#DECIDING something is not the same as THINKING something

[lustspren]

D.A | LUV N DEVOTION / obsession.

Male reader x Wonyoung, Karina, Giselle.

🔙 Previous update (for now) | 📄 LUV N DEVOTION / obsession |

tags: fluffy and princess treatment for wony, cum slut rina, bi, car blowjob, foursome, triple blowjob, elevator sex, daddy kink, fingering, anal, overstimulation, squirt, creampie(s), rough sex, pussy eating, anal fingering, facial

word count: 19.7k

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You knew that after that night in Tokyo things with Wony would never be the same, but not so drastically different.

Saying you were in love was not doing justice to what you felt for that damn girl now. Without going any further, the best way to describe it for you was obsession. Devotion. Not in a sick way, or toxic; you weren't that kind of guy. But since that October 12th, the only girl you thought about every day, 24 hours a day, was her. Only her.

In a way, that made you feel bad about yourself, because you had never felt that way for a person, not even for Hanni—from whom you were forced to emotionally detach yourself for a while at her request—or for Sully—who had simply started to like another person named Lee Chaeyoung and who was her girlfriend.

However, Wony made you happy on so many levels and facets that thinking about that had become something secondary. Something unimportant. Things were the way they were, and they happened because they had to happen that way. Period. Your conscience was clear: you were not to blame for your now failed relationship with Hanni, and you were not to blame for Sully's feelings leaning towards someone else. After all, you still loved them both, and their happiness was your happiness.

But if there was one thing you had to be thankful for, it was that all that chain of unfortunate events had brought you to where you are now: at the feet of a girl who reciprocated what you felt for her and who radiated perfection through every pore.

Wony turned out to be the antithesis of everything she seemed to you during all that time in which you felt hatred for her. You claimed left and right that she was a pretentious and spoiled bitch (she was just spoiled), and that you could never be her friend because she repelled you. Nothing could be further from the truth. While she had her bad attitudes like basically anyone, her virtues overshadowed everything; she was easily one of the sweetest and most caring people you had ever met in your life. Every single thing she did had you either sighing or smiling like an absolute idiot, and throughout the time you had spent together both in October and right now in November, you realized that she was everything you wanted and more.

And there was nothing more pleasurable and fulfilling than feeling reciprocated by her. By that monument made woman.

It was awards night. MMA's. You couldn't see each other on the day of the MAMA's because she had a pending appointment the next day and she didn't get permission, but things for that night were different: if everything went well, you would take her to dinner and then spend the night together. You were mad excited about it, and you couldn't wait for the hours to pass quickly so you could see her.

But for now, the priority was your damn job.

For some reason you had decided to do your daily stream at night, which was pretty stupid of you considering you knew you'd have to miss the red carpet as well as the awards and performances. Then you told yourself that just wasn't going to happen, and after only four hours you decided to cut it off just so you could turn on the TV and watch her.

You didn't regret it. Of course not. You had put on the stream just in time to see her and her members come out onto the carpet, and you didn't know how the hell you were going to function like a normal person again after seeing how outstandingly beautiful she was that night, with that high bun and that tight dress that hugged her curvy body and made it look like a total delight. You were so stunned that you couldn't help but take out your phone and record her through the TV screen until she left.

And with the phone in hand you couldn't help but text her either. You knew she wouldn't be able to answer you for a while, since you knew she was also going to be MC during the start of the awards. But you still had to let her know. You had to let her know how obsessed you were with her.

It was funny, because as soon as you sent the messages and read them you realized how screwed you were with that girl. It was a problem to fall so much at the feet of a person, it always was. But fuck it. If you were in a free fall into a bottomless abyss you were doing it with a big grin. It was something you talked about a lot with Sohyun and Hayoung. They had both insisted that you were giving yourself too much of a hard time with the matter, and that there was no point in thinking about the past or the future if your present was being this pleasant. Of course you objected using your recent history as an argument, but if there was one thing those two were good at it was giving you a good ass whooping so you would stop being a dramatic bitch.

In the end, well, you shut up and lowered your head to listen. Dealing with stressful situations rationally was their forte, not yours.

Time passed and eventually the awards show started. Wony came out as MC, looking radiant and charming as always to introduce the awards and welcome them. During all those segments, about an hour passed, and she didn't show up anymore. Then you got texts from her.

You swore to god you were going to throw the phone out the window and follow it closely. Instead, you opened that picture and stared at it with a rapt smile until you snapped out of the trance.

Screwed up. You were really screwed up and two steps away from asking for her hand in marriage. You had to fucking control yourself a little.

But god, she was like a fucking angel fallen to earth. She was your princess. Yours alone. She...

Stop. You really needed to stop. You were letting your feelings carry you along and you weren't thinking with your brain.

Now, that didn't stop you from feeling jealous when Wony, at the beginning of her performance, danced and was picked up by another guy. Wonderful.

She looked beautiful, yes, and you were extremely proud and happy for her. But that damn guy's hands... you were going crazy. It burned inside you, like you had lava pumping through your veins. It really wasn't that big of a deal, you knew the guy was just being professional. Still, you expected his hands to fall off for some mysterious reason right after that performance.

And now it was your Italianness that was thinking for you. For the last time, you had to calm down.

After that, the hours passed normally. You were able to see many of the performances you wanted, like IVE, Aespa and tripleS, but you were forced to miss others like IDLE and ATEEZ because you had to get ready to go out.

The occasion of the night was special, and that called for you to dress as such. But you had a little block, so you had no choice but to call your trusted seamstress. Well, one of them. You didn't want to talk to the other at that moment.

"Do you have some Bottega Veneta?" Danielle Marsh asked on your phone. You had been on a video call for about twenty minutes, and you had dedicated yourself to showing her almost your entire closet. "The winter collection is gorgeous."

You chuckled and looked to the right of the closet-room.

"Well, it's funny you say that, because..." you walked over and took down the tobacco-colored bonded leather trench coat from Bottega Veneta's latest winter collection. You showed it to Danielle, who opened her eyes wide and brought her face closer to the camera.

"Oh my god!" she sighed. "That thing it's like 11 thousand bucks, Ezio."

“It’s worth every penny,” you said, removing the hook. “The leather quality is insane.”

Danielle was about to say something, but apparently someone else entered her room and her attention was diverted. Unfortunately you recognized the voice, and your expression darkened.

“Do you know where my AirPods are? I can’t fucking find them,” you heard Hanni ask Dani. “Who are you talking to?”

“Uh...” Dani looked at the screen to see you and then back at her. “With… Ezio.”

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Okay…” another small silence. “I’ll keep looking,” Hanni finally replied, and you heard the door close.

Dani once again focused on you.

“Sorry about… well, that,” she said, visibly uncomfortable being in the middle of your conflict.

“Don’t worry,” you shook your head, forcing yourself not to think about it. “We got the most important thing done, now we just need to pick out a good pair of shoes and accessories.”

The coat you pulled out ended up being the final choice, along with black wool trousers, a black Versace turtleneck sweater, and black brushed leather Prada lace-ups. As accessories you opted for rings: a Bulgari Serpenti on one hand and a Buccellati from the Opera Tulle collection on the other, in this case shaped like a green flower made of emerald. Nothing modest. But you weren't interested in being modest; you loved to show off.

Besides, you had a gift for your princess. What you had spent on it you preferred not to remember, but you were sure it was the first time you had genuinely spent so much money on a person (the Rome vacation with Sohee in September didn't count, the expense had been on yourself too). To you that meant a lot. But she deserved it, you were sure.

Now dressed you went out to the living room to wait for Wony's message. You expected a text, but instead she called you.

"Hi?" you answered the call, with the car keys in your other hand.

"Hi dear," Wony answered on the other end of the line. "You can come pick me up now."

"Aight on my way," you said, standing up. "But why didn't you just text me?"

You walked over to gather everything you were going to bring, which was your wallet and the gift box for Wony.

"Because I had something to propose to you."

"Huh?"

"You see, I know the normal thing would be to pick me up at the service entrance, but..." she paused briefly. "Why don't you pick me up at the main entrance?"

You chuckled. That was ridiculous.

"Good joke sweetheart, now tell me what you want."

"Baby, it's not a joke," she replied, and from the tone she used you could tell she was serious.

You stood there dumbfounded, staring at the wall.

"Vicky, sweetheart, have you gone crazy?"

"No!" she protested. "Just hear me out. We don't have to be so brazen, but I don't want to sneak around either."

"You're an idol, baby. Shit, you're like a goddess here in Korea. You'll get into trouble, a big one."

"Ezio, I know what I'm doing, and there's no media covering any group's departure here. It’s gonna be fine!"

"You don't know that, you know what those Dispatch bastards are like."

"Starship has no dating restrictions! I mean not for me at least, I don’t give a fuck about those asholes."

"And that saves you from your weird fans? Look what they did to that poor Riize guy!"

"Darling, I'm shielded from all sides, and I don't give a shit what those weirdos think about me or not."

"I know, I know," you sighed. "But honey, keep in mind who I am and the things I do and say on stream. I don't want to make the problem any bigger because I am the one dating you. You don't deserve that."

Wony giggled.

"Oh baby, being you is the main reason why I don't want to hide you, are you even listening to yourself and how cute you are?"

And just like that, she ended the entire argument. It felt like a prime Mike Tyson uppercut, but instead of knocking out a tooth from you, it made your cheeks blush. That was called being beyond down.

"I-I… should go out and pick you up right now?" you asked.

"Yes, silly, that's what I just said. Come here and pick up your princess."

Your fucking princess. Why did that shit sound so good?

The level of obedience was such that you didn't even warn that you were going to hang up. That had to leave her baffled and maybe a little angry, but you were determined to get the hell out of there and hurry to pick her up just to plant a big kiss on those perfect lips.

After a little check of your look and the things you had to bring, you went down to the parking lot of your building complex and got in the car to head to the venue where the MMA's were being held. The security belt was well established from corner to corner, and from what you could see there were no visible photographers covering the idols' departures. Wony was right, but that made the anxiety you felt about it lessen.

In order to get through the security belt you had to make calls, one to Wony and another to the IVE manager so they could get you the authorization. The situation reminded you When you had to pick up Hanni in Milan from the Gucci event, but here they were much stricter and more protocolary when it came to managing everything. It was a bit of a headache, since the lack of cooperation from the guards was coupled with the refusal of the girls' manager to let Wony go with you there, in full view of everyone. The situation was a mess, but half an hour later, all the parties involved agreed and you were allowed to enter with the only condition that your license plate would have to be covered, which was even better for you.

You parked the car diagonally at the entrance of the venue, behind a couple of vans that were being loaded with boxes. In the distance you saw familiar faces, which was to be expected, but only a few recognized your car; Seonghwa, Mingi and Yunho from ATEEZ, Seoyeon and Nakyung from tripleS, Shuhua and Miyeon, and you thought you saw Karina and Winter behind a couple of people. Everyone stared at you in bewilderment, and rightly so, because you weren't supposed to be there.

The only ones who dared approach you—with proper supervision from a member of their staff—were the guys from ATEEZ, who you'd hung out with a couple of times since that IDLE party last year. You rolled down the copilot window so you could talk to them.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Mingi asked, dapping you up. "Someone's gonna kick your ass."

You almost answered him in English, since you'd been talking to Wony in that language all day. You had to switch to Korean.

"I'm expecting someone," you replied, as you dapped the other two up. 

"You're expecting someone? Here?" Seonghwa said with a chuckle. "Isn't that a like too reckless?"

"Tell her that. She's just itching to get into trouble."

"Woah, and you look expensive today," Yunho said, tugging at the fabric of the coat on your shoulder. "Dinner maybe?"

"You're right," you smiled, and behind them you could notice a new silhouette walking towards you. "Ah, and I think she's coming."

The boys moved aside and your line of vision was clear. Wony was walking towards you, in the exact same dress she had worn to the opening of the awards and with the same cute high bun. Her walk was confident; she knew she was untouchable at that moment, that she was the center of attention and all the spotlights were on how beautiful she looked. As soon as she met your gaze you both smiled, but her lips remained in a slight graceful curve to maintain elegance.

"Alright move aside apes," you said, and in a move even more risky than just being there, you got out of the car and walked around the front to open the passenger door the moment Wony was only a couple of meters away.

"Ah, this guy hit the gold mine," Mingi muttered in disbelief before bowing in greeting to Wony, Seonghwa and Yunho imitating him. "Hi."

"Hi!" Wony bowed back to the three boys before locking eyes with you. "Hi sweetie, thanks," she said, now in perfect, pretty English, before climbing into the passenger seat. You closed the door and saw the ATEEZ guys.

"I'm off, gentlemen," you said, walking past them to circle back around your car. "Take care okay?"

"You too!" the three of them said at the same time.

"Oh, are you doing anything tomorrow?" Yunho asked you. "We were planning on going to a club, a couple of the guys from Boynextdoor and Riize are going too."

"Uhm..." you opened the door and leaned in to look at Wony, who was looking at you with a raised eyebrow. Yes, you were definitely doing something tomorrow. "I can't, I'll be busy," you replied, looking at them over the roof of the car.

"Of course you will be," Mingi said with a laugh, stepping away from Wony's window and the curb.

"Yeah, sorry. But hey, you like FIFA right? You can come over sometime."

"Yeah that would be cool. We'll call you. See you later Tiramisu boy!" Mingi said goodbye, and Seonghwa and Yunho waved goodbye as well.

You finally got into the car, rolled up the tinted windows and looked at Wony, who was staring back at you.

"Tiramisu boy?" she asked with a chuckle.

"They met me eating tiramisu at a party last year, that's the explanation," you replied, adjusting your coat and making the car's engine roar a little to warm it up.

"Mmm, interesting, are you going to kiss me or not?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Oh yeah come here."

You leaned towards her and cupped the side of her face with your left hand before bringing your lips together. Wony took that hand and caressed the back of it with her thumb, while the other one held onto your forearm. You could have kissed her for a while longer if it were up to you, but because of the location you had to settle for a few seconds.

"You did amazing tonight, my sweet girl," you said as you pulled away from her lips, looking into her eyes with your faces barely separated. "And god, you look fucking gorgeous."

"You think so? Thank you darling," she replied, looking at you with a sparkle in her eyes worthy of the most beautiful starry night. Then she looked you up and down. "You look very handsome too. Almost as perfect as me."

You let out a laugh, and you settled back into your seat to put a hand on the steering wheel.

"Sure, sure," you said, backing up and then squeezing past the vans and driving down the street. "You looked like Jesus Christ walking on water back there, and getting into a Ferrari on top of that. Not discreet at all."

"Honey, what can I do if I'm that pretty and you decided to have this thing?" she asked with a hand on her chest. "It's not my fault."

"I know it's not, but getting you out of there was a fucking problem," you said, looking at the road. "I really hope you're not in trouble, baby."

"I won't be, silly," she said, placing her hand over yours on the drive mode levers. "Is everything set up at the restaurant?"

"I called on the way to the venue to make sure, so yeah, there won't be any problems."

"Will we have company?"

"Uh... yeah, a baseball player and a model or some shit, with their dates of course. No one who cares about us being there."

"How do you know that?"

"I asked!" you replied, as if it were a stupid question. "Imagine if there happens to be a newspaper editor, we're screwed!"

Wony giggled, leaned over to cup the left side of your face and planted a delicate peck on your cheek.

"My sweet boy, you worry too much," she said, still close to your face. "Let yourself go and enjoy the night with me, please?"

You shouldn't have because you were on a busy road, but for a moment you took your eyes off the road only to turn your face and give her a quick succession of pecks on the lips.

"Hey!" she pulled away laughing, grabbing your chin to turn your face forward. "Don't kill us, donkey!"

You just smiled, and drove for a little over a minute until you remembered something you weren't going to let slide.

"Oh, were that guy's hands comfortable or...?"

"Huh?" Wony turned to look at you, having been caught off guard.

"The hands of the guy you danced with," you said. "They must have been really soft because you looked extremely comfortable in them."

Wony let out a laugh.

"Honey, are you jealous of a dancer I'll never see again?" she asked in disbelief.

"Nah."

Yeah you were. Not in a serious way, but you were willing to tease her about it for a while.

"Well, it's good you mention it because yes, his hands were quite soft," she said, shifting her gaze to her window.

It was serious now.

"Oh, okay," you nodded slowly, and tightened your hand on the steering wheel. "You should tell him to take you to dinner then."

Wony looked at you, and out of the corner of your eye you noticed the mischievous smile on her face.

"I can actually call him right now if you want."

"Yup, go ahead," you nodded with a carefree wave of your hand.

Your face must have been a picture at that moment, because she made a move to take her phone out of her handbag but quickly retracted.

"Honey, I'm kidding!" she said with a giggle, shaking your arm to get you to take your resting bitch face off. "Don't be like that!"

"Don't talk to me right now."

Wony was quiet for a moment, waiting for you to say you were joking too.

"Are you serious?" she asked, and your response was silence. "Alright, I won't talk then."

Then, in a move you should have expected, Wony kicked off her heels, climbed onto her knees in her seat, and bent over your crotch in a perfect arc that highlighted her wide hips and cute ass.

"What are you doing?" you frowned, lifting one arm to rest on her back.

"Just what you asked me to do: no talking," she replied, and began working on the button and zipper of your pants.

"That's not what... oh fuck you," you gasped, as Wony pulled out your limp cock and licked it from balls to top.

You couldn't form a single word of protest from then on. Wony took you into her mouth, sucking you several times until your cock grew and hardened between her spongy lips. Now fully hard, she placed both hands on your thighs and slowly pumped her head up and down the length of your shaft, using her tongue to lick the front with each pump.

Wony's blowjobs were usually messy and frenetic since she was prodigious at it, but you were surprised when she now opted for a slower, more leisurely pace, allowing you to enjoy the silkiness of her lips and the texture of her glossy lipstick in detail. It was perfect, because it was driving you crazy and at the same time it kept you from getting dirty for your night.

When you stopped at a red light you could finally look down and admire how she pumped her head at different angles to suck and lick every possible corner of your shaft. Then you turned to the right to see her raised ass. You couldn’t lift her dress up, so you had to settle for groping over it. Wony purposely moaned around your cock, and then you couldn't help but remove your hand from her ass and put it on her neck to push her down. She was forced to deepthroat you, but it wasn't a problem due to her skill at it, so she effortlessly held you there for a few long seconds until she pulled you out with a soft gasp.

"Are you sucking my jealousy off or what?" you gasped, forced to look at the road again.

Wony certainly didn't respond, she was determined to make you cum as fast and hard as possible, so after a few kisses and licks around your tip she took you back into her mouth, now helping herself with her hand to jerk you off at the same time.

