angry with me. It’s truly okay.”

“No! It’s not okay!” She stormed to the microwave and pulled the cover plate from the inside. She removed the foil and pushed it back into the device, before pressing the start button four times. She turns to face me and forces an angered sigh from her lips. “He likes you, you know that right?”

I lifted my books from the table and walked to our shared room. I took in the words that she threw at me with each step and digested them. Kirishima liked me. It wasn’t as though I didn’t have an inkling that he may be, sorta found me attractive. Although I wore glasses, I wasn’t blind. At least with them on. I saw the way he looked at me when we were less than a foot apart. Shoulders practically touching as we slouched over the Advanced American History textbook. Our hands brushing against each other’s ever so often. The sparkle in his eye when he looked at me longer than a few seconds; the blush on his cheeks when I smiled at his corny jokes. His persistent tendency to walk me home, although most times, we finished our study sessions just before dusk. The way he stayed glued to my side during the journey to my dorm. How he’d carry my books on the way. I noticed it all and practically welcomed it, since I too found him attractive. The spiky redhead just had a way of making everyone swoon over him. Kirishima was genuinely a nice person, not because there was something in it for him, but just because.

The beeping from the microwave brought me back to reality. I placed the textbooks on the designated space on the shelf and fixed my scattered stationery from that morning. Liza shuffled in with a bowl of baked fetta pasta, and a piece of toasted garlic bread a few minutes later. She placed the bowl on the desk, with a fork, a can of sparkling soda, and my favorite metal straw.

“What did I do to deserve you?” I said with a tired smile.

“Helped me pass ‘Text and Ideas’ with an A-,” Liza smiled back and placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Oh right,” I took a seat at the desk and forked the starchy dish in my mouth. “This is heaven-sent.”

“I knew you’d like it!” She deemed walking to her own desk. “I got the recipe from tiktok.”

I hum in response and continued to stuff my face. After a few minutes of silence, I grab the phone from my back pocket and unlocked it. A new message from Kirishima was the newest notification from many and it said:

Hey, I am sorry for not showing up. My teammate got shitfaced and decided to take a dive into the fountain. It took three of us to pull him out. It sucks because I was really looking forward to seeing you.

Since my mouth had already filled to its brink with pasta, I opted for a tight-lipped smirk instead of a toothy one. Kirishima all but admitted that he missed me. My hunch was right: the feelings are mutual. I swallowed the pasta and swiveled around in my chair to look at Liza. Her eyes were glued to her phone, but she snapped her head up to laugh at the content on her screen. Once she was down laughing, I picked my phone up and pointed it in her general direction. Reaching forward, she grasped the device and quickly read the message.

“Don’t respond to him,” she said, handing the phone back to me.

“Why? I thought you were shipping us together?” I asked whilst forking more pasta in my mouth.

“That’s why I’m telling you what I am telling you!” Liza rose to her feet and in a split second, she stood in front of me with a sickening smile.

“I am afraid to ask,” I said with a sigh.

“You don’t have to; I’m gonna tell you anyway,” she squats between my legs and widens her smile. “That boy is already wrapped around your finger, all you need to do is pull away. Just a tiny bit and he’ll come running.”

“Liza. . .”

“Hear me out!” She rose to her feet again and walked to the closet. “Remember when I went thrift shopping last week and I picked up that cute bodycon dress?”

“Yeah. . . ?”

“Well, I washed it and realized that it didn’t have the BODY to fill it out properly.” She pulls the dress from the closet and turns back to me. “And since the Homecoming Afterparty is at the Quarterback's house tomorrow night, I thought it would be the perfect time for you to wear it.”

I eye the dress, taking in its extremely short length and strappy detailing on the front. One wrong move and my breasts would spill right out of it. But, one right move would have them fall onto Kiri’s lap. I tried my best to list the pros and cons of the situation. Pondering what I could get out of the ordeal going to the lion’s den dressed as a gazelle. Yet, all I could imagine was me twerking on someone’s son and taking him home afterward.

💘🖤💘🖤

The dress fit like a glove: perfectly tight, almost like a second skin, but very breathable. I paired it with some hoop earrings, a few bangles on each wrist, and 3-inch kitten heels. My goal was to dress to impress, not nurse my aching arches by the end of the night. The entire ride over to the nicer part of town was nerve-wracking, for one, the Uber driver wouldn’t stop staring at my cleavage from the driver’s mirror. And, secondly, Liza practically had phone sex with her boyfriend, who was going to meet us at the party. I stared down at my phone the whole time, rereading Kiri’s message and the ones he sent afterward. It was true, he was wrapped around my finger. He didn’t double text; Kirishima sent five messages in a row.

Hey, are you free tomorrow? I wanted to talk about yesterday.

I’ll buy you that weird thing you like from Starbucks.

The drink you said that tastes like the moon.`

And I’ll get you those cake pop things.

My heart couldn’t help but flutter; I didn’t know he was paying that much attention to me. I only mentioned that Starbucks drink once in his presence, quite a while ago. It had to be a little over a month ago, yet he still remembered.

The car stopped and Liza popped right out. Her 34 inch Brazilian, straight swaying behind her as she closes the door. Still chatting with her boyfriend, she motions me out of the car with an eager smile. Reluctantly, I detach myself from the cool leather and tug on my dress as I closed the door behind me. I looked up toward the mansion before me, white paint and overwhelming size almost frightened me. But, when I saw a familiar, spiky-haired, redhead, all my potential fear left my body and warmth replaced it.

Kirishima’s back was to me; he was having an intense conversation with his best friend, Bakugo, one of the team’s Linebackers. The blond was so close to popping a fuse but Kiri was struggling to keep from laughing directly in his face. I approach the porch, slow and sensual, my eyes glued to him the entire walk over. Kirishima briefly turns around to address a comer of the group, Sero, an offensive player, when his eyes come up the steps. The humorous expression on his face drops and is replaced with awe. The other two boys look in the direction of his eyesight and replicate his reaction.

“Hi—” I lifted my hand to wave, but it never made it past my abdomen. Liza appeared right in front of me and captured my wrist.

“Girl, it’s our song! Hurry up!” She said as she proceeded to drag me into the house.

“Bye—! Wait, damn!”

Liza pulled me to the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the living room of the home. She starts to bop side to side, swaying her hips in place. It takes me a few seconds to register that “34+35” was blasting the speakers. Liza twirls around me in a fit of giggles and continues to bop along to the music.

“I thought you liked “positions” better than this track?” I questioned as I matched her rhythm.

“I do! I just had to get you out of there,” Liza answered as she swayed her head back and forth. Which made her hair move in an angelic wave behind her bandeau top and pencil skirt. “Those three guys looked like they wanted to run a train on you.”

“ELIZABETH!!!!” I screamed with a shocked smile.

“What?! I’m not lying!” She gives me a bashful smirk. “You look so good, mamas! Shit, you're making me rethink my relationship with Shinso.”

“Oh my god!” I laughed. “I can’t take your ass anywhere, for real!”

The song began to fade out and bleed into “Pussy Talk” with the infamous City Girls. Liza’s soft bops began to move into full booty bouncing. Soon her hands are on her knees and she’s throwing her ass back on my lap. I press my hand flat on her back and lift my other hand in the air. She whines her waist and looks back at me as her inner hot girl is threatening to make an appearance. Shortly after the first verse, Liza straightens her back and dances around me as I bop to the side, bouncing my ass to the music. A smile comes to my lips as my favorite part plays on full blast.

“Pussy talented, it do cartwheels,” Liza and I screamed in unison. “And he pay ‘cause he like how that part feel.”

“Pussy give speeches, heartfelt,” I continued, popping my back against my friend.

“Yuh,” Liza ad-libbed.

“Said the pussy really talk like it Garfield,” I rapped as I felt Liza’s hands glide up my sides.

“It do!”

We danced around each other for the rest of the song and pulled away from the floor, desperately needing to hydrate. We practically stumbled toward the makeshift bar across the living room. We reached into the cooler and pulled out two bottles of water. We chugged the water and tossed the empty bottles in the trash.

“Only water, ladies?” Mineta asked as we turned back towards the dance floor. “You don’t want something a little. . . stronger?”

“Get lost, grape juice,” a familiar voice suddenly came out of nowhere.

Just a few feet behind the purple blob stood Kirishima and Shinso. If looks could kill, Mineta’s body parts would be staining the marble floors and messing up my fresh pedicure. The poor excuse for a human scurried away as both football players approached us. Shinso instantly wrapped his arms around Liza and planted a kiss on her forehead.

“Having fun, baby girl?” His low voice sounded sensual against the harsh music.

A seductive smile falls on Liza’s face. “I would’ve had even more fun if you actually danced with me for once.”

“You know I don’t like—”

“Too bad!” She pulled Shinso to the dance floor.

Leaving me alone with Kirishima. I turned to look at him and offered him an awkward smile. “How was your diving lesson?”

The redhead returned my smile and scratched the back of his neck. “So you did read me my texts? I was starting to think you were mad at me or something.”

“Not at you, per se,” I replied thinking of my words carefully.

“Then who were you mad at?” Kirishima closes the distance between us and puts a finger under my chin. He redirects my attention to his face and gives me a smirk.

He looked good and he knew it. He wore a simple white t-shirt and black ripped jeans. But, he paired it with a burgundy leather jacket and a Cuban link silver chain. He had a gold wristwatch on his left wrist and a simple chain on his right. And his cologne. . . it danced in my nostrils. It wasn’t too heavy or suffocating; you simply had to be close to him to smell it.

Kirishima was playing a dangerous game and he knew it.

“At the people that take you away from me,” I looked at him with doughy eyes and slightly parted lips. A look of innocence was written all over my face.

Kirishima clenched his jaw and briefly looked away. A blush starting to form on his cheeks. “Well, I—. Shit.” He remained silent for a few seconds, gathering his words, before saying “You don’t know what you do to me, Y/N.”

“And what’s that?” I asked while removing his hand from my chin and bringing it to my lips. I gently kiss his bruised knuckles, never breaking eye contact while doing so.

The redhead opens his mouth to speak but is rudely interrupted by a yelling Liza.

“GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE, BITCH!!!! THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG!!!!”

While I was talking to Kirishima, the music seemed to slip away. I had no idea what was playing until I refocused my attention on the blaring speakers. “Come on, Kiri. Duty calls.” I drag him to the dance floor.

Liza unlatches herself from Shinso and twirls around me. “I’m not shy, I’ll say it. I’ve been picturing you naked.”

“I’m a little faded, you look like a fucking painting,” I continue the verse as I glide my hands along my body. “Big doe eyes, amazin’. She’s everything I’ve been prayin’.”

Liza walked up to Kirishima and glided her hand along his chest. “Me and your girlfriend playin’ dress-up house.” She pressed two fingers against her lips and poked her tongue out. “I gave your girlfriend cunnilingus on my couch.”

Kirishima blushes a bright red, nearly matching his hair. It takes everything in me not to laugh.

I look back at Shinso and he’s just shaking his head with a smile on his face.

“Go get your girlfriend, before she devours your teammate,” I said giggly quietly.

“Go get your best friend before she kills your loverboy,” Shinso counters looking down at me with a smirk.

“He looks like he's gonna pass out,” I replied, struggling to contain my laughter.

“If you think that’s bad, you should’ve seen him when you were twerking on Liza,” Shinso jested while leaning closer to me. “Eijiro looked like he came in his pants.”

I smacked his arm and leaned against his chest. “You’re lying!” Laughter overcame my body; tears were gathering in the corners of my eyes.

“I swear to god,” Shinso struggled to say while laughing. “Then, when Bakugo called you hot. . . Eiji almost went feral.”

“Stop. . . I can’t breathe. . .”

“You better fuck him like the world is ending. . . I can’t keep stopping him from. . . fighting the entire team over you.”

“You and Liza. . . perfect for each other. . . I cannot. . .”

The song swiftly faded out into another. Yet another one of Liza’s favorites: Buss it by Erika Banks.

The young woman peeled herself from Kirishima and began walking to her boyfriend. I distanced myself from Shinso and walked over to Kirishima. I wrapped my arms around his neck and looked into his eyes. “Are you okay, Kiri?” A smile painted my lips.

His eyes darkened and he gripped my waist firmly. “I want you. . . so bad right now.”

“How about we get outta here?” I suggested with a raised eyebrow.

“Go say goodbye to your friends, I’ll bring the car around,” Kirishima asserted with a smirk. He pressed a kiss to my forehead before detaching himself from me and walking out of the living room.

I turned back to Shinso and Liza, who were seconds away from eating each other’s face off. I tapped the loving couple and cleared my throat. They both pulled away and stared at me.

"We're leaving," I said simply.

"About fucking time," Liza replied with a smirk. "You better come back to the dorm in a goddamn wheelchair, if not, I'm sending you back to his place."

"You have like zero chill," I shook my head and waved goodbye.

"Don't forget to use protection!" Liza yelled after me.

A chuckle fell from my lips as I walked out of the front door. I found Kirishima exactly where he said he'd be: parked in front of the massive house, within a bright red mustang. He exited the car and walked around to the passenger side of the vehicle. He opened my door and helped me get in. Kirishima made sure I was buckled in and comfortable before entering the car on the driver's side.

He starts the vehicle, and places his right hand on my thigh. He gives the plush fresh a securing squeeze before pulling away from the curb.

The drive was short and sweet, averaging around ten minutes. We parked across the street from the boys’ dorm hall and exited the car. Kirishima opened my door and helped me out of the vehicle.

"If you don't want this, I could always take you home," he said as he shut my door. "I don't want to pressure you into anything."

"I want this more than you know," I responded while gripping his hand. "But, if I ever feel uncomfortable, I'll let you know."

Kirishima nods and smiles. "Good girl. Now let's go."

The moment his dorm's door closed, his body was pressed against mine and his hand glued to my waist. His lips massaged against my own, slow and sensually. I moaned against the kiss, and pressed my body closer to his. He felt so good attached to me, almost like he was meant to be against me. His searing hot kisses inched down my jawline and to my neck. Kirishima's hands slid up my abdomen and to my shoulders, he slipped the straps from the curved surface and pulled away just enough just to allow me to remove them from my arms.

He kissed the other side of my neck, leaving little bites here and there. The redhead ran his tongue against my collarbones and I swear a flood rushed to my nether regions. Kirishima kissed down and left my breast, gathering the anticipation that swirled through my body before latching his lips on my nipple. A throat my moan fell from my mouth and my legs jolted slightly. My mind continued to fog as he nestled against the sensitive bud, while happily moaning against the soft flesh. I pressed one hand against the front door and another in his hair.

Pants left my lips as I began to squirm underneath his body. "Take me to the bed, please," I begged while looking down at him. " I want you so bad, Kiri."

The redhead detached himself from my breast and gripped my chin. "Say my name, baby." His red eyes stared deeply into my brown ones, taking in every little detail of my expression.

"Eijiro," I said breathlessly.

"Say it again," he broke eye contact and gripped my waist.

"Eijiro."

His hands slipped down the curve of my rear and to my legs. He lifted limbs from off the ground and wrapped them around his waist. I wrapped my arms around his leg immediately afterward and giggled.

He walked further into the dorm room and passed through another dorm. He sits me on the extra-long twin bed and falls to his knees between my legs. Kiri unlatches my strappy heel and tosses it to the other side of the room. While he does the other foot, a smirk presses against his lips.

"What?" I asked while looking down at him.

"I'm just thinking about how this started," he said while smiling. "How my shifty grades gave me the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Stop it," I counter with a blush on my face. "You're exaggerating."

"Baby, I mean it with every fiber of my being when I say this," he leaned forward. "I've wanted to be with you for a while now, I just didn't know if you'd like me back. And I was kinda ashamed of taking so long to say something because you're so sweet and you really helped me a lot with Advanced American History. I didn’t want you to think I was using you for information or anything."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips on his forehead. "I liked you even before I officially knew you. When you beat the shit out of that guy that tried to home a drunk girl."

"I don't even remember that."

"It was during a Halloween party last year, that was when I first saw you. And I thought, "wow I wish more men like him existed in this world"."

"I can't believe you remember that."

"How could I not? You basically saved that girl's life and dignity. You were the only human being in a room full of predators. That's when I knew I wanted you for myself."

Kirishima laughs. "Greedy, little Y/N."

I shrugged.

"Come here."

I gathered the football player into my arms and pressed my lips onto his. Taking in every ounce of his kiss. Sucking on his bottom lip. Slipping my tongue within his mouth. Tugging against his collar to close the distance between us. After a few seconds, Kirishima kissed down my body again until he was face to face with my heated center. He scrunched the dress around my waist and pulled my panties off my legs before spreading my legs wide open.

"Oh… look how wet you are, baby," he kissed the soft skin in between my thighs. "All for me."

Kirishima dipped his head between my legs and took a long swipe at the sticky mess between them. A shiver ran along my spine, Arching my back, I released a soft whimper and spread my legs further apart. He dipped his tongue into the smooth canal repeatedly, bobbing his head as he completed the action. His calloused hands slid up my legs once more and hooked around my thighs. Kiri moved his hot mouth from the very bottom of my womanhood to the top, leaving a long string of spit along the way. The redhead sucked on the protruding bud tenderly; with hollowed cheeks, he looked up from my heat and stared into my eyes. I bit my lip and moaned loudly.

“Fuck, you feel good,” I arched my back against his mouth and bucked my hips slowly.

Kirishima released my bud with a silent “pop” and began lapping the rosy, pink button in great haste. My legs jolted at the new source of stimulation and a throaty whine fell from my lips. Squeezing my eyes shut, I squirmed underneath his mouth, desperately wanting to add more friction. Kiri noticed my slutty movements and began to move his tongue even faster.

“Ah. . . just like that, don’t stop,” my fingers gathered my bosoms and gave them a firm squeeze. The walls of my slick cave began to clench and release themselves at a faster pace. Tingles rose up my body, swirling against my lower abdomen, almost numbing my lower half entirely. Then, a searing sensation ripped through me, causing my hips to raise from the bed and my knees to shake. A low scream left my mouth as I felt the throbbing of my bud increase tremendously.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” My hips fell on the bed again and my legs shook violently. Kirishima steadied them as much as he could before a whole another wave hit my body and my entire being went still.

“Ah! Eijiro!” I screamed as the pleasure shot through my body for the last time. Pants left my throat and short spurts, just as sweat dripped from my forehead. I looked down at Kirishima, who had just pulled away from my spasming cunny. He had a look of astonishment on his face, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked down at my wrecked body, taking in the shaking limbs, the thin layer of sweat upon it, and the scrunched-up dress at the waist.

“You sounded so hot screaming my name,” he finally said after a few seconds of silence. “No one has ever made it sound so good as you.”

“Well, grab a condom and I’ll scream your name for the rest of the night,” I replied with a smirk. “If you can last that long.”

“Oh, baby,” Kiri’s smile widened. “You have no idea.”

He walked over to his dresser and pulled out a box of condoms from the top drawer. He ripped one off the sleeve and walked back over to me. I pulled the scrunched-up dress over my head and tossed it to the side. I looked over at Kiri and he’d already stripped himself of his T-shirt. He was currently unbuckling his belt with the condom packet in his mouth. His massive bulge immediately caught my eye and I moaned in anticipation. Kirishima rips the packet open with his teeth and rolls latex down his throbbing shaft. My walls clench at the delicious sight and I could feel my nipple begin to stiffen

“If you’re still tired, we can wait a little—” Kirishima begins to say before I cut him off.

“Eijiro, stop being nice and fuck me like a slut.”

His lips were on mine within the next heartbeat. His hands roamed every crevice of my body, taking in the soft tissue and stretchmarks lovingly. His throbbing member slowly slid into me with little to no friction. He made sure to thumb my clitoris while inserting himself, just so he wouldn’t hurt me. And I swear, I was seconds away from asking him to marry me. He gently moved his hips backward, and then pushed forward again. Highlighting his first stroke. He looked at the crimson hue on my face and leaned down to kiss me.

“You are so pretty, princess,” Kiri groaned softly, as he moved his hips at a gentle pace. “So, so pretty.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again. Our tongues danced together as his member tenderly kissed my sensitive walls with each thrust. Kirishima moaned against my lips, as he took in every part of that union. He hiked up one of my legs and hooked it around his waist while he cradled the back of my neck with the other. He looked into my eyes as he increased the pressure of his strokes and their depth. My mouth hung open, and drool poured from the side of it as he kept up the sickening pace. My eyes began to roll back as throat moans rose from the depth of my body.

“Oh God. . .” I slurred as the pleasure increased within my body.

“Aww look at my pretty baby,” Kiri grunted as he rested his hand on my neck. He pressed his thumb between my lips.

I sucked on the digit and looked into his eyes. He moved his hips faster and my lips separated from around the finger. Pants fell from my lips as I felt his member sensually assault my cervix. After a few minutes, Kirishima suddenly pauses and hikes one of my legs up to his shoulders. He readjusts his body, leaving his hand on my neck and placing his hand on my clit. Kiri began to rock his hips in a powerful, but steady motion. He rubs the throbbing bud in a gentle motion, slowly gathering every ounce of pleasure within my body. The pace of my breathing increased rapidly, as the pool in my stomach began to inflate. Whimpers fell from my lips as I gripped the sheets underneath me.

“I’m so close. . .” I whispered through tight lips. “Please don’t stop. . .”

“You’re squeezing me so deliciously tight, baby,” Kirishima grunts as a droplet of sweat drops from his brow. “Milking my cock for everything it’s worth. What a greedy little cunny you have.”

“Eijiro. . . I wanna cum so bad,” I whimpered through pants. “Please let me cum, baby.”

Kirishima curses under his breath and releases his hand from my throbbing bud. He places both hands onto my neck, thumbs pressing against my jaw. He eases his body forward and keeps his sickening pace. “You’re gonna be the death of me, I swear.”

I sucked in a breath and wrapped my hands around his forearms. I furrow my brows and pant with my mouth open. “You make me feel so good, Eiji. So fucking good!”

“You’re mine, you hear me?” He drops his hands from my neck and presses his forehead to mine. “You don’t get to fuck anyone else. . . . .You don’t get to be with anyone else. . . .My name will be the only name you moan for the rest of your life, do you understand?”

I nod. “I understand.”

“You’re mine and no one else's.”

He pulls me into a searing hot kiss. Drinking in all the love and energy throughout my body. I hook my arms around his neck and moan against his lips. Suddenly, I felt an intense rush of adrenaline pass through my body and everything seemed to go silent. A low ringing noise sounded in my ear as my mouth fell open. I dug my arms into his back and clung to his body. Every fiber of my being tensed and my mind went completely blank for several seconds. Then, slowly, my body released itself and collapsed onto the bed. I opened my eyes lazily to see Kirishima’s eyes tightly closed and his hips slightly shaking. Once he finished his ride, his body relaxed and he lowered my leg from his shoulder. He pulled me into an embrace and pressed another kiss onto my lips.

I pulled away from the kiss and looked into his crimson eyes. “Were you serious about calling me yours?”

“Ugh. . . yes?” He replied hesitantly. Then, he added “If that’s okay with you! I don’t wanna force you—”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I cut him off with a smirk.

“Oh, I was worried for a second.”

“The only thing you should be worried about is your Advanced American History grade.”

“Oh, right. . .”

“You miss another one of my sessions, I’ll ignore you again.”

“Please don’t! I will be present at every session.”

“Good. And you have to be Starbucks.”

“The drink that tastes like the moon?”

“Matcha latte with 2 pumps of chai. Yup.”

“And two chocolate cake pops.”

“Mhm. You know me so well.”

[witcher-and-his-bard-archive]

Little Things

doing this thing | day 18 - “Where did that come from”

They're in town to have Geralt's armour repaired and to stock up on supplies. Nothing else. Geralt has been very clear about that. But there is a little shop that sells stationery and how is Jaskier supposed to ignore that? His notebook is filling up quickly and soon he'll need another and his notebook to him is just as important as, say, Geralt's potions - he simply couldn't do his job without it. So looking is fine.

He slips into the shop while Geralt is talking to the armourer and he's sure he won't be missed. He slips amongst the shelves, keeping quiet at the shopkeeper speaks to another customer and then, right at the back of the shop, he finds a notebook. It's not special, really, but the design on the cover reminds him of Geralt, somehow.

He holds the book in his hands, running his fingers over the indented design and sighs to himself. There are too many other expenses right now, he'll just have to find a cheaper one somewhere else - he doesn't need it right now, anyway. He sets the book back into its place on the shelf and moves on, inspecting their quills and inkpots, and eventually exiting the shop to go and find Geralt.

The notebook stays on his mind for days. Which doesn't make any sense because it's only a book and he knows Geralt's armour is more important, that a trip to the herbalist is more important, but it doesn't stop him from wanting. And it's not as though he denies himself, not as though this book might be the one indulgence for him because it certainly isn't. Geralt often teases him about where he spends his money and on what, but that's because Geralt doesn't understand fashion. But he's certain Geralt wouldn't have minded if he bought the book. After all, he pays for their rooms at inns and for their supper most nights when they're in town - and that money comes from his music.

He's sitting next to the fire dwelling on it, but when Geralt comes back from a hunt bloody and holding his left side, all thoughts of the book are gone. Geralt's armour is much more important.

They pass through the same town a few weeks later and Jaskier steadfastly avoids the shop, instead taking Roach ahead to have her stabled while he pays for a room. He takes his things up to the room and gets settled while he waits for Geralt to return. He gets a fire lit and has the table ready so when Geralt comes back he has somewhere to work. During the last hunt, he'd depleted his potions and once again Jaskier is glad that they purchased ingredients instead of the notebook, not that it doesn't still linger in his mind.

Once he's happy with the state of the room, he pulls his old notebook out and settles in front of the fire to write while he waits. He doesn't have long as it turns out. After only a few minutes, he hears footsteps outside the door and then Geralt walks in with his bag slung over one arm. He sets it on the ground, instead crossing to the bed to gather the things he needs. Jaskier watches as he always does, coming to sit at the other chair. He likes knowing what is what and how to put them together so that if he ever needs to, he can replicate the potions.

Geralt is patient with him, explaining each step as he goes, telling him which herbs need to be ground finely and which need to be turned into a paste. Jaskier listens eagerly, glad to have a distraction from the nagging regret about the book. His current notebook is unravelling and he's had to re-bind it three times - not that he minds, there are more important things.

"Jaskier," Geralt says sharply and he snaps his head up. Maybe this isn't as good a distraction as he thought.

"Sorry, what?"

"I need the vials from my pack, will you grab them?"

Jaskier nods, already rising from his seat, pushing the chair out behind him. He crosses the room and crouches next to Geralt's discarder bag, undoing the clasp. He's expecting to find the vials on top, considering they're delicate, but instead there's a package wrapped in fine silk. Jaskier frowns in confusion, taking the package and setting it aside.

But as he does so, a corner of the silk slips away, revealing a square of embossed leather and he freezes. The pattern looks familiar - but it can't be. Glancing up to see if Geralt is watching, he gently pulls the cloth away, revealing the book beneath. He can't breathe. Surely, there has to be some logical explanation as to why Geralt has this particular notebook in his bag. Maybe he needs it to record his recipes - Jaskier has been nagging at him to do that for him - and it only stands to reason that they would have similar tastes after spending so much time together. But Geralt doesn't care for patterns and intricacies; he likes things simple. Before he can think better of it, Jaskier is turning with the book in his hands.

"Geralt," he chokes, "what is this?"

Geralt, the bastard, barely acknowledges him, glancing up and shrugging. "Oh," he says, "where did that come from?"

"Geralt, I'm serious, what is this?"

"It's a notebook," he says simply, "I thought of all people, you would be able to recognize that."

"Yes, yes, but what is it doing here. What is this notebook doing in your bag?" This time, Geralt sets his tools down, looking over at him with the faintest smile on his lips.

"Do you not like it?" he asks, "You've been talking about it for weeks. Unless I picked the wrong one?"

"No," Jaskier mumbles, but suddenly his words have abandoned him. Surely Geralt can't mean that. He picked it out? For him? "I- it's- you- Geralt this was expensive, we can't afford-" Geralt's smile grows into something soft and warm and he turns in his seat.

"I made a trade," he says, "turns out the shopkeeper's brother was having a bit of a ghoul problem. I told him I'd take care of it in exchange for the book. He held it for me."

"So we- you didn't need to come back for supplies?" Jaskier stammers, struggling to process.

"Not for me, no."

Jaskier gets to his feet, crossing to where Geralt sits, the notebook still clenched tightly in his hand. "Thank you," he whispers, "I don't know what to say." He climbs into Geralt's lap, surprised again when a strong arm encircles his waist. Geralt cocks his head and reaches up abortively, letting his hand fall to Jaskier's thigh.

"Write me something nice," he says and Jaskier nods, breathless. He doesn't realize he's crying until Geralt reaches up again, brushing his cheek. "It's not that important," he says but Jaskier disagrees. Without thinking, he dips down, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Geralt's mouth.

"It's everything."

[bluewhale52]

Little Black Book: The One You Hate (M)

Summary: There are a few names in your Little Black Book, and these seven hold a special place in your heart. Now that you are closing that chapter in your life, you reminisce the time and experience you have had with your seven favourite men, especially with Kim Seokjin, the one you hate.

Pairing: Seokjin x female reader

Rating: Explicit. NO MINORS ALLOWED.

Genre: nonidol!au, strangers to lovers, friends with benefit

WC: 3.9k

Warning: swearing, car blowjob, ass slapping, OC loves going down on Seokjin, sex against a window, sex between coworkers, love-hate relationship between OC and Seokjin (more on OC). I guess that’s about it….

A/N: Many, many, many thanks to @rainbhrts94​ for beta-ing this piece. I was experiencing a burnout and having a hard time putting all my thoughts together, and her reviews and suggestions totally helped getting this fic into its final form. Thank you!!  Also, I’m a total dodo when it comes to Tumblr so with some help from @aroseforyoongi​ and @moccahobi​, I’m reposting this with hope that the link works this time round!

Series Masterlist:  Little Black Book

Kim Seokjin was the bane of your existence. 

The cocky, arrogant IP attorney from the New York office had everyone on your floor in an uproar for weeks. You had seen him making one of the conference rooms his home away from home, with a hoard of lawyers and secretaries going in and out at his beckoning. You were watching them with jealousy. Sure, you were a mere junior in the firm and therefore the lowest in the food chain (just slightly above the interns), but you really wanted to be part of the action. 

Then, somehow, during his  last few days in Seoul, you were picked to help him and his team. Your excitement soon turned sour, as you were constantly on coffee and photocopy duties. How could you prove your worth when you were too busy being worked as Kim Seokjin’s personal server? Why couldn’t he ask one of his groupies? There were plenty of secretaries and PAs throwing themselves at him; you bet one of them would be happy to do this… THIS menial job. It was truly beneath your job description, and you started to simply, truly hate the man.

If that was really the case though, how did you end up in his luxury rental car, bending over towards the driver seat, sucking his cock? How did your mouth end up around his shaft, while your saliva dripped down and coated your fingers around his base? Why were your panties getting wetter with every moan and groan that left his lips? Why did you wish he would just spank your ass instead of tugging your hair? Why, when he came, did you gobble up his seed so greedily and lick him clean? Why did you even feel the need to stick your tongue out to him to show him you had swallowed every single drop?

Seokjin exhaled sharply then looked over at you as he tucked himself back in. “You do this with every visiting attorney?” He leered at you.

You rolled your eyes. “Just the one that pisses me off.”

He chuckled. “I should piss you off more then.”

“Are you going to drive me home or what?”

Seokjin started his car. The engine purred, and you pressed your thighs closer together at the soft vibrations that went through the car. “I promised I’d buy you dinner first, didn’t I?”

You flashed him a saccharine smile. “I had a meal already, thanks.”

Seokjin sniggered as he pulled out of the parking lot. He had offered to drive you home - “the least I can do after all your hard work this week” he had said- and while your little apartment was at the other end of the city from the five-star hotel he was staying, it was indeed the least he could do for you. So when you had settled in his car and buckled your seatbelt, after he had asked if he could buy you dinner, you- in your frustration, because you hated him and you just wanted to go home (god, was that too much to ask)- muttered under your breath on how you would rather suck his dick than have dinner with him. 

You had been taken aback when he broke into a brazen smile, challenging you to eat your own words, and damned if you were going to back down. Deep down, you had wanted to see if this perfect man with the perfect face and the perfect suits tailored around his perfect body (he had legs that went for miles, you hated to admit), also had the perfect dick. 

It turned out that he did, and his perfect dick was perfectly hard when you unzipped him. And so, that was how you went down on Kim Seokjin, giving him a near perfect blowjob, in his car, in the basement parking lot of your firm. (Near perfect because honestly, you could have done a lot more had you had more ample space to move.)

You stole a glance at Seokjin as he drove. His side profile was sharp and too good to be true. Flashes of lights only further highlighted his jaw and cheekbones. You looked away, pouting. 

“I’m flying back tomorrow evening.” He broke the silence. “You gonna miss me?”

You scoffed. “You wish. I’ll finally be able to do real work rather than making you coffee.”

He had the gall to laugh. “I’ll be back in two months. Don’t worry.”

The rest of the drive was quiet. How did you get into this? How could you possibly be so horny for him? Was it your dislike for him that made you like this? You should have known better than blowing him in his car just now. What if he started shooting his mouth off in the office? Or worse, in your personal promised land, THE New York office?

“Seokjin,” you started, “about what happened just now, I’d appreciate it if you keep it to yourself.”

“Of course, I’m not Yuna.”

You tilted your head at the name. Yuna was one of the senior partners’ secretary. “What do you mean?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know? She’s been telling everyone how good I was in bed.”

“You slept with her?” You couldn’t mask your surprise. “I didn’t hear anything about it. I must’ve been so out of loop with the rumor mills. Wait… Is that why you’ve been asking me to do all that shit? So you don’t have to deal with her?”

“Smart girl.” Seokjin made a turn, stopping just outside your apartment complex. He turned off the engine.

“And here I thought you liked my coffee. And how I photocopied your endless documents.” You said dryly. “Thanks for the ride.”

Seokjin stopped you before you exited his car. “Aren’t you going to invite me to your place?”

You chortled. “Why, you need a goodbye fuck?” You spat it out, but internally, you hoped your playing hard to get was not going to backfire. 

“Hmm,” Seokjin looked out of the car, eyeing your apartment building. “What kind of bedsheets do you have?”

“What do my bedsheets have to do with anything?”

“500 thread count? Or pure linen?” 

You opened the car door and got out. “Bye Seokjin.”

He got out too, walking you to the main entrance. “I’ll buy you some. For next time I’m here. Two months from now.”

You scanned your access card, but he stopped you from opening the door.

“Not gonna kiss me goodnight, sweetheart?”

You turned to him and leaned forward. But instead of kissing him, you stuck your tongue out and licked him, along his jaw, all the way to his ear. You did not miss the shiver that ran through his body when you closed your lips around his earlobe. Smiling smugly,  you opened the door, and as you were about to walk into your safe haven triumphantly, Seokjin slapped your ass. You stilled yourself, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing your reaction. 

“See you in two months, sweetheart.” You heard him chuckle as the door closed behind you.