She brought you to the edge of climax in no time, and the only possible place you could reach your hand was on her slim waist, while you unconsciously twisted your hips upwards and let out soft moans. Deducing that you were close, Wony dispensed with her hand and went back to using only her mouth, now with slightly faster and shorter pumps. Not even ten seconds passed when you exploded inside her mouth.

"Oh god!" you moaned, tempted to put your hand on her head to push it down if it weren’t because that would ruin her bun.

Jets of cum were discharged one after another into Wony's mouth, who pumped her head very slowly over every inch of throbbing flesh. You used all your brain power in order not to swerve and drive as straight as possible, in fact, you had to use the steering wheel manettino to put the driving mode on comfort, but that caused you to slow down and a couple of cars behind you to honk. You couldn't do much about it, since your toes were still curled and your legs tense as you filled her mouth.

When your climax finally passed you came back to your senses and stepped on the accelerator so as not to disturb the cars behind you, still breathing heavily. After swallowing your entire load, Wony pulled you out of her mouth with a soft pop, and raised herself to get closer to your ear.

"You're not just the only guy I've ever let cum in my mouth or on my face," she whispered with a hand on your thigh. "You're also the only guy whose cum I could have for breakfast every morning without getting tired. Keep that in mind before throwing another jealous fit," she then licked your cheek from jaw to cheekbone. "I fucking belong to you, and I have zero interest in anyone else."

Another fucking hook straight to the chin, and this was your knockout. There was no way you were recovering from that.

"Do you have anything else to say besides 'I'm sorry'?" she asked, tucking your cock back into your boxers and adjusting your pants back up.

"I... no," you shook your head slowly. "Sorry, babe."

"Good boy," she said, giving you a peck on the cheek before settling back into her seat.

There was still a long way to go to the Shilla hotel and there wasn't much else to talk about at the moment, so you opted to connect into the car's sound system and put on some chill songs from your playlist.

It was a nice trip, one of the most peaceful and satisfying you had ever had with someone. Even though you weren't talking, the simple fact of knowing that you had each other fulfilled you, that was evident by how you constantly sought out each other's contact, whether it was holding your hands or placing your hands on your thighs. Ironic to say the least. Three months ago, imagining yourself in that situation with her would have seemed unpleasant, almost blasphemous, and now it felt like a lucid dream from which you didn't want to wake up.

For fucks sake, you were in love. And it was all thanks to her and the time you had spent together since that night in Tokyo. At first you were a little skeptical, but you made the excellent decision to give her the benefit of the doubt. Of course, she didn't disappoint you, as she took advantage of her opportunity to show herself just as she wanted you to see her. From that moment on, it only took a couple of weeks for her to take over your heart and secure herself with iron feet

She was your princess now, she belonged to you and you wanted to give her everything. Fucking cheesy, but you loved it.

"Alright, this is what we're going to do," you said, already a couple of minutes away from arriving at the hotel. "A bodyguard will accompany you inside while I park the car, then we'll meet in the lobby."

"Can't I just stay with you to park and then go in together?" Wony asked, annoyed.

"Honey, we already took quite a risk picking you up from the venue, and that was even in a controlled environment."

"Ugh fine," she said. "But just this once!"

"I think you keep forgetting who you are, what country you live in, and what kind of fans you have," you replied, turning a corner after a stoplight.

"Fuck that. Someone needs to normalize it someday."

"And you wanna be that someone? In the prime of your career?"

"It happened to Jennie when she dated Kai!" she protested. "No one cared and everyone got over it."

"That's a completely different context."

"In what way?"

"Jennie dated a guy who is deified here, and you are dating a guy who makes a fool of himself on the internet and has more than one stupid controversy for the stuff he says. Do you think that benefits you right now?"

"Honey, how do you know if it benefits me or not?" Wony asked.

"You're perfect in front of the cameras. Literally the perfect idol."

"So what?"

"I don't know," you shrugged. "I am... I don't know."

Wony chuckled.

"Your problem is that you're not as exemplary as I am in the public eye?"

"Aha."

"Why do you care?"

At that point you made a left turn and entered the slope that curved across the hill towards the hotel, which took up the entire view in the distance.

"Fuck, I don't know Vicky," you sighed. "I just don't want it to lead to anything bad for you, that's all."

Wony put her hand on yours, squeezed it, and then brought it to her lips to kiss the back of it.

"Gosh, what did I do to deserve you," she said. "Just trust me darling, I wouldn't be so sure if I didn't know what I was doing."

You remained silent as you made your way through the last stretch of the hill and rounded the bend to park in front of the smaller, wider, traditionally-styled building that housed the hotel lobby and a few luxury shops. The bodyguard who was supposed to escort Wony inside was already waiting by her door, hands clasped together and eyes scanning everywhere.

"I'm going to ask you one last time..." you said, and turned to look at her. "Are you sure about all of this? About everything you've told me? We're getting into murky territory, darling."

"Thousand percent," Wony nodded, looking into your eyes.

You nodded back and then looked at the bodyguard, who was still waiting behind the white line that delimited the drivable area from the walkable area. You were thinking about something, seriously considering it, and if you did, there was no turning back. Maybe it was a stretch to think so, but it could be a life-changing decision.

Fuck it, you were no weakling.

"Aight, just for the record, you asked for it," you said, then reached an arm in front of her to roll down her window. The bodyguard immediately leaned when he saw you looking at him. "Good evening, Mr. Cho. Are any of these spots free?" you pointed behind him.

"Oh, yes," he nodded. "Follow my directions, please."

The bodyguard walked over the white line and stood in front of your car, then began walking backwards to guide you to an open space in front of a sedan with tinted windows.

"Uhm... what are you doing, sweetie?" Wony looked at you with a frown. "Wasn’t I supposed to...?"

"Stai zitto, amore," you said, focused on not running over Mr. Cho.

"Non voglio!" she replied back in Italian, and you laughed.

"You've been practicing huh?" you raised an eyebrow, finally parking in the spot you were told to.

"Well yeah! I want to be able to scold you in your language someday."

You pressed the touch button on the steering wheel twice to turn off both the engine and the car.

"You can do it in Japanese, and without me knowing what the fuck you're saying," you said with a smile, grabbing the car's remote to put it in a pocket of your coat.

"The point is that you know what I'm saying, baby, not the other way around."

"We'll have to work hard at the private lessons then," you winked at her, then got out of the car to walk around and open the door for Wony, offering her your hand.

"Huh? Really?" she asked, looking at your hand, her mouth agape and a cute glint in her eyes.

"You have my unconditional trust, my sweet girl," you said.

Wony looked into your eyes, blinked a few times, and took your hand to slide her legs out of the car. Then, as soon as you closed the passenger door, she stood in front of you with her hands on your chest and planted a sweet kiss on your lips, in full view of whoever was passing by at the moment or watching.

You couldn't help but smile at the boldness of that damn girl.

"Come on, let's go inside," you said, and put an arm behind her waist to hold her and walk into the lobby with her.

Upon entering, you went straight to the reception desk to check in, it was then that you were told that you were allowed to take the elevator up to the restaurant floor. Mr. Cho escorted you upstairs, and led you to a small foyer before the dining area.

“I’ll wait outside if you need anything, Mr. Leone,” he said, and then opened the double doors in front of you.

“Thank you, Mr. Cho,” you nodded, and walked past Wony into the restaurant.

The dining room was a small, elegant and refined space, with cream-colored walls decorated with subtle textured patterns and nice warm lighting provided by circular hanging metal lamps. On the other hand, the floor was covered by a beige interwoven carpet, and the tables, dressed with crisp white tablecloths, were accompanied by champagne-colored chairs with curved backs and metallic details. To your left was a mirrored wall, with a pair of decorative panels with red-to-gold gradients, and to your right, three windows separated by pillars, which provided a beautiful view of Seoul.

The other two couples that would be there that night besides you were already inside, one settled in on the left and the other on the right at the back. You didn't know the baseball player who was there since you didn't like the sport, but the model turned out to be Yoon Young Bae, who had done campaigns for Gucci and Prada in the past. Your table was the one next to hers.

If it had been another occasion and another place, you would have asked for a photo, but for the moment you only settled for a bow to both her and the rest of the people present. Then you focused on your date.

“Here, your grace,” you said, opening the chair for Wony.

“Thank you, dear,” she replied with a nod, and took a seat with her handbag on her lap. You placed your hands on her shoulders, which caught her attention and made her turn to look up at you.

“I have a surprise for you before we start,” you said.

Wony raised both eyebrows.

“Surprise? For me?” she placed a hand on her chest.

“Aha, close your eyes baby.”

Wony complied and looked straight ahead before closing her eyes. You pulled the turquoise gift box out of one of your inner pockets, placed it in front of her face, and opened it to reveal the necklace you had bought her, a Tiffany Victoria Diamond Vine worth around $150k. A huge hit to your wallet, but one you were fortunately able to afford since you had finished paying off your apartment just at the beginning of November.

"Alright, open," you said.

When Wony opened her eyes and saw the necklace she immediately gasped and brought her hands to her mouth in surprise. She turned to look at you, and then back at the necklace. And then back at you, and then back at the necklace.

"Baby, oh my f..." she was about to curse, but remembered where she was and retracted her words. "Oh my god!"

"Come on, take it," you nodded, handing the box into her hands.

Wony examined the necklace inside the box for a couple more seconds before pulling it out and setting the box on the table.

"Ezio, it's gorgeous!" she said, putting the necklace between her fingers to get a closer look at the diamonds embedded in the platinum. "It's too much, really, you didn't have to..."

"Nuh-uh," you hushed her. "Yes, I had to, it's the least you deserve, my sweet girl," you then leaned down and showered her cheek with kisses.

"Thank you, darling, I swear I don't know what to say," Wony said, still stunned, turning her face to meet your lips and give them a small kiss since the place didn't allow more, out of respect for the other diners.

"You don't have to say anything, the important thing is that you liked it."

"I love it!" she corrected you. "Would you help me?"

"Sure," you nodded.

You helped Wony change her necklace, taking off the one she already had and putting on the one you had given her instead. You stood by her side to see how it looked, and you realized that it was probably one of the best investments of your life, as the diamonds enhanced her royal aura and fit perfectly on her beautiful neck.

After helping her with the necklace and taking a couple of pictures for your personal memory, you finally took the seat on the other side of the table. A few seconds later, a waiter was with you, ready to take your order. First you ordered your starters and drinks, Hamachi Usuzukuri for you and Kumamoto Fresh Oysters for her, accompanied by a bottle of Barolo DOCG Red Wine. After about 45 minutes you moved on to the main course, and another half hour later you were eating dessert.

"So what do you have to do in the next few days?" you asked, with your Matcha Tiramisu half-eaten. "You must have the day off tomorrow, I guess."

Your entire conversation in those almost two hours had been based on her telling you all about her days at both MAMA and MMA, and how stressful it was to have to attend to all that with comeback preparations just around the corner. You also talked about your job, but no matter what you said, nothing created a worse mental burden than hers.

"Yeah tomorrow I'm free," Wony replied, looking at her Raspberry Lychee Mochi. "But this week we have the live for the IVE anniversary and the recording of a 1,2,3 IVE, with zombies."

"Zombies?" you raised an eyebrow.

Wony nodded, cutting off a small piece of mochi and popping it into her mouth while you drank your wine. The bottle was already a few fingers less than half full. She had liked it a lot more than you expected.

"Uhm, I don't really have much of an idea of ​​what we're going to do but I know we'll have helmets with cameras."

You chuckled.

"Oh, that's going to be fun," you said with a smile. "You know, watching you run around."

"That's what you say, but I'll be terrified!"

As she spoke your phone vibrated in your pocket. Checking it you saw that it was texts from Rina, and thinking it wasn't important you ignored her for the moment. But about five minutes later the phone vibrated again repeatedly. Somewhat annoyed, you pulled out your phone again to open the chat, only to let out a slight bitter groan.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Wony asked, seeing you staring at the screen with a frown. You just showed her your phone. "This has to be a joke." she said as she finished reading.

"At least she had the decency to wait until this hour," you said, and with a heavy breath you began to share a few messages with her.

"So? What are we going to do?" Wony asked, not looking at you but at the view of Seoul through the window. She definitely wasn't happy at all.

"We were going home anyway, right?" you replied. "Just that well, we'll have some company."

"Yeah, that's what I didn't want," she said, one side of her face resting on her knuckles.

"Baby," you reached across the table and took her hand. "Tomorrow I'll be all yours, all day. It'll just be this early morning."

"Can't you just tell them to go away?"

"That would be too rude of me, sweetie, I'm not like that."

"Yeah, that's why I like you this much, ugh," she rolled her eyes and finally looked at you. "But I don't want it to be a recurring thing, for real. I'll let it go this time because they're already there."

"I get it babe," you nodded. "It won't happen again."

"When I'm with you I want you to be all to myself," she said, gently squeezing your hand. "I hate sharing, and you know that."

"I know that perfectly well," you nodded again. "And you have my word."

"Alright then let's go,” she let go of your hand. “I don't want to keep them waiting so late."

"Huh? Right now?"

"Yup, let's just order this to go."

"Aight, if you say so."

You called the waiter over and asked him to give you the bill and take the rest of the desserts to take away. After about ten minutes, with everything already taken care of, you and Wony left the hotel to get in the car and head to your apartment.

On the way you couldn't think of anything else but how you were going to kill Rina as soon as you saw her. She had been acting like that ever since that night you and Isa spent together, and you understood perfectly why because you felt something similar. But she was also prone to doing that, to showing up without full notice hoping that you would make time for her. You never had a problem with it, but this was the first time it coincided with something more important.

It was partly your fault tho, and you had to admit it. That night you had let out a side of you that was probably the closest to Podrick Payne in terms of sex that you had ever been in your life. Rina had been absolutely delighted with you thanks to that, but she hadn't been the only one,; you were kinda obsessed as well, because she was bordering on the perfection of sex appeal: amazing tits, pretty ass, perfect thighs, hot tummy, face card to die for and adorably fun personality.

And on top of that, she was the purest definition of a bottom you had ever seen in your life, surpassing even Sullyoon, which in itself was a big deal.

In fact, you had a feeling that you were going to get into a big mess because of your sexual chemistry with her, but you weren't going to give it any thought at that moment.

After about 20 minutes of a quiet ride, you finally arrived at your apartment complex, parked the car in your assigned spot and went with Wony straight to the ground floor of your building. There, Rina and Aeri were waiting, sitting on the edge of the artificial mini waterfall to the left of the elevator while looking at something on Rina's phone.

"May I know why you're still wearing those clothes?" you asked, approaching, now in English because you knew that everyone there spoke it—maybe Rina a little less—, seeing that they were still in stage outfits under their hats and wide down jackets.

"Because we haven't gone home," Rina answered, standing up to walk towards the two of you with Aeri, who greeted Wony with a smile and a reciprocal hug. "We went to get something to eat because Minjeong-ah was craving something and we felt like having some fun," she switched back to Korean.

"By invading my house?" you asked, raising an eyebrow, as Wony now hugged Rina. You thanked god that they had a good relationship with each other. "You literally live alone."

"Yeah, but my apartment was further away than yours," she shrugged. "And your balcony has a better view than mine."

You sighed, and nodded for everyone to follow you to the elevator.

"Did something happen with Minjeong and Ning? It's weird that they're not here too," you said back in English, and pressed a button for the elevator to go down.

"They were both exhausted and wanted to sleep," Aeri replied behind you.

"Just like Liz," Wony said beside you, holding your hand.

"It's because they're the main vocals, and we all sing live," Rina said with a sigh.

A ding sounded and the elevator doors opened. The four of you stepped inside, Wony standing in front of you and Rina and Aeri at your sides. You pressed the button that would take you to the 28th floor, and the doors closed again.

"You sing quite a bit in all the songs too, how come you're not exhausted too?" you asked.

"Because my desire to s-... to drink was greater than my exhaustion," Rina replied, and as you turned to look at her she avoided your gaze. You had noticed what she was going to say, but you hoped Wony hadn't.

"I don't see any bottles anywhere, woman," you said upon realization. "Do you think I have a liquor store at home or what?"

"Ah, it's because we don't have a car and you do," Aeri replied. "It's easier than telling our manager to drive us."

"Then why on earth are we going up to the flat when we could have gone right now!" you yelled.

"Because we're going to change clothes, duh," Rina said.

You let out a tired sigh, closed your eyes, and leaned your head back against the wall. Wony on the other hand couldn't help but laugh.

"What a bloody pain in the ass," you whispered to yourself.

A few seconds later the elevator arrived at your floor. The doors opened, and Wony stepped ahead of the three of you to lead the way.

"Are we all going?" you asked as you made your way down the hall.

"I'll stay, sweetheart," Wony said in front of you. "I don't feel like another car ride today."

"Can I stay with her?" Aeri asked as you now took the lead since the next door was yours. "So we can cook something for the guests."

You paused with your key and gaze on the lock, then blinked a few times and took a deep breath.

"Guests?" you asked quietly, not wanting to get upset.

"It'll be a few people!" Rina said before you imploded. "We don't mean to make a fuss, really."

"And you can invite someone too, don't you have any friends?" Aeri asked.

You sighed.

"Yeah but it's 2:30 in the morning," you said, and finally opened the door to immediately find Rory and Helios waiting on the other side. "Hi babies."

"Ahhhh hi sweetie!" Rina squealed back in Korean, immediately scooping Rory into her arms as you all filed into the apartment. She was her darling.

"Girl, we're going to have to look up recipes online because I have no idea how to cook," Wony said, probably talking to Aeri as you dropped your stuff on the dining table and went to close the window blinds.

"Do you know how to chop things and turn on a stove?" Aeri asked.

"Uhu."

"Then you're useful."

"Hey, you," you pointed at Rina, who was standing in the middle of the living room with Rory still in her arms. "Hurry up and change, it's not 4 o'clock."

"Aw, I'll have to keep giving you kisses later, Rory," she said to your cat, then set her down before looking at you. "I'm going to your room."

"Ash you wish but come on," you hurried her over with a wave of your hand.

Rina, being the obedient sub that she was, hurried down the hall and into your room. You took off your coat, left it on one of the living room chairs and waited for her near the hallway exit. Ten minutes later she came out, dressed in the outfit she had worn to the awards carpet only without the bow in her hair, now loose and with pretty curls.

The two of you left the apartment and went straight to the elevator. You went in first, and as soon as you turned around, Rina surprised you by throwing her arms around your neck and crashing her lips flooragainst yours. It was then that you realized why you were really rushing her so much, because you wrapped your arms around her and kissed her back without a shred of hesitation.

After pressing the button for the ground floor, you instinctively leaned against the wall of the elevator, Rina's perfect body pressed against yours and your arms around her waist. The kiss heated up quickly, and before you knew it you were already groping each other, her hand rubbing your cock through your pants and you squeezing her firm ass cheeks through your dress. You hadn't even thought about it, it was something that came out of pure instinct.

"Would you fuck me in here daddy? Please?" she asked softly, between kisses that became more passionate and sloppy by the second and with a squeeze to your already hard bulge.

"Here and now?" you asked back, with both hands on her ass. "Are you that horny today?"

"Mhum," she nodded with a moan against your lips, unbuttoning your pants and lowering the zipper. "Very much daddy. Just looking at you makes me so horny."

"Can't you wait until later when things are hotter?" You said that, but your hands had lifted her short dress up to her waist and were now busy squeezing her soft, spongy, delicious ass cheeks.

"Aniyo, I want you now," she replied, taking your cock out from inside your boxers to stroke it. "Those three daesang don't celebrate themselves."

"Fuck, that's right," you said, pulling away from her lips for a moment to look into her eyes. "Congratulations baby."

"Thanks, but I need you to fuck me right now," she said, and kissed you again.

The make out session went on for a while longer as she pulled your pants and boxers down to mid-thigh so she could stroke your cock comfortably; as it was already throbbing too much between her fingers, you decided to grab her by the waist, turn her around and bend her against the right wall of the elevator. Just as the doors opened.

Thank god it was early in the morning and there wasn't a soul awake in your building, because that would have been the most embarrassing experience of your life.

"Oopsies," you said, and pressed the button for the top floor, the 40th.

With the doors closed again you could focus on your favorite cum slut again. Rina had her pretty cake ready for you and her hands resting on the mirror. Normally you would have yanked her panties off, but these were just too pretty, black lace with subtle embroidery and fine stitching, so you just pulled them away to her left butt cheek.

"How long has it been since you had something inside that warm pussy?" you asked, and you spit on your cock to lubricate it and rub the tip between her silky folds.

Rina turned to look at you with wide pupils and a parted mouth.

"Since the last time you fucked me daddy," she replied. "I've been a good girl."

"Not even your fingers?"

"Nothing. Only you and your cock deserve that privilege."

You smiled, and slowly took your cock inside her to admire how that gorgeous face twisted in pleasure as her folds engulfed your shaft inch by inch. When you reached the bottom both you and she moaned at the same time, and you put your hands on her hips to give her slow pumps until the friction was reduced to almost a minimum.

"Mmmm fuck," Rina moaned, biting the entire width of her bottom lip. "I missed your cock so much."

"Oh yeah?" you asked with a gasp, slipping your hand under her bunched up dress to rest on her soft lower back. "But it's only been a week, baby."

"I don't fucking care," she replied, watching as you fucked her harder and harder and made her ass cheeks jiggle. "Every second that passes without you inside me is torture."

"Such a slut huh?" you asked through clenched teeth, now with both hands on her waist under her dress.

"Mhum," she nodded with a cute moan. "Just for you daddy."

You kept up that strong but steady pace for a while, not wanting to sweat and feel uncomfortable under the sweater you were wearing. She didn't care that you weren't the absolute animal you always were with her, it was enough with the little effort you were putting in and your good use of your skills to make her cum.

But just as you reached the 40th floor and the doors opened.

"Mmmgh fuck! This thing is going to give me a heart attack!" Rina moaned between spasms and moans, cumming around your cock as you pressed the button for the second floor; you weren't going to risk getting to the ground floor and having the security guard of your building see you by chance.

"Do I have to remind you who had the idea to have sex in an elevator?" you asked as the doors closed again.

"Shut up!" she squealed back in Korean, still going through the vestiges of orgasm.

"Make me."

Feeling challenged, Rina pushed herself off the wall and grabbed the back of your neck with her right arm to crash her lips against yours. You held her against you, your left arm around her abdomen and one hand on her neck. You started fucking her faster, but not too much, just enough to hasten your own climax.

"You can't cum inside me, can you?" She asked between gasps against your lips, fingers gripping the back of your neck and looking into your eyes.

"Not if you want to be sticky down there the whole ride," you replied, lowering your arm from around her abdomen to place your hand on her pussy and rub it. "The only option is for you to swallow it."

Rina took a moment to organize her words, as between the cock in and out of her pussy and the fingers rubbing in circles she had been paralyzed with pleasure for a few seconds, her mouth half open and nothing but muffled sounds coming out of her throat.

"G-god I don't know!" she managed to say against your lips. "Just cum, I don't care where."

Perfect. That was just the trigger you needed.

You grabbed one of Rina's thighs and lifted it up to your chest, forcing her to hold herself sideways against the elevator wall. It was the moment you decided to get intense and give her pussy hard thrusts, shaking her whole body and making her tits bounce under her dress. She reached a second orgasm while you were fucking her, but she controlled herself so you could keep going. You felt yourself coming just moments later.

"On your knees baby," you said between gasps as you pulled out of her pussy.

Rina complied and got on her knees, then grabbed your cock, stuck her tongue out and masturbated you furiously with your tip pressed against her tongue. It only took a few strokes for you to explode in Rina's mouth, who let you watch as your entire load pooled on her tongue. She then took you inside her mouth and began sucking off what was left in your tank, and didn't stop until you were empty.

But what you hadn't realized was that the elevator doors were wide open. Still breathing heavily, you turned your head to look down the second floor hallway and make sure no one was watching.

"Remind me not to listen to you again," you gasped, pressing the button that would take you to the ground floor. "I'm going to get tachycardia from this."

Rina pulled you out of her mouth after swallowing your load and stood up on slightly shaky legs, adjusting her panties and pulling her dress back down.

"But it was fun wasn't it?" she asked with a giggle, as you pulled up your pants and boxers. Just then you reached the ground floor.

"Oh yeah, a fucking roller coaster ride," you replied, and grabbed her hand to finally pull her out of the elevator. She intertwined her fingers with yours.

"And you like roller coaster rides?" Rina asked, leaning forward to look at you.

"Nope."

"Mmm, and what about me?" she pointed at herself. "Do you like me?"

"More than I'd like to."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" she asked as you walked out of the building to your car.

"I guess you'll find out later," you said, and then quickly changed the subject. "Hey, we can pick up two people on the way, so I recommend you let them know so they can get ready."

"Just two?"

You pressed the button on your remote to unlock the car doors and opened your door to slide in. Rina did the same with hers.

"I don't know if you notice that my back seats are single-seaters, woman," you said, pressing the touch button on the steering wheel just once to start the car's battery. "Call. No time to waste."

"You're not inviting anyone over?" Rina asked, pulling her phone out of her handbag.

"Fuck, I forgot," you reached out to the car's dashboard to touch the touch screen of the rotary dial and turn on the car's air calefaction in order to counteract the cold outside. "In that case it would have to be just one person. And you too."

"Oh don't worry, I know who I want us to pick up."

But you didn't.

First you'd rule out the people who would definitely be with someone else. Like for example, the guys from ATEEZ and your two friends from The Boyz. You texted Mingi and then Kim Sunwoo.

After texting them both came the real dilemma. Who the fuck were you going to pick up? It had to be one damn person, which left you with quite a few options, but you had a couple already in mind. First you had to take a shot with the Taiwanese princess, who responded pretty quickly.

She responded to that last message, but you decided to ignore her on purpose. Perfect, one of the few options ruled out. Next was Sohyun, but she didn't respond, probably because she was asleep. You tried Nana, but she was asleep too. No one from NMIXX or STAYC was in the cards; both groups weren't even in Korea at the time, neither was Somi. NewJeans of course, also ruled out. That left you with the Fromis girls, and you were sure none of them would be awake by now.

Except one. But in order to catch her attention, you had to call her.

“Hi?” Jiheon answered from the other end of the line. She never failed to be just as much of a night owl as you.

“Hey, do you want me to pick you up?” you asked. “We’ll be drinking at home.”

“Ah, you know I do,” she said. “Are you with someone?”

“With Rina, I don’t know if you two have met yet. Also Wonyoung and Aeri, and more people are coming.”

“Oh! Yujinie is going?” she asked, since the two of them were close.

“I have no idea. As far as I know she went to her house tired, but you know how that girl is.”

“Aw… well, I’ll get ready. Call me when you get here.”

You then hung up and turned to look at Rina, who had also been talking on the phone at the same time as you.

"Can we go now?" you asked.

"Yep," she nodded. "Who were you talking to?"

"Jiheonie," you finally replied, starting the engine. "And you?"

"Eunbie-unnie."

"Kwon...?" you stepped on the gas and pulled out of your parking spot heading towards the dorm's exit.

"Hwang. You know, GFriend... Viv..."

"Yeah yeah, the girl whose ass you couldn't stop staring at in that challenge."

"I wasn't!-"

"Yes you were."

That left her silent, with a frown and a cute pout.

First you went to buy the alcohol, a fucking difficult task since it was a Sunday at 3 in the morning and very few liquor stores were open, but after driving around downtown Seoul for a few times you ended up finding one. You had no idea if people would bring their own alcohol, so you opted to buy everything at once, an expense that you split in half with Rina.

With that done, you headed to the address Rina had given you to pick up SinB. The short-haired woman was already waiting on the street under a streetlight, bundled up in a cream-colored jacket and white cargo pants; she was also wearing a cap and a face mask. You parked next to her, and she got in the right back seat.

"Whose idea was it?" she asked. "I was pretty comfortable in my bed."

"Whose idea do you think it was?" you asked, pulling away again, now heading to pick up Jiheon.

"The only one that makes it look like it's not 7 degrees?"

"Exactly."

"In my defense, I love this dress and wanted to show it off," Rina said.

SinB chuckled.

"Well you're going to die of hypothermia from showing off your legs and shoulders," she said.

"Then it will have been worth it."

"Slut..." you muttered in English under your breath.

"What was that?" Rina looked at you.

"Huh?" you played dumb, and she stared at you for a few seconds. "I don't know what you're looking at, I didn't say anything."

"Liar..." she muttered, but you heard her.

You arrived at the next stop only about five minutes later. You called her, and she got down a couple minutes later.

Apparently, Rina wasn't the only one who wanted to show off that night, because even though Jiheon was wearing a black and white striped sweater with a furry jacket, she was also wearing a short black skirt that showed off her delicious long legs adorned with fishnet stockings.

"Hi!" she greeted everyone as she climbed into the last available seat. She hadn't recognized SinB, and doing so nearly gave her a heart attack. "Omo omo omo. Ah! Hi! I'm a huge fan. Ah ottoke!"

"Have you really never met?" Rina asked as SinB and Jiheon greeted each other.

"No," SinB replied. "We've met at shows but always from a distance."

Jiheon nodded.

"Ah, interesting," Rina said.

"Hey, you guys like speed?" you asked, realizing that the streets were completely empty at that hour, and surely the highway you were supposed to take was too.

"No, don't even dream about it," Jiheon said immediately, already knowing your intentions.

"My pretty honey nougat, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's 3am and I want to get home."

"Ezio, there's snow on the streets," Rina told you. "They're wet. Do you want to die?"

"I don't think a $700,000 SUV is going to kill us. Chill."

"Just step on the gas," SinB said. "Come on, come on."

Jiheon put a hand on your shoulder and whined repeatedly for you not to do it, but ignoring her, you put the car into wet mode and floored the gas. She and Rina squealed in fear, but you and SinB were having a blast with the sound of the engine and the speed you were going. The really funny moment was when you entered the highway, where you had a long straightaway where you reached 150km/h in just a couple seconds. Rina was clinging to you so tightly that she was almost going to tear your arm off, and Jiheon was going to deafen you with her screams. On the other hand, you and SinB could do nothing but laugh.

When you exited the highway and were forced to slow down considerably, Rina and Jiheon shook you around with little bumps, pushes, and scoldings. They could be as upset as they wanted, but you were sure that you had cut at least half of the 10-minute trip.

"Open the damn doors before I kill you," Jiheon said behind you as you parked the car in your spot and turned off the engine.

"Oh, they were already open," you said after checking.

"Did we do that damn race without the locks on?!" Rina shrieked to your right, then opened her door. “Oh my god!”

You shrugged.

“I didn’t know,” you said, and Jiheon pulled your ear. “Ouch!”

SinB opened her door and got out, followed by the other two.

“Hey! It was fun!” SinB came to your defense, still giggling.

You got out, closed your door, and headed straight to the trunk.

“Unnie! Don’t defend him!” Jiheon shrieked to your left, arms crossed as you put down the bags of bottles. You handed her one to carry, and she didn’t object despite being angry. “He did it completely on purpose just to give us a hard time!”

“Yeah! Look at him smiling!” Rina protested to your right. You handed her a bag as well.

“Wah, are they always this whiny?” SinB asked behind you as you closed the trunk and handed her a bag. You grabbed the only one left.

"One is worse than the other. I won't say who. Come on."

"I'm not whiny!" Rina and Jiheon protested at the same time, causing you and SinB to burst out laughing.

You entered your building and headed straight for the elevator. At that moment your gaze happened to go to the floor, and you noticed that near the right wall of the elevator there was a stain that looked like...

You immediately stood on top of it so that no one else could see it. You locked eyes with Rina, and from the way she looked back at you, she had noticed it too, and had to make an inhuman effort to hold back her laughter.

As you walked up to your apartment the aroma of freshly made food greeted you. Wony and Aeri were both in the kitchen, going back and forth chopping, frying, and roasting ingredients. They already had appetizers made, including a bowl full of Caprese, which was basically tomato, fresh mozzarella, and basil. The idea had been Wony's, who told you that they had looked up Italian recipes online for the things they were going to cook. You were grateful for the detail, but something told you that Aeri had something to do with it, probably as compensation for invading your house without full notice at 2 in the morning.

The guests started arriving not long after. First came the boys from ATEEZ, and then Sunwoo and Juyeon. To your surprise Yujin came too, and Aeri's guests were a guy you didn't know and Yunjin from Lesserafim, a girl with whom you had only shared a few words every time you had met her.

You were glad that the 'party' had turned out as Rina and Aeri had promised: healthy fun without fuss, which wasn't too difficult considering the number of people there.

At first, everyone was with their own little group. You and Wony were of course together all the time, and you were joined from time to time by Aeri and Rina along with SinB, Yunjin and the other guy who you later found out was called Haon and was a rapper. Jiheon and Yujin, being as close as they were, were also like two peas in a pod, primarily talking to the guys from Ateez and The Boyz.

But as divided as you all were, from a certain point in the early morning the group started to become more and more homogeneous, until finally you all started talking, laughing, and drinking together. You had a great time, and luckily for you, you knew Wony had too, despite having seemed unhappy a few hours ago.

Your calculations regarding the amount of alcohol you bought turned out to be incorrect, as many of them had a fairly low resistance to alcohol and had gotten drunk faster than you expected (Jiheon was the first to fall, to no one's surprise). This led to you being left with about 3 bottles of vodka and two bottles of whiskey unopened on the table. You weren't much of a drinker on your own, so you ended up telling the guys to take everything home.

By 8am everyone was gone, leaving only you, Wony, Rina and Aeri, lying on the couch staring at the ceiling. You were all drunk—maybe Rina and Aeri a little more so—not to the point of vomiting in every corner of the house and stumbling around everywhere, but you still knew that the four of you were dizzy.

"Great, I just needed to mess up my bloody sleep schedule again," you said, lying with your hands on your chest on the right wing of the couch, which also functioned as a bed. You had your head resting on one of Wony's thighs, and she was leaning against the wall with her legs spread out between the backrest and Rina's body.

"And we have a trip tomorrow," Rina said, staring blankly at the ceiling. "I don't think this was the most responsible thing to do."

"Oh, you think so?" you asked sarcastically.

"Hey, can you please understand me? I won't have any days off for like two weeks!"

"You know, I just find it funny that you're the two oldest in your group and at the same time the most reckless," Wony said with a giggle, caressing your hair.

"Oh mind your own business, little princess," Aeri said from the other side of the couch. She was lying face down, her dress rolled up to her thighs to highlight her ass.

"But don't be mad at me!" Wony said, still between tipsy giggles. "It's not like I'm lying."

"You're the prettiest and most elegant in your group and who knows how many times you've choked on your boyfriend's cock. That’s worst"

Yikes. Now that was a counterattack.

Flabbergasted, you kept your gaze on the ceiling. You could only hear a discreet laugh from Rina.

"I do it all the time and I love it, so what? You try to put me on the ropes bitch?" Wony asked.

Aeri let out a giggle.

"I certainly wouldn't mind tying you up with ropes," she said. "That would be hot."

"Weren't you mad at me a second ago?!"

"I'm still here, just so you know," you said.

"Oh yeah, right," Aeri looked at you. "Tell me something, Ezio, do you like Japanese cake?"

"Ah... the cheesecake that's fluffy and tasty?" you asked, genuinely clueless about the true intent of the question.

"Wah, I love Japanese cheesecake," Rina added. "It's like eating a marshmallow."

"Hey! I was just talking to you!" Wony protested, and threw a pillow at Aeri that went over her and fell into the dining room.

"Nuh uh, I'll ask you again, and look at me," Aeri said, and you turned your head to look at her. "You like Japanese cake?"

As she asked that, she grabbed the dress and pulled it up over her waist, revealing her tasty bubble butt adorned by a burgundy thong.

"Ahhh! Don't look!" Wony squealed, and covered your eyes with both hands, but you had already seen what you needed to see.

You heard Aeri giggle.

"I'm just kidding, princess," she said. "No need to get worked up. Or are you afraid he'll get a boner from my ass?"

Wony wasn't blocking your view properly, so you could still see that wonderful ass perfectly. In that state it was impossible for you to control what you thought, and the inevitable happened.

"Ah, he already has it, look," you heard Rina say, and when Wony removed her hands from in front of your face, you saw Rina pointing at the hard bulge in your pants, which Aeri was staring at.

"That's only because it was a dirty move!" Wony protested. "You're such a slut!"

"Better not say it too much, because I'm starting to believe it and get horny," Aeri said with a giggle.

"He's my boyfriend!" Wony crossed her thighs around your head, in a fit of pure possessive instinct that felt like heaven. "Mine!"

"Well, girl," Aeri stood up, and with her dress still bunched up around her waist, went to sit on the edge of the end of the couch, right between your feet. The dress she was wearing left very little to the imagination, with that bare straight back that could drive the sanest man crazy, and her ass looked amazing in that thong and position, she just had to... take off the dress, which she did. "I know he's yours," Aeri looked over her shoulder at your bulge and bit her bottom lip. "But that cock is staring me right in the eyes."