Kim Seokjin was truly the bane of your existence. 

~~~

He returned to Seoul in two months. You were not keeping track on your calendar, no of course not. You just knew because the commotion was back, as it always was when he stepped into the office. He picked you again to assist his team (Yuna gave you an evil eye for that), and at the end of the work day, when you were filing papers and folders, he slipped a small envelope into your hand. 

“Open it at your desk.” He said in a low whisper. 

You looked at the envelope quizzically before putting it into your pocket. “Is it your credit card? To buy pure linen bed sheets?” You whispered back. 

“Sweetheart, I already bought you a few sets from New York.”

You snorted. Later, when you were back at your desk, you took the envelope out and opened it. You found a note with a gold monogram of Seokjin’s initials at the top. You laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Under his insignia, was a series of digits you assumed to be his mobile number. You saved it in your phone. 

There was something else in the envelope, however. A piece of key card, with the logo of the five-star hotel on one side, and handwritten 4-digit number on the other.  Your eyes widened. Was this an invitation to his hotel room?

You peered out of your cubicle like a meerkat, trying to find where Seokjin was. Then you remembered foolishly you had his number. So you immediately texted him.

– You [18:40] : Seokjin, WTF??? 

– You [18:40] : also, nice stationery

– You [18:40] : it’s me btw

– Seokjin [18:41] : hurry the fuck up. I’ve been waiting for you in my car

You smiled. The time had finally come, you were going to fuck Kim Seokjin.

~~~

You had to admit, high quality bed sheets felt amazing. It hugged your naked body like soft clouds as Seokjin pounded into you relentlessly. His thrusts had caused your body to move, inch by inch, from one end of the bed to the other. You were not complaining though;  the way he rammed himself into you made your breasts bounce back and forth like a pendulum on a string, the feeling was so delicious.

You gripped the edge of the bed as you watched him over you. His usually perfect hair was messy now, his perfect face was void of the usual laser focus expression you normally saw at work and of the arrogant smirk he liked to give you. His broad shoulders and lean torso filled your vision- you had had fun stroking your hands over his pecs, abdomens and biceps. God, you hated how perfectly hot he was. 

You whined pathetically when he plunged his cock and pushed it as deep as he could into you. Seokjin dropped to his elbows, and you welcomed the new weight on top of your body. He stilled, letting his hardness rest inside you. You wrapped your legs around him and could not help but clench around his cock. He groaned against your chest at the sensations. 

“Do that again, sweetheart,” he nibbled and licked your collarbone, “squeeze my cock again.”

You did as he asked, tightening your walls around him before loosening again, repeating the movements and creating your own erotic Kegel exercise around his cock. You could feel Seokjin’s breath faltering on your neck, and before long, you were careening towards your peak.

“Seokjin,” you gasped, “close.”

He remained still, even at your warning. Choosing to work his lips on your neck and up to your ear instead. Finding a spot behind your ear, he licked and nipped at it, sending shudders all over your body and suddenly pushing you to your release. Seokjin held you down as your body shook, willing himself not to come, but the way your pussy walls massaged his cock, it did him in. 

You and Seokjin held each other tight as you both came. Your fingers dug into his shoulders, his hips pressed harder against yours as he shot his seeds inside you. Finally groans and moans gave way to heavy breathing, and as your heart rate slowed down, sanity returned. 

You opened your eyes. “God, don’t do that EVER again.” You slapped his shoulder. “I’m super ticklish there.”

Seokjin hummed, and nipped at the spot again. You yelped, but in the process you also squeezed his flaccid cock, still sheathed fully in you. “Now I know what to do when you talk too much.” He mumbled. 

You tried to wriggle away from his mouth, but the more he teased your spot, the more you moaned, and the more your body became heated again. You were all ready for round two, but your stomach betrayed you, for it growled shamelessly. Seokjin’s eyes widened at the sound, and the two of you burst out laughing.

“OK, I’d better feed you before I fuck you against the window.” He pulled out of you, holding on to the spent condom on his dick. Walking to the bathroom, he gestured to the phone on the bedside table. “Whatever you order, order the same for me.” 

And that was how you spent your first night with Kim Seokjin. Fucked out of your brains and eating room service food in his luxurious hotel room. 

~~~

You gave Seokjin your Saturday nights whenever he was in town, which was only about three to four times a year.. You hated to admit it, but you enjoyed your time with him. It was obvious he liked your company too, and your arrangement worked out well. You both wanted sex with no strings attached. You enjoyed arguing with each other, although it felt like Seokjin lived solely to rile you up to get a reaction out of you. He said he was training you to hold your poker face better; after all, didn’t you want to be a successful attorney like him?

And that was the situation you found yourself in that evening. Seokjin kept prodding at you until your temper snapped, and you roughly pushed him to the chaise in his room. You quickly worked on his jeans and his boxers, pulling them down to his ankles, only to find his cock already hard and weeping with precum.

You cocked an eyebrow at him. “Making me angry turns you on so much, huh?” You wrapped your fingers around his shaft, lazily stroking it a few times before squeezing it gently at the base. Seokjin hissed, but his annoying smirk never went away. 

“You can’t shut up your opponents by going down on every one of them,” he teased, his hand reached out to touch your hair but you swatted it away with your free hand, “no matter how sexy you are when you’re angry.”

You scowled as your hand continued stroking him. Keeping your eyes on his, you closed your lips around the head of his cock, your tongue lapping up his precum. Seokjin sucked in a breath. 

“So what should I do then?” You asked before licking up and down his length. Seokjin threw his head back, enjoying the wetness of your tongue on his hot member. 

“Hmmm… “Seokjin moaned. “Learn to control your temper better, sweetheart. You know how our kind is…”

Seokjin took a deep breath. Your tongue was still busy on his cock. It drove you nuts how addicted you were to the taste of him. “… especially to female attorneys..” Seokjin continued.

“Excuse me?!” you sat up straight, but your hand was still around his member, unconsciously squeezing it a little harder than normal.

“Ouch!” Seokjin yelped. “What are you trying to do? Pull my dick off?”

You sniggered, your grip loosened slightly as you continued to stroke him. “Tell me,” he asked, “how did your last case go? You almost lost because the opposing attorney kept throwing jabs at your gender, am I right?”

Your cheeks reddened. “How did you know about that?” you pouted.

“I get regular updates on you, sweetheart, I like to know how my protege is doing.”

You eyed him skeptically. “Wow, I’m so honored.” Your tone was flat, but your hand started pumping his cock faster. You thought back to the moment you nearly lost your temper in court, and you buried the memory deep. You leaned in and started to take Seokjin’s length into your mouth when it suddenly dawned on you.

“Wait,” Seokjin’s cock popped out of your mouth. “Is that why I didn’t get the promotion? I won that case but I didn’t get my promotion because I was too emotional?”

Seokjin groaned, in desire and in frustration. He looked down at you, kneeled between his legs, eyebrows scrunched up, eyes angry, mouth in a pout, and his hardness in the mercy of your hand. He ran a hair through his hair. 

“Now that you recognise the problem, will you solve it?” 

You nodded.

“So can we please continue?” He asked. 

You nodded again before your mouth returned to his cock. You enveloped your lips around the head, sucking it gently and licking it until you heard him moan. You started taking more of him into your mouth, the muskiness of his scent filling your nose. His hands found your head and held it gently, his fingers carding your hair. 

You continued to lubricate him with your saliva, relaxing your mouth and your throat to take all of him in. You steadied your breathing as you sucked in your cheeks, and you slowly pulled out all the way to the tip, before filling your mouth again. “That’s good sweetheart, you know just how I like it.”

You stupidly beamed at his praise, and it encouraged you to pick up your pace, sucking him faster and harder. His breathing was getting heavier, and you massaged his balls, eager for him to cum in your mouth. “No, no,” he pulled your head, and you came up gasping for breath. “I want to be in you now.”

You and Seokjin undressed immediately, and Seokjin went to the bathroom to retrieve a condom. He rolled the rubber as you positioned yourself by the window. The window felt cold on your back, but your core was wet and hot.  Seokjin lifted you up effortlessly, and your legs immediately wrapped around his waist, and your arms around his neck. 

Seokjin spat into his hand and rubbed his saliva over your cunt. Then the blunt head of his cock was at your entry, and he pushed it in, inch by inch until he was fully inside you. Adjusting his grip, ensuring he got you secured between him and the window, he started to move. Slowly at first, and once your juices were flowing and leaking, he went faster. 

You felt sweat developing on your back, making your body slippery against the glass. You dug your fingers into Seokjin’s shoulders, anchoring yourself up as he continued to pound into you. You turned your head to the side, catching the city skyline in the corner of your eye. 

“God, Seokjin,” you whined wantonly, “When I get that New York position, will you fuck me like this with the New York skyline in the background?”

Seokjin huffed, his hips not missing a beat. “Sweetheart, you’ll never get the New York position.”

You snapped your head back to look at Seokjin, he was still thrusting mercilessly into you. You pulled his hair. “What do you mean I will NEVER get the New York position?”

Seokjin’s smirk was back. He pulled out slowly then he rammed himself back into you hard, making you mewl. “It means…”

He took his time thrusting into you again.

“… you will…”

Another slow and hard thrust.

“… never get…”

He was hitting the sweet spot inside you.

“… the New York position.”

You cried out at his last thrust. “Because I’m too emotional?” you asked breathlessly.

“Because… “ his mouth was inching closer to the sensitive spot on your ear, “we’re closing that office.”

You gasped, at the news and at Seokjin’s sudden change of pace. He was fucking you fast again, pressing your body harder against the window. 

“Wait.. ah, Seokjin… “ you said between pants, “does that mean…”  

You could not finish your question because Seokin began nibbling and sucking your ear, sending your body rigid as the pressure on your cunt was waiting to explode.

“Yeah,” Seokjin panted. “I’ll be back in Seoul for good, sweetheart.”

You threw your head back against the window as Seokjin continued pistoning into you, pushing you towards and over your climax. You wailed in pleasure as the heat enveloped you. He did not let up at the slightest, his hips kept thrusting into you ruthlessly even as you began to sob from the oversensitivity.

Seokjin wrapped his arms around you tightly to move you, and you both collapsed on the bed, his cock still secure in you. He rolled to his back, bringing you on top of him. He slapped your ass. “Can you ride me?”

You pushed yourself up with your arms, your hair curtaining Seokjin’s face. You started to move your hips back and forth as you tried to get your breathing back. The sensitivity in your sex slowly turned into pleasure once again, and you quickened your pace. Seokjin moved his hands to your breasts, squeezing the flesh and flicking the nipples as they swung before him.

“Does… does this mean you’re gonna be my boss?” You asked between moans.

“Do you want me to be your boss?” Seokjin tugged your nipples, causing your back to arch.

“You’ll scold me everyday.”

“And I’ll fuck you every Saturday.” He thrusted up to meet your hips. “You like that?”

“Fuck no…” you felt the heat returning back to your core. “I’ll just hate you even more.”

Seokjin slapped your ass. “Just admit it, sweetheart, I’m your favorite among all your other fuck toys.”

You stammered as Seokjin thrusted up again, and he took the opportunity to pull you down onto his chest. Planting his heels on the bed, he held you down as he started thrusting his hips to plunge his cock into you, fast and hard. You closed your eyes tightly and felt tears slipping down your cheeks as you came closer to your climax.

“Come on sweetheart,” Seokjin whispered in your ears, “give me one more. Milk my cock.”

You cried out as your body jolted and shook. Seokjin kept holding you down, chasing his own release too. His thrusting became more messy, and he finally came too, swearing and groaning loudly.

You stayed still on top of Seokjin, your heart beating out of your chest, and so was his. You both lay on the bed, bodies sticky with sweat, waiting for the haze of your orgasms to pass.

“If you become my boss,” you whispered, “I want no special treatment.”

“Of course not, sweetheart. The only special treatment you get is I feed you after sex.”

You chuckled. “Speaking of…”

Seokjin rolled you over and pulled himself out. “Yeah yeah, order whatever you want.”

~~~

Today

Seokjin walks into your room. You barely glance up, used to him barging in whenever he likes.

“So, Yuna told me there’s a tall drink of water waiting for you in the lobby.” He plopped down on the little settee in your office. “So naturally I went to see. And you’d better get there before Yuna devours him.”

You glance at your watch. It’s ten minutes to 7pm. You smile softly, leave it to your boyfriend to arrive early. “He’s my boyfriend. I told you about him.”

Seokjin ahs. “So, that’s the man who took away my Saturday night fun.”

You glare at him as you tidy up your desk. “Yeah well, he feeds me AND reads me poetry after sex. So, sorry.”

Seokjin stands up as you ready yourself to leave. 

“Besides, now we play Maple Story every Saturday, surely that’s more fun?” You tease him. He chuckles and rubs his chin. He accompanies you walking down the hallway towards the lobby. 

Before you arrive at the glass door separating the inner office from the reception area, you turn to Seokjin and ask, “Do you want to meet him?”

Seokjin thinks for a moment. “Does he know about our history?”

“He knows MY history, but I never share any names with him.” you explain. “He only knows you as my asshole boss.”

“Now I am offended. I thought I was a nice boss!”

“Well, I rant about you too much maybe. But he doesn’t mind, because you know what happens when I get riled up.” You wink. 

Seokjin laughs. “What a lucky bastard. OK, come on, introduce your asshole boss to your boyfriend.”

Published 01022021

[theimpossiblescheme]

sleep to you who wander

(As far as I’m concerned, The Castle of Cagliostro already has a perfect ending, especially for what’s supposed to be Lupin III’s final adventure.  But what happens after our heroes ride off into the sunset and life continues for them, anticlimactic as it might be?  I wrote this after pondering that very question, with help from @dying-suffering-french-stalkers and her reference to a simiilar scene in The Princess Bride, where the ride off into the sunset doesn’t go quite so smoothly.  We’ve had a looooot of DM conversations on the topic, and this was the result--I hope you guys enjoy it!)

“Did we lose ‘em?”

Meeting Jigen’s eyes in the rearview mirror for a second, Goemon glanced out the back window.  There was a reassuring lack of sirens on the road behind them.  “We lost them.  Fujiko must have headed them off at the border.”

Lupin let out a quiet chuckle from the passenger seat.  “Oh, so she wouldn’t share the plates, but…”  He trailed off and sank further down, tempted to tilt the seat back, but not wanting to scare the poor unsuspecting samurai sitting there (not that ending up in a blushing Goemon’s lap wouldn’t be nice…)

Besides, they’d have to make a pit stop soon, anyway.

“Hey, Jigen?  As soon as we find a petrol station, pull over.”

“We’ve got plenty of fuel still.  And don’t tell me you gotta take a leak—”

“Just pull us over, all right?  I gotta take care of something.”

A pause.  Jigen and Goemon’s eyes met again through the mirror.

“… Get me some cigarettes while you’re in there?”

“Done.”

The last of the Cagliostro countryside turned into the Italian countryside, and the back roads turned into the streets of Ventimiglia, Italy.  So many people were out on the sidewalks, perusing shop windows and outdoor stands, lined up across each block in herds, almost drowning out traffic… what day was it?  Lupin realized he hadn’t even been keeping track—the only indication he’d had of the time passing was the newspaper clipping of the Count’s failed wedding.  The fashion markets happened on Fridays, right?  He remembered Rebecca mentioning that to him… how long ago now?  It couldn’t have been too long, could it?  Maybe if he watched the crowds now, he could catch a glimpse of long blonde hair streaked with blue (or maybe she’d gotten bored of that color and switched to pink or purple or something.  Women did so love changing up their hair), but he couldn’t twist that far without a rib digging directly into his lung and making him gasp.

Where the hell was a petrol station when you needed one?

It took about fifteen minutes of Jigen honking furiously at pedestrians and growling for them to “share the goddamn road” before they were moving at full speed and finally pulling in beside one of the pumps.  Jigen emphatically buried his spent stub of a cigarette in the ashtray, driving his own point home.  “You promised—”

“Don’t worry, I’m good for it.”  Lupin tried to reach for the First Aid kit under the seat as nonchalantly as possible as he opened the door and rose to his feet…

Jigen was too quick on the uptake.  Grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm just so, forcing Lupin to look up at him?  “Whaddya need it for?”

“C’mon, it’s not a big—”

“What do you need it for?”

… Well, right now, the last thing Lupin needed was to have the truth choked and yanked out of him.  Even sighing made his chest hurt.  “Get my jacket off for me, would you?”

Jigen obeyed, pulling it off carefully by the arms and draping it across the back of his own seat.  At the same time, Lupin unbuttoned his black shirt until the wrappings and bandages underneath were showing.

There was actually less blood than he’d expected.  Maybe he hadn’t torn everything open… just enough to make a mess, though.

Over his shoulder, he heard Jigen hiss in shock and the back passenger door open as Goemon bounded out.  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us?” came Jigen’s choked voice as he almost jumped out of the driver’s seat, letting Lupin’s head fall back against it.  Lupin almost made a joke about how he’d been cheated out of laying in two very choice gentlemen’s laps, but it died in his throat as he let his back fully stretch out for the first time in hours.

“Wasn’t really the biggest thing in on my mind,” he admitted, unable to keep from wincing, but forcing himself to relax more as Goemon knelt and inspected his wounds.  “We had a wedding to stop, a princess to rescue, a treasure to uncover, a Count to defeat… kind of a packed schedule, even for us.”  Still, getting into a fight in a clocktower and then plummeting several hundred feet into freezing cold water on top of that didn’t exactly do wonders for multiple gunshot wounds and a concussion.  Who would’ve thought?

“You still should have told us you were in pain,” Goemon replied somewhere near his waist.  He lay one cool hand over where one of the bandages had come loose, a warning and a request, and Lupin nodded and gritted his teeth in anticipation.  “We could have helped you when you first came back.”

“Yeah, I know… I just had a lot of my mind.”  Goemon went slowly and gently as he tightened the wrappings, occasionally mopping up the blood with a paper napkin from the glove compartment along the way, and Lupin tilted his head back for any friction to distract from the sting and pull in his skin.  Normally when he was being treated like this, he would either playfully swoon over his wonderful nurses and how good they were with their hands, or he would rail loudly at how unfair it was and that he couldn’t be slowed down like this.  Right now, he didn’t have the energy for either.  His chest was still tight, and it had nothing to do with the bandages.

“If you ever need help, just let me know.  I’ll come running from anywhere on earth to save you.”

Just don’t need me yet, kiddo—I’m not in the best shape for it right now.

“You gonna be okay?”  Jigen’s voice again.  The seat right above his head dipped, and Lupin looked up to see him crouched right above him, his knee almost grazing the top of his hair.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be fine.  You know me—it’s gonna take a lot more than this to knock me out of the running.”

“Says the guy who was knocked out for three days straight not that long ago.”

“But isn’t that why I have you?”  Lupin tilted his head further back and shot Jigen the brightest, most charming smile he could manage.  “To gallantly nurse me back to health when my strength fails?”

Jigen didn’t answer, but he did mutter something that sounded like “smug little prick” before raking a hand across Lupin’s head, fingers digging through his hair into his scalp.  Lupin shamelessly leaned into the touch—it was enough to make up for the lack of Goemon’s hands after he tied off the last of the bandages and buttoned Lupin’s shirt back up to the collar.  He still couldn’t tie a necktie, but Lupin didn’t want to bother with it right now.

“Do you know where we’re heading next?” Goemon asked, offering a hand to help Lupin straighten up.

“Not a clue.”  He tried to pass it off as casual, his usual devil-may-care recklessness, as he rose to a sitting position in the passenger seat once again.  “You guys have any ideas?”

Jigen shrugged as he climbed back in behind the wheel, but Goemon hesitated, still kneeling right outside with the First Aid kit in his lap… ears going slightly pink.  “I… may have one.”

“Oh?”  Now Lupin was extremely alert.  “Well, you know I’d loooove to hear it, Goemon!”

“I would like to go back to Japan--Suminawa’s village, specifically.  I have… some loose ends I’d like to tie up.”

No sooner had those words left his mouth than Jigen let out a knowing cackle.  “You’re wanting to see Murasaki again, aren’t ya?  Isn’t it about time you made an honest woman of her?”

Goemon’s extremely pink face was answer enough for both of them.

“Hey, that sounds great!”  Lupin leaned forward, shifting just so he could sling an arm around his partner’s shoulder.  “Tell you what—we’ll make a road trip out of it.  Just the three of us.  We’ll just drive until we need to find a ship across, and if there’s any place you guys wanna hit along the way, we can do it.  Doesn’t even have to be a heist—if you guys wanna go sightseeing or shopping or anything at all, just let me know!”

It felt a bit like stalling, and maybe it was.  Maybe he just didn’t want to let Goemon go just yet.  Maybe the prospect of him settling down (even if it was with a nice girl like Murasaki) felt a little too much like never seeing him again.  But he’d already left way too soon after the three of them hightailed it out of Monaco, and as nice it was to spend all that time on the road with Jigen… the Fiat’s backseat did feel pretty empty.

And there was still that tightness in his chest he wanted to put off dealing with for as long as possible.

To his relief, Goemon nodded.  “That does sound nice… as long as you don’t get us lost on the scenic route through Russia on the way.”

“Hey, that was one time!”

“And the only time, right?”

Before Lupin could say anything, Jigen was cackling again and actually aiming a gentle kick right at the small of his back, forcing him to his feet.  “C’mon, dumbass—you’re still on cigarette duty before we hit the road.”

***

He had planned for a couple of heists along the way.  Just a couple—there weren’t many places Lupin hadn’t already stolen from or at least had a memorable encounter therein.  At some point over the campfire, he’d dug out a collection of old roadmaps and traced the many annotations he’d left in it.  Every continent, every large metropolitan area in every country.  X-es and checkmarks over where he’d been, notes scribbled in the margins.  Lists of traps to look out for, supplies to bring with them.  Lather, rinse, repeat on every page.  Sheafs of hotel stationery tucked into the bindings with diagrams and estimated floorplans and arrows mapping out everyone’s positions, including Zenigata’s.

(Where was Pops now, anyway?  Was he still out there looking for them?  Had he given up?  Hell, there was a chance he’d stumble across their little campsites any second… in which case, Lupin was tempted to just offer him a sausage and tell him to take a load off.)

Very little empty, unexplored space left on any of them.  That, too, sat heavy somewhere in Lupin’s chest.

But he did want to eke out a handful of smaller jobs.  Mostly second tries at treasures they hadn’t quite managed to steal, moving from one museum to another.  The Faberge Museum had apparently found more eggs to display, and what the hell, it might be nice to have something pretty for the hell of it (and they’d lost their old haul somewhere in a Moscow hotel the last time) …

It seemed only appropriate that Fujiko beat him to it.

The Fiat had parked overnight along the Moyka River Embankment, nestled inconspicuously among the other cars.  The engine was running just enough to leave the heat on, and Goemon was sitting upright in the backseat, head lolled gently against his chest, while Jigen had tipped his own seat all the way back so that his head nearly rested on Goemon’s knee.  Lupin had spent the past six hours driving, and his jacket was actually buttoned for once so he could burrow into the neck, trying to force himself to sleep.  Jigen’s snores didn’t usually bother him, but right now they were unnecessarily loud.

He'd almost mistaken the rumble of Fujiko’s bike for another snore.

But as he leaned his cheek against the window, there it was.  And there she was.  Still blonde, her surplus military uniform traded for her old red biker’s gear.  Goggles pulled up over her forehead as she sidled up to the car, eyes finding Lupin’s and giving him a slight, amused smirk as he could only blink at her at first before rolling down the window.  She’d been so far ahead of them… how had she caught up?  Or rather, how had they caught up with her?

“Nothing there that we haven’t already picked over, unfortunately,” Fujiko said, hefting a large satchel into her lap.  “Still… I did manage to come away with a few little beauties.”  With some effort, she lifted out a large golden egg latticed with starbursts and topped with a diamond the size of an eyeball.  And when she cracked it open, a miniature red coach, also studded with gold and propelled by golden wheels, tumbled gently out.

Lupin couldn’t help but whistle.  “Very nice… I don’t suppose I can get you to share, Fujicakes?”  He pressed his hands together under his chin like a child praying at Christmas, tilting his head up and exaggeratedly batting his eyelashes at her.  “I’d settle for just the coach, y’know.”

“Not a chance.”  Fujiko quickly tucked the treasures back into her satchel.  “I know appraisers who would pay in blood just to touch the Imperial Coronation egg.  And last I checked, you came away from Cagliostro empty-handed.”

“Hey, I was the one who uncovered the Roman city underneath the lake—that has to count for something!”

“But you can’t exactly carry a city, Lupin.”

“Well, not with that attitude.”  As if he couldn’t still picture it perfectly, even after so many weeks.  Or months—had it been months since they started?  It felt like hours since he’d been there walking the ruins, jumping across causeways Clarisse couldn’t reach so he could catch her on her way over.  He’d stolen San Marino, he’d stolen Paris, he’d stolen New York City more than once, and now he had this little piece of Cagliostro… there was something romantic about that.  Something suitably grand for the world’s greatest thief.  Lupin the First would definitely approve.

Fujiko just hummed skeptically and let it go, repositioning her bike in preparation to drive away.  “So where are you all off to?”

“Back to Japan—Goemon wanted to patch things up with Murasaki, and I told him we’d make a trip of it.  What about you?”

“Mmmm… I haven’t decided yet.”  There was a note of wistfulness in Fujiko’s voice, in her eyes… Lupin always found that particularly beautiful.  Not that she wasn’t a knockout when she was confidently conning her way through droves of men, himself included, with that hard set in her face and that edge in her smile—lesser men had died just for a glimpse.  But these spare moments of uncertainty, especially in the dim light when she still had some plausible deniability, were that much more precious.  Lupin had missed seeing them, now that they weren’t in such close quarters anymore.  “I know at least one dealer in France who would pay pretty handsomely.  And I haven’t been back there in a while… you know, I actually miss it.”

“Even with all the bullshit from last time?”

She actually laughed, if only just a little.  “Even with all the bullshit from last time.”

“Hey, say hi to Ami for me.  And save me a reservation at the Ritz—we could catch up.”

There was something oddly final about this, too.  Maybe he was just overthinking things; after all, this was Fujiko, who couldn’t be bothered tying herself to any one city or any one man or woman.  They’d see each other again someday.  It was almost inevitable.  That was why he didn’t bother giving her a date—maybe it would be months, maybe even years, but at least that table would be there, waiting.

Still… he pictured this going differently.  Maybe after one more grand heist, one more merry chase through the hallways of some huge museum or manor house before they emerged onto a balcony and Fujiko leaped onto the ladder of a waiting helicopter, leaving him with empty hands and tingling lips once again.  Or maybe one last tumble, for old time’s sake (not that there was room in the car for that, and Jigen would bawl him out if he dragged them all to a hotel just for her).  This felt… weirdly anticlimactic in comparison.

Maybe that was only fitting.  It wasn’t really an end per se, or at least it didn’t have to be.  Nothing ever really ended between them.

Fujiko smiled.  “We’ll see how things turn out.”  And she started to turn around to leave…

“Oh, Fujiko?”

She stopped midway through lowering her goggles.  “Hmm?”

Lupin was tempted to ask for a kiss, or even to just take her free hand and kiss it in farewell.  But neither felt right at the moment, and on the chance she’d refuse he didn’t want them to leave on bad terms.  So instead he just gave her a smile.  “See you around.”

Her own smile brightened, and she gave him a wink in return before revving her engine and riding off down the road.  Lupin watched her go until the motorcycle was a dot in the distance before sinking back into his seat, not even bothering to roll the window back up.  There was a breeze coming in from off the river.  Beside him, Jigen had backed nearly all the way up and off the passenger seat toward the back, still laying flat with his hat over his face, but nearly on top of Goemon, who barely registered his presence.

It was a nice night.

***

It was a nice night when they finally dropped off Goemon as well.  They’d long since lost track of how long they’d been on the road--the Fiat had lasted several dozen tanks of gas, two flat tires, one fussy engine that Jigen had taken multiple attempts to jumpstart, and a barge across the Sea of Japan.  By the time they reached Murasaki’s village, the air brushed coolly through the open windows, the caps of snow on the mountains nearby had grown whiter, and the trees rustled red and gold.

The world had been green when they started out, Lupin noted.  Maybe he just hadn’t noticed the change.

Halfway through a familiar glen, where a small roadside garden stretched slowly into view, Goemon motioned for them to stop.  “I can walk the rest of the way.”

“You sure?”  Lupin pulled over to one side and parked, but didn’t kill the engine just yet.  “We can drop you off right on her doorstep, it’s no problem.”

“I think I would rather talk to her alone when I get there.  We’ll have a lot of ground to cover… since I’ve been gone so long.”  Climbing out of the backseat, sword in hand and travelling hat tucked under his arm, Goemon came to stand in front of them.  “So we can say goodbye here.”

Oh, to hell with that.  The second he and Jigen climbed out after him, Lupin reached out and took Goemon’s hands and, when he seemed receptive to that, swept him into a hug, one hand on the back of his hair.  There was so much he wanted to say… most of it variations on thank you.  For putting up with his nonsense, for coming through every time they needed him and every time they didn’t, for staying by his side even when Jigen couldn’t, for being so absurdly loyal and brave, for making him laugh and feel alive even from the moment they met, for letting Lupin make him laugh when he thought he never would again, for letting him be a part of his life at all… they’d be here all night if he kept counting the reasons.

For now, one quiet “Thank you” would do before he pulled out of the hug and gave Goemon a kiss on each cheek.  “You take care of yourself, okay?  Her, too.”

Goemon nodded, throat suspiciously tight as he moved onto Jigen, who wrapped him into his own tight hug.  “Don’t be a stranger,” Jigen murmured before dropping his voice and whispering something only he could hear into his ear.  Lupin didn’t try to listen, tempting as it was--he just stood back alongside them, hands in his pockets.  When Goemon finally stepped away, his jaw stuttered with the beginnings of half a dozen parting words before snapping closed as he gave them both a nod.

“Travel safe, you two.  I’ll… I’ll be in touch.”

Lupin gave him the same smile he’d given Fujiko, feeling it pull even more at his lips this time.  “We’ll hold you to that, y’know.”

And with that, Goemon turned, let in a deep cleansing breath that eased the remaining tension in his shoulders, and started off down the road.  His partners watched him go until he, too, was only a dot disappearing around the bend in the wake of a tiny indoor light glowing yellow and drowning him out.  Saying goodbye to Fujiko had felt strangely unsatisfying, but somehow just right.  This… this just felt right. 

Didn’t stop his eyes from burning against the dark, though.

Lupin hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten--how long they’d been standing there--until Jigen nudged him, a fuzzy indigo blur in the shadow of the car.  “C’mon.  Let’s find a place to sleep.”

Neither of them moved for a few minutes after that.  Even with nothing left to see but the fireflies in the grass.

***

“You can take that off now, you know--it’s starting to creep me out.”

Lupin grinned behind the mask of Zenigata’s face.  “Hey, maybe Pops’ll take the hint and join us for a breather.”  It had been almost a year since they’d seen hide or hair of the good inspector (hell of a thing to process), and Lupin was starting to miss him.  And after all, no matter where he was in the world, there was no better way to summon him than somebody reporting a false sighting.

Jigen rolled his eyes, but patted him on the shoulder as the elevator landed and he peeled back off down the hotel hallway.  “Yeah, well, you go change.  I’m gonna go check out our room--they better have been serious about the bar.”

Once he was alone, Lupin ducked through the doorway to the courtyard, glancing around him before pulling off the mask and tucking it into the pocket of the great brown overcoat before slinging it over his shoulder.  There were still a few weeks left before the snow stayed down in drifts, so for today the sky was blue and clear, and piles of grey slush clumped around the remaining patches of grass and the little patio that had once been surrounded by summer flowers…

He’d almost walked right on past, but his eye finally caught the figure sitting on the sofa.  Surrounded by large antique suitcases, flanked by an old man in rough-hewn gardener’s clothes and  two hulking security guards the size of professional wrestlers.  A petite figure in a purple dress, red hair pinned elegantly at the nape of her neck and hidden by a wide-brimmed hat.

Lupin recognized her in an instant.  She recognized him, too--as she rose and rushed over to meet him, her arms went out as if to hug him, but at a start from one of her bodyguards, she resisted and forced them back down to her sides.  Instead, she held up a hand for him to kiss, as befitting a proper young lady, but as he did so her voice was breathless with excitement.

“I knew… I just knew we’d meet again someday, Mr. Thief.”

And the ache in Lupin’s chest yawned so fiercely he feared it might swallow him.

***

Their hotel room did not, in fact, come with a bar.  With much grumbling, Jigen had taken them to the one across the street.  It was admittedly a very nice place--the staff were friendly, the drinks were great, and the in-house jazz band had the tact to slow things down after a certain hour and more than a few patrons needed cut off for the night.  Right now they were playing a melancholy piece for saxophone and piano, more of a reflection than a true song.

It gave Lupin something to focus on… the ice in his glass was melting and the condensation leaving rings on the table, but he couldn’t bring himself to drink.

“Been doin’ an awful lot of sighing there, buddy,” came Jigen’s voice beside him, slowly nursing his own glass of scotch.  When Lupin didn’t rise to the bait, Jigen heaved a long-suffering sigh of his own.  “Look, I’m not gonna choke it out of you in front of a buncha strangers, so you might as well tell me now.”

“All, right, all right…”  Where did he even start, though?  It was all a disorganized jumble in his head, and that bothered him more than anything.  That, and the stupid lingering anxiety of how Jigen might react.  He raised his melting glass and downed it, desperately drawing energy from the burn in his throat.  “You’ll never guess who I ran into earlier when we first checked in.”

“Better not have been Pops--at least not while you were still wearing his face.”

“Nope.  Clarisse.”

Jigen’s face softened a bit.  “No kidding?”

“No kidding.”  Lupin wanted to smile, but he only managed a slight upturn of his lips.  “She’d snuck into Japan to ask for help establishing a tourist program for Cagliostro.  She was just on her way home, though, so we… we didn’t actually get to talk much.”  But there was so much more to the conversation, short as it was, that Lupin wished he could go into.  How Clarisse had dedicated so much to dismantling the tools of her family’s corruption and making public statements to the world about undoing the damage.  How she was personally helping to convert the underground printing press into shelters for the poor.  How she’d spent her seventeenth birthday touring her kingdom and getting to know her subjects, even taking the afternoon to make tea for an old woman and her grandchildren.  How Christopher was still a good friend, how Karl was still lively as a puppy even as “an old man in dog years.”  How healthy she looked now that she was no longer a prisoner in her own home, how she wore the poise of a queen when she was still so young.  How much difference a year had made for her.

How much it hurt to say goodbye to her twice.

“Glad she’s doing okay.”  Jigen’s voice was soft, as if intuiting everything Lupin wasn’t saying.  “She’s a good kid.”

Lupin nodded, staring down into his empty glass.  He was tempted to ask for another, but the way his mind was now, it would only lead into a dark drunken spiral, and he didn’t need the additional static in his head.  This was a conversation he needed to have sober.  “I don’t know how I’m ever gonna top it.  Cagliostro, I mean… we saved a princess, we saved a whole kingdom, we uncovered this whole conspiracy, we found the city under the lake… kinda hard to go any bigger.”

Jigen tipped his head in agreement.  “Not to mention how often you almost got yourself killed.  More than usual for you.”

Oh, if he only knew… there had been a split second, right before he and Clarisse hit the water, that he thought if he were to actually die--not just faking it for the sake of a scheme, but for real--it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.  Foiling the Count, shielding her from the impact.  Being the hero for once.

A few more drinks, and he might wonder if it was a shame the fall didn’t kill him after all.