Wony had to have been stunned by Aeri's sudden, bold move as well, as she didn't say a single word or move a single muscle.

"Don't talk about his cock or I'll get horny too," you heard Rina say to your left. "Every time I think about it I want it inside me."

"My god! You two are a couple of whores!" Wony squealed, releasing your head from between her thighs. "A couple of whores with... nice asses and nice tits."

"Both," you added.

"You shut up!" Wony slapped your forehead, startling you.

"Oh, you like us, don't you?" Aeri asked, and then she turned around and climbed onto her knees at the edge of the couch so you and Wony could admire her pair of round, nice, firm, perfectly sized tits.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw that Rina couldn't help but follow Aeri's lead and was taking off her dress, under which, just like Aeri, she was only wearing panties and no bra.

"I didn't say that!" Wony said, and as you looked up at her you noticed that her eyes couldn't stop staring at Rina and Aeri's bodies. "I just said that..."

She trailed off, and as you looked back up at the front you realized why. Aeri had crawled up on top of you, her hands on either side of your head and her knees on either side of your hips. That pair of breasts were right above your face, tempting inches away that you didn't dare to shorten just yet.

"What did you say, Vicky?" Aeri asked with a giggle, looking at Wony from very close, ignoring you despite having you underneath her. "Because I remember you said I was a slut."

Rina, half naked like Aeri, straddled Wony's calf with two hands above her knee, just watching her like a cat did with its prey.

"Y-yeah, because that's what you are..." Wony glanced at Rina out of the corner of her eye. "Both of you."

"I told you not to call me that or I would take it seriously," Aeri replied, and put a hand on your chest to bring her face so close to Wony's that you thought she was going to kiss her. "Come on, say it again."

"Slut!" Wony repeated instantly, without a hint of hesitation. But the tone she used sounded like a challenge to you.

"Fuck, I am," Aeri moaned, then giggled as she moved her hand down from your chest to your bulge to squeeze it without Wony noticing. "Again."

"Me, me, tell me," Rina said, now settling herself closer to Wony's knee.

Aeri was massaging your cock over your pants, making it throb with each deep squeeze. You didn't want to stay still, so you discreetly moved your hand up to her crotch to rub her pussy over her panties.

"You are the biggest slut!" Wony said now looking at Rina. "You fuck my boyfriend all the time!"

"Oh yeah and I fucking love it when he fills my pussy," Rina moaned, now adjusting herself on Wony's thigh. From the slight movements it seemed like she was rubbing herself against her. "You don't?"

You heard another moan, but this one was from Wony. Looking up you noticed that Rina had pulled her dress down, and now had her pair of cute little tits free.

"Y-yes I do..." Wony replied with a gasp. "Can we suck his cock already or...?"

"Nuh-uh, you're going to kiss me first," Aeri said, and then kissed Wony right above you.

Rina took the opportunity to wrap her arms around Wony's waist and dive into her neck with kisses, as she and Aeri kissed like they had been lusting after each other all night. And you, seeing that things had already gotten out of hand without you even having to intervene, finally leaned up on your elbows to take one of Aeri's tits into your mouth.

You had no angle of vision to know what was happening behind you, you could only hear muffled moans, fabric being manipulated and kiss after kiss. Aeri was trying to unbutton your pants with one hand, but noticing her inability you had to help her. Then when you took off your shoes, pants and boxers, she grabbed your cock with a reverse grip and rubbed it slowly.

Aeri's tits remained your focus for another long seconds; you moved between each mound, sucking and licking her cute nipples with your hands on her waist. A moment later Aeri moved away from Wony and lowered her body to straddle your abdomen. You were then able to turn to see what was happening behind you.

Wony was no longer wearing her dress, and like Aeri and Rina, she was only in her panties as she kissed and groped Rina, who was sitting on her lap with her hands around her neck. You didn't know how to feel about it, but your current state of mind only made the scene turn you on twice as much.

"Hey, I exist too," you called out to both of them, as Aeri climbed off your abdomen and went to settle on her knees between your outstretched legs. Now she was able to get a good grip on your cock and stroke it slightly faster.

"Hmm, sorry daddy," Rina said, breaking away from Wony's lips. "Her lips are too fluffy and delicious."

She made to lean in to kiss you, but Wony quickly put her hand between both of them.

"No!" she stopped Rina. "I'm not letting you kiss him, whore! That privilege is mine!"

"But I just kissed you!" Rina protested. "What's the difference?!"

"I just said no!"

"Shut the fuck up both of you and come suck my cock," you said.

"Yes daddy!" they both said at the same time, completely forgetting about their argument.

There wasn't room for the four of you on the couch together, at least not for what you wanted to do, so you told them to go to the bedroom. There were your two cats in there, which you dragged out to make room on the bed. You got in first, piling the pillows up in the middle so you could lay down with your head propped up. It was then that they joined you, Rina on your left, Wony on your right, and Aeri on her hands and knees between your legs.

Rina and Wony had their backs to you, lying on their sides with their faces on either side of your cock and their elbows resting on top of your abdomen. The first to take you into her mouth was Aeri, with slow sucks halfway down your shaft while Wony and Rina kissed the sides of your base, licking the sides every time Aeri moved up. With Wony it wasn't necessary since she still had her hair in the bun, but with Rina you brushed her hair back just to delight in that double view. Cute backs drove you crazy, and if that wasn't enough, their asses were just as cute.

"Fuck, it almost fit in my mouth," Aeri gasped, stroking your tip with her fingers in a ring, while you caressed Wony and Rina's lower backs. "Just the way I love it."

"The first time I was unable to take it all," Rina said, kissing and licking along with Wony every corner of your cock.

"Ha! I've always been able to take it down my throat without any effort," Wony said.

"Oh yeah? Then do it," Aeri goaded, and slapped Wony's face a couple of times with your cock. "Be a good girl."

Wony didn't hesitate and grabbed your cock and took it straight into her mouth. Unlike when she gave you head in the car, she was now true to her skills and gave you a sloppy blowjob, with plenty of saliva built up from the start. Rina and Aeri meanwhile sucked your balls, and you groped Wony and Rina's asses.

After a few seconds she put her hands on your thighs and lowered her mouth to the base of your cock in one smooth motion, taking every inch without a hint of gag reflex to let your tip rest against her throat for a while.

"Damn, you got a fucking talent for it huh?" Aeri said, as Wony slowly twisted her head from side to side with your cock stuck in her throat, something she did just to show off.

Wony pulled you out of her throat a couple seconds later, her breathing completely steady but her mouth full of saliva and connected to your cock by slimy threads. She stroked you quickly.

"Come on, I fucking challenge you two bitches," she said, looking at Aeri and Rina. "I bet you can't even hold it in for five seconds."

"Bet," Rina and Aeri said.

Again, they were pretending you didn't exist and were just an NPC with a usable cock. You didn't mind tho, and it wasn't like you would care when you were drunk.

Rina was the first to make her attempt. You knew she wasn't bad at it; she gave excellent blowjobs, but deepthroats were perhaps her only weak point in general. She grabbed you by the base, caught your cock between her lips and slowly lowered them down until you were in her throat. One... two...—first gag—, three—she coughed against your cock and pulled back with labored breathing.

"Ha! One out," Wony said with a smug little smile on her face. "Come on Uchinaga, you fucking gorgeous packed up whore."

"Fuck, I'm going to lose this shit..." she muttered, already accepting her fate.

Aeri took her shot, first flipping all her pink hair to the side and then grabbing your cock and plunging her mouth in. The outlook didn't look too hopeful for her, since halfway through she seemed to have a hard time taking you, but to your surprise she did reach the bottom. One... two... three...—first gags, Wony worried—, four... and just as the five seconds were about to pass, a huge gag reflex made her take you out of her mouth.

"I won!" Wony said, the cocky grin back on her face. "Ha! You can't beat me on that, sluts."

"Without preparation it's cheating, bitch," Aeri said, wiping the saliva off her chin with the back of her hand and side looking at her.

"I don't care, it's time for me to choose my prize!"

"Do you win a contest that you organised yourself and also choose your own prize?" Rina asked.

"You're right!" Wony replied, and got on her knees to cup Rina's face in her hands, give her a little kiss and then look at you. "My prize will be daddy eating my pussy and fucking me first!"

"But!-" Rina tried to protest, but Wony held up a finger.

"Nuh-uh, you didn't win the contest, refrain from protesting Miss Yoo."

Quite a comedian when she was drunk, and above all, a whore.

Wony then straddled you right on your chest, slowly slipped her hand into your hair to tangle her fingers there, and then raised her hips to pull you towards her pussy. You immediately ate her out like she was a three-star Michelin dish, making her moan and grind her hips against your face.

Aeri and Rina, without much other option, both focused on your cock, in a combined action in which they both sucked you off in the most messy and frantic way they could. You moaned against Wony's pussy, and she loved it. She let you know that by the little tugs she gave to your hair every few seconds.

You moved your hands up to hold Wony's small waist, and from there you moved up her back until you reached her tits, whose nipples you pinched in between light squeezes. Then you moved one of your hands up to her mouth, and brought two fingers inside for her to suck on while you attacked her clit with the tip of your tongue.

Aeri and Rina were going crazy on your cock. You couldn't see what they were doing, but their tongues felt amazing. It led you to moan more and more, and to breathe heavily against Wony's pussy, which led her to cum in your mouth.

"Mmmgh fuck!" she moaned between cute little spasms on top of you. "Can I ride you daddy?"

"Oh, now you ask?" you asked. "I thought you had forgotten that I have an opinion."

"I know you're always gonna say yes to everything, but consent is important daddy," she said, and took your hand to give the back of it a peck.

With this done, Wony got off your chest and turned to look at the girls.

"Get off his cock bitches, time for his girlfriend to ride him."

Rina and Aeri were diligent and moved away from your cock to give Wony room, who mounted you with her knees on either side of your waist and raised her hips to grab your shaft, aligning it with her pussy and slowly impaling herself on it with a long moan of satisfaction that made her face look like a work of art.

Wony left her hands on your chest, looked into your eyes and began to move her hips up and down, taking your cock in and out of her suffocating pussy. Rina positioned herself on the right, on her knees and facing Wony, to grab her chin and kiss her. Aeri approached you from the left, and got on her hands and knees to kiss you without Wony noticing.

"Would you mind lending me your face as a seat, love?" she asked after that brief taste of your lips.

"Whenever you want," you replied between gasps, as Wony was now bouncing faster on your cock.

Aeri stood up and positioned herself above your face, with her knees snug against the sides of your chest and her calves on top of your arms. She then lowered her hips, and pressed her pussy against your mouth for you to eat. You immediately grabbed her ass, delighted with how soft and round her buttocks were between your fingers. She moaned, but just seconds later those moans were muffled against Wony's lips.

You reached out with your right arm and without looking you reached for Rina's cute ass, which you groped while you ate Aeri's pussy and ass equally. Now you could hear Wony's moans loud and clear, and looking up you realized it was because Aeri and Rina were kissing and licking her tits while she bounced on your cock with her hands on your abdomen.

"Mmmgh fuck fuck fuck!" she moaned, fingers digging into your belly. "I'm gonna... I'm gonna... Fuck!!"

Wony sank down with a sudden thud to your pelvis and ground herself against you, spasms making her pussy walls throb around you. You continued to fully engage Aeri's pussy and ass, licking between her wet pink folds and butthole until she raised her hips.

"Alright get off bitch, my fucking turn," Aeri said to Wony. "You give Rina a good time."

"Yeah, come eat my pussy baby," Rina moaned, and grabbed Wony by the back of the neck to pull her off your cock, make her lay down together and make out beside you.

That left you 'alone' with Aeri, who only had to crawl down your body until her ass was positioned above your cock, which you grabbed and pressed against her pussy so that she only had to move her hips down and make your shaft slowly disappear between those glorious ass cheeks.

"Oh fuck," Aeri growled, her ass resting against your pelvis. She looked at you over her shoulder. "You like the view, baby?" She asked with a giggle.

"I very much fucking love it," you said, giving her right ass cheek a firm squeeze and then a spank to get her bobbing up and down.

Beside you, Wony and Rina were in the middle of a hot make out session, with the taller girl on top of the most bottom girl you knew. Rina was spread legged, and Wony had two fingers pumping in and out of her pussy. Again, you didn't know how to feel about it, you just knew it was hot as fuck.

Aeri was moving like a fucking demon on your cock, giving you quite the show of how to properly ride a cock in that position. It was hypnotic to watch her ass go back and forth, and her long pink hair run down her pale back. She kept going for about a minute more of you spanking her ass several times, until she planted her feet on the mattress and started squatting up and down on you, slamming hard against your pelvis.

To your right, Wony went from fingering Rina to being between her legs eating her pussy. Rina had one hand on the back of Wony's head, and the other was playing with one of her own tits, squeezing it and pinching her nipple between moans. Wony was apparently amazing at eating pussy too, as Rina's moans were almost as loud as Aeri's.

On the other hand, Aeri's ass, as massive and firm as it was, was almost taking your breath away with every crash against your body, but she didn't notice either because she was too horny or because the alcohol in her system didn't let her notice. The solution was pretty simple: grab her by the waist and push her off your cock, have her lie face down on the left side of the bed and get back inside her in that prone bone position.

"Mmm yeah daddy be fucking hard on me," she moaned, one side of her face buried against one of your pillows. You brushed her hair back and placed it in front of her right shoulder, so you could put your hand on the back of her neck and fuck her as hard as she wanted.

Fucking Aeri Uchinaga in that specific position felt like a luxury. Her ass looked amazing, jiggling with every thrust and quick spank you gave her. At one point you leaned forward and placed your fists on either side of her shoulders, pushing your cock hard up and down, then you stood up straight again, grabbing onto her waist to make her lift her ass slightly and pulling it towards you every time you pushed forward. What this created was absolute madness for Aeri, who moaned, screamed and groaned into the pillow until with a thud to the mattress, she came hugging the pillow.

You slowly fucked her through her orgasm, caressing her back and shoulders. To your left Rina was going down the same road. Wony was still eating her pussy, but now she was also fingering her at the same time. Rina's face reddened, twisted, and finally froze as he came in Wony's mouth as well.

"Daddy," Wony called to you, pumping two fingers in and out of Rina as she writhed in pleasure. "Come and fuck her, I want to see her being overstimulated."

Without hesitation you pulled out of Aeri's pussy and went to take Wony's place between Rina's legs. She looked into your eyes and then at your cock, well knowing what you were going to do. You didn't make her wait: you quickly grabbed your cock, and still soaked in Aeri's fluids, you took it inside Rina.

"Mmmgh wait wait wait!" Rina squealed with a hand on your abdomen, twisting her hips as your cock slid easily into her still sensitive pussy.

"Shut up and take daddy's cock," Wony ordered, lying down on your right with her face next to Rina's.

Rina brought her hand to her mouth to muffle her whimpers the moment you started pumping back and forth. At least you had the mercy to not go hard at first just to not make it too unbearable for her, but that was only a brief five seconds after which you went faster and faster.

“At least kiss me daddy… c-can you?” Rina asked looking into your eyes, her tits bouncing from your thrusts.

“No!” Wony immediately replied in your place.

“Pleaseee!!” Rina whimpered again, squeezing her tits as her eyes became teary. It was quite a deal for her not to be able to kiss you during sex – she was just too used to you spoiling her.

“I said no!” Wony repeated, and cupped the side of Rina’s face so she could see her. “Kiss me instead you little slut.”

Rina did so, muffling cute moans against Wony's lips while you had your hands on her thighs to keep her legs spread wide. Aeri had already recovered from her recent orgasm, and moved to get between Wony's legs and eat her pussy while she maked out with Rina.

Wony pulled away from Rina's lips and looked at Aeri with her mouth half open between gasps.

"It's about time you ate me out, Uchinaga," Wony moaned, entwining her fingers between strands of pink hair.

"Were you craving for it?" Aeri asked, licking between her folds and then her clit.

"Since I saw you making those faces while riding my boyfriend's cock," Wony replied.

You meanwhile continued to fuck Rina as hard as you could, squeezing her tits, her neck and making her suck on your fingers. She came within seconds, but you ignored her body's signals and kept going until you brought her legs together, pressed them against her body and held them with yours to now fuck her in a matting press.

"Are you gonna fill my pussy daddy?" Rina asked between moans, looking into your eyes as you hammered her pussy up and down. "Please do it... I need it! I need it so bad daddy!"

"Are you gonna cum again for me if I do baby?" you asked between gasps.

"Yes! I'll do whatever you ask daddy, anything!" she replied.

Your climax was just around the corner, it only took a few downward thrusts when you felt the tingle run down your cock.

"Then fucking cum, slut," you growled, and then exploded inside her.

Rina moaned in ecstasy as she felt your cock throbbing and shooting out jet after jet of cum inside her, and instantly she came too, her body shaking and her moans sweetening your ears. You continued to pump slowly, making sure to leave every drop inside her without any waste. She loved every second of it; it was what drove her craziest by far. She had to earn her nickname from somewhere.

To your right Aeri had stopped eating Wony out and was now on top of her, kissing her and rubbing her pussy in circles. You pulled out of Rina's pussy and looked at them.

"Hey, clean up, what are you waiting for?" you said, pointing at Rina's cum dripping pussy.

Aeri looked up, looked between Rina's legs and went there, pushing you out of the way. Wony followed her, and the two of them took turns cleaning your cum from Rina's pussy. You laid down on the pillows, leaning against the headboard between heavy breaths to rest.

Aeri and Wony looked up at you, and with cum pooling in their mouths, they shared a sloppy kiss that spilled your load over their jaws and onto the sheets below. They didn't stop until they shared every drop of thick liquid and were both clean and herself.

"Now that I think about it... there's one thing I do beat you at," Aeri said to Wony with a giggle, both of them sitting on their knees in front of Rina's spread legs.

Wony frowned and looked at her as if she was insane.

"Huh, at what?" Wony asked.

Aeri then looked at you, and crawled past Rina until she was between your legs, lowering her face and licking your cock from balls to tip. She then moved up to align her face with yours.

"Wanna fuck my ass daddy?" she asked, caressing the back of your cock until it was hard again.

"What?" Wony quickly crawled over to you, tripping over Rina on her way to your side. "N-No! You can do me too!"

Aeri giggled as she saw that Wony had fallen for her trap.

"Really, Vicky?" Aeri turned to look at her. "You don't look like you've ever tried to get fucked in the ass, have you?"

"W-well..." Wony avoided her gaze.

"No, right?"

Wony snorted.

"No! But I can try and I know my boyfriend is going to love it!"

Aeri then looked at you and raised an eyebrow.

"You hear that baby?" she asked. "The little princess wants your cock in her ass."

"Get the lube then," you said, nodding towards the nightstand to the right of the bed.

Aeri moved to get it, but Wony just stared at you with a scowl.

"Huh? What do you have that for?! Who are you fucking in the ass other than me?"

You didn't know how to tell her all the girls who had passed by that bed and been fucked in the ass.

"Yujinie loves it," you replied.

"Ugh!" she slammed her fist into her thigh. "That bitch!"

Aeri came back to you, with a bottle of lube that was almost gone but you knew would be enough for the night.

"Get on all fours, pretty girl," Aeri told Wony, and she complied.

"What are you going to do?" Wony asked, getting on her hands and knees on the right side of the bed, her ass facing you.

"I'm gonna get you ready."

Aeri sat on her knees beside her, opened the bottle of lube, and looked at you.

"You don't mind getting the sheets dirty?" she asked.

"I don't fucking care at this point," you shrugged and shook your head.

"Great."

Aeri then focused on her self-assigned task. She poured lube on each of Wony's ass cheeks, spreading it around until each one was a shiny pearl. She then moved on to her butthole, which she treated with the utmost care even as she stuck two of her fingers in there just to stretch it out a bit.

"Fuck..." Wony gasped, looking over her shoulder. "I-is that it?"

"It's perfect," Aeri said, and gave Wony a smack that made some lube splatter. She then looked at you. "All yours."

You moved on, going to kneel behind Wony. She looked at you with adorable little eyes, wanting you to be as careful with her as possible. Of course you would be. She was your sweet girl after all. Your princess to take care of and pamper. You would never be able to hurt her, not even accidentally.

"I just need you to relax, sweetie, okay?" you asked, one hand running up and down her back. She just nodded. "And let that hair down, I want something to pull on."

Wony complied and brought a hand to her bun to pull it free, freeing her wavy, shiny brown hair to fall down her back and in front of her shoulders. She also spread her knees further out to the sides, leaving her ass at a perfect level for you. Your cock was already hard again, and you brought it to her butthole to press slowly forward, as carefully as you could.

"Hey, don't tense up girl," Aeri said from your left. She had been applying the same treatment to herself as she did to Wony. "It'll be harder for you."

"I'm trying!" Wony protested, gripping the sheets with her fingers as you barely got your tip inside. She took a deep breath, and you saw her relax her hands. "Come on baby, you keep going."

You pushed forward a little more insistently, slowly taking every inch of throbbing flesh inside that tight butthole. There were a few hiccups, as was usual when someone did that for the first time, but a minute later you were fully inside her, suffocated by those tight walls.

"So? How does it feel?" Aeri asked, getting on her hands and knees beside Wony. Her wonderfully lubed up ass was a bit of a distraction, but you had to focus on your girl.

"It feels..." Wony closed her eyes, gasped, and buried her forehead into the mattress with her arms outstretched. "Baby, move."

You placed your hands on her buttocks and pulled back, slowly bringing your cock out and then pushing forward again. Wony let out a sensual moan as you repeated the same thing several times.

"Oh yeah it feels fucking wonderful," she moaned, and turned her face to face Aeri with a frown of pleasure.

"Wait until it gets intense then," Aeri replied with a giggle. "Cumming like that feels quite different."

As the seconds passed Wony became more comfortable, allowing you to go harder and faster. Wony loved every moment of it, and you were immensely happy about it, as her ass felt amazing. Aeri should be proud, for she had created a potential monster, both in you and Wony.

Wony's ass was your little toy for a while. You were fucking her hard, mercilessly, making your pelvis and ass make a sexual cacophony of clashing and wet sounds. Her hair and waist were your grip points at all times, one you pulled back in a fistful, and the other you held tight, not wanting her to slip away.

You would have kept going until she came, but to your left a delicious Japanese cake waited, glistening in the light of your room. Aeri watched as you fucked Wony in full attention, and bit her lower lip waiting for her turn. The moment you turned to look at her she just happened to meet your eyes, and you simply weren't going to say no to that look.

"I'll be back with you in a second, my sweet girl," you told Wony, and carefully pulled your cock out of her.

"Nooo!" Wony whimpered. "Fuck only me!"

"Don't be selfish, bitch," Aeri said as you positioned yourself behind her. "If it weren't for me you wouldn't have found out that you love that."

You repeated the process with Aeri, one hand on one of her buttocks as you brought your cock into her ass. The experience she had was evident, as your shaft slid inside with relative ease without her even wincing in pain. All that was visible on her face was pleasure; pure ecstasy released in a moan when you reached the bottom.

"Fuck," Aeri gasped, biting her bottom lip. "You really want to gatekeep that cock Vicky? How inconsiderate of you."

"Yeah, because it's mine," Wony replied.

"And why is it inside my ass?" Aeri teased with a giggle.

Any desire to tease Wony disappeared the moment you started moving your hips and fucking her hard, making her ass cheeks jiggle with each thrust. Your hands went to her waist, then up her back until you reached the nape of her neck and pushed her face into the mattress. Aeri kept her ass raised, perfect for you to plant your feet on the mattress and drill her butthole up and down.

After another while you went back to Wony, fucking her the same way you did Aeri: hand on the back of her head, face against the mattress and ass raised for your hammering. She came a little less than a minute later, with an aggressiveness that denoted that she was a first timer being fucked in the ass.

"Oh fuck!!" Wony screamed into the sheets, wrinkling them and twisting her hips. "Fuck it does feel quite different! God!"

As Wony's orgasm wore off you now moved to Aeri, but you had a different idea of ​​how to go about it with her. From being on her hands and knees you now rolled her onto her side with her legs drawn up. As you moved back into her ass you moaned, since it felt twice as tight and warm in that position.

"Mmm, are you gonna fill my tight little ass daddy?" Aeri said, looking into your eyes with her head tilted as you picked up the pace. She had her pink hair all messy, with strands sticking to her face from sweat.

"Every fucking corner of it," you replied between gasps, one hand squeezing one of her tits and the other gripping her waist.

"Then fucking do it, mmmgh!" she moaned, holding onto your left forearm and with her hand on top of yours on her breast.

You moved your hand from her breast to her neck, and pressed your fingers there to get really intense with your thrusts. The bed shook as if an earthquake was happening, so strong that one of the pillows on the edge fell to the floor. Aeri tried to scream in pleasure, but the obstruction on her neck by your fingers prevented her from doing so. Her face turned red, and her hands went to hold on to your wrist until she came. You fucked her despite her spasms, but not for too long, because it only took a couple of seconds for you to explode inside that wonderful round ass.

"Oh my god!" you groaned, unloading every thick drop of cum inside the ass of the hottest Japanese girl in the entire industry.

"Oh yeah put it all in!" Aeri squealed as you loosened your grip on her neck. "Fill my ass daddy, fill it like a fucking cum dump!"

Aeri looked too fucking gorgeous with her face twisted in pleasure, mouth parted and hair messy, but if you leaned forward to kiss her you were probably going to sleep on the couch with Helios and Rory. You just grabbed her face and made her look into your eyes, then stuck your fingers in her mouth and had her suck on them as both of your orgasms passed.

Seconds later you pulled very slowly out of Aeri's ass, letting your cum spill out in several rivers that fell straight onto the sheet. But making her star appearance after a while of lethargy, Yoo Jimin came back to life and stuck her head between your knees and Aeri's ass to collect your cum from her butthole without even a fuss.

"And there's my fucking cum slut," you panted, sitting on your own ankles as Rina ate Aeri's ass and ate your cum.

"Mmm yeah," Rina nodded, wiping her chin once finished, and knelt up beside you to lick the entire side of your face. "And your cum slut wants to ride you."

"I just filled your groupmate's ass, honey," you said with your breath still uneasy, turning to look at her. "Can I have a little break?"

"You can have the break by eating my pussy," she replied, making eyes at you. "I don't deserve it?"

"Are you seriously going to manipulate me?" you raised an eyebrow.

"Does it work?"

"Yes," you said, and grabbed her waist to lay her down with her head between two pillows. "You're unbearable."

"You're obsessed with me and it burns you to say it," Rina told you, as you spread her legs and laid face down with your face in front of her pussy.

"It's funny you say that, Miss 'fuck me in the elevator because I'm so needy, daddy'."

"Huh?!" you heard Wony say, but in order not to be hung up by the balls, you decided to ignore her and plant your mouth on Rina's pussy.

Rina moaned and moved her hand directly to your hair to tangle her fingers there. With Rina's thighs on your shoulders you moved your hands up as well, to grab her tits and massage them as you tasted that delicious pussy that you were certainly—and very dangerously—obsessed with. You didn't take long there, just long enough until your cock was ready again.

"Come on and ride me then, slut," you murmured, and gave her pussy a peck before laying down beside her.

She quickly stood up and straddled you, grabbing your still wet cock and bringing it into her spit-soaked pussy to fully impale herself on every inch of your shaft. Without a doubt, that was one of your favorite sights in the world: Rina on top of you, with your cock disappeared behind her perfect belly like magic. And those tits, fuck, those fucking tits. You needed them in your mouth.

You grabbed her waist and pulled her towards you, wrapping your arms around her body and smothering yourself between her tits. Rina moaned and began to move up and down on your cock, with a certain speed and neediness already from the start. You ate each breast between gasps, covering them with kisses, licking them, sucking them and taking as much of them as you could inside your mouth. It drove her crazy, and she translated it into killer hip movements that drove you crazy.

A new weight to your right on the bed made you open your eyes. It was Wony, lying next to you and with her legs open for Aeri, who was eating her pussy with a good part of her hair covering her face. Something impractical, but considering how horny she was, it didn't surprise you.

Wony grabbed your face and made you move away from Rina's tits to kiss her. You didn't refuse, and you tasted her lips in a kiss full of passion and saliva. Something told you that Rina was a little jealous, because she was whimpering more than usual and quickly jumping on your cock to somehow get your attention.

"I want you to kiss me! Ugh!" Rina whined when you didn't turn to look at her. "Please!" she dug her nails into your chest, just to poke you a little.

"I already told you no, whore!" Wony said, pulling away from the kiss to slap one of Rina's tits.

Rina moaned, and went slower but harder and deeper on your cock. Wony repeated the slap, now on her other breast to make it bounce. Several slaps later, Rina's pale tits were red as apples. That left her too stunned to move properly, so you took the reins and planted your feet on the bed to grab her waist and fuck her hard, thrusting down and up.

Unable to find relief from you for her need for kisses, Rina collapsed forward and crashed her lips against Wony's, covering your face with her long red hair as you continued to hammer her pussy. She muffled moans and screams against Wony's lips, who also moaned against hers. Within seconds Rina came, shaking on top of you as if she was being electrocuted. Your only response was to grab her ass and spank both of her ass cheeks at the same time to make her squeal out between her moans.

"Alright bitch, enough," Wony said, pushing Rina off of you. "My boyfriend is going to give me his last load, as it should be."

You knelt up and went between Wony's legs. Aeri had already moved away for you, and laid down on Wony's left. Rina laid down on the opposite side, and as you took your cock inside your girlfriend, Aeri and Rina each took one of Wony's tits into their mouths to kiss and suck on.

As you picked up the pace and gave Wony hard thrusts, the other two demons got wilder and wilder. The main focus remained on Wony's tits, but then Aeri moved to her long neck to kiss it, and Rina settled in to specifically lick and kiss her abdomen. All together, it elicited cute whimpers and angelic moans from Wony, which filled the room and reverberated off the walls.

A minute later Aeri added another coat of paint to the work and brought her hand to Wony's pussy, to make circles on her clit while you fucked her with your hands behind her knees. Rina then kissed her too, and the two engaged in a make out session until Wony came.

But unwilling to give any quarter, you pushed Rina off Wony's right and lay down in her place to put your girlfriend on top of you. She made herself comfortable as best she could, but you didn't wait to take your cock back inside her and fuck her like you did to Rina a few minutes ago. Her face, as gorgeous and sexy as ever, with her hair all disheveled in front, was paralyzed with pleasure at the overstimulation.

Aeri and Rina knelt behind her. Aeri had dropped the now empty bottle of lube on the floor, and the next thing you knew, she was fingering Wony's ass with three fingers while Rina rubbed her tits against one of her oily buttocks. Wony looked at you with tears in her eyes, and with small squeals that wouldn't come out of her throat. It wasn't long before she slapped your chest a few times, and knowing what that sign meant, you pulled out of her so she squirted all over your cock, between grunts and strong spasms.

"OH MY FUCKING GGGGOD!!" Wony screamed, burying her face in your neck and clinging to your shoulders, trying to catch her breath as she continued to drench your cock with jets of squirt.

"Fuck, I had no idea she could do that," Aeri panted, her wrist visibly tired once she pulled her fingers out of Wony.

"She didn't know either," you panted, hugging Wony with both arms. "It was a nice surprise."

"G-give me... your load... on my face," Wony murmured in your ear. "Only me."

You carefully pulled Wony off of you and laid her on her back where you were. Once again, Aeri and Rina laid down on either side of each other, and you straddled Wony's chest to masturbate right over her perfect sweaty face and full, parted lips. A few quick strokes later, you exploded with moans, filling every corner of your girlfriend's face with cum, especially her sexy lips that were still purposely parted. Wony was a good girl and a perfect canvas, her eyes closed and completely still until you finished painting her.

"Daddy... can we help her?" Rina asked, looking at Wony's face biting her lip.

"Go ahead, I'm dead," you nodded with a gasp.

Rina and Aeri got to work. They licked every drop of your cum off Wony's face and slowly accumulated it inside their mouths. Relatively finished, Wony opened her eyes and then her mouth, also sticking her tongue out. Then Aeri and Rina rose above her, and let your cum fall from their mouths into Wony's mouth, who swallowed it all despite the drops falling on her chin.

"Oh… wow..." you said, completely flabbergasted, and fell back onto the mattress.

Somehow, your body had completely ignored the fact that you were drunk while fucking. But your senses had returned to 'normal', and with it, the alcohol in your system that reminded you that you haven’t caught a sleep in almost 22 hours. You fought as hard as you could, but you were so fucking exhausted that you simply got knocked out.

—————————–

Spren Notes: I hope you guys appreciate this, because it's been a while since I put so much love into a fic lol. As always. Thanks for reading! MASTERLIST HERE!

[leathfaic]

Ghost thinks he's cracked the code when he gifts Johnny an ultra complicated lego set for Christmas. Something to keep his hands and mind busy for a while.

He's watching, with terror and awe as Soap burns through a 1000+ pieces in an hour, with half a bottle of whiskey in him - drinking more while he's at it. He smiles the whole way through, though - and Ghost gets a tipsy peck on his cheek. Which might or might not have made the whole endeavour worth it.

"Thought that might keep you busy a while longer." he admits later, when he's deep into his own cups.

"Ach, dinnae sound so disappointed Ghostie, not'ing in there tha' can explode. Can work fast and sloppy."

Ghost just spent an hour staring at Johnny's hands and the concentration painted on his face. He knows there was nothing sloppy about that assembly. But he has to admit that compared to Soap's usual jobs, this is bound to be rather calming.

His eyes meet Price's over in another corner of the room. And the message, conveyed by a single raised eyebrow is clear. Ghost is not to add explosives to any gifts, even if it would make Soap very happy.

So naturally the next time - at Johnny's birthday - he slaps down a timer and a fully assembled lego set.

"Better get it done in time Johnny. And no cheating."

The way Soap's face lights up at the implication that there might be a bomb in his birthday gift should be concerning. But all it does is make Ghost wish there actually were some.

Johnny is a good sport about properly disassembling the marzipan compromise inside though. And just to prove he can immediately rebuilds the legos into the other figure they can form - taking a shot every time he has to look at the manual.

And when he carries his way too drunk partner to bed, Ghost vows to apply for Christmas leave. Which is something he hasn't done since...well for a long, long time.

Johnny, being the man that he is, never questions why they are going to spend Christmas in the countryside. A small cottage barely worth the name, as far away from other people as you can get on the Isles.

He just takes the chance to kiss Ghost every chance he gets, enjoying the fact that their isolation means he's getting an unprecedented amount of mask-free Simon.

"Got a surprise for you out in the shed, sweetheart." Ghost whispers when he catches Soap from behind while the man is about to open a bottle.

"Sounds like what a serial killer would say to lure ye into the open."

Ghost decides not to ponder that. With the reality of their jobs that answer... more than he's willing to argue right now.

"Should wait with that until you've had the surprise." he says instead, gently taking the bottle from Soap. Who for the first time frowns.

Ghost relents and they bring the scotch to the shed.

When Soap sees what he cooked up, he whistles low, no need to confirm that what he's seeing is the real deal.

It has taken all of Ghost's knowledge about explosives to craft the abomination. The two lego sets combined with a new third one, 6 sets of cables - all the same colour, and of course a live charge inside.

Johnny goes all still. Stalks closer like he's trying to get the drop on the inanimate object.

Watches it from all sides before turning to Ghost, "Do Ah need to follow protocol?"

His voice clearly tells him he hopes he does not have to. Ghost once again feels vindicated in his choice to move them out here, just pressing the bottle back into Soap's hand with a smile.

If this is what takes them both out then it's already worth it for the unhinged grin it gets him. Johnny's feral joy is infectious, and when he finally steps away raising his hands like he's expecting a crowd to cheer, Ghost honestly couldn't tell you how much time had passed.

He doesn't get a chance to ponder it either because the next second he's tackled by a full grown Scot with a half empty bottle of scotch in his hand and taken clean of his feet.

And if he hadn't already convinced this had been worth it, then the way Johnny makes sure to say thank you certainly is.

They do not make it back to the cottage for a good long while.

(This whole thing was inspired by my dear beloved @dismightyman who's singlehandedly holding it down in the Ghoap trenches with me)

[pomegranatesarchive]

not so secret santa

pairing: max verstappen x redbull!reader

part of redbull!reader

summary: secret santa has never been your favorite holiday tradition; in fact, you’ve always found it more stressful than fun. but this year, it’s somehow even worse—because out of all the people you could have drawn, you ended up with your teammate, max. [3.4k]

warnings: JOS VERSTAPPEN!!!! oscar piastri and his existential thoughts (and mental breakdown) fluff, reader having a breakdown over gifts. reader and daniel riccarido content. reader has 'she/her' pronouns. (yn) used once.

.

"Can't I skip it this year?" you grumbled, watching as the F1 social media admin walked up to you, a phone in one hand, and a Christmas hat in the other.

The woman frowned behind the camera, shaking the hat slightly, "You love Christmas." she pointed out.

You nodded, pocketing your phone in your back pocket, you were on your way to the garage before you were stopped by the last person you wanted to see.