“What haven’t we done at this point, Jigen?”  He knew how tired and pathetic he sounded and couldn’t bring himself to care.  “We’ve been on the road together for how long, and now it’s just us… what else is there left?”  He thought back to his collection of maps, how many checkmarks and X-es marked where they’d all four stayed and stolen.  How many places they could never go back thanks to bounties on their heads and warrants for their arrest, how many people they’d left behind.  It was hard keeping in touch when you were constantly moving around; so many unopened letters and dropped calls from Rebecca, Ami, Maki, Laetitia, and he’d lost track of how many others sat waiting for replies that would never come.  Before it might have felt freeing, but now it was just lonely.  Especially with Goemon and Fujiko gone and the roads ahead of them drying up.  The world felt so much hollower.

It took a few minutes for Jigen to answer.  The saxophone wailed plaintively from the bandstand as he drained the last of his scotch and sat contemplating, leaning heavily forward with his arms crossed over the table.  “You remember a couple years ago in Paris?  I told you to consider retiring now that things were getting more complicated?”

Lupin looked over at him.  “You still think I should?  Just… pack it in for good?”

Jigen gave the briefest of shrugs.  “It’s an option.  If you ever wanted to.”

It was strange to even think about now.  He’d joked about it on plenty of occasions, and Jigen had promptly barked at him to shut up and not treat the topic so lightly.  And he’d taken breaks before, usually for the sake of a woman who’d caught his eye and even once for Fujiko.  But the idea of well and truly retiring… how would he even spend it?  His grandfather had still taken undercover jobs on the side--as a tutor, a museum curator, a Minister of the Interior, even as a private detective.  That might not be a terrible idea; Lupin had rather enjoyed his last stint at solving a mystery rather than causing one.  And even if he didn’t go with that, he’d still promised that girl Marie he’d ask after her someday after she’d helped him.  He might actually have time for that now.

His father had died in a train crash that left only two survivors.  Even as a teenager watching the last car go up in smoke, Lupin had promised himself that he’d never die like that.  Every close call, every false alarm since then had simply been to head off what everyone said was inevitable at the pass.  To steal himself more time.  And now, for once, he had an abundance of it.

At least until he looked in the mirror one day and found more wrinkles under the makeup, more grey under the black.  He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

For now, he managed a small, humorless chuckle.  “Honestly… it’s the one thing I still haven’t done yet.”

“Figured out what you wanna do?”

“Not yet.  I might stay here for a while, make a few calls until I do.”

“Well, you’re not gettin’ rid of me, I hope you know that.”

“... What?”

“You heard me.”  Jigen tipped back the brim of his hat, exposing his eyes and the total honesty therein.  “I know we’ve been having this whole farewell tour, but… where you go, I go.  I meant it then, and I mean it now.”  A few years ago, there might have been some flicker of uncertainty in his voice, as if afraid that Lupin might turn him away, but now that fear was gone, replaced with a gentle conviction.  Offering reassurance instead of asking for it.

Lupin wanted to cry.  He hadn’t even begun to plan how he would say goodbye to Jigen, even on the way to the hotel.  Nothing seemed like enough, even the wildest, tenderest night of passion before they parted ways.  Knowing his track record so far, it might have been something unremarkable, a final cigarette or meaningless conversation in an alleyway before Jigen exited one way and Lupin another.  Either way, one last goodbye in this endless series seemed inevitable.

But here was Jigen still.  Until the end of the line.  Sparing him any more.

He still felt unbearably tired, but he let that fatigue sink comfortably into him as he leaned against Jigen’s shoulder and slipped a hand into his.  “I’m glad.”

[hhunjins]

Pairing: Hyunjin x gender neutral reader

Genre: college!au, best-friends-to-lovers, fluff, angst-ish(?)

Word Count: ~4,800

Warnings: Some language

Note: Supposed to be for this amazing boy’s birthday, but as always, I am late. :)

Summary: College is hard enough without having to deal with feelings, but college without your best friend is even harder.

 “Boba after class?”

“Alright, you’ve convinced me.”

Hyunjin bites back a laugh, shaking his head as he pulls out an unsharpened, wooden pencil and a singular sheet of printer paper. He plucks one of your pastel highlighters from the five-pack you own and twirls it around in his hand. “You want to come over? For dinner. Seungmin and I need to go grocery shopping anyway.”

You shrug, flipping through your notebook until you reach a fresh page. “Are you cooking for me?” It’s a teasing question. You would never let Hwang Hyunjin near a stove.

Hyunjin gives you that weird half-grimace half-smile. “Do you trust me that much?” He slaps your highlighter back onto your desk.

“No.”

He can’t even be offended because even he admits he’s a hazard to his housemates. Hyunjin sighs dramatically, dropping his head onto your shoulder and wrapping an arm around yours. “I’d really like it if you made your carbonara pasta.” He bats his eyelashes, curling his lower lip into a pout that he knows gets you every single time. Dammit.

“Only if I get to sleep over. I’m not going to ask Minho to drive me home after whatever other thing you rope me into doing.”

Hyunjin does a little happy wiggle in his tiny seat. “Okay.”

“Did you just invite y/n over without telling me, again?” Seungmin swats at Hyunjin’s knees to get him to move his very-long-limbs so he can get into the seat you’ve saved on the other side of yourself for him. His huge backpack smacks against Hyunjin’s tiny desk and sends his sad pencil rolling down to the next row of seats. “Oops. Sorry.”

“That’s my only pencil, Seungmin!” Hyunjin whines.

Seungmin doesn’t care. He is the only other person in your friend group that has a stationery collection that could rival yours. He gets himself situated and leans back into his seat on his phone, ignoring the chatter of other college students around him.

“Y/n, can I borrow a pencil?” Hyunjin pokes your cheek.

You let out a long breath out of your nose. You predicted this. It happens every time. You pull out a lead pencil, take out all the extra lead pieces, and hand it to him. “Are you going to lose this one?”

“No,” Hyunjin singsongs.

He will.

You shake your head, filling in the header in your notebook. You glance over and see Hyunjin scribbling on his own paper, though it’s definitely not today’s date nor the lecture title. Go figure. Though it looks like he’s just trying really hard to take notes, you know better. Hyunjin never takes notes unless he’s in a bad mood and doesn’t want to talk.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Hyunjin grins. “Can I borrow a highlighter? Thanks.”

You don’t even get to answer before he snatches one off your desk and uses it for everything but highlighting. Hyunjin holds up his paper when he’s done like a kindergartener showing their mom a precious art project. “Grocery shopping list.”

“It’s empty,” you say.

“Yeah, that’s for Seungmin to figure out.” He hands the paper to you, gesturing to the boy sitting on your other side, and nods when Seungmin gives him a side-eye. “Thanks.” He smiles, does another little happy wiggle, and settles into your side for a nap.

Fuck school, am I right?

Hyunjin is sitting at his dining table, one headphone on his ear and the other slightly off of it as he writes a paper he’s left for the last minute. You’re about five minutes from finishing dinner, enough to feed you, Hyunjin, and four other boys that live in the house they’re renting. The smell of it lures Felix out of his room like a dog sniffing out a treat. He stops at the kitchen doorway, blinking confusedly at the sight of someone other than Minho at the stove.

“You’re here again?” There’s no malice in his words, just pure confusion. It would make sense; he looks like he just woke up from a nap.

“Yes, Felix. I made dinner. Enough for you too.”

The sleepy confusion melts away into delight and he literally skips to the cupboard to grab a plate.

Hyunjin’s brows are furrowed in utmost concentration as his fingers fly across the keyboard.

You place a plate in front of him, sliding into the seat across from him. “Stop to eat?” you ask.

Hyunjin peers over his laptop screen and nods. “Yeah, give me a second.”

You know it won’t be a second, but you let him continue.

It takes him ten minutes, in which you spend playing footsie with Felix under the table as the other boy inhales his food. Hyunjin looks weary when he finishes, slumping over the table after closing his laptop. “I hate anthropology. This is way too much work for a GE.”

You laugh, reaching over to card your fingers through his hair. Hyunjin lets out a content sigh, leaning into your touch. Felix pays you no mind, shuffling over to the stove to help himself to another serving.

“Want me to warm up your food?” you ask softly.

Hyunjin peeks out from where he’s buried his face into his arms. “It’s okay. Thanks for coming over.” He gives you a tired smile, blinking slowly in the way that tells you that he’s getting sleepy. “You’re still sleeping over, right?” Hyunjin scoots his chair closer to you, moving the plate of now cool pasta and his laptop away. His head is still resting on his arms, but he’s staring at you with a tiny pout on his lips and a weird look in his eyes. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, I’ll sleep over,” you say. Your best friend looks a little different like this, odd but in a good way. It’s not like you’ve never watched him fall asleep before, but never like this, under this light, with this setting. It’s nice. In a weird way.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Hyunjin jerks. Your hand falls out of his hair. Felix continues to eat.

“Oh, you’re back?”

Jisung’s wide eyes keep darting back and forth between you and Hyunjin, who is now trying to pat down the mess on his head and acting like nothing is wrong.

“I made dinner,” you offer, giving Jisung a small smile as you gesture to the pan on the stove and then to the mess on Felix’s face. “Enough for everyone.”

Jisung bites his lower lip, raising his eyebrows like he has something to say but is contemplating speaking it into existence. “Thanks,” is all he says.

A frown flickers on your face for a quick moment before you brush it aside. You turn back to dinner, catching Hyunjin aggressively mouth something at Jisung out of the corner of your eye. “Something wrong?” you ask.

Hyunjin shakes his head, smiling as if he weren’t being weird at all. “Nothing. You should finish eating and then shower before Minho gets back from volleyball practice.” He places a hand on your head to ruffle your hair, smiling softly as he does so.

You can tell when Hyunjin is getting sleepy when his words begin to bleed together, one syllable into the next, and the pauses between sentences grow longer with every passing second. You don’t know if his eyes are even open anymore with your back to him, but you know he’s still awake from the way his fingers continue to drum repeatedly against your upper arm and how he mumbles on and on about a project that he’s been working on for his dance club.

The light from Jisung’s and Seungmin’s lamps filter in through Hyunjin’s thin curtain – one he affectionately named his crying corner cover – and so you can see the shadows of your best friend’s fingers bouncing off your arm on the wall.

In the bunk above you, Seungmin finishes up his quiet phone call to his mother before wishing Jisung good night with a promise to kick his ass if he’s still up past two a.m. Then you hear his little light click off and the room gets slightly darker.

Hyunjin’s fingers stop moving but his hand remains rested on your arm. You didn’t realize that he had stopped talking either. He must have fallen asleep. A long exhale leaves your lips as you close your eyes and try to sleep as well.

It doesn’t take long for Jisung to succumb to the late hours of the night and settle in for bed. You hear him shut the window and pull the curtains closed before the light beyond Hyunjin’s curtain extinguishes for the night. In the dark, Hyunjin’s hand on your arm is more noticeable, all your senses that much more attuned to the fact that he still hasn’t let go. It’s a nice feeling; his hand is warm and makes your skin tingle.

But you can’t sleep. Not like this. Your heart picks up speed for some odd reason and your eyes open on their own accord. Another long breath leaves your lips, but significantly less relaxed than the one before.

Near the top of Hyunjin’s wall, just below Seungmin’s bunk, are a string of five polaroids. It’s just far away enough that you can’t see what’s on them, but you’ve been to Hyunjin’s place and slept on his bed too many times that you’ve memorized the order and who’s in them anyway. There’s one in particular that you stare at tonight, eyes tracing over how his letters are all connected into little blobs that can barely made out to be words. “My best friend,” it reads. You remember exactly when it was and the chaos that occurred as his mom snapped the photo. It was his dog’s birthday, said dog on your lap attempting to lick the cake off your cheeks. You’re throwing up your signature peace signs while Hyunjin, the culprit of it all, has his chin propped on your shoulder and a small smile gracing his lips, eyes trained on the mess of frosting on your face he was responsible for.

Hyunjin’s hand squeezes your arm. The action brings you out of your memories and back to the present.

You blink in confusion, heart racing as you twist your body around and find Hyunjin’s eyes staring back at you. Wide awake as ever.

“Hyunjin?” you whisper.

Hyunjin brings a finger to his lips and shakes his head. “Sleep,” he mouths. He gives you a soft smile before ducking his head to burrow in between your shoulder blades.

If he listened hard enough, he could probably hear the pounding of your heart.

If you stared a little bit longer, you would have seen the longing in his eyes.

Hyunjin has a habit of trying to make plans when he knows that he shouldn’t be, and that is also a character flaw on your part because you agree to said plans without much convincing. So as Hyunjin is chewing on fish balls on a stick, he is also whining about upcoming midterms and how he’s screwed.

“You know, maybe you should study.”

A contemplative look crosses his face before his features scrunch up in disgust and he fervently shakes his head. Kind of like a puppy. “That sounds terrible. I’ll just wing it.”

You snort, tugging on his sleeve to grab the skewer and steal the last fish ball.

He watches you, eyes glinting with amusement before he leaves to order two more portions.

“Only one! I’m not eating!” you call after him.

That is a lie and you both know it.

You watch as he approaches the lady at the stand, putting on his most charming smile and making small talk. Hyunjin has this way of enchanting everyone he talked to, and it wasn’t just because he was the cutest person ever. You say that objectively, and not just because he’s your best friend. There was something about the way he could brighten up anyone’s day with his infectious happiness leaking out in waves that cling onto your cheekbones and force you to smile without making it feel forced at all. It’s what keeps you coming back for more.

He returns with a grin, two sticks in one hand and a cup of broth in the other. Hyunjin does his little happy dance as he sits. “So, movie night tonight?”

“How about you study instead?”

Hyunjin deflates. A pout makes its home on his lips as he chews on pointy end of his stick. “Movie,” he repeats, a whining edge making its way into his tone. “It’s Friday. You can’t expect me to study on a Friday night.”

And like all the other times Hyunjin has ever tried to convince you to do something, you completely fall for it. He grins when you grumble your assent, tickling the underside of your chin like he would to his dog and then pats your head right after. It’s something in the way all of these casual motions feel like something more. How you want to chase after his touch and watch the content smile on his face never fade.

All of these feelings are too much, and you don’t know what to do.

Somewhere between the fifteen-minute mark of the first movie and now, Hyunjin had snuggled right into your personal bubble – not that you had one when it came to him anyway – and made himself comfy there. At first, you thought it was because of the bag of chips in your lap, but Hyunjin hasn’t reached for it once. His cheek is pillowed into your shoulder, fingers wrapped around your wrist and playing with the sleeve of your jacket. He hasn’t said a word either, just silently watching the movie and making your heart go into overdrive as you try to keep still.

Needless to say, you have no idea what is happening on screen.

Over the course of the hours you’ve been at their house, Hyunjin’s housemates trickled into the living room, squeezing onto the couch and then spilling onto the floor when it reached capacity. That is why there’s no elbow room between you and Minho and Felix keeps smacking him when he reaches for the chips. Despite how uncomfortable it is, it really is comfortable in the weirdest way. These guys are friends, people you wouldn’t hesitate to spend Friday nights doing dumb things with. Especially the one clinging onto your arm like a koala.

You glance over at Hyunjin and see him blink slowly at the screen. His eyes are glazed over, unfocused as he watches the characters argue over something. He has his lower lip jutted out in a small pout, something you noticed he does all the time when he’s bored. Is he bored? Regardless, it’s cute. You kind of want to kiss him.

Shit. The realization of the thought sinks in.

Minho flinches in surprise when you sit up straight. Felix lets out a whine when you all but shove the bag of chips into his arms. Hyunjin opens his mouth to probably ask what’s wrong, but you don’t let him say a word. They all watch as you disappear from the living room.

“Dude, what’d you do?” you hear Jisung ask before you close the door to the bathroom.

“Nothing?”

You don’t even have to see your reflection in the mirror to know that your face is some shade of pink. It feels warm, too warm. Twisting the faucet on, you cup your hands under the stream of water and then splash it onto your face. It does little to cool the heat, but it does wake you up enough for you to glare at yourself in the mirror and begin to overthink.

Hyunjin. Hyunjin. Hyunjin.

These were not thoughts to be having about your best friend. Because he was supposed to be just that, a friend. And the fact that you want to kiss him out of all things is literally the worst thing that can happen to you right now. Not near midterms. Not surrounded by his housemates. Definitely not in his house with no ride home. And you’re sleeping over. Shit, shit, shit.

“You okay?” There is a knock on the door accompanying Hyunjin’s voice.

A strangled noise leaves your lips. “Yeah,” you say quickly. “Fine.”

You can tell Hyunjin isn’t convinced, because he doesn’t move from the other side of the door. You wouldn’t be convinced either, to be honest. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be out here.” There is a pause before he adds a hesitant, “if that’s okay.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be out soon. Just go back to the movie.”

“I don’t care about the movie,” he says. “I care about you and I want to make sure you’re okay.”  

You’re not quite sure why you’re panicking, but you’re beginning to panic. You weren’t ready to face Hyunjin, not yet. Maybe tomorrow, or at least when you’ve had time to sort through all the thoughts in your head and come to a reasonable conclusion. This is was much too early for that. If you see him, you might cry, and you really don’t want to cry right now.

You take a deep breath in hopes that it’ll ease the dizziness that’s creeping up on you. It doesn’t, but you push on anyway. “I’m fine, Hyunjin. I just need some time to myself,” you say.

There is silence, which you hope means that he takes your words for what they are. But Hyunjin is soft, and too warm-hearted and sensitive and overthinks just as much as you do about the too long silence between words and the space that separates two people.

“Did I do something?” He sounds so small, and it physically hurts.

“No, no, Hyunjin, it’s not you.”

“Then why did you leave the couch? Why aren’t you opening the door? Why are you telling me you’re okay, when I know that you’re not?”

A burning lump forms in your throat. One of your biggest fears falling for someone like Hyunjin, whose friendship means too much to gamble for anything riskier, is holding him so close that you wouldn’t be able to let go when push comes to shove. And Hyunjin was shoving. Pushing and squeezing his way through the cracks of your heart and planting himself in all the space that you didn’t think could be filled with anything other than emptiness.

“I have a lot of thoughts that just hit me. I need some time to think things through. Is that okay?”

“Can’t I help you?”

“Not with this, Hyunjin.” Not when you’re the reason, you want to add.

And then there is only silence. Five, ten, thirty seconds before you hear his footsteps walk away.

You let out a shaky exhale, resting your forehead against the door.

Fuck.

Hyunjin’s isn’t in the living room when you return. Felix, Seungmin, and Minho avoid eye contact when you sit down on the floor and hug your knees, but Jisung taps you on the shoulder and gives you a questioning look.

You shake your head.

Jisung frowns, but he knows better than to pry. The pink tinge on your nose and the sniffles you’re trying to muffle says more than enough.

Movie night stretches on for another unbearably awkward five minutes before Felix announces he’s turning in for the night. From there, Seungmin wanders off to call his mother and you’re left staring blankly at the screen in a dark room with all of your words stuck in your throat and a weight in your stomach.

“Are you sleeping over?” Jisung asks softly.

“I–” You frown, chewing on your lip and thinking about how you were going to face Hyunjin after what went on earlier. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I’ll take you home,” Minho offers. “It’s not a problem.”

For some reason, leaving without saying goodbye to Hyunjin feels worse than heartbreak.  

What is it like to fall? To forget all the doubts in your head and just let go?

Maybe this is all an overreaction. Maybe if you just apologized and pretended like you didn’t have a massive breakdown at the thought of being kind of in love with your best friend, Hyunjin would still be your best friend. You could live with that. After all, that’s what he has been for the past three years, what’s a few more?

But just knowing that he’s barely out of reach and not yours makes everything so much harder.

Why do feelings have to be so complicated?

Hyunjin’s contact has been open for the better part of the last hour, but you can’t get yourself to send the message. Honestly, you’re not even sure what you would say. You just want to rewind and redo. Hit control Z until you didn’t have feelings anymore and just kept it that way.

You swipe your tongue over your lips again, cringing at how chapped they feel. Your fingers keep dancing across your screen, typing and erasing, typing and erasing. The words don’t come easy. You wish there was anything easy about falling.

Maybe you’re a coward, and maybe he’ll hate you for it, but you slip your phone under your pillow and turn off the lights.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never.

Class on Monday is awkward. Hyunjin shuffles in later with Seungmin, making the other boy squeeze into the row first and sitting on his other side.

Your calm façade breaks momentarily when he pulls out a notebook and pencil – not yours – and writes down the date and header.

He takes notes for the entire lecture.

When class ends, Seungmin slips you a note. “From Jisung.” With nothing more than a small smile and a gentle squeeze of your hand, he rushes off after Hyunjin, who had disappeared before you even had a chance to say anything.

The note is short. It makes you smile in the sad sort of way that is tinged with nothing but regret, especially at the angry face Jisung drew with it.

“He cried.”

It’s nearing a week when you crack under the pressure. There were times where you went longer without seeing or talking to Hyunjin, but you always knew that he was there when you needed him, and that he was only a call or text away. Never because you were mad at each other. But were you even mad at him? Was he mad at you?

You didn’t know, but what you do know is that a week without Hyunjin is a week too long.

It’s a spur of the moment thing, when Thursday lecture with Hyunjin sitting on the other side of Seungmin for the second time makes your tongue go dry and your heart sink to your stomach. You lean over to Seungmin, tugging on his sleeve once to catch his attention.  

Seungmin stares at the pale pink sticky note between your fingers, folded into a tiny square, and slowly nods in understanding. He takes it from your hand, holding it in his fist until your professor begins lecture, and then drops it on Hyunjin’s notebook.

The other stares at him in confusion. “What’s this?” he whispers.

Seungmin shrugs, staring pointedly at the presentation on the screen to avoid answering.

You watch out of the corner of your eye with bated breath.

Hyunjin glances over to you, seeing the way you grip your pen tightly in your hand as it moves across the page. He peels the adhesive to open up the note.

“I miss you.”

Your phone buzzes and you ignore the glares from fellow students around you and the snicker from Seungmin as you rush to pull it out of your pocket.

“Come over?”

You smile.

If the other boys have any problem with you being over at their place, again, they don’t say a word. In fact, they seem almost relieved that you’re there. Felix had given you a not-very-subtle thumbs up when you he saw you kicking off your shoes at the front door after class with Hyunjin and Seungmin.

You’re doing homework at the dining table, eating cut up fruit from the plate between you. Hyunjin has his chair pulled up right next to yours for no reason other than to hook your ankles between his. He’s working on yet another paper, though paying significantly more attention to this one because it’s a major course and “not a dumb GE.” You don’t know what’s so interesting about furniture, but Hyunjin finds it a very captivating subject and is breezing through it.

On the other hand, you’re staring at the mess of numbers and variables on the lecture capture for your physics class and kind of dying on the inside from how lost you are. You pause the screen, poking at a chunk of mango with your fork.

“Why are you taking out your anger on that poor mango?”

You click your tongue in annoyance as you chew. “Do you think it’s too late to change my major?”

Hyunjin giggles, leaning into your side and resting his head on your shoulder as he peers at your screen. “What even is that?”

“To be honest, I don’t know either.” With all the thudding that your heart is doing, you’re surprised Hyunjin can’t hear it. You pull your earbuds out, tilting your head so your cheek is smushed against his hair. He smells like jasmine tea and oranges. Like familiarity. You missed this.

“I missed you a lot,” he mumbles.

“Me too.”

“Can we not fight again?”

You were never one to make baseless promises, but you would do anything for Hwang Hyunjin. If it means never letting these bubbling feelings boil over and make a mess, then so be it.

“Yeah. I didn’t like it at all.”

Hyunjin’s hand finds yours, linking your pinkies and pressing your thumbs together. “Did you ever figure out what was on your mind?”

“Yeah.”

The silence that hangs in the air after your short answer is what Jisung walks into. He freezes at the doorway, blinking nervously. “Yo, are those my mangoes?”

“We split the box? I Venmoed you for half of it?” Hyunjin is glaring, but it’s not like you’re sneaking glances or anything to know. Instead, you focus on the way Hyunjin is playing with the little dip on your thumb between the nail and skin.

“Oh right.” Jisung wiggles his eyebrows before dropping his Tupperware into the sink and then slinking away after shooting you with a finger gun and tongue click.

There is about ten seconds of silence that seems to stretch on forever before Hyunjin lifts his head off of yours and sits up straight. He scoots his chair back so that he can sit facing you, grabbing your hands to pull you into the right position. His knees are on either side of yours. His hands make yours feel so small in comparison.

You feel like you’re going to explode. “What are you doing?”

Hyunjin gives you a small smile, tongue swiping over his lips and making your heart stop for a few seconds. You swallow, and his eyes curve into those adorable little crescent moons as he lets out a quiet chuckle. “Why do you look nervous?”

“Because you’re killing me with anticipation. Is my face red?”

“Yeah. It’s cute.”

And before you even have a chance to register his words, you feel Hyunjin’s lips on yours and the world just goes silent. Your chest seizes, pressure building up inside as Hyunjin squeezes your hands in your lap. Then it ends. His cheeks are flushed as he pulls away, eyes glinting under the yellow of the kitchen light.

You still can’t breathe. “Y/n?” Hyunjin holds your face in between his hands, tilting your chin upwards with a little pout on his full lips. “Was that okay?”

“Shit.” Your body deflates with the utterance of the word. You wish you could pull your eyes away from Hyunjin to bury your face in your hands to process this overload of information, but he looks so hopeful that you can’t help but just stare. Not to mention his hands on your cheeks, which are probably twice as red as they were before. You want to scream.

“Did I read you wrong?” Hyunjin says softly, gently, in that ever-loving tone that he uses with you and only you. He blinks once. Twice.

You don’t answer. Not yet, at least.

Your nose bumps into his when you lean forward, and he lets out a breath of laughter before your lips connect again. This time, you feel like you can breathe. Every movement of your hands, every touch of his skin on yours makes you feel so alive.

“No. You read me perfectly.”

Falling is a scary thing. It’s losing control. It’s letting all the air rush past you with nothing to hold onto. It’s trusting that someone will be there to catch you before you hit rock bottom.

And you would trust Hwang Hyunjin with your everything. Except for cooking with fire because he has a tendency to burn things. And driving because he brakes a little too hard and gives you a heart attack every time. But beyond all of those things, you would trust him with your life. For him to catch you when you let go.

Because you would do the same for him.

“Fucking finally.”

“Shut up, Jisung.”

[bubmyg]

footnote: better together - ksj

pairing: seokjin x reader

genre/warnings: neighbor!au, strangers to enemies to lovers, fluff, sugar glider fun, seokjin has a collection of stationary and alpaca statues, cheesy holiday goodness

word count: 10,935

summary: the tale of semi friendly notes exchanged passive aggressively between a pair of neighbors until they’re no longer threatening to blackmail one with voice memos of the other singing justin bieber in the shower or the one where you’re alone in your apartment complex and holiday activities are done better together

a/n: happy holidays and happy late birthday to mistre seokjinnie!!!!

Kim Seokjin had a way with delivering words. You’d, quite literally, discovered that hour one of indirect interaction with him. 

Three weeks and the newness of your apartment had started to fade, your decorations hung at slightly crooked angles from your pattered meanderings around the vicinity of your space, laundry dangling out of the hamper rather than meticulous stuffed inside, snacks now scrawled on a list pasted to the front of your fridge where their once full wrappers were hidden in the depths of your trash can. Muscle memory started to carry your legs up the back staircases and through narrow hallways for your apartment, passing by familiar decorations hung on the outside of doors and the occasional familiar face whose schedule happened to coincide somehow with yours. 

It was in a similar fashion that you assumed you had no neighbor directly next to you. The walls were paper thin as the individual across from you took great privilege in letting their door crash shut every time they opened it at four in the morning and from your limited knowledge of building layouts and the way yours slotted nicely to the neighboring apartment, you assumed that if you did have a neighbor, you would have heard them in their bathroom at least once at this point. 

You hadn’t. Not one noise. 

Three weeks into newness fading from your apartment meant built up grime in varying degrees was starting to plague your apartment, thus, time for the first weekend day dedicated entirely to scrubbing into crevices of tile and wood. The earbuds snug in your ears played some tune, something you vaguely recognized from the radio as you hummed absently to it in meandering into your bathroom to grab another wipe from the yellow cylinder perched on the counter. 

The pop of the lid opening and closing registered louder over the sound of your earbuds but it was the melody of something that didn’t at all match the music contained only to your ears that caused you to pause, disinfectant wipe dangling from the pinch of your thumb and index finger as you glanced around the small space. With your free hand, you clicked at the tiny white control dangling off your earbuds to silence your music, squinting as if the narrowing of your sight would help your ears pick up the source of the noise. 

Seeping between the drywall was the voice of Justin Bieber, or rather, the lyrics over a Justin Bieber track but the voice pitched higher, dramatic clearly for the fact that this water was in the shower but with a hint of training, melodious and mesmerizing to an extent. 

If only that voice weren’t loud as fuck. 

You tried to ignore it by tapping your volume up a notch and clicking to a playlist of songs that were just a fraction louder than before. And for the most part, you did forget about the actions of your apparent new neighbor while you scrubbed down the cheap countertops in your kitchen and piled trash bags near the door to take down to the dumpster when it wasn’t dark and less than ten degrees outside. 

The volume in your ears sank as the sag of your couch cushions swallowed your stature, allowing your muscles to relax as you paused your music and let your eyes close for a moment of peace. Except there was the patter of water that wasn’t rain or snow or any type of precipitation coating the window beyond your cheap curtains but instead your neighbor still showering. With a groan, your thumb tapped at your phone screen a few times. 

Taehyung answered half a ring in, “Can’t talk right now, just let the water for my ramen boil over—”

“Wait, did you actually?”

“No,” You heard a vague, high pitched laugh, “For what do I owe the pleasure of your correspondence?”

“I have a new neighbor.”

“Awe, did your landlord spoil the surprise? It’s me!”

You rolled your eyes, “Were you belting Justin Bieber in the shower earlier?”

“How’d you know?”

“Tae—” 

“No, I wasn’t. I’m offended you’d even think that of me.”

“Someone must have moved into the empty apartment next to me while I was at work last night. And they are a better singer than Justin Bieber.”

“Not hard to accomplish that, dove—”

“What do I do? It was funny for like two seconds but I can’t deal with that all the time every night.”

Taehyung scoffed noisily with his lips, “I don’t know. Tell the front desk?”

“Hoseok will be of absolutely no assistance,” You blinked at the far wall from your couch as one of the decorative picture frames you had hung from a command strip began to shake a bit. Popping out an earbud, you found muffled shower sounds replaced with the slam of bathroom cabinets and the uninhibited sound of music, something you vaguely recognized from your previous, radio friendly playlist. “I guess I’ll just hope that it’s the new environment thing running its course. Hopefully I won’t have to experience a terrible concert every time my neighbor wants to shower…”

“I hope that for you as well…” Your best friend trailed off on the other end, “I was partially kidding about the water thing so I kind of have to go...but definitely call me if you have anymore juicy updates on the new neighbor. Maybe I’ll come over sometime and experience it for myself.”

“Go tend to your ramen mess and don’t make Yoongi clean it all up,” Taehyung made another noise of indignation before you signed off with a soft bye, tapping the end button on your phone with another slipping sigh. 

You stared at the wall until the popular radio tunes had faded, just a noise but nothing distinguishable as the new tenant had evidently moved out of the bathroom. You had half the mind to connect a bluetooth speaker to your laptop and blast something off of one of your albeit embarrassing playlists but you didn’t feel petty enough for your neighbor’s first night so you gathered your clothes and fiddled at the creaky dial on your shower in silent peace. 

The damp towel hung loosely from your neck as you wandered back into the hallway, humming something in place of music but pausing the noise and your steps when something white fluttered underneath your front door. Squinting, you tugged the towel a bit tighter and gripped onto the baggy center of your hoodie as you crouched to swipe up the piece of paper. 

It was patterned stationery, a step below cardstock maybe with purposeful, cloudy puffs of grey sprinkled throughout the slightly offwhite paper. Elegant paper, if paper could be elegant, ruined by the messy scrawl of a bleeding black pen, lettings pinched and scrunched to the top half of the paper when they easily could have stretched throughout. In fact, the only thing on the bottom half of the paper was a signature line, spread out and blocky. 

Hey, your new neighbor here...if you haven’t noticed, the walls are a bit thing. If you could keep it down when you’re on the phone, that’d be really helpful. Wouldn’t want to have to tell the front desk, you know? Have a nice (quiet) night! - Kim Seokjin (or...your new neighbor). 

Your handwriting turned out equal in horrendous quality as your shaking hand etched across a piece of notebook paper you yanked out of a drawer in the kitchen. Seokjin’s note fluttered sadly to the floor as you passed where you’d slammed it down on the edge of your kitchen counter, nearly crumpling the return letter in hand as you retched open your apartment door. 

Hey, your neighbor here. I’ll keep that in mind but I’d say you should probably heed your own advice. Wouldn’t want to broadcast a voice memo of you singing 2013 Justin Bieber to the entire building, now would we? Have a nice (quiet!) existence - your neighbor (I don’t think you’ve earned my name quite yet). 

In your angered haste, you knocked on the door before you slid the paper underneath, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of stumbling upon it some time throughout the evening like you had. You, and your hazed subconscious, wanted them to know of your threat now.

...until everything screeched back into reality when a few locks fluttered and the door was yanked open to reveal your neighbor, Kim Seokjin. 

Wet black hair was swept backward by a searching hand, black joggers snug underneath a massive pink sweater that hung off the knuckles of each hand, the one in his hair and the one clutching your crumpled piece of notebook paper. His facial features were gentle but critical, dark eyebrows pulled inward, plump lips pursed until they gradually pulled outward into a smile as soft brown irises flicked haphazardly across the contents of the note. 

“So, what you’re saying is…” Seokjin looked at you, one eyebrow cocking, “You don’t like my music?”

“I don’t like how loud your music is.”

He leaned into his open door, laughing, “Touche’.” 

“Just…” You clenched your fists by your side and you half assumed frustrated steam was billowing quietly out of your ears, “Just try to keep it down, please? And if you have a grievance with me just...come knock on my door or something.”

“Only if you don’t threaten to broadcast my bad shower singing—” He paused in place of your name, one you provided with a sigh. He repeated it with a giddy grin, sticking his hand out that you unwillingly shook, “Nice to meet you.”

Except Seokjin all but refused to knock on your door for anything, instead leaving you messily passive aggressive pieces of various colored stationary underneath the sizable crack in your apartment door. 

Forest green with darker specks in between had the request for your Wifi password after he’d given some sob story via barely comprehensible handwriting about how his provider couldn’t make it for another week and he needed to submit something for his work now or he’d get fired. You’d refused, obviously, with a silent protest of not returning his request, something he countered with ridiculously obnoxious music for hours straight until you caved and thrust a ripped shard of yellow notebook paper underneath his door. 

Only when he’d navigated onto his laptop did he notice that you’d changed your Wifi network name to don’t use this to stream Justin Bieber. A week later, when your connection finally turned to normal did a new network shuffle among the list of others scattered throughout your building. 

Using this to stream Justin Bieber. 

A pastel blue sheet with purple and navy specks through it came to your door to asking about a printer, Seokjin claiming he’d heard the unmistakable sound through the paper thin walls and that he desperately needed to use it as his suddenly wouldn’t connect to his laptop. If he hadn’t heard a printer, the asterisk at the bottom informed you to disregard completely. 