You had no problem with the admin, on the contrary, you found her delightful, but she was making the round of secret santa, and that's why you were hoping to avoid her.

"Christmas and Secret Santa are not the same." you quipped, reaching your hand into the hat and swirling around the tiny slips of paper. You took a deep breath, grasping one before pulling it out, the camera following your every movement.

You leaned by, opening the slip away from prying eyes, "Shit." you cursed, quickly trying to put the paper back into the hat.

The admin laughed, leaning back, "No switching!"

You groaned, "C'mon please!"

She laughed, shaking your head, "Nope! Show the camera."

You grumbled, slowly turning the paper, Max Verstappen.

The woman laughed, delighted by the odds, "Okay. You remember the rules?"

"Don't tell anyone." you grumbled, pocketing the slip of paper, "I never know what to get!" you whined, as much as you loved Christmas the gift-giving part was something you despised, you always second-guessed yourself, and could never pick out what you deemed a 'good gift.’

"You have until two weeks from now." she beamed, before walking away, no doubt on her way to find her next victim.

.

Later that day you had a list of those who could help you on the hunt for the perfect gift. The first person on your list for help was, unfortunately, out of all people, Jos Verstappen.

Truly he was the last person you would ever want to talk to, but you thought that if anyone could be able to help you with picking out a gift, it would be Max's dad.

You would've gone to his mother, or even sister first. But they rarely visited the garage, much less when Jos was around, which you entirely understood.

"Get him something for racing," he spoke simply, you stood near him awkwardly, this was only your second one-on-one conversation in all the years you've been racing with his child, and moments like these reminded you why you avoided him, "Gloves."

You blinked, "You don't think I should get him something more personal? I mean I've known him for a while now."

"You've known him for a while and still don't know what to get him?" he sent you a look, and you resisted the urge to snap back, taking a deep breath.

"I'm bad a gifts."

"Then don't get him anything," the man shrugged like it was the most reasonable thing, "He hasn't been doing good enough to deserve a good Christmas." he scoffed.

"He's leading the championship." you laughed in amazement, truly not understanding how a father could say such things about his own child.

Jos' eyes snapped over to you, "Norris is catching up, he's not doing good enough."

"Not good enough?" you gaped, taking a step back, deciding to let it go and not start an argument in the middle of the garage, "Nevermind. Nevermind. Thank you for your…help.” you didn’t bother giving him a fake smile, turning on your heel quickly and walking out of the garage.

“Asshole,” you whispered to yourself, walking quickly with eyes on the ground.

“My dad?” you stopped abruptly, looking up to see Max in all his glory standing in front of you.

“Hm?” you blinked, staring up at him.

He pursed his lips, hands on his hips, “You were talking to my dad.”

You nodded slowly, debating whether to lie or not, “…I was.”

He hummed, left eye slightly twitching, “Okay. Why?”

Your mind went blank, thinking of any excuse you could use, “Um…”

Max eyes you, nodding along with you, “Um…”

"I just wanted to catch up."

In hindsight, you definitely should've come up with something more believable.

Max shot you a very telling look, letting you know that he didnt believe an ounce of what you were saying, "Catching up? With Jos?"

"Yes?" you squinted up at him, tone not as believable as you wanted it to be.

"You don't catch up with Jos. You don't like Jos."

You tried to look offended, "I can catch up with Jos."

Max let out a short laugh, eyes glancing behind you, no doubt to his father, "No. You don't like him." he repeated, "Most people don't like him."

You stared up at him with a blank look before letting out a deep breath, "You're right, I don't like him."

Max nodded once more, an amused look on his face, "So why were you talking to him?"

You balled your hands into a fist wanting nothing more but to tell him that you were on a search for the perfect gift, but you resisted, "I wanted to catch up with Jos but then he opened his mouth and reminded me why I stay away."

Max said nothing, simply staring down at you, a certain look in his eyes, you sighed, "I promise."

Finally, Max let up, giving you a smile, and patting your shoulder before walking towards his father.

With a grimace you quickly spun on your heel, catching Jos's eyes, you pressed a finger to your lips, hoping you would get the hint—it appeared like he didnt by the way he looked at you in a mixture of disgust and confusion.

You watched them anxiously for a moment, before scurrying away, choosing to not see the moment Max realized you had lied to him.

Back with the Verstappens, Max was eyeing his father oddly. He knew you had just lied to him, your anxious tone and the way you balled your hands into fists told him you were lying, he just didnt know about what.

"You two were catching up?" Max voiced his disbelief, the last thing he expected was for his father to continue you lie.

"Yes, Max." his father sighed, already annoyed by the talk you and him just had, and now he had his son asking him the same question over and over again.

"About what?" the exasperation in the racer's voice pulled a smile to Jos's face.

He turned to his son with his arms crossed, "Win this race, and I'll tell you."

Max blinked, truly that was the last thing he expected to come from his father...and it made him mad. Years of winning and winning, and the man couldn't tell him this one thing? When had he ever asked for anything from him?

Max scoffed, rolling his eyes before walking away, ignoring his father's calls behind him.

.

There was something so intimating about Oscar Piastri and his blank face. Maybe it was because of how calm cool and collected he was, while at the moment you were the exact opposite. Either way, you were cursing Secret Santa for putting you in this position.

It was the day after your pick when you ran into him in the hotel reception center, he was sitting on a couch, eyes and face blank.

You contemplated walking away multiple times, but you knew you needed all the imput you could get to get Max the perfect gift.

"Hey Oscar..." you sang awkwardly slowly sliding down to the spot next to him.

He blinked slowly, turning to you slowly, "Hey." he mumbled, before turning back and facing straight, no doubt creeping out some of the people walking by.

You argued with yourself mentally, trying to build up the courage to talk with the man next to you, "So uh.. who'd you get for Secret Santa?" you tried, cringing into yourself.

"I'm not supposed to tell you."

"I'm won’t tell anyone."

"You'll tell Max." you didnt bother trying to defend yourself, knowing he was right, you would've definitely blurted it out to Max.

"Yeah.." you mumbled slowly, prusing your lips.

"You got him right—Max?" he asked simply.

You snapped your head over to him before looking around the hotel reception room crazily, "Shh!" you whispered and shouted, "He could hear you."

Yesterday after Max's conversation with his father, you were sure he was going to come back and let you know that his father had spilled the beans, teasing you over not being able to keep 'secret' Santa a 'secret' for longer than 24 hours.

But he never did. Instead, he complained about Jos for almost a full hour, not once did he bring up the gift situation.

"Yes. Because I'm sure he can hear me from the track...from here."

You shrunk slightly in embarrassment, you were not aware he had left the hotel, "You never know." you scoffed, rolling your eyes, "So uh.. you're good at gift-giving, right?"

Oscar tilted his head in thought, "I mean, I don't think it's something I'm known for."

"But like, you're good at it right?" you tried leaning towards him.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Happily, you slightly bounced on your spot, "Great!" you paused, "So like, hypothetically, if you got Max for Secret Santa," you saw a small smile spread on Oscar's face, "Hypothetically, what would you get him?"

Oscar hummed, "Hypothetically..." he dragged the word out, he paused before seeming stumped, "I don't know.."

"Oscar!" you groaned, slumping in disappointment.

"I seriously don't know," he whispered to himself, seemingly distraught, "Wow...I don't know."

The room's tone shifted as Oscar kept mumbling to himself.

"It's okay Oscar," you smiled awkwardly, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know..." he muttered to himself, avoiding eye contact.

"It's okay.." you patted his arm, noticing more and more people were glancing your way, yet he didnt stop mumbling to himself.

You laughed awkwardly, slowly getting up, "Yeah okay." you mumbled, looking around before walking away, leaving him with his mumbles.

You circled around the hotel lobby for what felt like hours (it was three minutes) continuously taking peeks at Oscar, who continued to look in horror at a revelation that he, did not know.

After a few more circles, you thankfully spotted the next person on your ‘help with gift’ list, Lando. He was exiting the elevator, a concerned look on his face as he started heading towards Oscar.

You took off in a quick jog, cutting him off mid-walk, he stumbled on his feet trying to not bump into you, “Hey!” you greeted gleefully, blocking his eyesight as they trailed back to Oscar.

"Hey." he blinked, shooting you a quick smile before his eyes inevitability trailed back to Oscar, who had a deep frown on his face.

"I need your help," you pursed your lips, Lando looked down at you in confusion before looking back to Oscar, contemplation clear on his face. You decided to clear the air, "Oscars fine. He just's...thinking, about what I'm going to ask you actually!"

It took a second before Lando nodded in acceptance, "Okay? What’s up?"

"I got Max for Secret Santa, and I want to get him something super good, but you know I'm bad at gifts right? Yeah, I got you for Secret Santa last year and it sucked," you rambled as Lando nodded with a frown, recalling when you got him a replica of his helmet, like his own helmet, it would've been thoughtful if it wasn't, his helmet, "And I asked Jos and he was no help, so then I asked Oscar but I think.. I think I broke him."

Lando looked down at you blankly, opening his mouth and closing it a couple times, before finally, he took a deep breath, "Okay.." he dragged out, "Why don't you try anything racing-related?"

"That's what Jos suggested."

Lando jumped back in disgusted, "So let's not get him anything racing-related."

You nodded in agreement, "I was going to get him a new cat but that seems like a big commitment."

Lando hummed in agreement, "Especially because he just got one, what's its name? Donatello?"

"Mhmm."

"What if you don't get him a cat, but get him something for his cats." He rose up a brow.

Your face lit up before it slowly dimmed, "But isn't that like getting his cats something and not him something."

Lando shrugged, a small frown appearing on his face, "That's all I got."

You groaned throwing your head back, "No! Lando no!"

Lando laughed, his eyes crinkling in amusement, "I'm sorry!"

You moved to his side, putting your head on his shoulder, "What'd you get Zhou?"

Lano beamed, "A pillow of his cat, Sweetcorn."

You gasped, an open-mouth smile on your face, Lando quickly cut in, "No you cannot use that idea!"

You faltered, looking up with a glare, "Have I told you how much I hate you?"

Lando looked down at you with a cheeky smile, "Many times, yes."

You grumble to yourself, slight smaking him on the shoulder before turning and walking away, onto the next and final person on your list.

.

You had lost Daniel Ricciardo's phone number. That was a big problem seeing as he was the last person on your 'quest to find Max the perfect gift' list.

You had gotten a phone two months prior, actually, Max got you a new phone, claiming that your old phone was 'deteriorating.'

During the process of switching phones, all of your contacts were deleted, a problem that was solved as you went around the track asking for all the phone numbers you could get, the problem was that Daniel was no longer at the track. You told yourself that you would get to it eventually, but you never did.

And now you were in this horrible situation, you had to somehow get Daniel's phone number from Max, without explaining why you needed it.

You could've gone to literally any of the other drivers, but they all seemed to be strangely avoiding you. (Little did you know Max had figured out the next part of your plan and told everyone to ‘hide’ from you so you had no choice but to go to him.)

He was sitting next to GP, pointing at something on the screen his mouth moving widely. You snuck up behind him, giving GP a look, hoping he would take the hint. Thankfully he did. He only took a couple seconds patting Max on his back and walking away.

Quickly you slid into his seat, shooting Max a smile.

His eyebrows shot up instantly, "You're done avoiding me?"

You laughed fakely, looking around the garage, "Me? Ignore you? What? Outrageous Max, just—outrageous."

The driver shot you a look, making you clear your throat awkwardly, "Do you have Daniel Riccarido's number?" Stupid question, of course, he had his number.

"I do." Max nodded simply, you winced you had hoped that he would just offer it on the spot, but of course is it really Max if he isn't difficult?

"Great!" you nodded enthusiastically, "..Can I have it?" you added quickly.

Max smiled to himself, turning his body toward you entirely, his head leaning on his palm, "Why do you want it?"

You faltered, swallowing thickly, "Why?" you stuttered, trying to think of a great excuse.

"Mhm. Why?"

You stared at him, "Because he's my friend. And—and I miss talking to him."

Max's smile got wider, "I got you a new phone two months ago, you haven't said anything about talking to Daniel?"

Shit. He was catching on. "I want to ask him out!" What?

You blinked, shocked at what had just come out of your mouth, Max on the other hand looked more amused than ever, "Oh?" he tilted his head, "Really? You and Daniel?"

You nodded painfully, "Yeah—yeah, um I've been thinking about it for a long time?...and this just seems like the right moment, ya know?"

Max was beaming ear to ear, "No, I don't know."

"Okay well, you don't need to get it. I just—I need his phone number please."

Wordless, Max handed you his phone, watching as you opened it and sent yourself Daniel's number, you hopped off the chair, giving him one last awkward smile, "See you later!"

Max watched you go with a fond smile, shaking his head. God he couldn't wait to see what you would get him for Secret Santa.

.

"I'm surprised to hear from you!" was one of the first things Daniel said when he picked up the phone. You were currently in the bathroom with five minutes to spare before ths race started.

"I lost your number!" you defended yourself, peeking under the stall to see if anyone had entered the bathroom, thankful nobody had, "I need your help."

"How may the wise Daniel Ricciardo help thee?"

You pulled a face, shaking your head, "What should I get Max for secret santa?"

"Easy. Get him something family-related."

You got a hear a pin drop. Easy. Something family-related, of course! Max loves his family!

"You are a fucking genius, Daniel."

"So I've been told." you could hear his smirk through the phone. Unfortunately, you didnt have time to hear him continue, "While I have you, how has your season been—“

"Sorry Daniel, can't talk, thanks for the insight! Oh and by the way, if Max or anyone asked I declared my love for you on this call and you very kindly rejected me? Okay? Okay!" before he could splutter out anything, you had already hung up.

.

Max stood in front of the camera crew, a smile on his face as he shook the small envelope, "So it's not a new cat?" he quipped.

The people behidn the camera laughed, the social media admin shrugged with a grin, "It still could be."

Max shook his head as he started to slowly and carefully open the envelope, "I don't think she could manage to fit a cat in here." nobody picked up on the 'she'

Max hummed as he peeked inside the envelope, "I see a note, should I read that first?" he looked at the admin, who shrugged.

"Okay.." he dragged out, pulling out the note, he cleared his throat as he started to read, "Happy Holidays Max! I hope you're reading this after you've opened the actual present..." Max paused, slowly turning up to the crew who were shaking in laughter, he shook his head deciding that it was too late to stop, "Getting you a present was very very, very difficult, but after some help, I was able to make my choice, I really do hope you enjoy the vacation with your mom and sister," he paused before continuing, "And don't worry about booking hotels or babysitters, I got it all done, Merry (early) Christmas Maxie, with love—your secret santa."

With a huge smile, Max placed the letter onto the table, before excitedly reaching into the envelopes, and pulling out three plane ticks, "Wow." he gasped, turning the tickets and showing them off to the camera, "It's three tickets to Greece for me, my mom and sister," he beamed, examining them further, "I've always wanted to go." he whispered to himself.

The camera crew smiled to themselves while the social media admin leaned in with her eyebrow raised, "Any idea who your secret santa was?"

Max nodded almost instantly, laughing slightly, "It's (yn) I recognize her writing."

The admin laughed, shaking her head, "That's cheating Max!"

Max shook his head, pointing at the woman, "It's not my fault I'm good at this!"

The admin waved him off, "Okay! Okay, you were right, it was her."

Max smirked, "I knew it," his eyes unfocused, wandering over to behind the group of people in front of them, curious they all trailed their eyes over to where he was staring, "I guessed right! You can come out now!" Max yelled out, the camera crew gasped as you peeked out of a thick pillar, hopping over to them with a smile.

"She was there the whole time?" the mic man whispered to the cameraman, who shrugged, mouth open in surprise.

"I don't know...but that's slightly scary."

You walked over to Max with a smile, letting out a small squeak as he pulled you into a tight hug unexpectedly, "You guessed so quickly" you groaned, feeling him press a kiss on your head.

"I found your list," Max whispered in your ear, laughing as he felt you tense up.

"Like the list?" you groaned, feeling embarrassment flood your system.

"The list," Max confirmed as you two pulled away.

You winced avoiding eye contact.

Max laughed, reaching over to squeeze your hand, "Thank you. Really. I love the gift."

You smiled proudly, before turning to the admin who was watching the scene with a small smile, "I'm warning you right now that I am never doing secret santa gain."

The woman giggled, a cerstain gleam in her eye, "We'll see about that."

.

a/n: truly impressed with the writers who write 4k words and UP fics, this one is 3.4k and it took me well over two weeks to write (which is why its being uploaded after christmas) anywhoo i hope you guys enjoyed!!!

[honeytonedhottie]

decentering men and recentering urself⋆.ೃ࿔*:･💅🏽💓

the secret to decentering men and not having ur entire world revolving around them (bcuz it should be revolving around you, duh) is having a fulfilling life. it makes me ICK so bad when im watching a video or reading a post and im rly loving it, and then it'll find SOME way to make it revolve around men. like can we not?…💬🎀

WHY WE CENTER THE OPPOSITE SEX ;

a lot of people find themselves centering their lives around the opposite sex in an attempt to fill a void within themselves. they do it because they aren't happy with themselves or their lives, or maybe its learned behavior. whatever the reason is, its NOT hot.

some things that someone who centers men might think are "oh my life is so boring, maybe it would be spiced up if i got with a man" or "maybe it'll bring some excitement into my day" like EUGHHH. obviously the solution is to find ways to make our lives fulfilling but how do we do that? and how do we get to the root cause and squash this self sabotaging behavior?

SELF AWARENESS ;

if u have nothing going on for u, ofc ur gonna be energetically desperate and accepting anything and EVERYTHING. practice self awareness and try to get to the root cause of why u center men through things like shadow work, therapy, or just straight up having an honest conversation with urself cuz i swear it helps.

when you make the conscious effort to build ur dream life you'll notice that people that are on the same mindset as you will vibe with the REAL you. the need to fake/adjust urself to fit in with other people will dissipate because ur fitting into ur own standards and ur connections will be more meaningful because of it.

TAKE UR POWER BACK ;

no ones actions should ruin ur day or make u upset for more then a day (even less) cuz its YOUR world. 💕🍰

make time for YOU, doll. plan self care routines for urself every week. doing face masks, journalling, vision boarding, WHATEVER U LIKE TO DO. making time for urself reminds u that ur the main character of ur life so u dont have to settle for crumbs.

stop giving that power to someone else and dictate how u feel, NOT the actions of a significant other or the opposite sex or anybody. the reason why its important to make sure that ur the center of ur own life is so that you can be happy and fulfilled regardless of if there is a man or if there isnt a man present. so the objective is to decenter men -> and then put yourself at the center

GET A HOBBY ;

find something to make ur life fulfilling. pursue ur OWN interests and try out different hobbies if ur unsure of what ur interests are yet. cultivate ur world to the point where it GLEAMS with perfection and then do a little extra. build a life that u love so much that whether u get male attention or validation doesnt even matter cuz their opinions have little to no relevance 💀

challenge yourself: next time you catch yourself thinking, ‘would a guy like this?’ flip it and ask urself "hey, do i like this?" start checking with yourself first instead of checking with others.