The largest part of you knew it would be a disaster if you were to give him the ability to connect to your bluetooth printer but the smallest part of you knew you couldn’t hide that secret and he’d just torture you with a Disney movie soundtrack until you caved so you scrawled out connection instructions and taped part of the user manual to the note you slid underneath. 

It took him a week to start taking advantage of the printer, beginning to use it in place of his notes instead of trekking down the hallway to push cardstock beneath the crack. The first couple were serious, a request for a spare iPhone charger, a half attempt at getting you to invite him over for dinner with a compliment to how good your dinner smelled. The next couple were ridiculous, a meme outdated by about three years, a Wikipedia page on the history of twist bottle caps that he insisted was just an accident with the next print. 

Then there was one you thought was ridiculous until the same message printed again on fake cardstock, a color he’d applied to the paper that printed in your apartment (soft pink with maroon splotches) and added text that said THIS IS NOT A JOKE, HELP ME. 

You vaguely understood the logistics of sugar gliders but you grabbed a hand towel on your way out of your apartment anyway, picking careful feet on the patterned carpet as to not accidentally step on the creature. It found you first, however, scurrying underneath your pant leg and you had to muffle your scream in the towel as you crouched, managing to fish the sugar glider out with little trouble and throw yourself into Seokjin’s apartment when he opened the door for the tap of your foot against the bottom of it. 

“He was outside?” Seokjin took the towel from you to inspect the tittering creature with wide eyes, “How did you get outside?” 

“You’re welcome—”

“Please don’t turn me in,” There was a separate panic in Seokjin now that he’d retrieved his pet, referencing the no animal aside from non aggressive fish rule in the apartment building. Another second of you being silent and he continued to ramble, “I don’t have anywhere else to take him and he’s good most of the time I just—”

“Seokjin,” You held up a palm, “I’m not going to turn you in.”

He bounced the towel in his arms like it was a human baby, eyeing you with innocent irises, “On any conditions or you just won’t period?”

You considered his proposition for a moment and felt a tiny bit bad for making conditions on him keeping his pet. But only a tiny bit. 

“Stop playing your music so loud,” You proposed. “And I’ll stop using your printer!” Seokjin’s words ran together and his eyes bugged wider, “I’ll give you my number so we can stop wasting paper. Anything…”

He thrust out the hand that wasn’t cradling his pet, “...deal?”

You sighed, watching as his sugar glider’s nose began to twitch and he burrowed into the tiny nest made by your towel. “Deal…”

Except that deal lasted less than a week and he was back to playing music at a ridiculous volume, clattering his cabinets loudly, printing so much it ran out your black ink and you had to ask for money to go buy a new cartridge when you took his heaving stack of documents over to his door. 

You tried banging on the wall as a warning, something you’d never thought of before, an action that caused the lowering of volume for no more than ten minutes before it was up again and you were back to digging the heel of your palm in the shared wall separating your bathrooms (and apartments). 

This was the first time he’d texted you, something you stared at for a hard few seconds upon forgetting to save his name to the contact information, just a puke emoji. It was the contents of the message that jogged your memory. 

Were those knocks Morse code for a song request? 

You sighed, angrily tapping into your phone. 

No, they meant shut the fuck up. 

Months of living in your building meant you had a general idea to the schedules of those who lived around you and how they coincided to yours. That meant you generally parked in the same parking place, took the same route up the stairs, pressed a halfhearted smile into your cheeks at the same people in the lobby and the elevator and the halls. That entire routine was thrown off when you worked over one day, sweat tattered into your hairline and the buttons on your clothes itching to become baggy sweatpants before you departed for an exam that evening and all you could think about was the newly empty parking spot that was entirely closer to the door than where you normally parked. 

In the time it took to shed your polo and jeans smelling of the restaurant you waitressed at part time and grab your backpack, there was someone parked directly behind you, effectively boxing you into the space that had a concrete wall in the front and two other cars on either side. At first, you assumed it was an accident until you got closer and the soft wind fluttered at a piece of pastel purple stationary with blue tick marks splattered throughout it. 

I see you are enjoying the convenience of my parking spot. The code word is “penis”. Scream it loudly down the hallway and I’ll come out and move my car currently blocking you in. If I don’t “hear” from you in an hour, I’m calling a tow truck. Yours truly, Jin :)

You were shaking by the time your trembling legs brought you in front of his door, your voice miserable in rising to say plenty loud enough, “Penis.”

There was a gentle cackling from the other side of the door and his voice answered back, “Not loud enough.”

Anger, one like the initial day he’d moved in next to you, began to lace into the exhaustion and anxiety crippling the swirling pit of your stomach. It caused your voice to rise a second, unashamed octave, “Penis!”

Seokjin’s fingers tapped on the inside of the door and he hummed, “Still can’t quite hear you, darling.”

Your fists curled so tight it crumpled the note in your hand and you set your shoulders, letting your vocal chords waver as you, pointedly screaming, “Penis! Penis, penis, penis—”

The door swung open to reveal Seokjin’s concerned features, his hands lifting in penance but you continued to repeat the word, pausing only to chastise, isn’t this what you wanted? until a lock could be heard down the hall and Seokjin panicked enough to grab your wrist and tug you into the depth of his apartment. 

When he dropped your wrist, you silenced, staring hard at the scrunch of his features and it was the ripping sob that made you immune to the way he’d asked if you were okay approximately three times before the first of the tears began to appear across your cheeks. 

“You have my number!” You wailed, hysterical, “Why couldn’t you have just called me like a normal fucking person and asked me to move my car?”

Seokjin stuttered, “A-are you going somewhere?” His eyes flicked to the strap of the backpack that you gripped for dear life. 

“I have an exam tonight asshole. Not like you care but I’m probably going to miss that too.”

“No, no, you won’t just—” He darted somewhere and returned with a wad of tissues and his car keys, “—dry your face and let’s go. I’ll drive you.”

“I don’t want you to drive me,” You dabbed at your face with the wad of tissues rather than separating them individually, “I want you to move your car.”

“But—”

“Seokjin,” Your voice rose again, only to dip into a tremble as more tears leaked miserably from the corners of your eyes, “Just move your car. Please.”

The next note came two days after you’d been fifteen minutes late for your exam, paired with the warm scent of freshly baked cookies. The plain piece of white paper advertised that too, that there was a plate of cookies waiting for you just outside your door and you probably needed to get them quickly before other tenants started to think you were running a one person bake sale from inside your apartment. You munched a sizable dent into the tiny pile of chocolate chip lain treats while thumbing softly over the tiny heart curled into the corner of Seokjin’s signature, considering it as some sort of unspoken apology. 

He didn’t stop there in his quest to earn back your trust, to amend the absolutely heartbroken expression plastered to your features as a buildup of stress but that he took as his fault for taking the friendly enemy step one footprint too far. 

For example, you didn’t question how he’d discovered it was your laundry tumbling in the dryer down in the common area of your floor. Maybe he’d correctly guessed, but regardless, he’d piled your laundry in neat, sorted piles in the white wire basket you’d left perched on top of the machine. You tried to ignore that he’d touched, multiple, pairs of your underwear and instead took the clothes against your side in the trek back to your apartment. 

And aside from targeted attacks of penance, he overall tried to be a quiet neighbor, giving off the impression that no one lived there aside from the occasional slip of a shutting cabinet and the flick and click of his door knob and lock. The top forty playlists had ceased along with any other form of music and once you caught him exiting his apartment with earbuds attached to his phone, something a few months ago that you weren’t entirely sure he owned. 

It went on this way until the fall month melted into deep winter, ice covering the sidewalks in a thin layer on the first day that it seemed plausible that there would be a white Christmas and you loathed it like the various warnings of canceled (in your email, on the airline website, through the tight lipped voice of the attendant who you’d spoken on the phone with, to the many news warnings flashing across the television screen every time you turned it on to something that was vaguely a news channel) attached to your flight tickets lain forgotten underneath some loose change on your kitchen counter. 

You took in the supportive text messages from your family and friends back home with misty eyes kin to the thin glaze of ice covering the window in your apartment that promised not to melt for at least a week, if not the exact opposite and enhance by a few quarter inches with the cold front coming in directly before Christmas. Your fleece blanket served as a tiny, furry cave, sheltering you from the crippling sense of loneliness that came with being alone on the holidays, a sense that plagued your very being of living alone yet heightened when you had the expectation of it ending for a few days while being at home surrounded by other people. 

The Snapchat notification from Taehyung went unopened when you saw his story said he’d just touched down in his hometown, just hours before cancellations began to flood in to that particular airport. You swiped away the missed call notifications from your parents that served only to cheer you up but assumed would just make the tired butterflies in your stomach sink. You moved the stack of neatly wrapped presents in your corridor to the hall closet that only contained a vacuum and a dustpan (no broom), even the present that you’d scrawled Seokjin’s name over but had considered keeping for the sake of your own dignity several times over. 

You even managed to loathe the wall you shared with Seokjin a bit extra, as it was eerily silent, no annoying albeit comforting ambience filtering from it but instead dead silence, reminding you that you were virtually the only person left in your entire building, if not the entire vicinity of the your suburban side of the college town. 

Until that wall began to chatter, first with a barely there scuffle of things against the floor and second with the unmistakable sound of music, his trademark no less, except in holiday fashion this time, melodious bells and jingles marking the underneath of lyrics you couldn’t hear but beats you could vaguely recognize. 

Half of your exhausted conscious thought it was a mirage, that you were simply imagining that your neighbor was still here with you as the second and only two individuals left in the entire building, so it aided in your carelessness of wrapping your fleece blanket tighter to your shoulders and venturing out into the hallway. The music of your mirage only seemed to grow louder the closer you shuffled to his door, and you timed your knocks with the tune of jingle bells until you were met with the panicked expression of Seokjin, one you’d seen only once before when you’d been cradling his nearly lost pet in a clump of grey towel. 

“Shit,” He cursed, “I figured you’d went home, I’m sorry. I’ll turn the music down again, that’s entirely my bad I was just…” Seokjin trailed off, gesturing quietly over his shoulder and when he stepped aside, you could see the mass of a fallen, plastic tree along with nearly a dozen half opened packages of ornaments. Green metal hooks decorated all the spaces in between, ones curled like his lips into the dimples in his cheeks when he shrugged, “...was trying to put up my tree, is all.”

“Oh,” You nudged your nose into the material around your shoulders, “It’s alright, I just...didn’t think you were here either—” You tried to smile underneath the puffy, sewn hem, “—making sure it was you, you know. Being a watchful neighbor.”

The tiniest of grins manifested to his lips, gradual in growing into the slight wheeze of his laughter but the speech he articulated didn’t quite match, just a soft, “Yeah…”

A few more heartbeats of awkward and you broke the trance with a nod towards the floor, taking a step back, “Well, if you need me then...you know where to find me.”

Seokjin returned your nod. “Yeah. I mean yeah, yeah same.”

You were two sad shuffles down the hall when something was tugging on the end of your blanket. It was Seokjin with the grey fleece held hostage, tugging softly again before dropping it all together, the round of his mouth suggesting the mortification he felt at the situation as the tips of his ears slowly grew red but none of that stopped his invitation. 

“Do you want to help me put up my tree?”

When you just stared at him from underneath your makeshift cape, he held up a single finger, a sharp wait! before a distinct crashing could be heard as he stumbled back into his apartment. Moments later he returned with a strip of that familiar stationery, ripped a bit more on the perforated edge in his haste but the message read semi clear as he pressed the paper to the wall and began to mark on it with a thickly tipped black marker. 

With all the giddiness in the world, he thrust the note toward you. 

Come help me decorate my tree?1 (pretend that one is a footnote) and at the bottom, smooth edge of the paper footnote: this activity is done better together. promise. 

In all your short lived instances of appearing in Seokjin’s doorway to explain notes or hand him documents (or sugar gliders), you’d never taken the time to really look at his apartment or at least, those parts of it you could see. Perched on his couch while he stretched on his tiptoes to plant a plastic star with red glitter woven through the middle was an entirely different perspective, especially when the itchy wool inscribing an ostrich with a Santa hat on the front rode up a bit on his hip bones and you had to force yourself to examine the apartment rather than the occupant of said apartment. 

It was a similar layout to your own, an open concept living room into a kitchen with fully functioning appliances (his fridge, for example, freckled white and covered in so many magnets you would almost venture to describe the color as magnetic). There was a hallway beyond the wall in which the couch you perched on was pressed to, to the right, his bedroom and to the left, the connection of your bathrooms. In theory, your walls touched in more places than just the initial hotspot that was the shower concert, but seeing the layout for yourself in comparison to how you knew yours was laid out did nothing to change the perception already ingrained in your conscious. 

Seokjin seemed to go for modern and minimalistic decorations, monochromes the theme for the big (the black leather couch and matching armchair, the white drawers shoved into the black outlined entertainment center), and wildly neon for the accents (a sharp red shag rug pressed underneath your socked feet, tiny alpaca figurines shoved onto decorative shelves and coffee table corners, a round pink bunny pillow with a questioning eyebrow taking the place of a decorative pillow on his couch). 

One alpaca in particular caught your attention, standing upright with a tiny red bow around its neck as it seemed to wave in your direction from it’s place on the edge of the entertainment center. Seokjin’s voice dragged you away from being endeared by it, however, and you again felt your face heating as your eyes tore to the dip in his exposed spine. 

“Hello,” He crooned again and you tried to ignore the slight slant in his lips when you finally met his gaze, “Is the star straight?”

You blinked up to where the red spined topper was very clearly lopsided. “Not even close.”

“Okay,” You were quickly growing endowed to the wheeze in his laughter, “Which direction does it need to go?”

There was a vague flick of your wrist toward the front door. He complied and you shook your head, “No...back this way.”

Too far again the wrong direction. Too far back. Nearly tumbling backward off the tree. Pressed forward so the tip was pointing toward you. 

Finally, you shrugged, “...that’s good enough.”

Seokjin groaned, letting the pins and needles in his arms relax as he turned to you with slumped shoulders and accusing eyes. “You’re not very good at this thus far,” He told you, placing the bend in his thumb and pointer finger to the high rise of his waist. 

“I don’t have much practice this year,” Your voice was light but the implication of the words wasn’t and Seokjin sensed it. 

“Not much of a decorator?” 

You answered the unasked question, “No. I was waiting to do it with my family.”

“Oh.” He shuffled away from the tree to bend over a cardboard box, traping a tangled mass of green wired lights from within. His attention focused on straightening them out while he inquired gently, “...so you are you staying here over the holidays?”

“Yes. My flight was canceled and a proper one won’t be available until after the holidays.”

“Oh,” Seokjin emphasized the word, nodding mostly to himself as he let the unlit lights drape down his front to sway against his legs, “Good, good. Me, uh...me too. I mean I’m staying here too. And my flight got canceled. The me too was to that part, too—”

“Good,” You happily dismissed the rambled ends of the conversation there, unfurling your legs from underneath you to stand, “Want some help with those?”

You aided each other in wrapping the thin, artificial tree in four strands of twinkling white lights, passing each other the looped wad in front and behind the plastic limbs, careful not to dislodge the prior work of the balanced star while also assuring the bulbs sat nestled in the branches. It looked a bit overwhelmed, wrapped in unlit green wires until Seokjin crawled to the floor to jam one end in the nearby outlet, only to have the tree look a bit underwhelming when only two of the strands lit up, those two being the ones that hugged the middle half of the tree. 

The next twenty minutes were spent silently checking each individual bulb, Seokjin stretching back for the top of the tree while you crouched below. You’d barely made it halfway when he was waddling determinedly off into the apartment, only to return with a creaky wooden chair that he ordered you to sit on while you did the work. 

“What if we rotate the tree as well,” He proposed, fingers reaching for the light he left off on, “That way we don’t have to, oh—” His fingers twisted into one of the bulbs and suddenly, his entire strand came on with yours following close after. A puzzled smile stretched into his cheeks as he regarded you where you sat on the edge of the chair he’d brought you, “—well, never mind.”

“You know…” You’d watched him meticulously separate green hooks from each other in silence for far too long, “You can turn your music back on.”

A pile of hooks snagged haphazardly against each other fell to the floor when he looked at you. The silence was affecting his ability to function as well, clearly, particularly when he said, “The music? What music?”

“The....the music that you were—?”

As if to cover himself after the handful of heartbeats that were nothing but silence in response to your statement, Seokjin began to laugh, a high pitched wheezing sound that paired to the hand he cupped across his stomach and the other that he slapped against his thigh. 

“Oh, right,” Seokjin nodded, stumbling on the fibers of the festive socks on his feet to wherever the source may be, “That music.”

You took it upon yourself to untangle the hooks. 

The exchange of silence stayed for the first few songs on the holiday playlist, an unspoken teamwork of you weaving hooks on shiny plastic bulbs while Seokjin placed them evenly around the tree. It took a package of red and silver ornaments and half a package of unconventional, squished lamp shaped ornaments of a green hue before he began to hum. 

They were hums that grew louder as your fingers brushed in the transfer of hooked ornaments until he was essentially serenading you with the seam of his lips pressed tightly together, prolonging the shared contact on the ornaments as he leaned a fraction closer with his head wiggling to the beat and a smile tugging upward on his sealed lips. 

Then he was singing, something akin to the tone of voice you’d heard him use the very first day he’d moved in. A bit pitchy but on purpose, careless and carefree, soft at first but growing louder the more comfortable he got with you being in the presence of a one man audience for a one man concert. 

And then his voice switched, something more formal, a bit whispery and genuinely beautiful. It had you pausing in your actions, hook in one hand and ornament in another while the corner of your jaw began to unhinge. He was lost in it, unaware that you’d failed to hand him another ornament until he turned with eyes screwed shut and bumped into your outstretched fists. 

Seokjin’s eyes popped open, immune to the expression on your features as he took the ornament from you, placing the unhooked plastic and the hook on separate places on the tree before sliding his hands into yours. His voice wavered between silly and trained, happily wavering your intertwined hands in between your bodies as he danced your figures in messy circles around the myriad of excess decorations. 

“You can step on my feet, you know,” Seokjin assured, letting go of one of your hands to coax you into a stumbling circle. When you made the revolution, he held you at arms length as the streaming service through the speaker buffered between songs.

“I’m not close enough to step on your feet.”

He regarded you for the half second it took a single eyebrow to cock before he jerked on your arm, tugging you nearly on top of his toes. Seokjin hushed, “Is this better?”

There was a distinct waft of cinnamon and vanilla that filtered off the smiling ostrich stretched across his broad stature paired with a comforting warmth that soothed through the stabilizing hand you’d pressed to his chest. Your gaze trailed upward from the stitched tufts of hair woven into the top of the ostrich’s head to meet Seokjin’s gentle eyes, irises brewed in something that radiated the same coffee warmth of the rest of his aura. 

Bluntly, you answered, “Yeah, I’m standing on your feet now.”

He took that as his cue to rock you back and forth, still perched on the tops of his feet, matching the beat of the more melancholy instrumental that filled the apartment. The sun had begun to set outside, lessening the natural light into a glossy orange hue that enhanced the twinkle of lights now forgotten on the tree as two shadows curled around the small space and melded into each other. 

“You have a nice singing voice,” You said to his collarbone, afraid to meet his gaze again. 

“Thank you,” Seokjin squeezed one of your hands, “You’re a terrible dancer.”

It was reflex to smack his shoulder, daring your gaze up at him just to glare and in turn sending the two of you into a fit of unabashed laughter. It was laughter that brought the curl of your bodies closer together, gripping each others hands tighter, until the giggles died into soft smiles directed solely to each other. 

Seokjin cocked his head after a moment, “Would you like to stay and watch a movie?”

“I don’t have much in my cabinet other than this—” A warm bowl of ramen was placed gently on the fold out TV tray in front of you, “—and this…” Next was a paper bowl filled to the top with buttery popcorn. Seokjin held a sheepish smile when you glanced up at him to thank him, “Movie night essentials, you know.”

You hummed, sliding the wrapper from the chopsticks he’d provided to absently dig them through the noodles, “Thank you. We could have ordered something, you know…”

“Yeah? What could we have ordered?” The smile on his lips was teasing as he gestured for the ice stained window in the corner where flakes of new falling snow could vaguely be seen. “I don’t think much is open anyway...we’re pretty close to campus and nearly everyone has gone home.”

You moaned into the first bite you pushed past your lips, “That should have been us. Don’t remind me.”

“What?” Seokjin plopped next to you on the couch, dragging his own TV stand closer to ruffle around at the utensils and bowls, “You mean you’d rather have a home cooked meal and a tree with fully functioning lights?” His eyebrows lifted in the direction of the tree you’d aided in decorating where the bottom strand of lights flickered each time you stepped on his floor with a little too much force. 

“Thank you, though. Seriously,” You let your next bite of ramen pool back into the bowl, eyeing it as you confessed, “It’d be worse to be alone so...I’m thankful you’re stuck here too.”

A surprised noise left Seokjin’s lips as he mumbled around the chipmunk shape of his cheeks as a result his own steaming bowl, “Well I’m glad you’re here too—” He swallowed thickly, leaning over to nudge you with his elbow, “—you’re not a half bad tree decorator. The lights are my fault somehow, I’m sure.”

The television was on but without anything playing, just the home screen of various applications and the name of the building cable provider in the corner. You ate through the silence of a dozen mouthfuls of food until Seokjin began to hum to himself again, shoving his bowl aside to dig busy fingers in the popcorn while his free hand went fishing in the couch cushions. You watched as he returned, triumphant, with a remote, clicking at the buttons with the brush of his thumb. 

“What do you want to watch?” He continued to munch happily on his popcorn as he opened a streaming service and navigated to the holiday section. “Any traditions you’re being deprived of this year?”

You watched as he skimmed past the green, yellow, and blue cover of— 

“Elf is pretty good,” You murmured, stirring the ends of your chopsticks through the leftover broth in your bowl. 

Seokjin navigated back to it quickly, pressing play before he asked, “Oh, yeah? I don’t know that I’ve ever watched it all the way through.”

“You’ve never watched Elf?” You passed the utensils in your fingers aside to reach for your untouched bowl of popcorn, pulling it against your chest as you leaned back into the couch cushions. You stuck the first of the pieces in as the beginning tune of the opening credits filled the apartment, “Well, you’re in for a treat.”

He was still giggling by the time Christmas was saved by the less than magical voice of James Caan singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in the middle of Central Park but not enough that he was distracted from you nudging him off your shoulder to gently take his dirty dishes and empty trash to usher it all into the kitchen. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Seokjin rushed, galloping after you only before nearly tumbling headfirst over the TV tray still folded open in front of him. He caught up to you as you began to run water through the dirtied bowls, “I invited you to stay, wouldn’t I be a bad guest making you do my dishes?”

“Don’t let me do them, then. Help me,” You handed him the rinsed bowl and gestured to what appeared to be a frayed sponge and a half full bottle of soap. You made a point of grabbing the soap and pressing a dollop of it onto the otherwise dry sponge Seokjin lifted to scrub through the curved inside of the bowl. “Then you can let me meet your sugar glider. Properly.”

“Gukmul,” Seokjin nodded, letting the half clean bowl splatter to the suds below, “I”m sure he’ll be thrilled to properly meet his savior.”

You started to say his name as he disappeared down the hall of the apartment, effectively leaving you with the dishes all over again. He was quick though, you halfway through rinsing the bowl he’d abandoned when he returned with a towel shaped ball, your towel, curled against his chest. 

“Here,” He gently held the bundle out toward you, especially when the white furred creature with grey ears poked its head out from between the sanction of his owner’s palms. “You hold him and I’ll do that.”

You dried your hands on the front of your pants, brushing fingers with Seokjin as you assured him you had the bundled up creature, quickly bringing him against your chest. Gukmul didn’t stay in the cocoon for long, regarding you with black beaded eyes until he made his move. Tiny, jumping movements let him glide up the front of your sweater until he was perched against your neck, content with his tiny heartbeat rapidly brushing against your skin. 

“He likes you,” Seokjin nodded, placing one bowl aside to reach for the other. 

“Is he going to jump off?” You countered, too preoccupied with how soft the little animal was for proper flashbacks of the last incident to flash in your conscious. 

“Probably not,” He grinned when you looked horrified, “What? I can’t guarantee he won’t.”

“...although he might want to stay a little longer if you bribe him with a treat—” Seokjin jerked a suddy thumb over his shoulder, “There’s cut apples in the refrigerator if you want to feed him one.”

Elongated, picking footsteps carried you toward the refrigerator, ones in which Gukmul barely moved an inch other than to stabilize himself against your shoulder. The same amount of care was taken to get back across the room once you’d retrieved the apple cube, successful in not losing the tiny sugar glider until he resided in your palm with his treat happily munched between his cheeks. 

“Will you help me pick up all the decoration stuff too?” 

You glanced up at Seokjin from where you’d previously been watching his pet with utter fascination. “If job can be to hold Gukmul so he doesn’t get in the way, then yes.”

“He has a cage for that,” He placed the second, clean bowl aside before reaching for the pan he’d cooked the noodles in. He exchanged an amused glance between you and the sugar glider, “I was kidding, anyway. You don’t have to help me.”

“I was still just joking, you know,” He told you a few minutes later when you stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the dozen plastic bins that looked as though they’d puked holiday cheer onto the tile floor of Seokjin’s apartment. “You don’t have to help me.”

“I’m going to help you.”

You moved to crouch on the floor to collect stray hooks and an assortment of miniature, icicle shaped ornaments that had scattered outside of their plastic box when he was cupping your elbow to halt you. 

“Wait—” Seokjin held up a finger with a mischievous glint in his irises that tucked into the corner of his eyes to regard you, “—I have an idea of what to do with these.”

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?”

Seokjin huffed dramatically from below, hands shifting off the small of your back so that he nearly got two handfuls of your ass. “Probably not, now attach the garland before I drop you.”

The connection of the twist tie around the wire of the green branches was messy but it secured enough along the top part of the cabinets in the common area of your floor, perfect timing for the way your foot slipped off the small part of counter top and proceeded to throw most of your body weight into Seokjin’s palms. 

“I’ll never forgive you if you let me fall,” You threatened.

“That implies that you’ve forgiven me for everything else,” Seokjin grunted, bracing his weight and pushing until you were stabilized again, “So that to me is a win.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder, finding the tiniest bead of sweat matting down black fringe on one side of his face but he was wholly serious as he huffed and got a tighter grip on your back. You teased gently so he would look at you, “Who said I forgive you for anything?”

This time, his palms did cup your ass in route to land on the backs of your thighs, exasperated as he began to rant, “I am still sorry for being the shittiest neighbor ever. I had no idea you had an exam that day but it didn’t really matter I shouldn’t have done that anyway and—”

“Jin,” You trusted your balance enough to flick a socked foot backward at his face, “Hand me the lights.”

Seokjin whined into handing you the rolled up wires, “You didn’t let me finish.”

You sighed, tossing the outlet end of the lights down the side of the cabinets before beginning the meticulous weave through each of the rungs on the cabinet. 

“Proceed.”

“I was going to say I still owe you some more fresh baked cookies,” He grunted when you shifted and squeezed your thighs, “but I’m really not sure that I’m sorry anymore.”

He regarded the work you’d done around the small common area with a critical eyebrow, standing shoulder to shoulder with you as he took in your surroundings. The lights had proved easier to weave than the garland, now on and twinkling between the tiny bits of artificial green. You’d hung a few leftover bulbs for good measure, tucking them back into the greenery. A tiny tree, one you’d fished out of forgotten presents in your hall closet, sat idle on the corner of the cabinet, directly next to the microwave that didn’t work and the sink that no one obeyed the don’t do your dishes here rule of. You’d looped the last of the multi colored lights to that short, fake vegetation, clicking settings on the little dial until the lights were programmed to a periodic flashing motion. The glitter all over the floor was simply a hazard of all the other decorations but it added to the ambiance, especially when the time curled dangerously close to the midnight hour, reflecting the blues of the snow outside through the glass windows lining each part of the common room before they disappeared into the individual hallways. 

“Not bad,” Seokjin mused. You held your hand out, palm up for a high five. 

“So…” You began once his hand touched yours, curling your fingers around his to hold him there, “...about those apology cookies you still owe me?”

“And I was under the impression you were a master chef.”

Seokjin’s eyes brewed a similar shade to the chocolate chips buried within the perfect block of dough he was breaking apart, regarding you under shaggy bangs that hung over his eyes. 

“Generally, I am,” A high pitched squeak left his lips when a particularly difficult square cookie finally gave way to his prying hands, followed by a few more other noises as he spread that piece to the greased cookie sheet, “but on account of the time and the worst ice storm in the history of the city, I can’t exactly go get fresh ingredients.”

You leaned against his counter top, watching as he spread the rest of the premade cookies across the sheet. The festive oven mitt was shrugged on until it rested across his wrist, doing a dramatic twirl across his kitchen to place the pan in the oven. 

“A master chef would have bulk supplies for potential winter storms,” Your palm cradled your chin, “No?”

Seokjin tossed the oven mitt so that it slid across the counter, smacking into your elbows and in turn making you flinch. There was a grin plastered to his features when he tottered over to retrieve it, murmuring, “Sorry, darling. Thought I could make to—” He flicked open the part in the cabinet below you before slamming down the fabric and slamming it shut, “—the drawer.”

“Ramen, popcorn, and premade cookies,” You tapped your fingers in succession against your bottom lip, “Quite the array of food to have until it clears up outside.”

“I have other stuff,” Seokjin defended, motioning toward the top half of his refrigerator on the far adjacent edge of the kitchen, “Some French toast sticks, a frozen pizza or two. I think there’s a box of instant mashed potatoes somewhere around here…”

“Master chef,” You nodded. 

“Precisely,” He shoved himself up off the counter, hands braced on the edge and elbows locked as his head lulled to the side, “Going to have a holiday feast tomorrow night.”

“Enjoy it.”

“You aren’t coming?” You blinked at him until he added, “I mean, you can come over if you want. We can pretend to exchange presents or something. I’m sure I can spare an alpaca figurine. You might be worth it.”

Part of your body went numb with the realization that you’d now have an excuse to give him his present, the one that had tumbled to the middle of your hallway when you’d carelessly yanked your tiny tree from your hall closet. You ignored it to joke stiffly, “Frozen pizza and a present that may or may not be a tiny alpaca? How can I resist that?”

A fond smile curled into a tiny half circle on the plump seam of Seokjin’s lips, pressing into the cute indentions of his cheeks as he looked away from you. His eyes instead went to the screen of his phone that he dug out of his back pocket. 

“It’s late,” He said after a moment, still not quite looking at you, “If you want to go home, I’ll save the cookies for tomorrow.”

“You won’t eat one without me?”

“Not even a crumb,” Seokjin vowed, looking at you now with a hand dramatically slapped over his heart. 

“I’ll be able to hear if you do,” You half threatened, slowly moving to where your keys were. 

His nose wrinkled when you bumped into the side of the couch, eyes glinting.

“Won’t taste as good without you, anyway.”

You contemplated the gift package in your hand for far longer than you considered the red and white striped fuzzy socks tucked nearly up to your knee caps. Whether that was a good or bad thing on your part, it cost you another half a roll of wrapping paper as you tore open the gift, considered not taking it, thought to take it again, hid it underneath the scarf you’d gotten one of your cousins, and finally swallowed your pride to tuck it under your arm and go the short distance to Seokjin’s place. 

“He was joking about the alpaca thing,” You conversed with yourself in the first two footsteps out your front door, “You’re going to look silly bringing him a gift that you bought months in advance. Who has this just laying around, anyway—”

That was the first thing Seokjin said when he opened the door too. “Oh. You brought a gift—” He nudged the door a bit wider to coax you inside, “—not anything that could be considered payback for all my neighbor crimes, is it?”

You bypassed the insinuation of his hanging guilt to instead hyper-fixate on how his hair was stuck up in a few different directions, his holiday sweater bunched around his waist, and the way his teasing smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. He looked nearly as disheveled as he had when you’d swept his pet up in a navy blue towel after he was sure he’d lost it forever. You paused halfway in the threshold, nearly pressed against his chest. 

“Are you okay?”

Whatever remaining resolve that Seokjin had been putting forth crumpled in that moment, stature slumping off the door so that it swung to a hard close behind both your figures. His hand was in his hair again, tresses poking in more awkward angles between his digits. 

“I think Gukmul is sick,” His hand shifted to his nape, “He hasn’t ate since you left yesterday. And he’s being lethargic.”

“You think it was the apple I gave him?”

“Some of the other pieces were browning but,” Seokjin’s hand fell limp to his side and he shrugged, “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing I just…”

“Okay, so we take him to the vet,” You placed your gift aside to reach for your phone, tapping away at the screen, “I’m sure there’s a twenty-four hour clinic somewhere that’s open on Christmas Eve.”

“Darling,” He touched your hand, thumb stroking between your knuckles, “It snowed a couple extra inches last night. How are we going to get there?”

“Drive? If we take it slow—” 

“In whose car?”

“...mine?” 

Seokjin paused, “Are you in my spot again?”

You slumped under where his hand touched yours, “We don’t have time to play the penis game again—”

“I’m just kidding,” His fingers laced around your wrist, squeezing, “I could easily drive us too, then…”

“I’ll drive. And, I have something to help us—” You dislodged his grip on you to reach for your present, tearing easily into the newly wrapped sides to reveal the box inside. Seokjin protested the whole time but you ignored him, slicing the tape with your thumb to digging inside. 

It was a fanny pack essentially, bright pink with stark black zippers and a black strap with a plastic buckle. The front pouch was sheer netting, enough so that you couldn’t see inside but enough that the creature inside would be able to breathe. You thrust it toward his chest, “Here.”

“It’s supposed to be a carrier for Gukmul,” You explained lamely, “You know, so you can take him out of the apartment and not lose him. Or get busted by Hoseok.”

“Oh,” He took it into his grasp, gently turning it in his hands, running his fingers across the zippers, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I got it a long time ago,” You winced at your own admission, “and in pink too. You seem to like that color.”

“I do,” Seokjin blinked from the pack to you, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Now go get Gukmul, I’ll go warm up the car.”

“Oh. Oh,” He stumbled over himself in an effort to shrug the strap over one shoulder, “Right. Okay, right, I’ll meet you out there. Be careful on the ice!—”

Thirty minutes to what was normally a ten minute trip later and the vet was descending behind an ominous looking door with that navy blue bundle curled against her chest. There were a few fishtails and a handful of instances where you didn’t think your vehicle could make it up inclined streets in between stop signs but Seokjin’s knuckles hadn’t been nearly as white then as they were with your hand pressed between both his palms..

He leaned against you, turning your palm over in his lap to trace gentle fingers across the lines in your palm. You let him, leaning too until your heads touched. His leg bounced in time with sighs he took to attempt to calm his breathing. 

“You know, I’m really glad our flights got canceled,” Seokjin said, lacing his fingers through the spaces in yours to pat your intertwined appendages against his thigh, “That sounds horrible. I mean I just....am glad you’re the one who lives next to me, is all.”

“Up until a few months ago, I couldn’t really say the same about you, you know,” You flexed your fingers in his grip.

“I was a dick at first on accident. Then I thought it was entertaining. You never seem that bothered by me. If you were, I assumed you would have told Hoseok and I would have had complaints on my file or something. But you never did so I just...figured you went along with my stupidity because you enjoyed it too. Until that day you cried…”

“It’s okay, you know,” You shifted on his shoulder to peer at the side of his face, “You don’t have to keep apologizing for that. I wasn’t going to get an A in that class, anyway.”