MAKING THE DECISION TO DECENTER MEN ;

decentering men simply means that ur deciding to no longer think, feel, act, dress, or plan ur life around a man or for the validation of any man…💬🎀

relationships will actually get BETTER when u decenter the opposite sex. cuz ur not looking for someone to compete with and ur whole on ur own. this sets the stage for balance and mutual respect and THATS hot.

you can be in a relationship and still decenter men. decentering men simply means that you are the priority, not the relationship. how can we tell if we're decentering men or not? here are a few questions to help you know if u are ->

if i did not care about looking good to the opposite sex what would i actually like to wear?

if i did not get married, how could i create the best and most abundant life for myself?

what hobbies/interests do i have that dont involve being around men/have male attention as a component of it?

[solxamber]

Trash Novel Chronicles: How to Ruin a Plot || Jade Leech

When you end up as the villainess in a story that's hellbent on making her suffer for no reason, you decide to make the main characters suffer just for catharsis. Good thing that your fiancé, Jade Leech seems to like chaos as much as you.

Series Masterlist

Dinner wasn’t much to write home about—a plate of lukewarm spaghetti that could generously be described as "functional," paired with a salad so sad it could star in its own soap opera. But you had something better: entertainment.

And by entertainment, you meant the literary dumpster fire currently sitting in your hands.

This book. This book.

The plot was so catastrophically terrible that it looped around to being hilarious. You chewed your subpar spaghetti and flipped a page, trying not to laugh too hard at the sheer absurdity of what you were reading.

The villainess, a talented duchess and renowned potion maker, was saddled with some of the worst clients in existence. The saintess—of course, she was a saintess, because originality was clearly out of the question—was engaged to the Duke of the North. Why? Who knows. It wasn’t like they seemed to like each other. In fact, she was also having a very public affair with the prince.

And not just any prince. A balding prince.

Because nothing screams “romantic rival” like the slow and tragic retreat of one’s hairline.

They were both the worst. The kind of people who would demand a 12-step skincare routine from their servants but would balk at paying them a living wage. When the villainess refused to make them more potions for ridiculous requests like “immunity to insults” (seriously?), they decided to frame her for crimes and have her executed.

The sheer audacity.

But it didn’t stop there. Oh no. The villainess had a fiancé—Jade Leech, poor guy—who tried his best to help her escape. And what did she do? Sacrificed herself so he wouldn’t get dragged into her mess. Noble, sure, but also infuriating because she died for them.

And then Jade, now heartbroken and understandably bitter, became the main antagonist. Only to be defeated by the same cartoonishly bland protagonists who caused the entire mess.

It was like someone handed a six-year-old a book contract and said, “Go wild, kid. Just make sure it has betrayal and love triangles, and throw in some magic potions or something.”

You forked another sad tangle of spaghetti into your mouth and tried not to choke from laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all. The characters had all the depth of a kiddie pool, the plot holes were big enough to drive a carriage through, and the pacing? What pacing? This story had clearly decided pacing was for cowards.

You flipped to another page, nearly snorting when the saintess justified her affair by saying, “It’s what the goddess would want."

Sure, Jan.

And just as you were about to take another bite of dinner, it happened.

A mushroom. A mushroom.

You didn’t even realize it had slipped into your spaghetti until it was already lodged in your throat. Panic set in as you clawed at your neck, gasping for air while your brain helpfully supplied one last thought:

Can’t believe a mushroom took me out. Goddammit.

And then everything went dark.

The first thing you notice is the carpet: thick, plush, and entirely too luxurious for someone who had been laughing themselves to death over garbage-tier literature just moments ago. The second thing you notice is that you’re alive, which is great. Except you’re no longer in your cozy little living room.

No, you’re in a gothic mansion straight out of an interior decorator's fever dream. Dark wood, brooding paintings, and vials of suspicious liquids lined up neatly on shelves. For a second, you think you’ve wandered into a Dracula fan convention, but then it hits you.

The novel. The Poisoned Duchess and the Frozen Heart of the North.

You scramble to your feet, heart pounding. “No. No, no, no, no,” you mutter, sprinting to the nearest mirror. A familiar (and obnoxiously beautiful) face stares back at you. Elegant curls, piercing eyes, and an expression that could curdle milk. Yep. You’re the Duchess—the villainess who gets executed for daring to have standards.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” you groan, gripping the edge of the vanity. “I was just making fun of this! How did I end up here? Is this karma? Did the mushroom do this?!”

You spend a good ten minutes pacing the room, muttering to yourself like a squirrel with a caffeine problem. “Okay, okay, think. The Saintess and the Prince are nuts, and they’re gonna come here demanding potions for their ridiculous nonsense like ‘immunity to sarcasm’ or whatever. Solution? Close the shop. Sell it. Let some other poor soul deal with their unhinged requests. Genius! But what next? What about the fiancé—oh god, Jade!”

Jade Leech. The fiancé you had casually dismissed in your tirade against the novel. The one who was supposed to be self-sacrificing, and eventually doomed. But now he’s your fiancé, and you’re not about to let him become collateral damage in this flaming dumpster fire of a plot.

“We’ll run away!” you declare, pointing dramatically at an imaginary horizon. “We’ll elope, move to some peaceful countryside, grow tomatoes, and live a happy, Saintess-free life. Screw the plot. Screw the Duke. Screw the Saintess and her balding fiancé—”

You’re mid-sentence when the sound of a door opening interrupts your theatrical monologue. You spin around and freeze.

Standing in the doorway is Jade Leech himself. And oh boy, the novel did not do him justice. His sharp features, soft teal hair, and piercing eyes make your brain short-circuit. The man looks like he walked out of an ethereal fairy tale and promptly decided to make everyone else look like peasants.

He leans casually against the doorframe, arms crossed, and raises a brow. “Well, this is quite the scene to walk into.”

You blink. And then you blink again, because your brain is still stuck on handsome fiancé alert. “Uh…”

Jade smirks, clearly amused. “Is this a private performance, or can anyone join? Because I’m not sure who you’re planning to screw, but it sounds… ambitious.”

You want to die all over again. “I—uh, would you… like to join my plans?”

His eyes gleam with mischief. “Plans, you say? That depends. Do these plans involve anything more exciting than managing a potion shop?”

“Yes! So much more exciting!” you blurt out. “We close the shop, sell it, cause some chaos, run away, and live happily ever after far away from this stupid place! No Saintess. No Duke. Just… us. Tomatoes. Maybe a goat.”

Jade chuckles, the sound warm and entirely too pleasant for your frazzled state of mind. “You’ve certainly caught my interest. All right, I’m in. A little chaos sounds much better than… whatever normalcy is supposed to look like.”

He steps closer, and you swear your brain bluescreens again because wow, personal space doesn’t exist here, huh? Jade offers his hand, his smile sharp but oddly sincere. “So, where do we start, my prodigal Duchess?”

You take his hand, still half-dazed. “Step one: Screw the Saintess.”

He laughs again. “Now that’s the kind of plan I can get behind.”

Meeting Jade's brother was like getting hit by a rogue wave of chaos. You'd thought Jade was the wild card of the family, but then Floyd Leech burst into the room like a hurricane wearing a grin.

He looked at you with an intensity that made you feel like you were being appraised for your entertainment value, then immediately announced, "You wanna screw with the Saintess and the Duke? Oh, I’m in.”

You stared at him for a long moment, then at Jade, who gave you an apologetic shrug, clearly used to Floyd’s… energy. You decided, then and there, that you were extremely lucky to have been paired with the Leech brother who at least pretended to respect social norms.

Floyd, however, was a force of nature and, admittedly, a useful one. He seemed far too enthusiastic about the chaos you were planning, but hey, when life gives you a human typhoon, you use it to wreak havoc.

Then there was Azul Ashengrotto. Meeting him felt less like talking to a person and more like negotiating with an overly polite shark. “I can provide you protection,” he said smoothly, pushing a contract toward you with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You glanced at the contract, then back at him. “And what does this… "protection" demand in return?”

“Oh, nothing too demanding,” Azul said, waving his hand as if it was all very casual. “Just a few favors in return. Small things, really.”

You stared at the fine print and felt your soul start to sweat. This wasn’t just protection—it was a fast track to selling your soul to the fish mafia.

“Tell you what,” you said, shoving the contract back toward him. “I’ll sell the potion shop to you for cheap if you help me with whatever plans I come up with.”

Azul tilted his head, intrigued. “And what’s in it for me?”

“You get to own the best potion shop in the kingdom without dealing with the Saintess and her entourage of entitlement.”

His eyes gleamed. “Done. But if you get arrested, you won’t mention my name.”

“Deal,” you said, shaking his hand. Internally, you made a note to burn the shop down if things went south. Better a pile of ash than Azul owning it and your dignity.

The next day, you decided to drop by a boutique to prepare for the Saintess’s tea party. Not because you cared about the event, but because you cared very deeply about ruining her day.

You knew exactly what she was planning to wear—some pastel monstrosity—and you were determined to outshine her. You’d wear an upgraded version of her outfit, but classier, sharper, and absolutely dripping with pettiness.

The boutique owner was taking your measurements when you told them to send the bill to your butler. That was when Jade, who had been quietly browsing nearby, strolled over. He casually slid his arm around your waist, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and said, “Send the bill to me.”

You whipped around, scandalized. “Excuse me?!”

He leaned in, his mismatched eyes sparkling with mischief. “I just want everyone to know you’re my fiancée,” he murmured, his voice low and entirely too close to your ear.

Your brain promptly blue-screened. He was too close, his scent too distracting, and his hand on your waist was doing things to your equilibrium. The boutique owner pretended not to notice your obvious malfunction, but Jade? Jade looked like he was having the time of his life.

“Fine,” you mumbled, your voice barely audible as you tried to collect the scattered pieces of your dignity.

“Good,” Jade said, his smirk widening.

He didn’t let go of you after that. Oh no, he kept his hand firmly on the small of your back as you left the boutique. Every step was an exercise in not collapsing from the sheer audacity of his touch.

Meanwhile, Jade looked perfectly at ease, as if his sole purpose in life was to see how long it would take you to spontaneously combust.

By the time you got back to the mansion, you were sure of one thing: Jade Leech was going to be the death of you, and he was going to enjoy every second of it.

The tea party was shaping up to be the highlight of your career as a petty agent of chaos. You arrived late, naturally—nothing screams “I’m better than you” quite like waltzing in when everyone’s already seated.

The moment you stepped into the pavilion, a collective gasp swept through the crowd. Your dress—custom-tailored, one-of-a-kind, and effortlessly overshadowing every other outfit there—practically glowed in the sunlight.

The Saintess, perched at the head of the table, turned to greet you, her expression instantly souring when she caught sight of your gown. Oh, you could practically hear the cogs in her head screeching to a halt as she realized you’d completely outdone her.

“Oh my,” you said, offering a demure smile as you made your way to your seat. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Not at all,” she replied, her voice as sweet as arsenic. “What a… bold choice of dress.”

“Oh, this?” You gestured casually, as though you weren’t wearing something that could stop traffic. “My fiancé picked it out for me. He has such excellent taste, don’t you think?”

You didn’t need to look directly at her to see the way her jaw clenched. You could feel her rage simmering from across the table. After all, her own fiancé, or even the Balding Prince, hadn’t bothered to buy her a dress, let alone one that could compete with yours. You almost felt bad for her. Almost.

From there, the afternoon devolved into a series of increasingly petty power plays.

When the Saintess poured herself a cup of tea, you made a point to remark on how “rustic” her teapot was.

When she complimented the garden’s flowers, you chimed in with, “Oh, are these the same ones you tried to grow last year? I remember hearing how they all died!”

Every little comment was a carefully aimed dart, and she was too polite—or perhaps too afraid of snapping in public—to retaliate. The guests, of course, were eating it up.

The pièce de résistance came when the Balding Prince himself approached you during the party.

“I need a potion,” he said, puffing himself up like a rooster trying to assert dominance. “For my, uh, hair.”

You blinked, momentarily stunned. Of all the scenarios you’d envisioned, this was not one of them.

“Your hair?” you echoed, doing your best to keep a straight face. “What kind of potion are we talking about here? Growth? Volume? Shine?”

The Prince’s eye twitched. “That’s… none of your business,” he snapped.

Before you could respond, Jade—bless him—“accidentally” bumped into the Prince from behind, sending his ridiculous feathered hat tumbling to the ground.

The gasp that followed was deafening.

There it was, in all its glory: the shiny, blinding expanse of the Prince’s balding crown, gleaming like a beacon of despair in the afternoon sun.

For a moment, the pavilion was silent. Then someone coughed. Then someone else giggled. And before long, the entire tea party was a symphony of poorly stifled laughter.

“It’s, uh, a royal tradition!” the Prince stammered, clutching his hat and jamming it back onto his head. “A sign of wisdom and… and…”

He trailed off, clearly out of excuses, and fled the scene faster than you’d ever seen anyone run in formalwear.

The Saintess looked like she was about to implode. Unfortunately for her, the Third Male Lead (Yes, there were 3 of them) chose that exact moment to swoop in, all charm and wit as he began lavishing her with attention. You leaned back in your chair, sipping your tea and basking in the chaos like a cat who’d just knocked over an entire shelf of priceless antiques.

“Nice work,” you murmured to Jade, holding up your hand for a discreet high five.

Instead of obliging, he grabbed your hand and laced his fingers through yours, the smirk on his face practically criminal.

“You’re far more fun than I expected,” he said, his voice low enough that only you could hear.

You stared at him, your brain immediately short-circuiting. Your default response to most situations was sarcasm or snark, but this? This was uncharted territory.

“Uh… thanks?” you managed, your voice coming out embarrassingly squeaky.

Jade chuckled, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand as if to emphasize just how flustered you were.

“Come on,” he said, his tone far too casual for someone who’d just ruined you in front of an audience. “Let’s go cause more trouble.”

He kept his hand on the small of your back as you walked away from the pavilion, and you were pretty sure your soul left your body every time he leaned in to whisper some biting comment about the Saintess or her rapidly expanding collection of admirers.

One thing was certain: you were having the time of your life, and this was only the beginning.

The day begins innocently enough, which should have been your first warning.

You’re peacefully reading in the library, enjoying the silence, when Floyd barrels in like a hurricane. “Oi, c’mon, you gotta help me!” he hisses, grabbing your wrist before you can protest.

“Help you with what?” you manage to ask as you’re dragged down the corridor, nearly tripping over your own feet.

“It’s Jade,” Floyd says ominously. “He’s made mushrooms again.”

Ah, that explains it. You’ve heard rumors about Jade’s culinary experiments, but you’d yet to experience them firsthand.

“And what does that have to do with me?”

Floyd grins, the kind of grin that promises nothing good. “Well, I told him you love mushrooms.”

You stop dead in your tracks. “You what?”

Before you can bolt, Floyd shoves you through the greenhouse door and slams it shut behind you.

Inside, the room is warm and humid, filled with the earthy scent of soil and plants. At the far end, Jade is bent over a terrarium, meticulously arranging its contents with tweezers.

He looks up when he hears you enter, his expression brightening. “Ah, you’re here!”

Your heart sinks.

Floyd’s words echo in your mind—you love mushrooms. If only he knew. Mushrooms were the reason you got isekai’d in the first place, and the trauma of choking on one is still fresh in your memory. But now, faced with Jade’s expectant gaze and a plate of what looks like sautéed mushrooms on the table, you realize you’re trapped.

“Floyd said you were eager to try these,” Jade says, his tone polite but unmistakably pleased.

You glance at the mushrooms, then back at Jade. He looks so hopeful, like someone who’s spent hours perfecting a recipe and is finally sharing it with someone who’ll appreciate it. You swallow hard.

“Of course!” you say, forcing a smile that feels more like a grimace. “I love mushrooms.”

You sit down at the table, and Jade places the plate in front of you. The mushrooms actually smell... good. Earthy and buttery, with a hint of garlic and herbs.

“Bon appétit,” he says, watching you intently.

You pick up a fork, your hands trembling slightly, and stab a piece. You can do this, you tell yourself. It’s not the mushroom’s fault you died. It’s just food.

With one final breath, you pop the piece into your mouth.

...It’s delicious.

The flavor is rich and savory, perfectly balanced, and the texture is tender without being mushy. You blink in surprise, then take another bite.

“Good?” Jade asks, and there’s a slight smugness in his tone.

“It’s amazing,” you admit, unable to stop yourself from eating more.

Jade’s smile widens, and something in his expression softens.

After finishing the plate, you linger in the greenhouse as Jade continues tending to his terrariums. You watch him work, his hands deft and precise as he rearranges moss, misting the plants with care.

“Need help with anything?” you ask, feeling unexpectedly at ease.

He glances at you, then gestures to a nearby shelf. “If you don’t mind organizing the vials, that would be helpful.”

You nod and get to work, sorting the various bottles of nutrients and spores while Jade hums softly under his breath. The atmosphere is peaceful, the kind of quiet that feels alive rather than stifling.

Once the terrariums are in perfect order, Jade brews a pot of tea, and you both sit at a small table nestled among the plants. The tea is fragrant, its warmth soothing as you take a sip.

Jade sits across from you, one hand resting lightly on the table. Absentmindedly, you reach out and place your hand over his.

He freezes for a moment, his eyes flicking to your joined hands. His usual calm demeanor falters, a faint blush creeping up his neck. “You’re quite bold,” he murmurs, though there’s a hint of nervousness in his voice.

You suppress a grin, giving his hand a gentle squeeze before turning your attention back to your tea. “And you’re holding my hand,” you point out casually.

“I suppose I am,” he says, his voice steady again, though his ears are noticeably red.

The two of you sit there for a while longer, sipping tea and enjoying the greenhouse’s serenity. Jade, ever the polite menace, pretends to be unfazed, but you catch him glancing at your joined hands more than once.

You smile into your cup, the taste of mushrooms and tea lingering on your tongue.

You wake up to the sound of maniacal laughter, the kind that belongs to either an evil overlord or someone who just discovered how to unlock infinite in-game currency. For one groggy moment, you wonder if the devil himself has come to collect you for your sins. But as your eyes flutter open, reality (and dread) sets in.