“The exam wasn’t the point. The point was that I teased you like I knew you. Like we were friends or something. And it turned out I didn’t know you at all. I didn’t even know you went to university.”

“...I didn’t know you but I wanted to know you,” Seokjin swallowed, squinting up at the paw print shaped clock on the far wall from where you sat, “Your presence was just...strangely comforting. Knowing that you could hear me being dumb almost felt like I had a roommate. Like I wasn’t alone with myself.”

“That’s why Gukmul means so much to me, aside from the fact that he’s a part of my family. He reminds me that I’m something larger than myself. That I’m not constantly alone.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you,” Seokjin’s chin pressed to his neck to smile down at you, “For being here with me. For putting up with me. Indirectly and otherwise…”

“And I’m sorry I was such a shit neighbor for so long. It was like I reverted back to middle school—” He gestured with the hand that was still twisted around yours, “—you know, tease the person you like and that’ll make them understand that you like them.”

“You weren’t and aren’t a shit neighbor,” You assured, nudging your nose against the underside of his collarbone, “You bring the same kind of comfort for me, you know.”

“You know how many times my friend Taehyung told me I should turn you in? So many times,” You shrugged, “You’re kind of annoying but nothing unbearable. It’s part of what makes you charming.”

“Thanks,” Seokjin laughed dryly and you smiled when a part of his natural wheeze came out in the giggle. 

“I just got used to you. It felt weird if I couldn’t hear something going on over there...if my printer wasn’t whirring to life at the most inopportune times…”

“Why do you think I said up until a few months ago? I realized that I—” You nuzzled your cheek against his jacket so he couldn’t see your face, “—kind of liked you too. I mean, hello I bought you a gift in advance. I don’t even buy my family presents in advance.”

“Sounds like we should talk more outside of bluetooth printing, vague wall knocks, and horrible Spotify playlists,” Seokjin playfully jostled you on his shoulder. 

You curled your free arm around his elbow, snuggling in closer to his side, “We definitely should.”

You sat in the silence that came with observing the basket of haphazard animal magazines and the children’s play maze that consisted of tiny wooden beads on twirled metal tracks, the whisker hands of the cat shaped clock stuck to the front of the reception desk ticking by unbearably slow. The paw print clock showed the same drag of time, the ticking of the second counter in time with the bounce of your own leg. 

Time means it’s something bad. Or it’s nothing. Or it’s something and it’s small. Of course, bringing him here was going to take time but—

“Looks like your little buddy here just had a tummy ache,” The vet reappeared holding your towel, the only difference being that there was a small white head now peeking up from between the rolled center. What was once lethargic was now energetic, head darting back and forth at he new surroundings with his tiny nose twitching to the overwhelming smells. “He puked a bit of something up but took to the carrots I fed him like he’d never ate before…”

There was a bit more exchange between the owner and the vet as she passed Gukmul into Seokjin’s care, just a reminder to keep an eye on him for at least another twenty-four hours and the instructions to give her a call on her personal cell phone if anything got worse. The exchange of credit card information, a few shards of carrot for the road, and Gukmul was bundled back up into his new pouch laid across Seokjin’s chest. He chattered happily on the careful trek to the care, noise happily placed between munches on the carrot the vet had given him. 

You scratched underneath Gukmul’s chin before Seokjin closed the wire gate to his cage, standing so that he could drape an arm across your shoulders. 

“I think he’s a faker,” Seokjin said finally, watching as the sugar glider hopped away into one of his hanging toys. 

“Be nice!”

“What?” He grinned when you turned to him to swat his shoulder, “Had us risk our lives in the middle of an Antarctic winter storm just to get a couple shards of carrot. I would have bought him carrots after everything melted—”

You tugged on the lapel of Seokjin’s jacket, cutting him off long enough to roll onto your toes to plant your lips softly to his cheek. “It’s okay,” You soothed, brushing your thumb over where a blush spread outward from where your lips had touched his skin, “We made it, didn’t we?”

“Wait! That reminds me!” 

You startled with the intensity that he blurted the statement, stepping back when he stepped away from you, too. You stood rooted in the spot as he stumbled around his bedroom, coming back with a piece of stationary in hand, one of red and green speckles this time. Black ink was written neatly to the paper this time, looping letters complete with the normal heart next to his signature at the bottom. 

“It was a scavenger hunt but I don’t have the patience to wait while you do the other steps so—” Seokjin gestured vaguely to the paper in your hand, “—that’s the last clue.”

“Go to the kitchen,” You read, lifting your eyebrows first before your gaze, “Quite the clue.”

“Hush, do you want your gift or not?”

“I—”

You faltered when he began to direct you with hands firmly set on each of your arms, steering you out of his room, down the hallway, and around the bend of the kitchen. It was a push and pull, forward a few steps on the tile, backward toward the plate of cookies he’d arranged on a plate shaped like a snowflake, forward one step and finally his grip left you. 

“Okay, turn around. And look up.”

You saw his red tipped ears first, a color that spread over the entire surface of his skin in each area the longer he tried to smile at you. When you didn’t budge, his eyes flicked upward a few times, then his head jerked, then he blatantly pointed until you laughed. 

“My present is a kiss?” You giggled, stepping closer to him. 

“Yes, of course,” Seokjin’s pink features told a different story than the way he confidently reached for your waist, drawing you against him, “Only the best for you.”

“I didn’t think Gukmul was going to get sick and we were going to have this weird confession session in the lobby of the vet’s office. This was me, what do they say...shooting my shot?” One hand came up to cup your cheek, “I was going to lure you in here naturally with my impeccable charm but...this is cute and romantic too? Right?”

You touched your lips to Seokjin’s to dispel the last of uncertainty that still saturated heavy in his tone. 

[leupagus]

My Stationery Box, or: The Douche Chest, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Being A Terrible Parody Of Myself

So I really love to write letters, and have since i was a kid — when i cleaned out my grandparents’ house I found a few I’d written in grade school, and my parents’ files are chocablock full of the weird collage type things I sent to them in college. 

I’ve also been a huge insufferable fucking snob about stationery since way too young (yes I did have a fountain pen phase, no it did not go well) and have been collecting fancy paper and cute cards and assorted weird writing paraphernalia forever. Up until recently, things were just kind of haphazardly stuffed in various drawers and shelves and I could never actually find any said fancy shit when I wanted it; but a couple of months ago I discovered an adorable little chest of my late mom’s that had previously housed, I think, her knitting and has mostly just been collecting dust since. And voila: The Douche Chest was born:

(Pictured with my elderly laptop and coffee with my coffee warmer, which I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE everyone to buy one day when we’re not under worldwide quarantine, seriously it will change your life.)

Keep Reading for some top tier stationerdery

First off, the stuff that helps me write! I still use my family address book, which was purchased sometime in the early 80s and has the name and address of everyone my parents ever cared enough about to want their name and address, which is actually not that many people. I keep it updated and have added a few people, but mostly rely on my phone’s address book. Mostly I like it because it’s got a lot of my mom’s handwriting.

My planner, which has a whole correspondence section where I keep a record of who I write to regularly, when I write to them, and what kind of stationery they usually get (because there are different types and you don’t want to give a correspondence an inconsistent letter-reading experience! Yes I know, I can’t believe I’m like this either) indicated by the m, s, x, l, b notations. That will be relevant later. Also yes the planner is where I scribble down both story ideas and my gratitude journal. This is what I’m saying in re: yikes.

At my own house, I have a whole huge box of letters I’ve gotten over the years, mostly organized by sender and date. Since I’m at my aunt’s house for quarantine, my correspondence is all being kept in my dad’s old... I dunno what to call it, basically it’s a trapper-keeper type thing that I literally never saw him go to work without. (A running theme of this tour is that a whole lot of this stuff is inherited from/given to me by my parents and grandparents.) Inside is also various labels that have come in handy when addressing packages etc, as well as our local neighborhood directory.

Next up is my pen bag, which is — I mean, it has my pens. I prefer writing with a black .5 tip rollerball type pen, and by “prefer” I mean “I cannot abide writing letters with anything else and will go to Staples and buy a new box rather than use a ballpoint pen except obv not right now, which makes the bag real important for keeping track of all my special pens.” Also pictured: my grandpa’s ancient letter opener that I’m pretty sure he stabbed multiple people with, and my blue Le Pen which I use to annotate my letters when I’m reading them through before sending. I KNOW.

This is my assorted letter-writing stuff storage box (no we’re not even at the cards yet this is TERRIBLE); please note that I sort of jerryrigged this box together myself, which will be another running theme of this tour. Glue, roller whiteout thingies, washi tape (which I don’t really use but people keep sending me?) post-its and my address stamp because no matter what I do, the fuckin’ Audubon Society refuses to send me a single donation request with cute stickers showing my address even though they’ve sent my deceased dad like three THIS YEAR. Anyway. Also please note the incredibly awesome initial stamp thing — I came up with the rough design in college and use it in place of my name a lot, but I went to leoniebunch and they transformed it into this super professional and lovely design that I want to use for the rest of my life. Not pictured: the fucking wax seal I also had made with that design, because yes, I’m like this.

WE’RE STILL NOT DONE WITH THE PARAPHERNALIA: here’s the other misc. stuff that I use on the regular. Cup with sponge because we’re not really licking envelopes these days: tons of weird stickers that I’ve collected, YET MORE PENS, including rainbow ones because one of these days I’m going to write to one of my friends with alternating rainbow colors and they’ll have to murder me. Also pictured: the letter opener which I forgot to put back in the pen bag, as well as my dog’s nail clippers and brush because that’s a handy place to keep them. Also also pictured: my dog, who does not help in any way with letter writing.

OKAY FINALLY ONTO THE STATIONERY, Jesus just writing this all out is making me both proud and ashamed.

I’m sure you noticed in the first pic how everything is meticulously, not to say monomaniacally, labeled. Some stuff might require a little bit of explanation; some stuff is pretty wysiwyg though. For example, BEAR CARDS, which:

(These are sent exclusively to my nephews, who go absolutely apeshit over them every time. Come to think of it, I have a LOT of cards/letter stock/etc that is just for one person or one set of people, which maybe I should talk to my therapist about.)

PUN CARDS are likewise exactly what you think they are; they’re the most recent addition to my hoard, having found them at Powells when I went to Portland in February. They are extremely My Kind Of Thing.

Then you’ve got things like BIRTHDAY CARDS, THANKS, POSTCARDS which like — guess what:

(Please note that of these birthday cards, all but two were actually inherited from my grandmother who passed away in 1986. See if you can guess which two are my purchases.) (Also I’m running out of thank-you cards but to be fair I am rarely grateful so this should last me another few years at least.) (Also shit, I didn’t take a picture of the postcards I don’t think? Whatever, they’re postcards that I’ve either inherited from my parents or collected over the years. There’s also a very odd collection of wolf-themed cards that SOMEONE in my family collected, and that I have been using exclusively for allighater because she’s the only one who could ever appreciate them enough.)

Then there’s the BLANK CARDS and BLANK AND WRITTEN CARDS WITH/WITHOUT ENVELOPES, because sometimes I just need to know what I’m getting into before opening the boxes. I’d say a good 50% of these were inherited from my folks, with the cutsier ones being my own purchases. The cards that these boxes originally contained are looooooooong since used up but they’re nice boxes and that meme about adulthood being an endless debate over whether or not you should keep a box because it’s a really good box is accurate as all hell. 

(There are a lot of cards in here that I bought when I was like, in college — those square ones, for example, were purchased at Faces in Northampton when I was in college and I’m probably never going to actually send them which is kind of ridiculous but see: this entire post.)

And finally, the actual letter-letter stationery! Which I also have an embarrassing amount of! First up is what’s labelled MADOC TREE CARD/LETTER because I honestly had no idea how else to describe it; it was inherited from my grandma who everyone called MaDoc (on account of her being both a ma and a doctor, go figure) and it’s really lovely. I doubt it’s the original intention, but I like to unfold the paper and use both sides of it, because I always have a lot to say. These are used only for family members on MaDoc’s side, and of those, only the ones I really like, which accounts for there still being a lot left.

Then there’s the X-LARGE paper, which isn’t actually that large — it’s just normal computer-sized — but in context is the biggest stuff I’ve got. All of this paper is from my mom, who loved using cute themed paper, and I use this stuff mostly for the friends of hers I keep in touch with (which is actually kind of a lot).

Then there’s the letterhead I use for — okay, so like, we know by now that I’m deeply weird, but this is probably just DEEPLY WEIRD, but whatever, you came this far. So I found a metric shitton of 6 3/4 envelopes in amongst my parents’ office supplies — I have literally zero idea why they had about 5 100-count boxes of these envelopes but I’m one of those people who can never, ever throw shit out, so! I gathered together all the letterhead that they’d also collected over the years from the various universities and hospitals they worked at, cut said letterhead down so that it a) didn’t have University of Tacoma or whatever still on it and b) perfectly fit a 6 3/4 envelope if folded three times. The resulting shape is a little... odd, I’ll admit, but it pleases me greatly and that’s the important thing. In fact this has been my go-to correspondence choice for a couple of months now.

(Also pictured: the cover for this hinky-ass box I made out of a Beekman 1802 box from when we went to their store for their Rose Apothecary popup shop. Zero regrets. Not pictured: the really cute pad of paper I also use for these envelopes that’s a more normal size and shape because where’s the fun in showing you normal stuff?)

And finally, my pride and joy, my Crane Stationery, some of which I have had since I was in high school and my mom bought me a box of it for my birthday (I told you, running theme). It comes in small, medium, and big; yes, I absolutely have rules as to who gets what size of these, too. The medium box kind of fell apart a few years ago so I cobbled a new one together; Crane stationery is notable for not being as exciting as that cover might imply. I’m also kind of pleased that I still have the airmail stationery that I got in college that apparently isn’t sold anymore, which I find baffling because what the fuck is the point of international correspondence if you don’t have to use special stationery? Anyway:

(In re: the lined sheets — I actually have them for every size, because I loathe lined paper but also loathe writing crooked, hence these guides that I put under each sheet as I write. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

So that’s the complete guided tour! If you aspire to have a collection as viscerally unnerving as mine, feel free to send any questions my way. You’re welcome/I’m sorry.

[lantur]

royai week 2020: day one, “letter”

summary: It’s a running joke in the office that even if Hawkeye were to be shot at her desk, she would put together a complete and professional memo, date, time, and subject line and all, before calling a medic for assistance. Re: Request for medical leave, effective immediately.

Or: Roy and Riza exchange a series of memos on November 18, 1910.

rated: e for everybody

tags: partial epistolary format, pre-canon

words: 3642 | read on ao3 

Roy receives the invitation on the third Wednesday in November. It has been slipped in with several memos from Grumman’s office. The invitation to the annual Central Officers’ Ball is printed on the finest stationery he has ever seen - heavy ivory card-stock with golden trim and deep emerald green lettering. He takes in the details with a single glance. The last Saturday of December, at Central Command. Six in the evening. Formal attire. Dinner and dancing. 

He has barely spent any time in Central since being posted to East City Command and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. Frankly, it’s surprising that he even scored an invite. Grumman must have had something to do with it. In the midst of one of their chess games earlier this autumn, the Lieutenant General had been musing about some of the connections made at the Officers’ Ball some decades ago, and how helpful those connections were in advancing his career. Everything you want in life is a relationship away, Mustang, Grumman advised, before putting him in checkmate. 

Roy smiles, folds the invitation in half, and tucks it back into its envelope. 

He tears off a sheet of memo paper and begins to write. 

Date: Nov. 18, 1910

Time: 3:15 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Svensson (New Optain) 

Reviewed Svensson peer interviews. You may strike him from the list due to reported issues with temperament. Proceed with followup on Nilson. 

Postscript: Please clear your social calendar on the last Saturday of December. 

-

 Date: November 18, 1910

Time: 3:30 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Svensson (New Optain)

Svensson has been removed from the list of contenders. Nilson interviews are attached. 

Postscript: Schedule is open on the last Saturday of December as requested, though I would not recommend attempting to interview a potential candidate so close to the New Year. Most individuals will be traveling to see family at that time. 

-

Date: Nov. 18, 1910

Time: 4:30 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang 

Re: Nilson 

Nilson appears promising. Thank you for being proactive on completing these interviews and transcriptions in advance.

Postscript: We will not be attempting to interview Nilson on the twenty-sixth of December. You will be accompanying me to the annual Central Officers’ Ball. Expect to leave East City by late morning of the twenty-sixth. We’ll return on the morning of the twenty-seventh. 

-

Date: 

Time:

To:

From:

Re: 

Lt. Col., you may have misunderstood the purpose of this event. The Central Officers’ Ball is a social event, not a professional meeting. The plus one that officers receive is intended to be filled by a spouse, partner, or date, not a member of one’s unit. I am sure that you will have no difficulty finding a suitable companion. 

Roy throws a discreet glance over to Hawkeye’s desk. She’s sitting up straight, telephone held to her ear, undoubtedly making further inquiries about the next candidate on their list. The Second Lieutenant looks as calm and composed as ever, and had been perfectly collected while dropping off the memo at his desk. It’s all a sharp contradiction to the empty memo lines on the sheet before him. 

Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye never leaves a memo line unfilled. Only Falman is as attentive to detail as she is. It’s not unusual for Hawkeye to chastise Breda and Havoc - not to mention him - for poorly composed or incomplete memos. The purpose of a memo is to share information, as well as to keep a record of communications, she has lectured them, a dozen times. If any fields are missing, you’re providing your fellow colleagues with an unclear picture of the situation and opening the door to any number of miscommunications. It’s a running joke in the office that even if Hawkeye were to be shot at her desk, she would put together a complete and professional memo, date, time, and subject line and all, before calling a medic for assistance. Re: Request for medical leave, effective immediately.

Roy twirls his pen through his fingers, and he can’t help but grin. 

-

Date: Nov. 18, ‘10

Time: 5 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Incomplete memorandum

Hawkeye, I regret that I must reprimand you for the memo that you delivered to my desk earlier this afternoon. Several fields were missing, including date, time, address information, and subject line. This could have opened the door to any number of miscommunications, or even provided your colleagues with an unclear picture of the situation. 

Postscript: You said you would follow me “into hell” but you refuse to come with me to the Central Officer’s Ball? I’m not sure what that says about your conviction - or if you just think the ball will be worse than hell itself. 

-

Hawkeye reads the memo at her desk and looks so momentarily wounded that Roy feels sorry for her. He grabs another sheet of memo paper, scribbles a few lines, and delivers it to her desk before she can even pick up a pen to respond to his first note. 

Date: 

Time: 

To: 

From: 

Re: Disregard previous memo

A civilian would not be an appropriate companion for this event. It is a mission-critical operation, not a mere social engagement. I need somebody sharp and perceptive at my side to assist with evaluating the individuals we meet, most of whom will be members of senior staff. I require a second set of eyes to pick up on existing social networks and spot any opportunities for suitable connections that could help with my advancement. I can think of no better set of eyes than yours. 

-

 Date: November 18, 1910

Time: 5:15 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Incomplete memorandum

I extend my sincere apologies for the incomplete memorandum earlier this afternoon, Lt. Col. It will not happen again. 

As the event on the twenty-sixth of December is mission-critical, I will be happy to accompany you. Any guidance that you can provide on dress code would be much appreciated.

-

Riza works steadily at her desk. Roy surveys her for a few long moments, resting the top of his pen against his chin thoughtfully. 

She notices his scrutiny and deliberately angles her chair so that all he can see is the back of her head.

Date: 11-18-10

Time: 5:30 PM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Dress code

Formal attire. Don’t fret too much about it. You’ll look stunning beautiful gorgeous nice no matter what you wear. 

We’ll discuss further as we approach the operation. 

Riza blushes faintly when she receives the memo. She folds it twice, into a tiny square, and then tucks it into her pocket, before proceeding to his desk and standing at attention. “Is that all for today, sir?” 

Roy leans back in his chair and gives her his most disarming smile. Riza’s eyes narrow slightly. “You’re dismissed, Second Lieutenant. Enjoy your evening.”

Roy feels oddly cheerful for the rest of the night.

-

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 11:15 AM

To: Hawkeye

From: Mustang

Re: Grumman meeting reschedule

Yes, you can go ahead and reschedule my meeting with Grumman to 2 PM today. We’ll push the Smith meeting back an hour. 

Postscript: I’ll pick you up at your place at 11 AM tomorrow. 

-

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 11:30 AM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Grumman meeting schedule

The changes to your schedule have been made. Please be sure to review the files that Smith sent over prior to your meeting with him at four. 

Postscript: Do you plan on driving? I can book train tickets for us today.

-

Date: 

Time:

To:

From:

Re: 

Yes, I plan on driving. You really didn’t have to look so alarmed when you read my earlier note. I’ll let you choose what we listen to on the radio, if that helps. 

-

Date: December 25, 1910

Time: 12:30 PM

To: Lt. Col. Mustang

From: Second Lt. Hawkeye

Re: Tomorrow

I suppose it does, sir. I’ll bring coffee for the road.

Roy looks up from the memo and grins at Hawkeye. His Second Lieutenant gives the towering stack of paperwork on his desk a meaningful look, but her lips quirk up in a hint of a smile.

-

Riza is, uncharacteristically, two minutes late on the morning of the twenty-sixth. At two minutes past eleven, she emerges from the door of her apartment building, looking somewhat harried, carrying a canvas bag over her shoulder, a long garment bag slung over her arm, and a covered travel mug of coffee in each hand. She’s in civilian clothes, a gray skirt, knee-high boots, and a pink sweater, and Roy admires the look for a moment before he slides out of the driver’s seat to assist her. It’s bitterly cold outside, even with his overcoat, gloves, and scarf on. 

“I’m sorry for my lateness, Lieutenant Colonel,” Riza says, the moment she sees him. “It’s just this stupid garment bag - it’s very unwieldy.”

“Two whole minutes, Hawkeye. It’s unforgivable. We’ll be late for the entire event, and blacklisted from all future occasions.” Roy relieves her of the coffee and opens the back door for her, allowing her to unload her canvas bag and the garment bag, which she folds carefully and places beside his neatly pressed dress uniform.

They settle in the front, taking a minute to sip their coffee in comfortable silence, curling their hands around the mugs for warmth. “No one makes coffee like you do.” Roy breathes in the steam, savoring the scent.

Riza shrugs modestly. “It’s just a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar stirred in with the cream, sir. There’s nothing to it.”

She’s eyeing the radio, set to the monotonous sounds of East City Public Radio, and Roy sighs. It’s an age-old battle between them, going back to a happier, simpler time, years ago, when they were both living under Berthold Hawkeye’s roof. “Go ahead and change it.”

Riza puts on a jazz station without argument. The roads between East City and Central are unusually empty today, and Roy delights in the ability to go fast, the music in the background, the scent of coffee lingering in the air, one of his two closest friends at his side. Even though she isn’t nearly as thrilled with the ability to drive fast as he is.

“What’s in the garment bag, Hawkeye?” Roy glances over at her. “I almost offered to come shopping with you. I thought I could pass on some of the sartorial insights I’ve learned after growing up with so many sisters, but then I realized that might be seen as inappropriate.”

“No, sir. You don’t say.” 

Roy grins at the deadpan. “Insubordination, Second Lieutenant,” he replies, not meaning a word of it.

Riza settles herself into a more comfortable position in the passenger seat. “It’s a lovely dress, if I do say so myself, Lieutenant Colonel. Tangerine orange silk, sleeveless, fitted through the bodice to the knees, and flaring out from the knees to ankles. There’s a two-foot long train as well.”

Roy shoots his Second Lieutenant an appalled look, and she gives him a tiny, smug smile.

-

They book neighboring rooms at Central’s nicest hotel, just down the street from Central Command. It’s four by the time they check in, and they disappear into their own rooms at once to get ready. Roy takes a drink from the mini-bar in his room - just a small one, just to calm his nerves - before going through the routine of shaving, showering, getting dressed, slicking his hair back. By the time he’s finished, he can barely recognize the man in the mirror.

Roy leaves his room with the intention of finding Riza at the hotel bar for a pre-mission briefing. Instead, they both step out of their rooms at the same time, locking their doors behind them, and for a moment, Roy can’t do anything but stare. Finally, he recovers, raising an eyebrow at her. “Tangerine orange?”

Riza smooths her hands down the skirt of her dress somewhat self-consciously. It’s a silken fabric, high-necked, sleeveless, fitted close to her chest and waist, the skirt flaring out from the waist as it falls to the ground. It’s green - not the true Amestris green, but a dark, shimmering emerald green. The color is a striking contrast to her hair and her amber earrings. “Not quite,” she says. “It’s not too much?” 

“Not at all. You look lovely, Hawkeye. You could be the First Lady of Amestris.” 

The implication of the words hit him the second they leave his mouth. Thankfully, Riza misunderstands. She reaches for his arm, and then curls her hand into a fist, bringing it back to herself somewhat self-consciously. “You don’t think it’s overstepping for me to wear this color? I wouldn’t want to offend Mrs. Bradley.”

“Definitely not,” Roy insists. “Relax. I’ll buy you a drink at the bar to help ease your nerves. Now, come on. We have time for a quick pre-mission meeting before we head over to Central Command.”

-

The Central Officers’ Ball is exhausting. Roy becomes acquainted and re-acquainted with several dozen high-ranking officers stationed at bases across Amestris. He wears his most charming smile, engages in his wittiest repartee, and constantly watches and listens - not just to the officers he’s talking to, but the people in the vicinity. The Hero of Ishval, men and their wives say, over and over and over again, and his smile never falters.

He has surprisingly little time with Hawkeye. They socialize separately for most of the night - divide and conquer, he had told her, on their drive from East City to Central. Despite the crowds, Roy catches sight of her often, locked in a dance with this or that colonel or general, or conversing quietly with men he recognizes as adjutants of some of the Central Command senior staff. He’s mildly surprised to see that Hawkeye seems to be quite a hit with the younger officers and adjutants, and some of the not-so-young ones, either. 

But it shouldn’t be a surprise. Riza has always been someone with intense focus, and when she trains those clear, lovely, amber-colored eyes on a man, listening to him in that calm, intent way she does, it must make him feel like the only man in the room. 

Not that he would know.

Hawkeye’s looks certainly don’t hurt, either. Her dress, hair, jewelry, and cosmetics are quite a bit more understated than the other women in attendance, but she’s stunning, regardless. His eyes aren’t the only ones lingering on her tonight. But the other men aren’t her commanding officers, and Roy clears his throat, and finds a group of Brigadier Generals from Central Command to converse with.

Riza appears by his side at the next break in the music, and Roy politely excuses himself from the group. “How has your night been, Hawkeye?” he asks softly, leading her to a more quiet corner.

Riza glances up at him, a satisfied gleam in her eyes. “It’s been very productive, sir. We’ll have a lot to discuss on the drive home.”

Roy can’t help but laugh. “You worked the room even better than I did. If I didn’t know it was you out there, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Riza accepts a glass from a passing waitress with a nod of thanks, and takes a sip of the champagne. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Lieutenant Colonel.”

“What can I say, Second Lieutenant? You have certain advantages with this crowd that I don’t.”

“And what would those be, sir?” Riza asks, straight-faced. 

“Oh, look, Hawkeye,” Roy says, suddenly very interested in the waiter moving past them. “Can I interest you in some canapes?”

The canapes are delicious. They share a savory biscotti, and when the orchestra resumes, Roy nods to the center of the ballroom. “It’s the last dance. Shall we?”

“I--” Riza hesitates, evidently taken by surprise. “I suppose that’s all right.”

Now, that’s the Riza Hawkeye he knows and--

Roy grins, and immediately suppresses the rest of the sentence. “Ah, Second Lieutenant.” He rests a hand over his heart, feigning injury. “The enthusiastic response that every man dreams of.” 

Riza places her hand on his arm with a small, resigned sigh. It’s the same sound she makes when she looks him dead in the eye in the office after telling him to stop procrastinating on his work, and adds that she should be paid more. Roy leads her to the floor, and he takes her hand, placing his other hand on her back, as Riza rests her hand on his arm. 

He realizes, too late, that this is the first time he’s touched her like this since the weeks immediately after Ishval.

Since you maimed her, his mind elaborates helpfully, and Roy fights the urge to wince. 

He doesn’t feel the scars underneath the silken fabric of Riza’s dress. And it’s not like the fabric is thick. Over the past year, he’s wondered how the burns have healed, even though the ease of Riza’s movements, their natural grace, seem to indicate a complete recovery.

Roy glances down at her, worried, wondering if this is the reason she had hesitated to accept the offer to dance. If Riza is at all troubled, she shows no indication of it. Her hand is relaxed in his own, her expression calm. She looks genuinely at ease, for the first time tonight. They’re close enough that he can breathe in the scent of her hair. Vanilla, the same shampoo she has used for all the years he’s known her. 

So Roy tries to appreciate the music, the lovely sounds of the forty-piece orchestra. He tries to glance around at the men surrounding them and identify which ones he and Riza hadn’t conversed with tonight. He tries to think about anything except how good and how right it feels to have his subordinate in his arms. 

He can see the Fuhrer and his wife through the crowd. Fuhrer Bradley holds his wife close, resting his chin on top of her head. A rare, tender gesture, one that appears incongruous from such a fierce-looking man. A man who had signed off on the slaughter of the Ishvalan people. The First Lady is wearing a dress remarkably similar to Riza’s, though it’s violet and not dark green. 

Even with the music, Roy can hear the soft swish of Riza’s skirt as they move. The warm glow of the low lamplight catches her hair, her eyes, her amber drop earrings. 

“The green was a good choice,” Roy murmurs, even though he shouldn’t. Just like he shouldn’t imagine the two of them ten years from now, standing in the Fuhrer and the First Lady’s place. 

“Thank you, sir.” Riza’s voice is barely audible. 

There will be no extravagant holiday parties for them. His tenure as Fuhrer will last only as long as it takes to strip the power away from the military and hand it back to the people. If there’s any justice in this world, his tenure will end with a firing squad. 

The music comes to an end, and they release one another’s hands.

-

They say their farewells, lingering to socialize a bit more with the potential new allies formed tonight. It’s midnight before they head back to their hotel, and they slump back against the wall of the elevator in exhaustion. Roy’s eyelids feel heavy, his head aches slightly, and he is overly conscious of Riza’s shoulder, a few inches from his own. He’s so used to seeing her shoulders covered by the dark blue wool of her uniform coat that it takes an effort not to stare whenever he sees her in civilian clothes. 

It would be so easy to lean into her. He sees that Riza is tired too, in the sharp, impatient movements of her hands as she hitches up her skirt enough to pull off her high heels, right there in the elevator. But he doesn’t, just like he doesn’t stare at her legs. 

“Questionable, Hawkeye,” Roy comments, as they make their way down the hall, back to their rooms. Riza’s steps don’t click on the marble floors as they have all night. “These floors may look spotless, but I wouldn’t want my bare feet all over them before getting into bed.”

“That’s what the soaking tub is for, sir,” Riza replies, and Roy is momentarily distracted by the mental image of her slipping off the ballgown, the emerald green silk falling to the floor.

They come to a stop in front of both of their rooms and turn to face one another. “Thank you, Second Lieutenant,” Roy says. “For accompanying me.”

“I was happy to do so, Lieutenant Colonel, despite my initial reluctance. I think we worked well together.” 

“Do you want to come in, to discuss the connections we made tonight?” Roy asks, and he can’t bear to look her in the eyes. He stares at a spot just above her head instead. “I’ll mix you a drink.”

Riza looks at him steadily. She swallows, and Roy watches the movement of her throat, and imagines running his fingers through her hair, gently pulling her head back, kissing her neck. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir.” 

The worst thing, by far, is that he’s not imagining the reluctance in her voice. 

“Of course.” Roy forces his most carefree smile. “Sleep well, Hawkeye.”

“You too, Lieutenant Colonel.” 

They retreat into their separate rooms. Roy closes the door behind him, locks it, and leans against the door heavily. He runs his fingers through his hair, mussing the impeccably slicked-back style, and all the breath leaves his body in a sigh.

He stays there, for a long while. He thinks of Riza, in her room. And finally, Roy makes his way to the mini-bar to pour himself a drink.

-

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Island hopping for gyroids

It's been busy these past few days, traveling from one island to another, staying undercover, and retrieving gyroids. Jamie's on a big gyroid mission so she recruited me and two old friends I haven't seen in forever. Tagging along with Jamie on her adventures are always fun, especially when it involves traveling and high stake escapades.

Joining us are our old friends from Wizpire - Alex and Holly. I haven't seen or spoken to them in years so it was nice catching up with them. Being with them again almost feels like old times, except everything's a lot different now.

Holly used to drop by Wizpire once in a while to donate paintings to the museum but since her garden in Camellia really took off, she's been super busy. Holly's latest project involves putting together rare hybrids to make even more rare flowers. She also teaches online classes on interior decor for the Happy Room Academy.

Last I heard from Holly was a couple years ago when she was living in Airy. She was a well known patron at the museum much like how she was in Wizpire. Holly was also seeing Sam, though they drifted apart about a year later. Sam's a good guy and a dedicated father, but I always felt that he and Holly were incompatible as a couple. They're both old fashioned, though I think Holly's more progressive while Sam's more traditional. There's also the fact that it shouldn't be Holly's job to coddle him when he puts his foot in his mouth, which I'm pretty sure was the source of their conflicts.

Right now Holly has no time for romance. In fact, after being with Sam, she realized that she has no interest in it at all. Holly always figured that she'd be into a romantic relationship when the right person comes along, which obviously turned out to be false. There's nothing wrong with having no desire for romance. From experience, coming to the realization that it's okay to be who you are is a freeing thing. It's also good to know that you're not broken or messed up just because you've never had a crush or experienced attraction towards someone.

I'm glad that Holly's out there living her best life. She made the decision to move to Wizpire on a whim and never looked back. Before that she had an unfulfilling corporate job that constantly stressed her out. Finally, she had enough and took the plunge. Now look where she is, donating to museums, growing a garden, being a seamstress, and teaching interior decor!

Alex has kinda dropped off the face of the earth since leaving Wizpire. She's always busy, hopping off from one thing to another - that's just the way she is, you can't keep her in one place for too long. From deep diving in the Cavernous Seas, racing down Rainbow Derby, skydiving at the Double Helix Nebula, to making treats at the Land of Sweets - Alex has done it all!

Right now she's been staying in Charma making scooters and bikes. After that she plans to move to Etienne Falls to dig up fossils and other hidden treasures. Alex runs a travel blog called Girl on the Run and at this point I think she's traveled to over a thousand different places. As much as I enjoy traveling, I don't think I can keep up with her lifestyle. I like trying out different things and going on adventures but I also need downtime where I can do nothing without feeling like I'm wasting time.

So we've been busy traveling to various islands to retrieve lost gyroids to take back to their respective homes. Some places are easier to access than others, and no two islands are alike so we have to be prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

The first island we stopped by was Banana Bay, where we went digging at the beach. There, we found a couple gyroids, some old tech, and a couple of rusty keys. Since we needed the keys to get access to an old hideout where the other gyroids were hidden away, Jamie took them to a friend to get them cleaned up. While we waited for the keys we had coconut banana ice cream with bubble waffles, a local treat that was perfect after a long morning of digging in the sand. By the time we were done, they keys were ready to go.

As expected, the old shack was armed with security robots. No one really runs the place anymore except the machinery. The tech may be outdated by over twenty years but the alarm system's still up and running so a simple slip up can put the entire place into lockdown and get us into a heap of trouble.

I was given the task of unlocking doors and disabling cameras. I'm no hacker but the tech is pretty primitive - meaning easy to figure out. All you have to do is solve a bunch of puzzles to get into the system and most of them aren't even that hard. Meanwhile Alex came up with strategies to evade the robots while Jamie and Holly split up to retrieve the gyroids.

The robots were more of a nuisance than a challenge to get through. The blue ones with the giant red eye creep me out though. I made the mistake of looking into one of them and instantly regretted it when a giant four headed spider peeked through.

On day two we went to two islands that were side by side to each other - Teal and Turquoise. In contrast to the sunny beaches of Banana Bay, Teal Island was a snowy forest. In order to get in the caves we need stones to unlock the passageways and pickaxes to get through caved in areas.

We happened to arrive after a big blizzard so that complicated things a little. Light snowfalls made it a bit hard to see, which means we have to be extra careful. Wolf tigers roam the island and they're aggressive as fuck. Ice balls will do the trick when you need to subdue them, but you have to be quick because they can sneak up on you when least expected. Jamie and Alex have dealt with their share of wolf tigers so Holly and I were well covered. Those creatures are scary fast and sneaky.

Walking into the caves was kinda like heading towards a death trap. Along with the wolf tigers, we also have to worry about falling rocks, scorpion bats, and mega tarantulas. While preparing for the mission Holly made us gloves and masks so we won't hurt ourselves with the sharp rocks and dust. I had some of Em and Ludwig's light formula so we used those as flashlights.

As soon as we got what we needed, we headed to the neighboring island of Turquoise. Since we were a little traumatized by the caves, we hung out at the motel and went sightseeing. I found a cute stationery shop called Milk Clouds and bought some washi tapes, stickers, and a notebook. Alex bought a bunch of scented candles from Petrichor Gifts, Jamie treated herself with a lovely handmade silk dress, and Holly bought some handwoven fabric and starflower peach seeds.

Then off we headed to the long abandoned labs in the far end of the island. Jamie rented a plane so we can get there instead of having to go through a dense jungle. We had to land on top of a cliff and then parachute down in order to get to one of the entrances.

Although the lab is pretty much abandoned, it's home to many hostile creatures so we have to be careful if we encounter them. They could care less about the gyroids - and could've made our job a million times easier if they helped us out - but alas we have to that ourselves. Jamie managed to talk to a few of them beforehand and they pretty much just said as long as we stay out of their way then it's good. Do what we have to do and get out. Fine by us.

So that's what we did. There wasn't even that much to look for anyway, and some of the gyroids were in such a bad state that we didn't even bother. I mean it was expected that we can't save everything, still, it's sad that some things will remain lost forever.

Thankfully, the rest of the island is nothing like the hostile creatures residing in the lab. I think I was more traumatized by them than the cave. I try to see the good in everyone but you gotta listen when the warning bells go off in your head. I'm sure a few of them have some good inside them but it's the power hungry and abusive ones who run the place, so you can't let your guard down.

Day three - earlier today - was the final stretch. First, we swam to Crick Island - as in we scuba dived there. Planes can't access it so we have to travel underwater. The island has no residents but it's heavily guarded as it's full of stolen artifacts. It's run by a secret organization that Jamie's been trying to hunt down for years, only for them to elude her as soon as they were within her grasp.

The underwater passages are full of security robots that go off if we bump into them. They only move around the same place so they're easy to bypass. Problem is the water  makes it hard to move - unpredictable currents and such. Luckily we're all pretty strong swimmers, but those currents can get pretty rough. Getting thrown into a tangle of weeds is much better than accidentally hitting a robot, no matter how frustrating it is to get out of a sticky situation.

From there, we were able to infiltrate the pyramid lab. Alex was tasked with unlocking doors and disabling security, Jamie did the navigating as she knows the ins and outs of the place pretty well, I evaded the robots while Holly kept a lookout for guards. Since the lab is far from being abandoned or run down, we had to be stealthy and clever.

Then it's back to the underwater passages where we swam to two more secret labs - radium and ionic. I have no idea if the names mean something or they're just random. Had a few close encounters where a guard could've walked in on us but thankfully we managed to steer them away easily. I don't mean to judge but their snobby attitudes just scream pretentious assholes - not the kind of company I'd wanna get stuck with if caught.

Now we're back in Banana Bay, taking it easy before having to do inventory on what we found. It's been a lot of fun but I think that's enough high stakes adventure for me. We're leaving tomorrow evening so Jamie and Alex will go off their separate ways while Holly's gonna be staying at the camp for a couple days before heading back to Camellia.

Gonna treat myself with bubble waffles and coconut banana ice cream - we sure as hell deserve it!

[ddaehyeon]

🌿 SUBCONSCIOUS CONFESSION | CHA JUNHO

pairing: cha junho + female reader

genre: fluff

word count: 1.6k words

a/n: this is a short one-shot because this plot just won't leave my mind and maybe i'm becoming too whipped for junho. also, this is actually a one-shot with an original character but changed the name of the character to Y/n. i hope i didn't miss anything haha. idk i just can't write a fic/drabble/one-shot properly if i use y/n... so excuse me. sorry if there are grammatical errors and typos. enjoy! thought of this after rewatching stark where junho showed a sample of his self-talk haha. i miss x1. :(

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ☆

With the classes ending, Y/n picked up all her things, placing it to her backpack. Maybe the school classes had ended, but there were still extra classes she had to attend. Private classes for Math and English. Even it takes away good four hours to her supposed to be resting time or the common hang out time with friends, she had never found herself complaining.

The sun was still up, soft beams gracing her skin as she walked towards the gate of her school. It was only 3 o’clock in the afternoon anyway. A sudden gush of spring breeze made her body tremble, her brown sweater inadequate to protect her from the cool air.

Few friends were with her, discussing where to go to get a few minutes to relax before their own private classes. Apparently, she’d be unable to join them today as well.

“Y/n still have an hour before her class starts, yet she will still not spare us any minute,” one of her friends said, pouting. They got used to her declining offers to hang out.

“Well, you know that she’s always excited to go to her private classes because of a cute classmate of her,” another teased.

A smile spread across her lips at the indirect mention, a soft flush covering her cheeks. Y/n didn’t give them much reply, already acknowledging defeat. It wasn’t like they were uttering lies. You know, it was too correct to be countered.  “Next time, give a better offer. Sitting next to Junho is much better than drinking milk tea.”

Parting with her friends, she continued to walk the path leading to her academy while her friends who had settled to go to a cat café went the other way. Fortunately, the academy was only a few blocks away from her actual school. A short walk was always enough for her to make it right on time.

The academy itself wasn’t too big. It is sitting above a stationery shop.

Exchanging greetings with the worker in charge, she shuffled towards the stairs. The hallway was narrow, yet wide enough to allow a group of four to walk side by side. The walls of each room were made of heavily tinted glasses on both sides. Only the door would give you a blurred view of who is already inside the room.

As usual, Y/n took a glance off the door first before stepping inside. Her gaze easily landed on the young man sitting on his favorite seat, the one next to the windows. There weren’t many views highlighted by that framed aperture, merely the top view of the now blooming cherry blossoms and vehicles passing by. Nonetheless, it was a good seat for Junho. And the seat beside him was the seat Y/n had claimed to be the perfect seat for her.

“Junho!” A short wave and a radiant smile were offered to the male. It was reciprocated, but not as vibrant as Y/n could give. She pulled the chair beside the male and placed her notebook on the table. Math class before English. “You’re here pretty early.”

“And so are you,” Junho replied briefly, scooting away to give her more space. He had always wondered why she would take that seat when there were a lot of other vacant seats in the room. Arriving early would give a student the privilege to choose among the fifteen seats each room has. There is a row of five individual seats on the left side and a row of five long tables with two chairs on the right. He would choose an individual seat if it is only capable of giving him a view the window could give. Spacing out while staring at the wall didn’t look so good. It doesn't offer much of a scenery.

“Well, I want to be able to browse our previous lessons before our tutor gets in.” It was just a lame excuse for her to enjoy a short time alone with the other. She opened her notebook and scanned the notes. A pen was on her hand, trying to go through the same equations and solving it once again.

As minutes passed by, the other chairs were occupied by other students. Y/n was rather too absorbed with an algebraic equation that she wasn’t able to greet the few friends she made in the class.

A frown was on her face as she answered some of the problems. She was sure she understood the lesson very well last night, but it seemed like what she learned yesterday faded along the night. New day, new brain.

“…too cute.”

That was enough for her to turn her head to her seatmate, catching him staring at her with his head resting on his palm.

“You said something?” It immediately pulled the male out of his daze.

“Ah-” Junho’s mouth opened to say something, but no words left his lips, any possible word stuck on his throat. Taken aback, he straightened his composure and averted his gaze to the whiteboard. “Don’t mind me.”

“You sure?”

“Yes…” he trailed, biting his lower lip to find some sort of relief. His subconscious sure is skilled with controlling him, allowing a bunch of words to leave his lips—to think of something and allow it to be heard without him being aware of it. And now, it had placed him to such an embarrassing situation. “…just talking to myself. Ignore me.”

The nervousness showed by the way Junho swallowed a lump; his adam’s apple bobbing while a pink tint painted his cheek was such a fascinating view. It wasn’t the first time Y/n heard him utter something out of the blue. But it was the first time his words had clung to her, enough for her to give him much attention.

Y/n had always found Junho’s self-talk adorable.

But just now, it was altered. A Junho caught being in a daze and uttering something subconsciously was far more adorable.

The next days, there were no subconscious mumbles from Junho. As much as possible, he was trying to keep himself occupied. It was his way to avoid such kind of situation from occurring again. Needless to say, it felt awkward.

Junho wasn’t really the type to talk a lot with his classmates, at least not in this academy. Though he wasn’t that much of a snob. He will entertain conversations as long as someone initiates it. Most allowed him to just be inside his bubble, not popping it with unnecessary conversations.

With his voice rarely heard in the class, Y/n had always found the short exchanges they had and few unaware mumbles something valuable. She wasn’t too oblivious to not notice how he was suppressing himself from that dazed talks, so Y/n's solution? Wear earphones right after they greet each other. No music was playing though, but she’d hum to a song or move her head every now and then just to complete the act.

Somehow, it managed to make Junho comfortable with his occasional spacing out again. Few sentences would be heard from him. His soft voice embracing the words and questions he’d ask himself. The way he’d ask himself what to eat after the classes, where should he go this weekend, what book to read next or the short commentaries about how the weather was nice that day or how his friends were so into practicing dances the past days—all could successfully cast a spell to Y/n, instantly making a beam decorate her brim.

That day, a short quiz for English will come after their Math class. Y/n had her notebook open on the vocabulary words about irregular verbs. Earphones plugged in without any sound playing in the background, eyes focused on the words messily scribbled on her notes. She would read the words in an almost inaudible voice, enough to satisfy herself.

“You know you’re actually cute.” A sigh left Junho’s lips and Y/n tried so hard to simply shrug it off. But it was difficult not to. Not when Junho resumed to his subconscious talking. “Ah, it takes too much effort to not look at you. I can’t believe that I’m starting to adore you too much for my liking.” Another exhale and Y/n wasn’t able to hold himself after his final sentence. “You’re not hearing me anyway—”

“What?” Shooting him a perplexed look, the same baffled expression was given to her. He was once again staring at her with head resting on his palm. At this point, Junho wasn’t the one to have the pink tint spreading on his cheeks. Y/n was the one blushing.

“What?” A strong denial of the words he’d be unable to take back came to Junho. But the way his eyes widened in surprise wasn't able to cover it up that much.

“You said something.”

Junho shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

“You said that I’m cute.” What he said registered so well in her mind that she was able to say almost everything that he said. “That it takes a lot of effort to not look at me and that—”

“—I adore you too much for my liking.” There was no point in denying anyway, so Junho finished her sentence. “Okay, okay. But don’t look at me like that…” Abashed, he shifted his gaze, heart racing as much as Y/n’s was.

“Ah, can’t believe I confessed this way,” Junho added, another sigh emitted out of his lips. A frustrated groan left his lips, something Y/n found rather too adorable. It was another action that sure had made to the top of the list of cute things that Junho does.

“Likewise.” The male frowned at her words and all she could do was smile before saying, “I adore you as well, Junho.”

[bluewhale52]

Little Black Book: The One You Hate (M)

Summary: There are a few names in your Little Black Book, and these seven hold a special place in your heart. Now that you are closing that chapter in your life, you reminisce the time and experience you have had with your seven favourite men, especially with Kim Seokjin, the one you hate.

Pairing: Seokjin x female reader

Rating: Explicit. NO MINORS ALLOWED.

Genre: nonidol!au, strangers to lovers, friends with benefit

WC: 3.9k

Warning: swearing, car blowjob, ass slapping, OC loves going down on Seokjin, sex against a window, sex between coworkers, love-hate relationship between OC and Seokjin (more on OC). I guess that’s about it....

A/N: Many, many, many thanks to @rainbhrts94​ for beta-ing this piece. I was experiencing a burnout and having a hard time putting all my thoughts together, and her reviews and suggestions totally helped getting this fic into its final form. Thank you!! 

Little Black Book Masterlist 

Kim Seokjin was the bane of your existence. 

The cocky, arrogant IP attorney from the New York office had everyone on your floor in an uproar for weeks. You had seen him making one of the conference rooms his home away from home, with a hoard of lawyers and secretaries going in and out at his beckoning. You were watching them with jealousy. Sure, you were a mere junior in the firm and therefore the lowest in the food chain (just slightly above the interns), but you really wanted to be part of the action. 

Then, somehow, during his  last few days in Seoul, you were picked to help him and his team. Your excitement soon turned sour, as you were constantly on coffee and photocopy duties. How could you prove your worth when you were too busy being worked as Kim Seokjin’s personal server? Why couldn’t he ask one of his groupies? There were plenty of secretaries and PAs throwing themselves at him; you bet one of them would be happy to do this... THIS menial job. It was truly beneath your job description, and you started to simply, truly hate the man.

If that was really the case though, how did you end up in his luxury rental car, bending over towards the driver seat, sucking his cock? How did your mouth end up around his shaft, while your saliva dripped down and coated your fingers around his base? Why were your panties getting wetter with every moan and groan that left his lips? Why did you wish he would just spank your ass instead of tugging your hair? Why, when he came, did you gobble up his seed so greedily and lick him clean? Why did you even feel the need to stick your tongue out to him to show him you had swallowed every single drop?

Seokjin exhaled sharply then looked over at you as he tucked himself back in. “You do this with every visiting attorney?” He leered at you.

You rolled your eyes. “Just the one that pisses me off.”

He chuckled. “I should piss you off more then.”

“Are you going to drive me home or what?”

Seokjin started his car. The engine purred, and you pressed your thighs closer together at the soft vibrations that went through the car. “I promised I’d buy you dinner first, didn’t I?”

You flashed him a saccharine smile. “I had a meal already, thanks.”

Seokjin sniggered as he pulled out of the parking lot. He had offered to drive you home - “the least I can do after all your hard work this week” he had said- and while your little apartment was at the other end of the city from the five-star hotel he was staying, it was indeed the least he could do for you. So when you had settled in his car and buckled your seatbelt, after he had asked if he could buy you dinner, you- in your frustration, because you hated him and you just wanted to go home (god, was that too much to ask)- muttered under your breath on how you would rather suck his dick than have dinner with him. 

You had been taken aback when he broke into a brazen smile, challenging you to eat your own words, and damned if you were going to back down. Deep down, you had wanted to see if this perfect man with the perfect face and the perfect suits tailored around his perfect body (he had legs that went for miles, you hated to admit), also had the perfect dick. 

It turned out that he did, and his perfect dick was perfectly hard when you unzipped him. And so, that was how you went down on Kim Seokjin, giving him a near perfect blowjob, in his car, in the basement parking lot of your firm. (Near perfect because honestly, you could have done a lot more had you had more ample space to move.)

You stole a glance at Seokjin as he drove. His side profile was sharp and too good to be true. Flashes of lights only further highlighted his jaw and cheekbones. You looked away, pouting. 

“I’m flying back tomorrow evening.” He broke the silence. “You gonna miss me?”

You scoffed. “You wish. I’ll finally be able to do real work rather than making you coffee.”

He had the gall to laugh. “I’ll be back in two months. Don’t worry.”

The rest of the drive was quiet. How did you get into this? How could you possibly be so horny for him? Was it your dislike for him that made you like this? You should have known better than blowing him in his car just now. What if he started shooting his mouth off in the office? Or worse, in your personal promised land, THE New York office?

“Seokjin,” you started, “about what happened just now, I’d appreciate it if you keep it to yourself.”

“Of course, I’m not Yuna.”

You tilted your head at the name. Yuna was one of the senior partners’ secretary. “What do you mean?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t know? She’s been telling everyone how good I was in bed.”

“You slept with her?” You couldn’t mask your surprise. “I didn’t hear anything about it. I must’ve been so out of loop with the rumor mills. Wait… Is that why you’ve been asking me to do all that shit? So you don’t have to deal with her?”

“Smart girl.” Seokjin made a turn, stopping just outside your apartment complex. He turned off the engine.

“And here I thought you liked my coffee. And how I photocopied your endless documents.” You said dryly. “Thanks for the ride.”

Seokjin stopped you before you exited his car. “Aren’t you going to invite me to your place?”

You chortled. “Why, you need a goodbye fuck?” You spat it out, but internally, you hoped your playing hard to get was not going to backfire. 

“Hmm,” Seokjin looked out of the car, eyeing your apartment building. “What kind of bedsheets do you have?”

“What do my bedsheets have to do with anything?”

“500 thread count? Or pure linen?” 

You opened the car door and got out. “Bye Seokjin.”

He got out too, walking you to the main entrance. “I’ll buy you some. For next time I’m here. Two months from now.”

You scanned your access card, but he stopped you from opening the door.

“Not gonna kiss me goodnight, sweetheart?”

You turned to him and leaned forward. But instead of kissing him, you stuck your tongue out and licked him, along his jaw, all the way to his ear. You did not miss the shiver that ran through his body when you closed your lips around his earlobe. Smiling smugly,  you opened the door, and as you were about to walk into your safe haven triumphantly, Seokjin slapped your ass. You stilled yourself, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing your reaction. 

“See you in two months, sweetheart.” You heard him chuckle as the door closed behind you.

Kim Seokjin was truly the bane of your existence. 

~~~

He returned to Seoul in two months. You were not keeping track on your calendar, no of course not. You just knew because the commotion was back, as it always was when he stepped into the office. He picked you again to assist his team (Yuna gave you an evil eye for that), and at the end of the work day, when you were filing papers and folders, he slipped a small envelope into your hand. 

“Open it at your desk.” He said in a low whisper. 

You looked at the envelope quizzically before putting it into your pocket. “Is it your credit card? To buy pure linen bed sheets?” You whispered back. 

“Sweetheart, I already bought you a few sets from New York.”

You snorted. Later, when you were back at your desk, you took the envelope out and opened it. You found a note with a gold monogram of Seokjin’s initials at the top. You laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Under his insignia, was a series of digits you assumed to be his mobile number. You saved it in your phone. 

There was something else in the envelope, however. A piece of key card, with the logo of the five-star hotel on one side, and handwritten 4-digit number on the other.  Your eyes widened. Was this an invitation to his hotel room?

You peered out of your cubicle like a meerkat, trying to find where Seokjin was. Then you remembered foolishly you had his number. So you immediately texted him.

-- You [18:40] : Seokjin, WTF??? 

-- You [18:40] : also, nice stationery

-- You [18:40] : it’s me btw

-- Seokjin [18:41] : hurry the fuck up. I’ve been waiting for you in my car

You smiled. The time had finally come, you were going to fuck Kim Seokjin.

~~~

You had to admit, high quality bed sheets felt amazing. It hugged your naked body like soft clouds as Seokjin pounded into you relentlessly. His thrusts had caused your body to move, inch by inch, from one end of the bed to the other. You were not complaining though;  the way he rammed himself into you made your breasts bounce back and forth like a pendulum on a string, the feeling was so delicious.

You gripped the edge of the bed as you watched him over you. His usually perfect hair was messy now, his perfect face was void of the usual laser focus expression you normally saw at work and of the arrogant smirk he liked to give you. His broad shoulders and lean torso filled your vision- you had had fun stroking your hands over his pecs, abdomens and biceps. God, you hated how perfectly hot he was. 

You whined pathetically when he plunged his cock and pushed it as deep as he could into you. Seokjin dropped to his elbows, and you welcomed the new weight on top of your body. He stilled, letting his hardness rest inside you. You wrapped your legs around him and could not help but clench around his cock. He groaned against your chest at the sensations. 

“Do that again, sweetheart,” he nibbled and licked your collarbone, “squeeze my cock again.”

You did as he asked, tightening your walls around him before loosening again, repeating the movements and creating your own erotic Kegel exercise around his cock. You could feel Seokjin’s breath faltering on your neck, and before long, you were careening towards your peak.

“Seokjin,” you gasped, “close.”

He remained still, even at your warning. Choosing to work his lips on your neck and up to your ear instead. Finding a spot behind your ear, he licked and nipped at it, sending shudders all over your body and suddenly pushing you to your release. Seokjin held you down as your body shook, willing himself not to come, but the way your pussy walls massaged his cock, it did him in. 

You and Seokjin held each other tight as you both came. Your fingers dug into his shoulders, his hips pressed harder against yours as he shot his seeds inside you. Finally groans and moans gave way to heavy breathing, and as your heart rate slowed down, sanity returned. 

You opened your eyes. “God, don’t do that EVER again.” You slapped his shoulder. “I’m super ticklish there.”

Seokjin hummed, and nipped at the spot again. You yelped, but in the process you also squeezed his flaccid cock, still sheathed fully in you. “Now I know what to do when you talk too much.” He mumbled. 

You tried to wriggle away from his mouth, but the more he teased your spot, the more you moaned, and the more your body became heated again. You were all ready for round two, but your stomach betrayed you, for it growled shamelessly. Seokjin’s eyes widened at the sound, and the two of you burst out laughing.

“OK, I’d better feed you before I fuck you against the window.” He pulled out of you, holding on to the spent condom on his dick. Walking to the bathroom, he gestured to the phone on the bedside table. “Whatever you order, order the same for me.” 

And that was how you spent your first night with Kim Seokjin. Fucked out of your brains and eating room service food in his luxurious hotel room. 

~~~

You gave Seokjin your Saturday nights whenever he was in town, which was only about three to four times a year.. You hated to admit it, but you enjoyed your time with him. It was obvious he liked your company too, and your arrangement worked out well. You both wanted sex with no strings attached. You enjoyed arguing with each other, although it felt like Seokjin lived solely to rile you up to get a reaction out of you. He said he was training you to hold your poker face better; after all, didn’t you want to be a successful attorney like him?

And that was the situation you found yourself in that evening. Seokjin kept prodding at you until your temper snapped, and you roughly pushed him to the chaise in his room. You quickly worked on his jeans and his boxers, pulling them down to his ankles, only to find his cock already hard and weeping with precum.

You cocked an eyebrow at him. “Making me angry turns you on so much, huh?” You wrapped your fingers around his shaft, lazily stroking it a few times before squeezing it gently at the base. Seokjin hissed, but his annoying smirk never went away. 

“You can’t shut up your opponents by going down on every one of them,” he teased, his hand reached out to touch your hair but you swatted it away with your free hand, “no matter how sexy you are when you��re angry.”

You scowled as your hand continued stroking him. Keeping your eyes on his, you closed your lips around the head of his cock, your tongue lapping up his precum. Seokjin sucked in a breath. 

“So what should I do then?” You asked before licking up and down his length. Seokjin threw his head back, enjoying the wetness of your tongue on his hot member. 

“Hmmm… “Seokjin moaned. “Learn to control your temper better, sweetheart. You know how our kind is…”

Seokjin took a deep breath. Your tongue was still busy on his cock. It drove you nuts how addicted you were to the taste of him. “... especially to female attorneys..” Seokjin continued.

“Excuse me?!” you sat up straight, but your hand was still around his member, unconsciously squeezing it a little harder than normal.

“Ouch!” Seokjin yelped. “What are you trying to do? Pull my dick off?”

You sniggered, your grip loosened slightly as you continued to stroke him. “Tell me,” he asked, “how did your last case go? You almost lost because the opposing attorney kept throwing jabs at your gender, am I right?”

Your cheeks reddened. “How did you know about that?” you pouted.

“I get regular updates on you, sweetheart, I like to know how my protege is doing.”

You eyed him skeptically. “Wow, I’m so honored.” Your tone was flat, but your hand started pumping his cock faster. You thought back to the moment you nearly lost your temper in court, and you buried the memory deep. You leaned in and started to take Seokjin’s length into your mouth when it suddenly dawned on you.

“Wait,” Seokjin’s cock popped out of your mouth. “Is that why I didn’t get the promotion? I won that case but I didn’t get my promotion because I was too emotional?”

Seokjin groaned, in desire and in frustration. He looked down at you, kneeled between his legs, eyebrows scrunched up, eyes angry, mouth in a pout, and his hardness in the mercy of your hand. He ran a hair through his hair. 

“Now that you recognise the problem, will you solve it?” 

You nodded.

“So can we please continue?” He asked. 

You nodded again before your mouth returned to his cock. You enveloped your lips around the head, sucking it gently and licking it until you heard him moan. You started taking more of him into your mouth, the muskiness of his scent filling your nose. His hands found your head and held it gently, his fingers carding your hair. 

You continued to lubricate him with your saliva, relaxing your mouth and your throat to take all of him in. You steadied your breathing as you sucked in your cheeks, and you slowly pulled out all the way to the tip, before filling your mouth again. “That’s good sweetheart, you know just how I like it.”

You stupidly beamed at his praise, and it encouraged you to pick up your pace, sucking him faster and harder. His breathing was getting heavier, and you massaged his balls, eager for him to cum in your mouth. “No, no,” he pulled your head, and you came up gasping for breath. “I want to be in you now.”

You and Seokjin undressed immediately, and Seokjin went to the bathroom to retrieve a condom. He rolled the rubber as you positioned yourself by the window. The window felt cold on your back, but your core was wet and hot.  Seokjin lifted you up effortlessly, and your legs immediately wrapped around his waist, and your arms around his neck. 

Seokjin spat into his hand and rubbed his saliva over your cunt. Then the blunt head of his cock was at your entry, and he pushed it in, inch by inch until he was fully inside you. Adjusting his grip, ensuring he got you secured between him and the window, he started to move. Slowly at first, and once your juices were flowing and leaking, he went faster. 

You felt sweat developing on your back, making your body slippery against the glass. You dug your fingers into Seokjin’s shoulders, anchoring yourself up as he continued to pound into you. You turned your head to the side, catching the city skyline in the corner of your eye. 

“God, Seokjin,” you whined wantonly, “When I get that New York position, will you fuck me like this with the New York skyline in the background?”

Seokjin huffed, his hips not missing a beat. “Sweetheart, you’ll never get the New York position.”

You snapped your head back to look at Seokjin, he was still thrusting mercilessly into you. You pulled his hair. “What do you mean I will NEVER get the New York position?”

Seokjin’s smirk was back. He pulled out slowly then he rammed himself back into you hard, making you mewl. “It means…”

He took his time thrusting into you again.

“... you will…”

Another slow and hard thrust.

“... never get…”

He was hitting the sweet spot inside you.

“... the New York position.”

You cried out at his last thrust. “Because I’m too emotional?” you asked breathlessly.

“Because… “ his mouth was inching closer to the sensitive spot on your ear, “we’re closing that office.”

You gasped, at the news and at Seokjin’s sudden change of pace. He was fucking you fast again, pressing your body harder against the window. 

“Wait.. ah, Seokjin… “ you said between pants, “does that mean…”  

You could not finish your question because Seokin began nibbling and sucking your ear, sending your body rigid as the pressure on your cunt was waiting to explode.

“Yeah,” Seokjin panted. “I’ll be back in Seoul for good, sweetheart.”

You threw your head back against the window as Seokjin continued pistoning into you, pushing you towards and over your climax. You wailed in pleasure as the heat enveloped you. He did not let up at the slightest, his hips kept thrusting into you ruthlessly even as you began to sob from the oversensitivity.

Seokjin wrapped his arms around you tightly to move you, and you both collapsed on the bed, his cock still secure in you. He rolled to his back, bringing you on top of him. He slapped your ass. “Can you ride me?”

You pushed yourself up with your arms, your hair curtaining Seokjin’s face. You started to move your hips back and forth as you tried to get your breathing back. The sensitivity in your sex slowly turned into pleasure once again, and you quickened your pace. Seokjin moved his hands to your breasts, squeezing the flesh and flicking the nipples as they swung before him.

“Does… does this mean you’re gonna be my boss?” You asked between moans.

“Do you want me to be your boss?” Seokjin tugged your nipples, causing your back to arch.

“You’ll scold me everyday.”

“And I’ll fuck you every Saturday.” He thrusted up to meet your hips. “You like that?”

“Fuck no…” you felt the heat returning back to your core. “I’ll just hate you even more.”

Seokjin slapped your ass. “Just admit it, sweetheart, I’m your favorite among all your other fuck toys.”

You stammered as Seokjin thrusted up again, and he took the opportunity to pull you down onto his chest. Planting his heels on the bed, he held you down as he started thrusting his hips to plunge his cock into you, fast and hard. You closed your eyes tightly and felt tears slipping down your cheeks as you came closer to your climax.

“Come on sweetheart,” Seokjin whispered in your ears, “give me one more. Milk my cock.”

You cried out as your body jolted and shook. Seokjin kept holding you down, chasing his own release too. His thrusting became more messy, and he finally came too, swearing and groaning loudly.

You stayed still on top of Seokjin, your heart beating out of your chest, and so was his. You both lay on the bed, bodies sticky with sweat, waiting for the haze of your orgasms to pass.

“If you become my boss,” you whispered, “I want no special treatment.”

“Of course not, sweetheart. The only special treatment you get is I feed you after sex.”

You chuckled. “Speaking of…”

Seokjin rolled you over and pulled himself out. “Yeah yeah, order whatever you want.”

~~~

Today

Seokjin walks into your room. You barely glance up, used to him barging in whenever he likes.

“So, Yuna told me there’s a tall drink of water waiting for you in the lobby.” He plopped down on the little settee in your office. “So naturally I went to see. And you’d better get there before Yuna devours him.”

You glance at your watch. It’s ten minutes to 7pm. You smile softly, leave it to your boyfriend to arrive early. “He’s my boyfriend. I told you about him.”

Seokjin ahs. “So, that’s the man who took away my Saturday night fun.”

You glare at him as you tidy up your desk. “Yeah well, he feeds me AND reads me poetry after sex. So, sorry.”

Seokjin stands up as you ready yourself to leave. 

“Besides, now we play Maple Story every Saturday, surely that’s more fun?” You tease him. He chuckles and rubs his chin. He accompanies you walking down the hallway towards the lobby. 

Before you arrive at the glass door separating the inner office from the reception area, you turn to Seokjin and ask, “Do you want to meet him?”

Seokjin thinks for a moment. “Does he know about our history?”

“He knows MY history, but I never share any names with him.” you explain. “He only knows you as my asshole boss.”

“Now I am offended. I thought I was a nice boss!”

“Well, I rant about you too much maybe. But he doesn’t mind, because you know what happens when I get riled up.” You wink. 

Seokjin laughs. “What a lucky bastard. OK, come on, introduce your asshole boss to your boyfriend ”

Published 01022021

[ohblackdiamond]

till it shines (peter/paul, nc-17)

"Look, I'm not gonna quit, I swear. If we have to end the tour, we have to end the tour. We get dropped from the label, we get dropped from the label. We lick our wounds and we try somewhere else. But until then, we got awhile in this hotel." "And no shows." "Yeah." During a five-day lull in concerts, stranded in an Atlanta hotel, Peter and Paul find a means to entertain themselves.

Notes: Inspired and based to a heavy extent on a very lovely, NSFW fanart concerning Paul's on-tour artistic endeavors. No, not the ones he showcases in galleries. 

“till it shines”

by Ruriruri

It was the last day of the Gay Kitchen, with honorable maitre d's, cooks, servers, and busboys Peter Criss and Paul Stanley manning KISS' dwindling hotel fridge and supply closet. At least, it was supposed to be. Peter didn't know if after last night, it was still on the table.

At first, they'd really wanted to go all-out with the band dinners, but their budget hadn't permitted it. One last hurrah before they had to limp back to New York, with a single failed record to their names and all the notoriety of four strays in a junkyard. Back to Lydia for Peter-and Lydia wasn't so bad, Lydia wasn't so bad at all; she'd supported him through worse screw-ups and disappointments, but it was what she represented. A guy who still wasn't paying the bills four years into the marriage wasn't any better than a bum. She'd thought she'd found somebody who'd be going places. She'd been wrong.

For Paul, the prospect of going home was just as disastrous. At least, that was how he made it out to be. He'd get into these depressed rambles about his parents and his sister and his niece and how coming back just wasn't an option.

"Not an option? C'mon, you were in college, what, a couple of quarters-"

Paul had winced and licked his lips, a quick, nervous tic Peter had gotten far too accustomed to seeing as the band's money situation worsened.

"I only went a week. Don't tell Gene." And a swallow. "Look, it's stupid. I know. But I was born to play rock and roll, okay?"

"You're preaching to the fucking choir."

"I mean. if I can't do this, if I can't make this happen, I might as well not be here. This is the only outlet I've got."

Peter had rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to groan. Overblown as ever. Paul thought Peter was the dramatic one, the tetchy one, just because he had enough balls to address what was pissing him off instead of keeping it to occasional bitchy comments. Paul never seemed to hear his own whines.

"You think you're the only one with a dream around here?" Peter couldn't even bite back the rest. "How old were you when the Beatles got on Ed Sullivan? Ten?"

"Twelve," Paul had grumbled back. "Don't make this an age thing-"

"I was just out of high school. And I was already in bands-"

"Pete, I know, I know already. You keep telling me." Paul heaved a sigh. "You keep telling all of us."

"You've got to pay your dues, that's all it is."

"Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues." The right edge of Paul's mouth was starting to perk up.

"Yeah." Peter tugged absently at his bangs, trying not to let himself get too good a look at what he'd been seeing since before he even auditioned for KISS. The semi-permanent dye they all used worked fine on brown hair, but past that first wash, it was useless on gray. The streaks were more obvious against the jet-black backdrop than they'd ever been when he left his hair alone. "Look, I'm not gonna quit, I swear. If we have to end the tour, we have to end the tour. We get dropped from the label, we get dropped from the label. We lick our wounds and we try somewhere else. But until then, we got awhile in this hotel."

"And no shows."

"Yeah." No shows for the next five days at least. Their last pitiful handful of concerts, they'd opened for some redneck band. Outlaws or something. That was another depressing thing. Peter had always expected to at least be friendly with the bands they were the lead-in for, but they'd only been met with indifference at best and hostility at worst. Never ended up opening for the same band more than a few times, either. It just made the whole tour all the lonelier.

He realized after a second that Paul was staring at him. The guy had a weird stare. Kind of like a broke bagboy waiting on his tip, or maybe just like a girl who was really hoping for a proposal. Big-eyed, eager, and not remotely calculating. It might have pissed Peter off, if Paul didn't always follow it up with an abashed grin once he was caught.

"You're thinking about something," Paul said, before Peter could make the accusation himself.

"Yeah. I'm thinking we all need cheering up."

"You need cheering up, Peter."

"You just finished telling me you'd die if you didn't make it, Paul." He paused, still staring at the fridge. "And fuck, I'm gonna die if I have to eat at McDonalds one more time."

"Well, they've got Steak 'n Shake here, if you'd rather."

Peter groaned.

"Not when you're in a fucking blouse and heels. The crowd thinking we're fruits is bad enough." Before Paul could even stammer out a protest, something about it being rock and roll, or about needing more practice in the heels-God, c'mon-Peter continued. "No. I thought we could make our own dinner while we're here. Really make it, not just sandwiches and shit. Real food. We got the kitchen for it. And it'd save Bill some money. You know how to cook, right?" He knew Gene didn't. Ace just wouldn't.

"I'd hope so. My mom started leaving us home alone when I was eight."

"Poor, poor little Paulie." Peter rolled his eyes. "We could-we could make it themed, even. Make out like it's a restaurant. Menus and shit. Invite the guys down for dinner."

Paul brightened, which surprised him. Usually he'd be sore for hours over the slightest crack at his expense, like some spoiled, anxious kid. But for once, he actually seemed excited.

"Like Italian one night, maybe? We could make pizza."

"Yeah, sure, lemme get a shopping list going."

After three beers apiece, they'd named their restaurant the Gay Kitchen, decided they'd act the part of its bent proprietors, and written up a menu full of double-entendres. An hour later, still drunk, they'd pooled their money and ventured out to town in jeans and the lowest of their heels. They'd bought twenty bucks' worth of groceries, which should have been plenty. Then they'd started in on meal prep.

Strange how fun it was. Especially that first night, working on a poor man's casserole, with the radio on and Paul standing next to him chopping up onions, his hands encased in Ziploc sandwich bags because he didn't want the smell on his skin, while Peter cut half-frozen chicken breasts into ragged little cubes. They'd tossed the whole thing into the pan with some salt and pepper, dumped a can of cream of mushroom soup on top, stuck it in the oven and hoped for the best. He knew they should've gone with canned stuff entirely, especially for the meat, if they'd really wanted to save money, but the Gay Kitchen experience demanded the expenditure. At least, that was their excuse.

Besides, Ace and Gene had loved it. Not for the food so much. Peter figured their dinners were decent, maybe even good, sometimes, but he couldn't kid himself. There was nothing impressive about a dessert course that included Hostess cupcakes "with fresh Cool Whip." But the makeshift restaurant had done the job. Cheered them all up. No one said a word during any of the dinners about the tour ending or going back home. Not a single word. And he and Paul had screwed around, too, acting faggy, hitting on each other and the guys indiscriminately throughout the meals. Last night, Paul had even groped his ass while he was mincing around plating everyone's food.

"I had to take him off the menu." Peter could've sworn Paul was deliberately making that annoying lisp of his even worse during each dinner. Pitching his voice into a whine, too. Some commitment. Peter had glanced up, questioningly, but Paul had just ignored him and continued. "You see why, right? He's got such a nice ass-all the boys were looking, I couldn't help but get jealous-"

"Course you're jealous. You dieted yours off, Paulie," Ace had retorted with a laugh. Peter had been vaguely surprised Paul didn't break character at that, just clicked his tongue disapprovingly, his hand still on Peter's ass. Not squeezing anymore, thank God, but Peter had still felt the ghost of Paul's fingers there hours later when they'd both turned in for bed.

Looking back, maybe that was where it had really started. Glancing over at Paul on the double bed next to his, watching him, knees up, with the pad of hotel stationery in his lap and a pencil in his hand, Peter had cleared his throat. Paul lifted his head from where he'd been scribbling.

"Yeah?"

"What're you drawing?"

Paul held up the stationery without a hint of embarrassment. The usual weirdly accurate assortment of veiny, disembodied dicks covered the page.

"What do you always draw those for, anyway?"

Paul shrugged.

"I dunno. Why does Gene refuse to shower?"

"Because his mom told him even his B.O. was sacred." Peter rolled his eyes. "You got a fixation."

"<i>You've</i> got a fixation. You're the one always getting your dick out."

"Getting it out's not the same as drawing it. . That's not even your dick. Whose do you keep on-"

"I went to art school, asshole." There wasn't much of an edge to Paul's words, Peter noticed. "Life drawing comes with the territory."

"In high school? Jesus." Peter cocked his head, trying to decide if Paul was bullshitting him, but Paul was already back to doodling, his eyes averted. "You ever gonna attach them to anybody, or are they just gonna keep floating around?"

"Well, I thought I'd attach them to you, but then I realized that'd mean I'd have to draw your face."

"Oh, fuck you, Paul." He didn't know why, but he got up then, moved to sit on Paul's bed. Paul stopped scribbling just long enough to shift over for him. Peter leaned in, vying for a better look at the sketches. Six, no, seven dicks, from a couple different angles, all varying levels of erect. The balls were so accurate it was almost disturbing. "Ain't even mine. They're too small."

"These are scaled down."

"The shape's wrong, too. Was that one supposed to be bent like that?" Peter pointed at the offending cock, right in the center of the paper. He kind of thought it was intentional. There was something uncanny about Paul's artwork-well, the dick drawings, anyway. His other offerings, at least the ones Peter had seen-splattery acrylic abstracts from his high school portfolio, and the occasional insulting cartoon of his bandmates on the back of a paper napkin-lacked that attention to detail. And that enthusiasm. It was weird. Forget the rockstar shit; Peter almost wondered if Paul's true calling was illustrating gay porno mags.

Paul shifted the paper, blinking at him slowly.

"Are you really critiquing my doodles here?"

"Well, yeah. If you're gonna draw dicks, at least don't draw them bent."

"What's wrong with drawing them bent? Some guys have fucked-up dicks."

"Who do you know with a fucked-up dick? Gene?" Paul's was fine. Smaller than his, sure, but there wasn't anything the matter with it. Peter got a good look at it in the showers after concerts, and during occasional threesomes with college girls that didn't qualify as groupies. Paul didn't care about nudity any more than he or Ace did, which was a relief. Especially since Gene was so weird about it. Months on the road and he still wouldn't strip down in front of the band. Peter had asked Paul why. Paul had said something about Gene going to some Jewish school and that giving him hang-ups, which sounded ridiculous to Peter. If Jewish school was anything like Catholic school, then it was a flimsy excuse for changing in closets and behind closed doors like some chick. Gene probably just had something terribly, shamefully wrong with his dick. Smallness or herpes or both.

"What? No."

Pete scooted over some more. Paul's posture was slightly stiffer than it had been before, but he still moved to give Peter room. Not that the double bed had much space to begin with.

"Does that mean you've seen it?" Peter wasn't sure why he was pressing the issue. Probably because Paul didn't seem all that uncomfortable. In fact, ever since the start of the Gay Kitchen, he'd been more relaxed, more talkative. It'd been nice. Peter watched Paul's lips purse for a second before he replied.

"Come off it. I don't have the right equipment for the privilege."

"Just eat some more and you'll get the tits down."

"Oh, fuck you, Pete." Paul jabbed his elbow into Peter's ribs, just hard enough for Peter to jerk back, but after a second he was scooting in closer again, just to prove he couldn't be nudged off that easily.

Maybe it had been a lower blow than Peter had meant to take. God knew the poor guy worried more about his weight than a chick. Lydia once said Paul was shaped like a rectangle. Just thick, straight lines from his shoulders all the way to his ass, and no definition anywhere. And he had been, but that wasn't the case these days. Paul had ended up with a bad bout of stomach flu about a month and a half into the tour. He would pull himself together enough to do the night's show, but afterwards, Peter'd had to listen to him get up, agonized and grunting, at two in the morning, and hear him retching into the hotel toilet. Paul had probably dropped fifteen pounds since then. Maybe more.

He looked better now. His abdomen still wasn't flat and he still cinched in his waist with a corset onstage, but Peter figured Paul did look a little closer to-well, whatever the hell a frontman was supposed to look like-and a little farther from the shy kid from Queens who drove the band's milk truck to and from gigs. Shouldn't be something Peter was already nostalgic about, especially since they were probably right about to head back to the milk trucks and ballrooms, but he was.

He could hear the scratch of Paul's pencil against the stationery. Paul wasn't going to retort. He'd just sulk and doodle more dicks until he got tired enough to turn off the lamp and tell Peter to get off the bed so he could sleep. Peter licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and he spoke.

"You know what? Maybe you should draw mine."

He hadn't thought the comment through. It just splattered from the corner of his brain to his mouth. Maybe he was just trying to get a response out of Paul, see if he could come up with an insulting way to put him off, or if he'd just stammer out a refusal. Instead, all Peter got in return was a raised eyebrow.

"Your dick?"

"Yeah, my dick."

"You're volunteering?"

Shit. Shit, now he had to commit to it. Peter shrugged, somehow managed a tilted sort of grin, and leaned back on his hands.

"Why not? Least that'd keep you from doing all those crooked, veiny ones."

"Yeah, 'cause yours is fucking Adonis,' right-"

Adonis must've been some underground rocker only college kids had ever heard of. Peter wasn't about to admit to his own ignorance.

"Nobody's complained yet. C'mon, Paulie, how about it?"

Paul hesitated visibly. Peter almost didn't think he was going to agree to it. Too nerved-out by the suggestion. But then Paul nodded, his black curls-somewhat limper without the Aquanet and teasing brush forcing them into bushy, puffy proportions-bouncing slightly as he did.

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead."

Peter yanked off the ratty pajama pants that were all he ever went to bed in, tossing them to the floor. Turned around so he was facing Paul head-on, legs stretched in front of him. He could feel Paul staring at his face, and then at his cock, as he tore out the doodle-covered paper and started on the fresh one beneath. He hadn't gotten more than a few scribbles in when Peter realized-

"Hey, wait a minute. You're not drawing it soft."

"I'm just gonna draw what I see."

"No, you aren't. Hang on."

"Hang on?"

Paul blinked, the beginnings of a mild smirk edging across his face. The expression didn't really sit right on him, somehow. Paul's mouth seemed to Peter to only really look okay when it was either pursed in a pout or spread in a hopeless kind of smile.

Luckily, that smirk of his dissolved as soon as Peter closed his hand around his dick, starting to pump. He didn't look at Paul while he was doing it, not at first, his gaze veering more towards the pad of paper and the burnt orange florals of the covers. His breath wasn't hitching yet, but the pleasure was starting to seep through on practiced automatic. A little harder. A little faster, and Peter's brow was furrowing, eyes glazed, focus on anything but his own dick starting to fade.

Except it couldn't fade completely. Not with Paul barely a foot away from him, his big brown eyes furtively darting between Peter's cock and the pencil, his mouth tight. Looking over at him, Peter could almost swear he saw the faint start of a blush cropping up on Paul's cheeks. "Jesus, relax, would you? I'm not gonna come here."

"Wow, isn't that a relief," Paul mumbled, rolling the pencil back and forth between his finger and thumb.

"'S not like you haven't seen this before." A solid five or six times by now, minus the fact that it was usually a girl's mouth or hand on Peter's cock instead of his own. They weren't great at sharing the not-quite-groupies yet. It had taken awhile before they figured out positioning that'd get all three of them off, and that always hinged on whether the girl was down for it. Once they'd ended up with a chick who'd gotten too intimidated by two guys at once, and after a round of debate over who'd go first, Paul had ended up slinking off to the shower while Peter made it with her. Unsurprisingly, she'd been so satiated she'd fallen asleep by the time Paul returned, and they'd both had to lug her out of the hotel room and into the hallway. Paul had been pissed off. Peter just found it funny.

Paul looked as if he were about to say something, but then he shut his mouth. Peter exhaled, letting his eyes shut for a second while he kept pumping, no fantasy in mind, just the simple mechanics of pleasure. Jacking off was mindless, with or without an audience. Nothing meaningful. Nothing to consider. And Paul, for whatever reason, was still just watching him do it. That pencil lead hadn't even touched the paper. Peter took a sharp breath before he spoke again.

"Good enough?"

He'd stopped himself once he was fully hard, but before any precome could dribble out from the reddened tip. He could feel his face getting flushed, a little sweat starting to trickle on his forehead, but he was all right. If things got too bad, he could always head over to the shower to finish rubbing it out, after Paul was done drawing. But he didn't think it would come to that, though his cock twitched in protest. Paul gave a distracted nod.

"Yeah. It's fine."

Then he finally started to draw again. Peter leaned over, trying to get a glance in, but Paul kept covering up the pad with his other hand, swatting at him when he got too close. Peter snorted.

"C'mon, you're not drawing the Mona Lisa here."

"You throw me off watching."

"What'm I supposed to do, just sit here?"

"That's exactly what you're supposed to do." Paul was erasing now, but carefully. One of those cheap pink erasers. He brushed the residue off the paper, and it landed on the covers, tiny black streaks of rubber against the orange comforter. Deprived of watching Paul at work, Peter tried to focus his attention on the eraser remnants, flicking them.

It didn't really help. Despite himself, Peter was starting to squirm. He didn't think Paul was drawing anything past his dick, but he'd been trying to stay still anyway. His thighs kept twitching involuntarily. The ache in his balls was getting irritating enough that he gave in to a few more strokes, shoving his hand in the covers as soon as he heard Paul laugh.

"You having trouble keeping it up?"

"Fuck you, you know that's not it-"

"Gimme a couple more minutes, all right, Pete?" A pause. "And get a little closer, there." He reached his hand out, fingers curving lightly around Peter's bare knee, just for a second. Immaculately manicured nails, bizarre for a guitarist, even one who hadn't played a gig in almost a week. The black nail polish hadn't even chipped. But Peter only really noticed how the warmth against his skin seemed to linger on after Paul had withdrawn his hand. "There."

Peter got closer. His legs were flat on the bed and spread slightly, toes touching the wall by the time he got closer; he'd ended up more to Paul's side. His painfully hard, flushed dick stood out sharp against the rest of his body, craving attention he couldn't-wouldn't-give yet. He'd get that touch in later. He'd get off on his own. A couple more minutes, like Paul said. Yeah.

The amused expression on Paul's face had shifted, gotten focused and intent. The way it did when he was trying to pull a riff together, or a set of lyrics. Peter didn't much care for that look-usually it meant Paul would try to banish whoever was in the same room, whether it was him or Ace or even Gene, so he could be alone with whatever brilliant thoughts he had. But now that look was locked on him instead. Partially. Flattering, maybe, to be mulled over like a rhyme that didn't flow, or a chord that wasn't right yet, but Peter knew that if he thought too hard about it, he'd get disgusted. So he just let his mind wander to the sound of Paul's pencil scraping across the page.

Peter didn't really notice at first when that sound stopped. Or when Paul put the pencil down. The pad of paper was still resting on his lap. Peter inhaled, waiting, figuring Paul would hand it over-with a joking autograph, probably-any second-but then a mass of dark curls ended up right in Peter's face. Paul was leaning in, heavily, breaths hot and heavy against Peter's neck. He pushed away the pad of paper, his bare chest pressed up flush against Peter's. Peter opened his mouth, started to say something, and then swallowed it down when Paul's hand wrapped around his dick.

Peter couldn't believe it. Didn't protest or argue-didn't want to. He was surprised, that was all. Surprised Paul would go for it. Have that kind of nerve. Paul didn't pull back enough to look him in the eye. Didn't say a word.

His palm was sweaty against Peter's cock, fingers only a little callused. The first few strokes were too slow, unintentional teasing, but then Paul got steadier, built up a rhythm. Like doing it to yourself, Ace had told him once, lazily, in the worst and best advice Peter had ever gotten on handjobs, but different. Different. Peter could feel Paul's heartbeat against him, like a pinball smashing against the bumpers. Each breath was getting more tattered, soft curses forcing their way from Peter's throat; each inhale pushed more of Paul's Aramis cologne into his lungs. Peter's hands, curled up into the covers, flew up desperately as he got closer, warmth and need pulsating inside him, threatening to burst-clenching Paul's shoulder, his back-holding him there, right there, as he spilled into Paul's hand.

Paul let go as abruptly as he'd started. His whole body froze up, and he shifted backwards, brushing away Peter's hands, dark eyes wide, almost scared. He scrambled off the bed and onto Peter's, yanking the covers around him like a little kid caught up too late.

"Paul?"

"I'm sorry," he said, and shut off the lamp.

--

Peter got up early the next morning, before the alarm clock, but it didn't matter. Paul was already gone-got a cab, evidently, leaving everyone else with the crappy tour bus. Peter could hear Ace and Gene grumbling about it through the wall before he got out of bed, stopping short of the pad of paper and pencil on the floor. He picked both up and took a look.

The drawing was immaculate. Paul had gotten the balls just right. Everything. Taken the time to shade it, even, like it was a serious study. He'd signed it, too-initialed it, rather, P.S. nestled in a forlorn corner. No date. Peter tore the sheet carefully from the pad of paper, looking at it, unsure of what to do with it. Whether to keep it or not. He ended up setting it on the nightstand, face down, before crossing over to what had been his bed up until last night. He didn't have to pull back the sheets to see the semen stain from where Paul had wiped off his hand.

He could've used some washing off himself after last night. No Paul hogging the shower was an empty comfort right now, as Peter turned on the water, letting it get blisteringly hot before stepping inside. It didn't really help.

Paul was back before lunch, anyway, quiet and withdrawn. Bill was talking about booking them a couple more shows further down South-a terrifying prospect, but better than heading home-and Gene was chatting about it with all his usual enthusiasm, while Ace added vodka and ice to his coffee. Paul just looked sunk. Gene kept throwing questioning looks Paul's way, and glancing at Peter, but if he ever asked outright, Peter never heard it.

The band meeting drifted off into nothing after awhile. Paul got up abruptly, saying something about a headache, and excused himself with about as much subtlety as a dying animal. It was a few minutes before Peter got up the nerve to follow him back to their room-and, as expected, Paul had locked the door.

"Paul, c'mon-"

The sound of the knob turning was almost gratifying. Paul was standing there, looking awkward, mouth pursed. Peter noticed, belatedly, that for all Paul had gotten up early that morning, he hadn't shaved, stubble poking hopelessly all around his jaw. His t-shirt and jeans-one of maybe ten street outfits he'd rotated over the tour, same as Peter, same as everyone else-were rumpled past what Paul usually would allow for.

"You didn't have to come check on me."

"I did, we share a room."

Paul swallowed.

"Look, if you wanna change rooms, go ahead, just don't tell Gene about-"

"I ain't telling Gene nothing. And I don't wanna change rooms." Pete exhaled. The look on Paul's face twitched just a bit, but Peter didn't give him a chance to respond before plowing back in. "Are we gonna do Gay Kitchen tonight?"

Paul flinched. Almost like he thought Peter meant it badly, or was making fun of him, or something. Like one of those Japanese trees, the ones with flat leaves that folded up after the briefest brush of a hand. One word and he'd curl back up. One touch, leaving Peter all out of sorts, trying to undo the trick, get those leaves to unfurl again.

"Do you want to?"

"Ace was asking earlier."

"Oh." Paul turned away, walking over to the kitchenette on the other side of the room. He pulled open the fridge, getting out the last can of Coke, popping the top before he really answered. "I guess."

"C'mon, it's our last night here. It'll be fun."

"We're almost out of food."

"We've got enough. Still have those hot dogs." Peter felt awkward, still standing there, barely past the doorframe, as if he was a visitor to his own hotel room. He stepped over to sit on one of the beds. The drawing wasn't on the nightstand anymore. "Hey-"

"What?"

Peter's throat was suddenly a little dry. The words were out before he could hold them back.

"You didn't have to get rid of it."

"It was stupid."

"No, it wasn't. It-it was good, Paulie."

Paul was still all tensed up. Like a battery coil on the verge of springing. Peter almost thought he was going to walk out, more prepared to face Gene and Ace or another lousy cab ride than spend the rest of the day with him, but instead, Paul sat down on the other bed.

"You really don't wanna change rooms." He said it flatly, borderline disbelieving, clasping the Coke can in both hands. He looked strangely young, sitting like that. The six years between them never felt like much except when Peter really let himself give it some thought. At twenty-two, he sure as hell hadn't been on the road with a record, however indifferently-received. Hadn't made it-with threesomes, even-with a whole bunch of girls. He resented it when he considered it, but right now, all Peter was considering was the tightness of Paul's lips and the way he was staring at the floor.

He was just a kid, really. Scared of getting rejected as any other kid, hell, as any other adult. Putting on onstage, putting on during their dinners, only ever peeling back how he really was during all the time in between. The worries and frets, the painful, painful shyness behind every sharp retort. The panicked heartbeat against Peter's chest last night as he'd pushed past his nerves for something he wanted.

Something Peter wanted, too.

"Fuck, no. You and me are the only ones around here that know how to pick up our own shit."

"Pete, that's not it-"

"No. No, it's not it. C'mere. C'mere," he said, quietly, scooting forward on the bed, hands resting awkwardly on either side of him, those orange covers clashing badly with his chipped black nail polish and cheap silver rings. He watched as Paul set down the Coke can and stood up, crossing the tiny threshold between their beds. He still looked like he was about to flee. One wrong word, one sudden movement and it'd be over.

So Peter was slow, agonizingly slow to take his arm and tug him forward. Paul let him do it, didn't go rigid at all, though the fear in those wide eyes was still there. Peter wanted it to fade; suddenly, he wanted it to fade more than anything, as he got to his feet, palm hot against Paul's arm. As he leaned in, pushing Paul's dark curls behind his shoulder, and pressed his lips to Paul's neck.

Paul didn't respond at first. Then, just as Peter was about to pull away, he felt Paul's other hand close around his. Too shy to even lock their fingers together. But that was all right. That was all right. Peter did it for him, shifting his hand in Paul's until their fingers were laced. He raised his head, and Paul's mouth met his, cautious and careful. None of that too-eager fooling around like with the girls. None of that silent desperation from last night. Peter liked this better, every second feeling warmer and fuller than the last. As if he was just on the brink of discovering something grand as his tongue slid across Paul's lips and he let go of Paul's arm to trace the stubble on his jaw, cup his chin in his hand. Paul parted his lips for him, Peter tasting cereal and toothpaste when his tongue slipped inside, but he didn't care. Paul was opening up for him. Finally opening up.

It wasn't too long before Paul started pressing up against him, hips rocking meaningfully against his. Somewhere along the line, he'd ended up with Paul's hair in his fist, and he tugged, lightly, urging him forward as he sat back down on the bed. Tugged his hand, too, as if he needed to. Paul got the picture, following him down, timidity shifting to urgency, until Peter's back was pressed against the mattress. Peter thought about yanking his hair hard for that one, and he might have, except Paul kept kissing him all the way down, except Paul's knee was rubbing against his crotch, his thin blue jeans barely a barrier at all.

Peter's breath hitched as Paul shifted lower, moving off of him enough that Peter could shuck off his own shirt and toss it to the floor. Paul was unzipping him, those long, thin fingers hooking around his belt loops and pulling down his jeans. Freeing his cock, already far too hard, worse than last night, easily. Peter took a sharp inhale when Paul sank down, pushing his thighs apart with his knee, and started to lick at his cock. All the way down, pouring on the attention, fingers pressing hard against his hips, keeping them steady. Peter watched, dazed, breaths hitching, until Paul's warm mouth was around just the tip of his cock.

"Paul, hold on."

Paul pulled back, lifting his head like he'd done something wrong.

"What?"

"You don't know how to do it, don't worry about it." It was just a guess, but Peter figured it was a good enough one. And that wasn't all of it. He didn't think Paul would give himself enough leeway for a screw-up. Perfection or nothing.

Paul hesitated.

"But-"

"It's okay, man." It was hard to think past the blood pumping straight to his dick, going untouched for now, but Peter was managing, barely. The brief image of Paul with his lips around his dick was promising enough, the lead-in for a dozen jerk-off fantasies already. Maybe more than that. "Just-c'mon, let me-"

He tugged Paul back up, helping him peel off his t-shirt, then his jeans and underwear. Taking him in like this, with no girl between them, didn't feel strange or wrong or any of that bullshit; it felt good, every shed layer lending Peter more skin to touch, making him more certain of everything. Despite the concert performances, despite the threesomes and the locker room showers, he'd never really gotten a sense of Paul's physicality before. Now that Paul was straddling him, hair hanging in his face, mouth pressed to his neck, his ear, Peter could really see it all, the wide, powerful build of his chest before it bore down against Peter's, his arms, taut and muscular, tensing as Peter's hands tightened around them. Paul's cock brushed against his, sending a jolt of electricity through Peter, and then he was grinding up against him, their hips flush, flesh against flesh. Peter was cursing before long, the stimulation maddening, almost agonizing because it wasn't quite enough. Paul seemed like he sensed it, reaching over, taking both their cocks together in one hand-but Peter shook his head.

"I've got a better idea."

"Yeah?" Paul's fingers rolled up against his cock just so, the pressure of his hand and his dick incredible enough that Peter almost changed his mind. Looking up at him, that slightly-sweaty brow, those dark eyes, dilated and needy, Peter nodded, fingers closing on Paul's wrist.

"Yeah. I already know you can jack me off." An exhale. "Get on your back and I'll show you what I can do."

Paul let go of him. There was a little consternation somewhere in his expression, a hesitancy Peter tried to erase, hand running down Paul's hairy chest, fingers tweaking a nipple, but Paul did as he'd asked, grasping Peter by the shoulders and rolling them both over. Peter shifted, repositioning himself on top of Paul, putting his hands beneath his thighs. Almost immediately, Paul stiffened up, started to try and lift up his legs. Peter pushed them back down before he could.

"Nah, we're not doing that. Don't worry." Peter watched some of the tension fade from Paul's face, curiosity replacing it. "Spread your legs out a little. there, now." He slid his dick between Paul's thighs, tip right up against Paul's taint. He didn't need to instruct further. Paul's mouth tilted in a distracted grin, his thighs closing tight around Peter's dick-and from there, Peter started to thrust, the soft warmth surrounding his cock nearly overpowering.

Paul was finally making a few sharp sounds as Peter's thrusts sped up, thighs squeezing hard against his cock. The sounds got louder, turned into curses, turned into strangled attempts at Peter's name. Between Paul's moans and his own urgency, Peter couldn't think, his pace speeding up, every brush against Paul's cock, every tensing of Paul's thighs pushing him closer to the brink. He came with a cry, spurting hot between Paul's legs, Paul still urging him to keep going, just a few more, a few more. He managed, grunting, shuddering with exertion as he kept thrusting. Beneath him, Paul looked out of it and focused all at once, dick throbbing against his. So close. Too close. It was seconds before Paul came, quieter, spilling all over them both, head lolling back in the aftermath. Peter was still panting as he slid his cock out from between Paul's slick thighs, as Paul put an arm around him, pressing a kiss to his jaw, his cheek, before finally meeting his lips again.

--

The Gay Kitchen's final evening went well. Ace and Gene had brought dessert-a box of oatmeal creme pies and a gallon of cheap Neapolitan ice cream-and they'd served it along with the hot dogs and stale chips. A beer apiece, except for Gene, who got a Sprite from the machine downstairs in a rare spendthrift moment. Paul's come-ons and gropes weren't any heavier than the night before, but there was a warmth and a relaxation in him that was new to Peter. A softer look to his expression he'd only been privy to late, late at night in the hotels, just before he drifted off.

Peter liked that. He liked that a lot. Feeling that, maybe, something of Paul's might be reserved for him. That maybe he'd be let in for more than an afternoon. He thought he might be. He figured he would be.

They didn't fool around that night. They didn't really have the time to. Once dinner was over and Ace and Gene had gone back to their room, Peter took a shower, and then he started packing, too-aware of how quick check-out came. Particularly when they were headed straight down to the bottom edge of Florida tomorrow, a solid ten or eleven hours on the road, to play at some college or auditorium or-something. Peter was just glad Bill had secured them another handful of tour dates, no matter the location.

He tossed his makeup kit and street clothes and shoes back into his suitcase, fiddling with the wobbly latches, tracing the crack down one side. Ten to one the damn thing would break before they got out of Atlanta, but maybe he could tie a scarf around it or something to hold the luggage together. He turned to Paul, who was sitting on the floor next to him with his own ratty suitcase half on his lap, about to ask him, but Paul spoke first.

"You forgot your heels."

"I didn't. They're in the laundry bag with everyone else's."

"Not the ones that go with your costume. The other pair." Paul pointed under the bed. There they were, three-inch platforms he'd barely worn all tour, neatly placed. He didn't remember putting them there.

He pulled them out, a piece of paper under one heel catching his eye. Setting the heels aside, he picked up the paper.

"Paul?"

It was the drawing of his dick. Paul hadn't thrown it away after all. He glanced over at him, and Paul smiled, a little bashful. That hopeless smile he hadn't been able to plaster on a single promo picture, more endearing and elusive than any sketch.

"It's for you. I don't know if I'd frame it, but."

Peter felt himself grin back.

"Are you kidding? It's the best drawing of my dick anyone's ever gonna give me. I'll keep it forever." Peter held it up, examining it anew. "There's only one problem."

"I thought you were done critiquing my art."

"Hell, no." And Peter handed it back. "You gotta sign it for me."

"I initialed it-"

"Sign it. Make it worth a million bucks someday." Peter didn't think he'd stop smiling as he leaned over, tousling Paul's hair. "You can even add the star."

[dragon-kazansky]

No such thing as coincidence: Jack Sparrow x reader - part 2

Summary: You’re on the pearl and Jack wants to know what you desire.

Nightfall. The wind was calm, but there was a chill in the air. It was to be expected since you were so far out at sea.

Jack Sparrow hadn't budged from the helm in hours, his eyes locked on the horizon as he swayed with his ship. You were sat on the steps that lead up the helm with your thoughts only to accompany you. That is until Will and a lady you haven't met yet came over to occupy the other steps below your feet.

"What were you doing on that ship, if you don't mind me asking?" Will looked up at you.

"I was... trying to steal from them, but they caught me."

"Steal what? We didn't find anything of value on it." The lady asked softly. "I'm Elizabeth, by the way."

"Nice to meet you. It wasn't anything in particular, I just hoped to find something of value. I'm sick of being poor and fending for myself just to eat. I had hoped mother would have seen some worth in me if I brought anything I found back, she just keeps everything for herself anyway." You muttered. Your hands fumbled in your lap as your eyes were cast down.

"Why give her everything then?"

"She's all I have." You looked at Will. "Surely you know what I feel? Isn't being a pirate lonely?"

"Not when you have someone to be a pirate with." He looked at Elizabeth. They reached for each others hands and held each other with smiles on their faces. You smiled softly at the interaction, you've never had that.

"You make a lovely couple!"

The pair of them looked away shyly. Will stood up after a moment and smiled at you.

"I'm off to get a little sleep, we'll reach port by morning light. You're free to do as you please from there."

"Thank you."

Elizabeth went with him and hey both disappeared below deck.

"Stealing from pirates. A bold move, love."

You shifted in your seat and looked up, Jack was standing at the top of the steps looking down at you. You turned back around and tried to ignore his presence. There was no sense in talking to him, you had heard all the stories about him.

"Lost your tongue?" His tone was teasing. He walked down the steps and stopped at the one you were sitting at, he took a seat beside you, leaning close. "I wonder..." He was so close his lips were brushing you ear, just about. "Do you really want to go back to your forsaken mother back wherever it is you had been taken from?"

"Of course. What else could I possibly want?" You cast a glance at him.

"You tell me... or perhaps... you don't know." His eyes flickered between yours as he held up a small black box. He plucked the lid back to reveal a compass. "This could tell you."

"A compass?" You glanced at the dial. "It doesn't point north, is it broken?"

"Not quite." He picked up one of your hands from your lap and held it up, placing the compass in your palm. His fingers brushed against yours as he let go of it. "This compass points to the thing you want most."

You glanced down at the compass and watched the needle twirl around. It didn't appear to focus on anything.

"It's broken." You muttered.

"Is it?" There was a glint in his eye as he stood up. "It's not pointing ahead, so the nearest port isn't what you want." He took a few steps away and called over his shoulder, "I'll leave it with you for now, love." He sauntered off.

You held the compass in both hands and lowered it into your lap. The needle swung around several times before it slowed down. It was pointing ahead of you now. You laughed. "It is pointing towards port." You looked up to tell Jack who was walking across deck. The needle moved with him.

You glared at the needle.

"It's broken."

You flipped the lid closed and stood up, marching below deck to sleep.

When you awoke in the morning, the ship had docked. The crew were busy working above deck and gathering things onto the ship.

Will, Elizabeth and the famous Captain Jack Sparrow were all gathered on the dock. You stepped off the ship and walked over to them, their conversation came to a halt as you approached.

"Your compass." You held it out to Jack. He took it.

"Did it show you?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"I'm here. Thank you for saving me and bringing me to land. I'll be on my way now." You smiled at Will and Elizabeth and began to walk away. The pair remained stationery as Jack quickly moved to catch up to you.

"Are you certain?" He asked, bewildered.

"Very."

Jack looked at the compass and took a few quick steps to stop in front of you. He stopped you in your path and held out the compass to you.

"Try again."

"What? I'm here, I can leave now. Stop wasting my time!"

"If the compass brought you here, then it truly is broken because by my instinct home is not where you want to go. You want something more and I can give it to you, on my ship." He gestured to the Pearl.

"This is where it brought me. I wanted to come to the nearest port, you brought me, good day." You tried to step around him, but he wouldn't let you.

"Try it again, please."

You snatched the compass from his hand and held it up to him, you opened the top and let the needle spin. It stopped, facing Jack.

The pirate grinned. "It's pointing to the Pearl!" He looked behind him. "You want freedom, I can give it to you." He waved his hands about in the air. You closed the compass and lowered it.

"Perhaps... I do. Why would I trust you?"

"Because I'm your only your option of that coming true, savvy?" He held his hand out to you. You stared at him as you mulled over his offer. You placed the compass in his hand and walked around him, straight back on to the Black Pearl.

Jack pulled his compass close to his chest and turned around in the direction you had gone in.

"I was expecting your hand, but the compass will do." He looked down at his dear possession and sauntered back towards the ship. He flicked it open and let the needle show him he desire.

The needle landed on the Pearl and he grinned.

"I have my heading!"

[note-katha]

Chapter Two: The Five Circles and The Four Rings

Welcome back! It’s time for...chapter two, right? Right. Okay, let me find my page again, let’s see.

There was a long silence….ah, no that’s too far ahead. We’re not ready for that yet, or at least you probably aren't.

Here’s chapter two! Let me tell you, this chapter is going to be filled with information. Classes and more classes and a few people that I recommend you take a moment to burn into your memory. Not literally though, I should point out. I can’t afford another literalism lawsuit. Well, let’s move on. We have a fresh pot of tea and an enthralling chapter to get too!

As entrancing as orientation can be, especially for new students, we, unfortunately, have to cut through all the chatter to focus! We’ll pick up right about here, where the professors smartly split the group into Witches and Nevermore-originating students. It’s just for ease of communication, I’m sure you understand, yes? There’s such a variety of different material to cover that it’s the only way they’d be able to get everything done.

We haven’t even gotten to the Rings!

Professor Maaya took the group not too far away, leaving Dr. Avali to deal with the Nevermore kids. Maaya, unlike Avali, was endlessly rational, a benefit when it came to describing magic to a few scores of people that hadn’t known magic existed until now.

“Shall we begin?” She asked with a warm smile. The professor turned to trace out the Five Circles of Magic in the air, illuminating it in Energy-based magic. Ah, you might want to see it, I’m sure my explanation wasn’t the most helpful, huh?

Here, hand me that paper, would you? I have a pen.

There we go! I haven’t been drawing this symbol for years to be bad at it. Now you have something to refer to while I keep going.

“The Five Circles of Magic are the most basic concept that as Witches, you all must understand,” Maaya explained. “The Fifth Circle is the most common, containing the spheres of Energy, Nature, Voice, Time, and Space. I’m sure most of you here are attuned to the Fifth Circle. I, myself, am an Energy Witch.”

Ardis and Jules shared a look, one that went “oh, that makes sense”. Ardis and Jules were both separately mildly relieved to know they’d have someone at least somewhat similar to them nearby. Aw, that’s so adorable, isn’t it?

As she spoke, the sigil lit up, starting at the very top and moving around in a clockwise pattern. Yes, this order is important, make a note of it.

“The Fourth Circle of Magic is less common but very important. The Fourth Circle contains the four basic elements, Wind, Fire, Earth, and Water.” The pattern repeated, showing where each one was placed with Wind at the top and Earth at the bottom. “While some countries choose to replace one or two of the elements with others which they feel works best, Evenfall has chosen to follow the Western Arcane theory for the Five Circles.”

She nodded to herself, eyeing the group to see if anyone was lost. No one was tired, though that was rather due to her energy spell currently covering the students. They’d sleep well tonight, luckily.

“Alright, moving onto the Third Circle of Magic, I hope you’re paying attention!” She clapped her hands together with a brilliant grin. Oh, right, did I forget to mention that Professor Suli Maaya was one of those kinds of people. The type that has a switch to flip and suddenly be a disconcerting vibrant (and mildly aggressive) person. “The Third Circle contains, from the top, Mind, Soul, and Emotion! This here is a very dangerous circle, as it relates to altering a person’s self but it’s not necessarily something to be feared,” she adds as a reassurance, “And Third Circle attunement is quite rare.”

Well, I hope that wasn’t too much for you, because we have a little more to go before we can get back into the fun stuff.

“Finally, the Second Circle of Magic, Creation and Destruction. This is the rarest and technically power circle to be a part of.” Professor Maaya scanned the group. Kal squirmed a bit, she was feeling guilty for some odd reason. It’s good to be unique! I would imagine she knew that but now, but she’s an odd one. “I want to preface one very important thing before I ask for questions,” Maaya said, “Despite how it may appear, you are all equal in power and strength. The Inner Circles often appear more powerful but are far more difficult to ever truly use. The Outer Circles may seem limited or small but they will provide you with undeniable abilities and skills. At Evenfall, we want everyone to thrive together and work as a group to hone your powers. Strength comes in multiples not singles.”

Oh my, that was quite cheesy. I told her once she should probably change that line, but it’s managed to make an impact every year. Judging by the baited breathes and silence, it worked once again!

“Any questions?”

There was a long silence, people don’t figure out things that quickly.

Fortunately, something did break the silence.

“Magic...MAGIC ISN’T REAL!” Someone unknown screamed from the back of the group. She’s one of those people I mentioned to remember. Her name is Mira and you’ll be hearing that statement and a variety of variations from her quite often. At least it broke the silence, sending the group into a crowd of laughter.

Kal bit her lip, unconfident. Originally, she was inclined to agree with Mira, but now? She was more unsure if she was capable of surviving at a school like this. Which, is absurd. She’s a main character! Well, she doesn’t know that, but that doesn’t make it not true. It looks like we’ll have to wait for the character development for the rest.

Someone raised their hand for a question, “What about the First Circle of Magic?”

All the energy seemed to drain as a quite deadly serious expression was now on Maaya’s face, “The First Circle of Magic is dangerous, so I beg you, please, do not look into it.”

“Isn’t that...just gonna encourage people to look into it?” Juli whispered quietly. These three were, in fact, the exact type to look into it.

“You could lose your life by doing so.”

“....Nevermind.”

There was far more to do in terms of “beginning”, but it was decided many years ago to place those in the first few days of classes.

All students being required to take their respective Circle Magic class gave a guaranteed spot for students to finish the final steps that would truly allow them to step into the world of Nevermore and Everless.

And allow those scared to run away. Don’t tell anyone I said that, I already got in trouble enough about it before, I would rather remain on good terms with the school.

Anyways, by the unfortunate thing called “organization”, all our wonderful students are all in separate classes.

Well, Kal was guaranteed to be separated but Ardis and Jules wound up in separate classes. Quite tragic, really.

Well, who’s first? Well, we started with Kal first so why not Ardis? He’s in for some, how would I put it, interesting company.

Ardis was humming lightly, as he tends to do, as he entered his class. He didn’t recognize anyone, which makes sense, Ardis you haven’t met anyone yet. Though, that’s probably because he’s in that dorm. A mostly empty place which people rarely actually lived in.

His luck was only evident of his main character status, don’t worry. He took a seat near the front of the class, hoping to be left mostly alone. He wanted to learn! Which, well, he hopefully will at Evenfall. That’s the point of college, isn’t it?

However, as unfortunate is it is for him, there was someone who recognized him.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” The voice of an obnoxiously flirtatious voice called out. Ardis glanced to his side, only to see Mary Sue, his suitemate.

“No?” Ardis answered quite unconfidently. Ardis wasn’t sure if he was relieved to see a familiar face or off-put by the girl’s odd behavior. He was fairly certain that getting involved with someone with a weird name like “Mary Sue” wouldn’t be a very good idea. Though, let me be honest, he’ll be doing far more than she will.

“Hey!” Mary Sue hissed, glaring as she looked around. “Who said that?”

“Who said what?” Ardis asked.

“That, uh,” she stopped. “Whatever it doesn’t matter, it’s just part of my fantastic destiny probably.” Oh dear, I think she can hear us. That shouldn’t be happening.

That’s quite a problem, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t see that much of her! So we can move onto discussing what happens during class. Personally, the Circle classes are always delightful to teach. They’re pass/fail classes and unless you miss all the classes or skip the final, you’ll pass. It’s education on how to use your magic, most students aren't inclined to miss the class.

Mary Sue plopped down with a huff, but caught Ardis’s confused staring.

“I’m sorry, uh, whatever you’re named, I’m not interested,” she said with a weird smile.

Ardis cocked his head to the side, very innocent, “What?”

“I’m not interested in you, so don’t even try.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that look you’re giving me!” Mary Sue laughed. “You have something to say, right?”

“I was going to ask if you needed stomach medicine, you had a weird expression,” Ardis said simply. Ah, that’s what I love about this kid. Blunt and innocent, it’s a very fun combination to see. Especially now that that Mary Sue girl’s eye is twitching. Let’s hope that doesn’t become a habit.

“I don’t.”

Ardis gave a nod, finally being able to focus on his own stuff again. A delightful set of pens and paper to take notes with. Oh yes, he’s one of those people. He likely spent a few hours debating which of his colorful stationery he’d bring along.

Class began shortly afterward. Professor Zita Cavallo was teaching this class. I hate Professor Zita Cavallo, she owes me for an incident way back in ‘33. She’s a generally nice person, however, which prevents me from telling you to hate her.

Regardless of owed debts, she was teaching this class. Attuned to Space Magic, she was quite the interesting teacher.  Someone stood beside her, a glamour placed upon them. It seemed to be tied to Professor Cavallo but none of the students here were really talented enough to notice that.

“Good morning students,” Cavallo signed, accompanied by their assistant. “My name is Zita Cavallo, this person beside is Luna. This is the Introductory Fifth Circle Magic class,” she paused to cast a spell. The fifth circle emerging behind her. “That includes Energy, Nature, Voice, Time, and Space.” The corresponding points lit up as she signed. “I’m attuned to Space, personally. There’s a lot to discuss! So, we need to discuss and work on the assignment of Rings.”

“Rings?” Someone called out.

“Evenfall and the surrounding area is unfortunately not very safe. So, in order to protect our students, we have made pacts with ancient entities. These old and wise beings have protected our school and students since the beginning of the school’s life. Today, before any classes truly begin, we will be allowing the selection process to occur.”

That got Ardis’s attention. “What do you mean, allowing?” He asked, looking at the professor with confusion.

“You and I do not select your Ring. Their Guardian selects you.” Ah, yes, the stock line every Circle Magic professor uses. I mean, it’s not bad just not creative! “We’ll step outside for a few minutes for the process. It shouldn’t take long but we’re organized into times since there’s quite a few classes to get through and our guardians can’t stretch themselves too far trying to help all of us.”

There were murmurs through the class as Cavallo began to lead them out of the room. It was rather unexpected, after all. The Rings, however, are quite interesting and I always find it fun to watch students in their amazement for what goes on.

They filed out onto an open area, where Cavallo ordered them to circle around. She stepped into the center. The first step to the Ring ritual was the origin summoning.

Cavallo was good at this, she’s done it plenty of times. She stretched out slightly before beginning to cast a very specific spell.

Five circles, well, five rings were illuminated around Cavallo. They burned brightly for a long moment, even despite the sun shining above the students. They soon disappeared and Cavallo grinned. I swear, I hate her cockiness, she did a simple spell, not changing the world. I would know.

“Okay, students. So, the Selection process isn’t very glamorous, but that’s not the point here. This is important, so please listen well.”

Well, we’re not listening to her. I find that Cavallo’s explanations drag on and on and on. She’s the through type and we all know that through means boring.

The Five Rings each represent a Guardian. Fye, Brist, Mir, Sair, and Ravere.

Brist, who manifests as an owl, represents wisdom and creativity. She’s a sweet person but can be terrifying when upset. I don’t recommend making her upset. Mir, who manifests as a deer, represents nature and growth. They’re quite a nice being though a bit of boring. They’re very reliable.

Sair, who manifests as a fox, represents fire and trickery. He was once considered evil but if you give him pets, he melts. Don’t tell him I said that though. Then there’s Ravere, manifesting as a hawk, she represents wind and passion. She’s very strong and appears most frequently to her charges.

Finally, Fye, of ice and courage. A lone wolf, both in personality and form, they’re very selective in who they pick and rarely show kindness. They’re just shy, I think.

Anyways, with that explanation, let us return to the story.

Mary Sue, who had stuck near Ardis for some reason, leaned over. “Obviously, Fye will pick me. I’m the perfect choice!” Ardis nodded half-heartedly, far more curious in the ritual than the girl beside him.

“We’ll begin with…” Cavallo scanned the class. “You! Come here.” Ardis! Wonderful, this chapter was getting long.

Ardis walked over, curiosity suppressing any of his nervousness.

“So, quick explanation, you’ll stand in the center of where the circles were and with a bit of your own magic energy, the Guardians will appear for just a moment, before one selects you. Quick and simple, your magic carries part of yourself, allowing the Guardians to start to understand you.”

Ardis nodded, “How do I use my magic energy?”

“Ah! I forget, not all of you know. Just take a deep breath, focus on whatever it is you feel within you. Search for that energy and cling to it. That’s enough.”

Deciding that was enough of an explanation, mostly because he had been able to do some types of magic beforehand, Ardis figured it wouldn’t be hard.

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the students around him. He could feel it, the energy and the magic that was there.

He jerked, opening his eyes to see the rings once again bright with light and animals in each one.

The Guardians.

There was only a short moment of tense deliberation before one ring, rimmed in orange with a fox at the center was the only one to remain. Sair, the fox of fire and trickery. He had been selected.

The fox seemed to bow before disappearing as well.

Cavallo clapped her hands to grab Ardis’s attention. “Good job! Let’s get to the next person. You?” She pointed at Mary Sue.

The two switched places as Mary Sue flipped her hair. She was confident, very confident.

Ardis was now able to watch the scene that had unfolded for him, yet slightly different. From the outside, you couldn’t see any of the Guardians, simply the light of the Rings.

For now, Ardis quietly wondered how Kal and Jules were getting along and what it meant for a being of trickery to select him of all people.

taglist: @falling-rivers @superwaywardangel @immawritethat @arynneva  @likeicarusifall @aschenink, @writing-for-the-batfam, @ekrizdis, @wiccanchester, @spacebrick3

[not-a-space-alien]

Into the Unknown, Part 1:  Crowley’s Big Plans

Prologue | Dramatis Personae 

Series masterpost

On AO3

Force equals mass times acceleration.  This law of nature, elegant in its simplicity, the undeniable truth that big things go boom when they go fast, had been applied to everything from bullets to cannon balls to fists, from swords and rapiers and daggers and automobiles and rockets, trebuchets and boulders.

And it was currently being applied to a ball of polished stone rolling very fast, over and over, logo whizzing in and out of view in turn, down an aisle of slick wood.

Olivia’s bowling ball smacked straight into the lead pin with the force of something launched from a cannon, striking the formation with military precision. It sent the whole thing collapsing into an explosion of pins, which jiggled on the floor against each other as the arm came down to sweep them away.

From behind her, Oryss erupted into a cheer, accidentally knocking over her basket of nachos.

Olivia turned around, snapping her fingers and holding her arms aloft. “And that’s how it’s done, folks.”

“Wow,” said Crowley.  “I’ve never seen anyone bowl a perfect game before.”  He still hadn’t.  He hadn’t been watching Olivia bowl; he had been too busy setting everyone’s nicknames on the outdated computer system the bowling alley used to keep score.  Currently the lineup on their game was Snake Charmer Suprem,* King Puddinghead, Turkey Master, and Nachofingers.

*Not a typo.  There was a character limit.

“Marvelously done, dear girl,” said Aziraphale.

The bar moved down to highlight Nachofingers.  “You’re up, babe,” said Olivia, slapping Oryss on the back.

Oryss took a moment to use some hand-sanitizer before retrieving her bowling ball, sighting down it like a deadly weapon and flinging it with an air of utmost seriousness.

It plopped into the gutter, missing the pins entirely.

“Can we please play with the gutter rails up?” Oryss whined.

“Come on, you still have another shot,” said Crowley.  “I’m sure you’ll get a spare.”

Pouting, Oryss retrieved another bowling ball and rolled it down the lane, knocking over a measly two or three pins.

“You’re not even using the same ball each time!” Olivia said.  “How are you going to really feel it out, you know?  You’ve got to get the feel of the ball.”

“I feel like I’m going to smack you,” said Oryss.

They played one more game, much to the dismay of Aziraphale, who had mostly spent the last one chiding Crowley for changing the names on the displays of the lanes around them to silly things.  At Oryss’s insistence, they played with the gutter rails up this time. This resulted in the discovery that Oryss’s bowling strategy was mostly to just bounce the ball off the rails a bunch of times and hope it eventually rolled near the pins.

Olivia absolutely demolished the competition, and Crowley handed over the fiver he had promised her upon hearing the claim that she could get two perfect games in a row.

“Well, that was a lovely time,” said Aziraphale, letting the door to the bowling alley swing closed behind him.  

“How did you get so good at this?” said Crowley.

“I’ve had a lot of spare time since Heaven collapsed,” said Olivia. “Since we’re all basically unemployed now.  Finally feel like I have time for a hobby.  Haven’t you been doing anything different?  Now that Hell’s not breathing down your neck making sure you’re productive.”

I’ve never been productive in my life, Crowley thought, except maybe that one time with the M25.  And Manchester.  “Mostly just been watching Netflix.”

“Lazy.”

“I’ve earned it.”

Olivia shrugged.

“What would you prefer to do next?” said Aziraphale.  “You’re the guests after all.  It’s not every day you visit London, so we can do whatever you like.”

“There’s a stationery shop around the corner I wanted to check out,” said Olivia.

“A stationery shop?” said Aziraphale.

Olivia turned towards Crowley, and said with a painfully unsubtle wink, “Yep! I think you’d really like it, Aziraphale!  Oryss and Crowley would find it dreadful, though.”

Crowley winced and gave her a thumbs-up.

“Mmm-hmmm,” said Aziraphale.  “…All right, then.”

They walked down the sidewalk.  A familiar figure came whizzing towards them, with long brown hair streaming behind him.

“Why, it’s Adramelech!” said Aziraphale.

Adramelech rolled past them at top speed on a pair of rollerblades, gesturing grandly and beaming.  “Hi, Aziraphale!”

He whizzed away.  Sylvia appeared in his wake, struggling to stay upright on a pair of pink roller skates. “Hi, Aziraphale!”

“I didn’t realise you were in London!” said Aziraphale.

“Watch out, Botis is right behind me,” she said, rolling away.

“Huh—”

Aziraphale flinched backwards as Botis appeared, grinding along the guard rail beside them on a skateboard.  “Hello, sir!  See you later!”

“Uh,” said Aziraphale.

Finally, Kyleth came last in line.  She was jogging, the only one not outfitted with wheels.

“Kyleth, I didn’t know you were all in town,” said Aziraphale.  “What’s going on?”

“Just going on vacation!” said Kyleth cheerily, with an exaggerated wink at Crowley.

“All of you at once?  There’s a lot of familiar faces who normally live quite far away.”

“We have time to travel now,” said Kyleth.  “Anyway, see you!”

Oryss and Olivia continued on once the sidewalk was clear.  Aziraphale stood bewildered.  He pulled at Crowley’s sleeve.  “Crowley, dear, let me talk to you.”

Crowley stuck his hands in his pockets.  “Sure, sure.”

“It seems like an awful lot of our friends are in town all at once, without notice.”

“Yep,” said Crowley.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked like you were planning a surprise of some sort.”

Crowley pursed his lips.  “Good thing you do know better, then.  Shall we?”

Aziraphale looked hesitantly at Crowley’s proffered arm.  “Crowley, I—”

“Nothing going on.”

“This is because I made that comment about getting married, isn’t it?”

Aziraphale had made a comment a few weeks ago about how he had always fantasised about marrying Crowley.  The angel had immediately backpedaled, saying how since marriage was a sacrament of the church it only made sense Crowley wouldn’t like it, and how any event traditionally taking place in a church would surely feel inappropriate and uncomfortable for Crowley.  But Crowley had seen the desire on his face, and the flush of silly, embarrassed joy at the thought.

“Look,” said Aziraphale.  “I—I want you to be comfortable more than anything.  I would never wish for anything you didn’t want too, and—”

“I know, angel.”

“It would only be a token gesture at this point, anyway.  It isn’t necessary.”

“Few of the nice things in life are truly necessary.”

“It’s not as though—”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t have them.”

Nevertheless, Aziraphale’s face creased in worry.  “I would never ask you to do this just for me, Crowley, you know that, right?  Nothing so ceremonial and trite could change our relationship after everything we’ve been through together.”

“We have no reason to be afraid of a wedding now,” said Crowley.  “We’re surrounded by people who care about us, and everyone who hated us is gone.  The world is gentler now.”

“What a strange world we live in now,” said Aziraphale quietly.  “That an angel and a demon can get married, and invite both archangels and archdemons to the wedding without fear of repercussions.”

“An unfamiliar and foreign place and time,” said Crowley, offering his arm for Aziraphale to take.  In the distance, Olivia and Oryss beckoned them to come on.  “Shall we go off into the unknown, then?”

Aziraphale took his arm, and they strolled away.

“And besides,” said Crowley, a twinkle in his eye, “there’s nothing happening anyway.  We’re just out for a day of shopping with our friends from out of town.”

Aziraphale gave a wry smile.  “All right.”

“Here it is!” said Olivia, pointing excitedly to a shopfront that had very small windows such that anyone inside couldn’t see the sidewalk.  “Can’t you just smell the…paper?”

“It looks lovely,” said Aziraphale, obediently entering the shop.

Crowley waited till Aziraphale and Olivia had both disappeared into the shop, then he and Oryss ran off.

“First the jewelry shop,” said Crowley, “then the catering, then the flowers.”

“All right,” said Oryss.  “Olivia has a list of at least five shops she could drag Aziraphale through, so we should have at least two or three hours.”  She clapped her hands.  “Thank you so much for letting me be a bridesmaid, Crowley, I know the maid of honour normally helps with choosing the food and decorations and stuff but—”

“Yes, well, I think we both know Maltha wouldn’t be very naturally talented at picking out this sort of thing,” said Crowley.  “Though she would certainly try.”

Oryss giggled, bouncing a little.  “I can’t wait to see all the pretty flowers and try the different cakes—”

“All right, well, remember we’re only picking out things for the engagement party right now, not the wedding itself.  We’re not getting a wedding cake yet.”

Oryss nodded, but still bounced with excitement.

The jeweler’s was the first stop.  They spent an entire one of their two to three hours in the shop, and Oryss was considerably less happy coming out than she had been going in.

“Rubbish,” Crowley muttered.  

“None of them?” she said, frustrated.  “Really?  None of them?”

“It has to be perfect,” said Crowley.  “I don’t want to propose to Aziraphale with just any old ring.  It needs to be…special. Like he is.”

Oryss wanted to tell him that while Aziraphale was nice, he wasn’t nearly special enough that none of the rings in the finest jewelry shop in London were good enough for him.  But she thought better of it.  “Okay. That’s fine.  We can come back to this later.  Let’s go focus on the catering for now.”

They spent the second hour of their two to three hours at the catering shop, and they both walked out just as unhappy, but this time it was Oryss glowering.

“Come on, Oryss.”

“Out of all the things you Brits stole from Africa, you think you could have at least stolen some decent food.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Oryss twisted her face.

“Do you want to cook, then?”

Oryss seemed to seriously consider it for a moment, and Crowley rushed to add, “That was rhetoric.  I don’t expect you to cook for ninety-six people.”

“Why is it you care so much about what Aziraphale wears on his finger but not what he eats?  He likes eating.  I don’t think he’s ever expressed much interest in jewelry.”

“It’s—It’s—symbolic of—nevermind.  Look, it’s a picnic.  We’ll be at a park.  We just need some finger foods.”

“Let’s come back to this, too,” said Oryss, who had an unfortunate habit of simply pushing difficult things off to think about at a later time, when she was older and wiser.

“All right.  Flowers are next.”

Oryss licked her lips.

“Oh, so that food isn’t good enough, but flowers are acceptable catering?”

“Don’t knock it till you try it.  Ahh!”

This last bit was prompted by the sudden appearance of a hellish figure towering over them, stepping out of a swarm of flies.  Oryss and Crowley both jumped a little, then relaxed.

“Oh, h-hi, Beelzebub,” said Crowley.

“What brings you up here?” said Oryss.

Beelzebub held a small package with a note attached to it.  “King Noah haz zent me up to deliver thiz,” he buzzed. “He regretz greatly that he will be unable to attend the event to which you kindly invited him, and zent thiz in hiz ztead.”

“Oh,” said Crowley.  “That’s all right.  I know he’s busy.  Does he still intend to come to the wedding itself, though?”

“Yez, he haz zworn to attend.”

“All right.”

Beelzebub handed him the package.

“Thanks.”

Beelzebub inclined his head, then stepped back and faded into the shadows.

“Huh,” said Crowley, hefting the package in his hand.  “I think that’s the first time Beelzebub has addressed me respectfully without putting up a fuss.”

“I’ve heard the archdemons are all getting along well with Noah’s new rules,” said Oryss.  “Even Dagon.”

Crowley grimaced.  Dagon had been the one to deliver him to Satan for torture, and Crowley had never had any pleasant interactions with him.  Regardless of how much Noah reformed Hell’s higher-ups, he still felt just a little uneasy around them.

Not that he had much reason to, though.  He trusted Noah’s judgement absolutely.  He had grown up to be far wiser than Crowley could have imagined.

But still.

“I wonder what’s inside it!” said Oryss, looking like she wanted to tear the package open herself.

Crowley carefully removed the note and read it.

Crowley,

I’m so delighted to hear of your and Aziraphale’s engagement.  Forgive me for not attending the engagement party, but I’m needed down here.  I will be at the wedding, come Hell or high water. In the meantime, please accept this. I think you will like them, but don’t feel obligated to use them if you have already found a suitable ring.  I found them in Hell’s treasury and thought of you; use them however you wish.  They also have a special enchantment on them called the Lover’s Charm. When you activate it, no matter the distance separating you, you’ll know you’re with each other.  The charm takes twelve hours to charge up but otherwise can be used however you want.  Enjoy.

-King Noah, Lord of etc. etc.

Crowley suppressed his excitement at the word ring and dutifully read the rest of the letter before unwrapping the gift wrap.

The package was a satchel containing two velvet ring boxes.  The black one opened to reveal a handsome silver ring set with onyx and, in the center, a deep red garnet.  The white one contained a gold ring garnished with diamonds and a clear sky-blue lapis lazuli.  They both had an occult sigil of some sort set in the base, pulsing very faintly with a minor charm.

Crowley’s eyes began to water.

“Crowley?” said Oryss.  “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, choked up.  “Just glad I didn’t settle for that diamond back in the shop.”

****************************

“You didn’t say ‘Uno.’”

Uriel’s eyes drifted uncomprehendingly towards Beth’s hand, which tapped the deck of cards sitting on the coffee table.  “What?”

Beth sighed.  “You have one card left, but you didn’t say ‘Uno.’”

Uriel looked at her card, which was very clearly and visibly to everyone in the room a green six.  “Why do I have to say ‘Uno’?”

“That’s the law of the land here in Beth’s house,” said Maltha.  She was stretched languidly out on the carpet with her chin on the coffee table, looking morosely at her enormous stack of cards.  She knew vaguely this meant she was losing, but she wasn’t entirely sure how.

“It’s just the rule of the game,” said Beth.  “When you have one card left, if you don’t say ‘Uno,’ another player can make you take two cards.”

Uriel furrowed her brow.  “And what if I refuse?”

Beth hid her expression with the meat of her hand.  “Then that’s cheating.  Look, just take two cards.  I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it if we play a few more rounds.”

Uriel took two cards.

“All right,” said Beth. “My turn.”

She put down a reverse card.

“Now it’s your turn again, Uriel.”

“I just went,” Uriel cried.  “I thought it was my turn after Maltha!”

“I just played a reverse card,” Beth explained.  “So now we’re going the other way.”

“Um,” said Uriel.  “Okay.”  She put down a card.

“You can’t play that.  Your card has to be either the same colour, or the same number as this one.”

Uriel put a six on top of the proffered nine, upside-down.

“I guess that counts,” said Beth.  “Now Maltha goes.”

“I thought it was your turn to go,” said Maltha tiredly.

“I played a—Look, it’s your turn, okay?”

Maltha drew a card.  Then she drew another.  Then another.

“I’m not sure you understand the point of the game,” said Beth.  “You’re supposed to get rid of all your cards.”

“But why?” said Maltha.  “I have the biggest stack.  I’ve hoarded more resources.  I have the most power.”

Beth put her deck down and sighed.  “Why this?  Why is it Uno?  I have yet to meet a single angel or demon that can play Uno properly.  We’re not even using any house rules.”

“The thing about saying ‘Uno’ is a house rule,” said Maltha.

“That’s not a house rule.”

“But it’s the rule in your house.”

Aggravated, Beth made a motion like she were going to strangle Maltha. She was interrupted by the intercom buzzing.

Beth walked over and pushed the button for the intercom.  “Yoo-hoo,” came the voice from the tinny speaker.  “It’s Adramelech, just dropping by for a quick chat.”

“Hey!” said Beth.  “Come on up.”

“You have a package here; I’ll bring it up for you.”

“Thanks!”

Beth went and unlocked the door, and Adramelech came in gesturing grandly. “Beth, darling, I—Oh, I really must be going, would you look at the time.”

The shift in tone was sudden and prompted by Adramelech noticing Uriel sitting on the sofa.  Adramelech pulled a U-turn back out the front door.

“Adramelech, wait,” said Beth, pulling his arm.  “You just got here.  Don’t be silly.”

She took the package from him and set it on the counter.  “Ah-ha-ha, of course,” Adramelech said, masking his unhappiness very poorly.

“Do you not want to be here with Uriel here?” said Beth.

Adramelech didn’t answer, pursing his lip.

“She’s changed,” said Maltha.

“So I’ve heard,” Adramelech said sourly.

“She’s right, you know,” said Beth.  “You should give her a chance.”

The shimmering feathers on Adramelech’s head rose.

Uriel stood, smoothing out her dress.  “Adramelech, was it?”

Adramelech nodded.

“I shall apologise to you.”

“What for?”

“I owe every demon an apology.”

“Ah,” said Adramelech.  “Thanks. But, well, listen, I know it’s on good authority that you’ve turned over a new leaf.  But all the same, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not hang around you.”

Uriel deflated.  “Oh.”

Beth looked supremely disappointed.  Adramelech winced and backed towards the door.

“I suppose that’s fair,” said Uriel.  “I wish you well.”

“Thanks,” said Adramelech coldly.  “We can talk on the phone later, Beth.”

He exited.  “Hmph,” said Beth, shutting the door behind him.  “What an utter killjoy.”

“He is slow to trust,” said Maltha.  “As a general rule.  I do not blame him.  It’s a healthy fear, even though most demons seems to be growing out of it since Noah took the throne.”

Beth nodded.  “Yeah. Like poor Crowley, he’s always been an anxious mess, but he seems like he’s doing really well now.”

Maltha nodded.

“Oh, the package,” said Beth.  “It must be the cufflinks.”

“Cufflinks?” said Uriel.

“I ordered them online,” said Beth, tearing the package open.  “They’re adorable—shaped like little angel wings. I got a pair for Aziraphale and one for Crowley.  I know they said not to bring presents to the engagement party, but I figured, eh, I could give it to them at the wedding at least.”

Uriel looked up sharply.  “Engagement party?”

“You knew Aziraphale and Crowley were getting engaged,” said Maltha. “Didn’t you?  That’s why everyone’s in town.”

“Well, yes, but….”  She twiddled her thumbs.  “I didn’t know there was a party.”

Beth grimaced.  “Oh. They didn’t invite you, then…?”

“No.”

Maltha shuffled her cards.  Beth cleared her throat.

“I don’t suppose I blame them,” said Uriel.  “Though it’d be a lie to say I’m not disappointed.”

“I thought with Maltha’s reports on how well you were doing, surely they’d invite you,” said Beth.  “But I guess not.  I’m sorry.”

“Would it still be polite to get a gift?”

“I suppose,” said Maltha.

“Hmm,” said Uriel.  She reached into her purse sitting on the floor; it was a cream-coloured shoulder bag, which Beth had got her, and in which she kept a number of interesting things she thought would be fun.  It was Maltha who had given her the assignment to fill it with things that were purely for enjoyment, and so it was now filled with odd knickknacks one didn’t usually find in purses.

Her hands ran along one such item, which was purple, and long, and thin, and pointed.

 **************************************

“Thanks again, Oryss.”

She pulled back from their hug, patting him on the back.  “Of course.  Just let me know if you need anything else.  I’ll be in town until the Tuesday after the party.”

“Great.”

She exited with a tinkle of the shop bell.  That left Crowley to hide his purchases, and to especially stash the rings somewhere where Aziraphale wouldn’t see them.  

He held the two ring boxes, one in each hand.  Part of him wanted to simply keep them in his pocket so he didn’t have to let go of them.

But that wouldn’t do.  He had to find somewhere to keep them where Aziraphale couldn’t find them.

Still holding the two boxes, brow furrowed in concentration, he marched out into the shop.

“Hello.”

Crowley jumped straight into the air, dropping both boxes, at the voice. “Oh, ah…”  He ran his hands nervously down the front of his suit. “Oh.”

Uriel had come into the shop, staring at him with her hands crossed in front of her.  He was a little alarmed by the huge spikes in her hands, until he realised they were large knitting needles.  They were neon purple and still had a bit of yarn spun around them.

Crowley knelt and retrieved the two velvet boxes from the floor.  “Oh, um, hi, Uriel…”

“I heard about your plan to propose,” said Uriel, with unsettling quietness.

Crowley was still on his knees to scoop up the white box from under the counter, leaving Uriel to loom over him.  It made him uncomfortable, and he stood and brushed himself off as soon as he realised.  “Yeah?” he said, with a tinge of nervousness.

Uriel held out a misshapen piece of fabric.  “I made this for you.”

It was a hat, Crowley realised.  A frankly rather shoddily-constructed and ugly hat, but a knitted hat nonetheless.

“As a congratulations gift,” said Uriel.

“Oh, th-thanks,” said Crowley, taking the hat.  The fabric felt like it wouldn’t be very comfortable on his head, but he pulled it on anyway.  He suspected he looked ridiculous.  “Did you make it yourself?”

The needles in Uriel’s hands clacked against each other.  “Yes.  Maltha suggested I should take up a hobby.  To relieve tension.”

“How long have you been working at it, then?”

Uriel looked at the needles with an unreadable expression.  “Four years.  I haven’t gotten any better at it.”

“Oh,” said Crowley.

They both just stood there for a moment.

“How’s Metatron?” Crowley asked.

“They and I do not talk much anymore,” said Uriel, sounding very subdued. “They mostly stay in Heaven.”

“Ah.  Um…so how are you doing, then?”

“Not bad,” said Uriel.  “Questioning is still scary, but it’s more manageable now.  Maltha and I have spent a lot of time together.  She is a very good friend.  Beth, too, which I didn’t expect from a human.”

They stood in awkward silence again.  Crowley cleared his throat.  “Um, not to be rude, but I was kind of…I was in the middle of…”

“Oh, right,” said Uriel.  “I just came to give you the hat.  I hope you enjoy it.”

“Thanks, I will.”  The coat closet would, at least.

The bell tinkled as Uriel opened the shop door.  She turned back to him briefly.  “I wish you and Aziraphale all the happiness in the world.  You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” said Crowley, almost shocked by such sentiment from Uriel, of all people.  “Oh, um…”

“Yes?”

“Is anyone teaching you how to knit, or…?”

“No, I’m mostly working by myself.”

Crowley dug in the section of the bookshop where Aziraphale filed his arts and crafts books, pulling out a basic knitting book with very large and clear illustrations.  “Here, this might help you.  You can have it. Aziraphale will never know it’s gone.”

Uriel took it, her facial expression remaining melancholy. “Thanks, Crowley.”

She left him alone in the bookshop, and Crowley watched through the shopfront as she descended the stairs to catch the tube.

Aziraphale appeared in the window in font of his nose, looking unsettled. He cracked the door open.  “Is everything all right?  I just saw Uriel leaving.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley.  “Nothing to worry about.  She was just offering her congratulations.”  He almost said condolences, based on her tone, though she didn’t appear to bear them any ill will.

Aziraphale shut the door behind him.  “She’s not nearly as horrible as she used to be.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley.  He suddenly had a realisation and moved to swipe the two ring boxes, sitting out on the counter, out of Aziraphale’s line of sight.

“What’s that?” said Aziraphale.

“Nothing at all,” said Crowley.

“Not rings, is it?”

“Of course not,” said Crowley.  He was a good liar as a rule, but not even Aziraphale swallowed this one.

“Interesting, because those boxes had the jeweler’s logo on them.”

“Hmm, weird for a box that doesn’t have a ring in it.”

“Indeed.”

“What would I even have a ring for?”

“Some human cultures, including the one we currently live in, use them as matrimonial symbols.”

“Mmm,” said Crowley.  “Interesting. I’ll write that down in case I need to use it in the future.”

Aziraphale smiled and kissed him on the cheek.  “You old silly.”

Crowley beamed.  “Hey, you don’t have anything planned for Saturday, do you?”

Aziraphale shrugged.  “No.”

“Yes, you do now.”

Aziraphale grinned.  “It’s a date, then.”