It’s not the devil. It’s Floyd.

“Why?” you croak, sitting up in your chair and rubbing your eyes. “Why are you like this?”

Jade, ever the epitome of composed chaos, is sitting calmly across from you, sipping tea and looking highly amused. “Ah, you’re awake,” he says with a smile that suggests nothing good is about to happen.

“I had the best idea!” Floyd exclaims, still cackling. “It’s gonna be hilarious!”

Jade gives you a knowing look, the kind that says, This is going to be a disaster, but I want to watch it unfold.

You should probably shut this down. You should. But instead, you wave a hand and mumble, “Sure, go wild.”

It turns out “wild” was underselling it.

Floyd’s “brilliant” idea? Convince the Saintess to organize a grand sword-fighting competition under the premise that the Balding Prince would absolutely win. To no one’s surprise (except maybe the Saintess), she fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

“She’s been gushing about how he’s ‘a natural-born warrior,’” Floyd reports gleefully during the planning phase. “She’s even betting on him!”

You glance at Jade, who is practically glowing with smug anticipation. That should have been your first clue to intervene. Instead, you shrug and think, Eh, it’ll be fine.

It was, in fact, not fine.

When the announcement of the tournament goes public, the Balding Prince—bless his fragile ego—realizes he has a slight problem. Namely, the fact that he’s never held a sword in his life, let alone used one. Naturally, he comes crawling to you.

“I need a potion,” he demands, his tone somewhere between entitled and desperate. “To, uh, enhance my… swordsmanship.”

You lean back in your chair, trying to look unimpressed. “Oh, I don’t sell potions anymore,” you say airily.

The Prince glares at you, his bald spot gleaming under the room’s chandelier. “I’ll pay you.”

“You can’t afford me.”

“How about enough gold to fund your entire territory for the next twenty years?”

You sit up straight. “You drive a hard bargain, Your Highness.”

The potion you make for him is top-notch—for two hours. After that, well, let’s just say it’s going to be a long day for the Balding Prince.

The tournament goes about as chaotically as you expect. Jade, a genuinely skilled swordsman, carves his way through every round with ease. The Prince, meanwhile, is barely holding on, relying entirely on the potion to scrape by. Somehow, by sheer luck and Floyd’s endless meddling, the Prince manages to make it to the final round.

By this point, the Saintess is practically glowing with excitement, convinced her fiancé is about to cement his status as a legendary warrior. “He’s going to win for sure!” she squeals, clapping her hands.

You sip your tea, barely suppressing your smirk. Oh, sweet summer child.

The final round begins with Jade and the Prince stepping into the arena. The crowd roars with anticipation. The Saintess is preening in the stands, while the Empress looks vaguely mortified, as though she knows what’s about to happen but can’t stop it.

And then, right on cue, the potion wears off.

The Prince’s stance falters immediately, his grip on the sword going from “warrior” to “child holding a bat for the first time.” Jade doesn’t even have to try. One expertly placed strike sends the Prince’s weapon flying across the arena, and the match ends with the Prince sprawled on the ground, dazed and defeated.

The crowd erupts into laughter, and you’re pretty sure you see the Emperor facepalm.

To add insult to injury, the Emperor himself has to present the winner’s diadem to Jade. But instead of wearing it himself, Jade turns to you with a wicked grin.

“For you, my dear,” he says, placing the diadem on your head with a flourish.

The crowd loses it.

The Empress looks like she’s contemplating disowning her son on the spot. The Saintess bursts into tears and flees the arena, with the Prince stumbling after her, trying to explain his humiliating defeat.

You, meanwhile, stand in the center of the chaos, smiling peacefully.

“This,” you murmur, “is the best day of my life.”

The market was lively, the kind of lively that felt one loose cart wheel away from utter chaos. You’d gone there to buy something mundane—perhaps herbs, maybe a decorative pot, who even remembered anymore? What you did remember was spotting Azul, impeccably dressed as usual, standing at a stall that sold ornamental quills.

“Azul!” you called out, dragging Jade with you as you made your way over.

Azul turned, one brow arching as he spotted the two of you. “Ah, the duchess and her ever-present shadow. What brings you here?”

“Just window shopping,” you said vaguely, though Jade’s sudden fascination with terrarium accessories suggested otherwise.

One thing led to another, and before you knew it, the three of you were headed to a charming little café. It had the kind of ambiance that said, I’m wildly overpriced, but look at our aesthetic! Jade held the door open for you, and you stepped inside, marveling at the array of desserts in the display case.

You barely had time to settle into your seat when the atmosphere shifted.

There she was.

The Saintess.

You tried to ignore her, truly, but her obnoxious aura was as subtle as a bull in a porcelain shop. She was seated nearby, flanked by her entourage of lackeys. They whispered, they giggled, and they kept looking at you. You rolled your eyes and leaned closer to Jade and Azul, focusing on your conversation.

But peace, as usual, was not in the cards.

One of the lackeys—a girl who had the smug look of someone who thought her two brain cells were revolutionary—approached your table. In her hands was a steaming cup of tea, and the moment you saw it, a sense of foreboding settled over you.

And then, with all the subtlety of a villain in a children’s cartoon, she “tripped.”

The tea flew through the air in slow motion, a graceful arc of impending disaster. You braced for impact, but Jade moved faster. He stepped in front of you, shielding you from the scalding liquid. Most of it missed him, but a splash landed on his hand.

“Jade!” you exclaimed, grabbing his arm to inspect the burn.

Meanwhile, the lackey straightened herself up, not even bothering to fake remorse. “Oops,” she said, her tone so insincere it could’ve curdled milk. “It was an accident.”

“An accident?” you repeated, your voice rising. “You carried a boiling cup of tea across the room, aimed it at our table, and ‘accidentally’ threw it at us?”

She shrugged, her smirk widening. “My dad will pay for any damages. And you’re overreacting. It’s just tea.”

Overreacting? Oh, you were about to react, all right.

Azul, meanwhile, was unusually quiet. His tie had been stained in the splash zone, and his tight-lipped smile was beginning to look like it could crack glass.

The lackey continued, oblivious to the metaphorical storm clouds gathering over Azul. “Anyway, if you keep making a scene, it’ll just look bad for you. My dad’s pretty important, you know.”

“Oh?” Azul said suddenly, his voice as smooth as silk but with an edge sharp enough to cut steel. “And who might your father be?”

The lackey puffed up with pride. “He’s the finance manager for the duchess’s estate!”

There was a beat of silence. You exchanged a glance with Azul, and then your lips curled into a predatory smile.

“Azul,” you said sweetly, “guess whose daddy is about to lose his job?”

The ride back to your estate was tense—for you, at least. Jade sat calmly beside you, his hand resting on his knee, but you couldn’t stop fussing over his burn.

“Stop squirming,” you said, dabbing at his hand with a damp cloth.

“I’m fine,” Jade insisted, though his amused tone suggested he was enjoying your concern far too much.

“You’re not fine,” you retorted. “What if it scars? What if it gets infected?”

“Then I’ll have a mark to remember your attention by,” he said, his lips twitching into a half-smile.

You glared at him, but your fussing didn’t stop. By the time you reached the estate, you were practically vibrating with righteous fury.

The finance manager stood in your office, visibly confused.

“You’re fired,” you said bluntly.

His jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

You crossed your arms, your smile as sharp as a blade. “Ask your daughter.”

“What does she have to do with this?” he demanded, his face turning red.

“Everything,” you replied. “Guards, escort him out.”

He sputtered and protested, but you didn’t care. Justice had been served.

Later, after the physician had checked Jade’s hand and declared him fine, you collapsed onto the nearest couch, your exhaustion finally catching up to you. Without thinking, you ended up sprawled across Jade’s lap.

He stiffened, his hands hovering awkwardly before he cautiously placed one on your back to keep you from sliding off.

“Comfortable?” he asked dryly, though the faint pink on his cheeks betrayed him.

You hummed in response, already half-asleep. Within moments, your breathing evened out, and you nodded off.

Jade, for his part, was thoroughly smitten. His usual composure cracked as he replayed the day’s events—your fiery anger on his behalf, the way you’d fretted over his injury, and now, the way you looked so peaceful resting against him.

His fingers brushed a stray strand of hair from your face, and he allowed himself a rare, genuine smile.

“Quite the enigma,” he murmured to himself, already planning how to keep you close.

The ballroom was a spectacle of opulence. Chandeliers glittered overhead, casting soft golden light on the polished floors and the parade of nobles in their finest silks and velvets.

This was supposed to be a night of grand announcements, of declarations of love, and of the start of some “epic romance” that would undoubtedly be inscribed into the annals of history—or, at least, that's what the original novel promised.

But as you stood to the side with Jade and Floyd, it was evident that this version of events was hurtling off the rails.

Enter: the Duke of the North.

The poor man barely stepped into the ballroom before his eyes landed on the prince and the saintess. You could physically see the will to live drain out of him as his shoulders slumped, his gaze unfocused like he was calculating the fastest way to fake his own death and disappear into the wilderness.

It was almost pitiful. Almost.

The prince, meanwhile, had puffed up his chest and was grinning like he hadn’t recently been humiliated in front of half the kingdom. And the saintess—oh, she was trying, bless her delusional heart.

Smiling demurely, batting her lashes, and putting on a performance that might have worked if her reputation hadn’t already been stomped into the dirt by your carefully orchestrated chaos.

You leaned toward Jade and whispered, “I think the Duke’s trying to plot his own escape.”

Jade’s lips twitched in amusement, but he kept his usual calm demeanor. Floyd, however, cackled loudly enough to draw a few stares.

Then, the moment arrived: the prince stepped forward, his cape swishing dramatically as he raised his goblet. “Tonight, I announce my bride-to-be, the one chosen by the heavens themselves—the saintess!”

There was a smattering of applause, mostly out of obligation, but you were too busy watching the Duke. The man visibly sagged with relief, his shoulders dropping like he’d just been unshackled from a lifetime of servitude. You could practically hear the mental thank the gods echoing in his head.

And then, as if shedding the weight of the world, he turned on his heel and made a beeline—toward you.

You blinked, momentarily stunned as the Duke of the North, the supposed male lead, bowed deeply and extended a hand toward you. “Would you honor me with the first dance, my lady?”

You opened your mouth to decline, because this wasn’t in any script you remembered, but before you could utter a word, Jade smoothly stepped in.

“Apologies, Duke,” he said with his signature polite menace, “but she already promised this dance to me.”

Without waiting for a response, Jade’s hand found the small of your back, and he gently yet firmly guided you to the dance floor. The Duke was left standing there, his hand still outstretched, looking mildly bewildered.

“Don’t worry!” Floyd piped up, appearing out of nowhere. “I’ll dance with you!”

Before the Duke could protest, Floyd latched onto his arm and practically dragged him into a lively—and utterly chaotic—dance that looked like a mix of a waltz and a sparring match. The Duke’s expression alternated between horror and resignation, while Floyd grinned like he was having the time of his life.

You couldn’t help it—you laughed, the sound bubbling up uncontrollably as you watched the scene.

Jade glanced down at you, his expression softening as he took in your laughter. His usual cool demeanor melted for just a moment, replaced by something so tender it made your heart stutter.

The realization hit you like a lightning bolt.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

You were in love with him.

And not the “oh, he’s handsome and I tolerate his presence” kind of love. This was the “I want to spend my life laughing and dancing and plotting petty revenge schemes with you” kind of love.

The thought was overwhelming, and before you could stop yourself, you buried your face in Jade’s chest.

He stilled for a moment, surprised, but then his arms encircled you, holding you close as he continued to sway to the rhythm of the music.

He didn’t question it, didn’t tease you, didn’t even comment. Instead, he rested his chin lightly on top of your head, his voice low as he murmured, “Are you all right?”

You nodded into his chest, your cheeks burning as you clung to him like a lifeline.

As the music swelled around you, you felt his hand tighten slightly on your waist. When you finally peeked up at him, his gaze met yours, and there it was again—that look of unguarded adoration that made your knees weak.

It was, without a doubt, the best dance of your life.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ballroom, the Duke of the North was being spun around like a rag doll by Floyd, who was cackling loud enough to echo off the walls.

You caught sight of the saintess in the corner, her smile strained and her fingers clutching her goblet so tightly it looked like it might shatter.

All was well in the world.

The ballroom was buzzing with conversation, the glittering chandeliers casting light on a gathering of nobles too caught up in their own intrigues to notice the storm brewing in one corner. That is, until a sharp, shrill voice cut through the air.

“You think you can just ruin my family and get away with it?” It was the girl whose arrogance had gotten her father fired. Her finger pointed straight at you, her expression a mix of fury and desperation.

The ballroom stilled as the girl pointed her trembling finger at you, her voice shrill enough to shatter glass. "You think you can destroy my family and just walk away? You're nothing but a tyrant with too much power and zero empathy!"

Her father, standing nearby, was frantically gesturing for her to stop. “D-Dear, perhaps we should—”

“Shut it, Father! I’m handling this!” she snapped, tossing her poorly styled curls over her shoulder. She turned back to you, eyes blazing. “Everyone should know what kind of monster you are. Workplace harassment! That’s right—I said it!”

Before you could even process the absolute absurdity of the accusation, the Duke of the North stepped forward like some knight in an overwrought romance novel.

“You will not speak of her in such a way,” he declared, his voice booming with righteous indignation. “The duchess is a paragon of nobility and grace!”

The crowd collectively oohed, but before you could roll your eyes hard enough to dislocate something, the Saintess shot to her feet, looking utterly scandalized.

“This man,” she hissed, gesturing wildly at the Duke, “didn’t even fight for me, his divinely chosen match, but now he defends her? A woman who flaunts her defiance of heaven’s will? Blasphemy!”

“Blasphemy?” you muttered under your breath. “Blasphe-you, lady…”

Unfortunately, the Balding Prince chose this moment to stumble into the fray. “Uh… Are we…arguing?” He puffed up his chest, desperately trying to seem relevant. “As prince, I demand order!”

You took one look at him, with his shiny scalp gleaming under the chandeliers, and decided he wasn’t even worth the effort.

Meanwhile, Jade, ever the picture of composed menace, sidled up to your side. His eyes locked onto the Duke’s hand, which was still resting on yours. With a polite but firm gesture, Jade brushed the Duke’s hand away as though it carried the plague.

The Duke looked affronted. Jade just smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile. It was the kind of smile that promised future inconvenience.

You, however, had officially hit your limit. You stepped forward, raising your voice over the din. “Enough!”

The room froze. All eyes turned to you as you launched into your tirade, starting with the Saintess.

“You!” You pointed directly at her, ignoring the way her cheeks flushed with outrage. “Do you honestly think the universe revolves around you just because you’ve got a shiny necklace and a tragic backstory? Newsflash: It doesn’t. The only divine will I’ve seen is everyone’s will to avoid your self-righteous sermons. Go back to your prayer circle and spare us your dramatics.”

Her mouth opened in shock, but you were already turning to the Balding Prince.

“And you! Stop sending letters to my estate asking for potions to grow hair or stretch your bones. I’m a duchess, not a miracle worker, and no amount of magic can make you interesting. Get a personality—or at least a hat.”

The prince turned beet red, his hands twitching as though debating whether to flee or argue. You didn’t care.

You swung your gaze to the girl whose father you’d fired. “And as for you, congratulations. You’ve just confirmed that stupidity really is hereditary. Your dad didn’t lose his job because of me. He lost it because he was stealing more money than the royal treasury had left after your little shopping sprees. You’re lucky I didn’t throw both of you in jail.”

Her father, now sweating through his cravat, looked like he might faint on the spot.

Finally, you turned to the Duke. “And you. I appreciate the effort, really. It’s sweet that you think I need defending. But I’m not a damsel in distress. I don’t need saving. And, oh—” You reached out, grabbing Jade by the arm. “I happen to have a fiancé whom I adore. So maybe put your chivalry elsewhere.”

Jade, for his part, looked smug as he allowed himself to be pulled along, his composure completely unshaken.

The ballroom fell into stunned silence as you swept toward the exit. Then—

Floyd’s laughter broke through like a cannon blast. He doubled over, clutching his stomach as tears streamed down his face. “Oh my god—that was amazing—! Balding prince—hat—”

Azul smirked, hiding his amusement behind a gloved hand. “Well, that was certainly… enlightening.”

You didn’t even look back as you pushed open the grand doors. “Idiots, the lot of them,” you muttered.

As you exited the ballroom, you couldn’t help but glance up at Jade. He looked unusually pleased, his lips curling into a faint, satisfied smile.

“What?” you asked, narrowing your eyes.

“Nothing,” he said smoothly, though the twinkle in his eye said otherwise. “I simply find your methods... inspiring.”

The two of you made it past the grand doors before the realization hit you like a carriage with no brakes.

You had just declared, in front of everyone, that you loved Jade.

And he knew it. Oh, did he know it.

He walked beside you, his usual calm and collected demeanor now infused with an insufferable smugness. His smile was the kind that could sell snake oil to a herpetologist.

“Darling,” he said, his voice laced with honeyed amusement, “you’re unusually quiet. Cat got your tongue? Or perhaps you’re shy after your… heartfelt proclamation?”

You refused to meet his gaze. “Shut up,” you muttered, staring resolutely at the carpeted hallway like it held the secrets to the universe.

“Now, now,” he crooned, leaning closer. “Why won’t you look at me? Surely you wouldn’t deny me the honor of basking in the gaze of my beloved?”

Your face burned hotter than the ballroom chandeliers. You covered it with your hands. “Leave me here,” you said dramatically. “Leave me here to rot in peace.”

Jade chuckled, and it was the kind of sound that sent shivers down your spine—warm, teasing, and entirely too pleased. “Why on earth would I do that?” he asked, his tone deceptively innocent. “Especially when my beloved looks so… endearing in their embarrassment.”

You peeked through your fingers, ready to deliver some biting retort, but the words died in your throat.

Jade’s expression had shifted. He wasn’t just amused anymore—he was smitten. The way his mismatched eyes softened as they looked at you, the faint smile that carried more affection than smugness, the subtle tilt of his head like you were the most fascinating thing in the world—it was all too much.

“Stop looking at me like that,” you grumbled, your voice weak.

“Like what?” he asked, feigning ignorance as he gently reached for your hands.

You tried to resist, but he was insistent, pulling them away from your face with a tenderness that made your heart ache. Before you could think to stop him, he leaned in and kissed you.

It wasn’t just a teasing peck to rile you up—it was slow, deliberate, and completely disarming. You melted against him, any thoughts of resistance dissolving as you instinctively pulled him closer.

When you finally broke apart, breathless and slightly dazed, you couldn’t help but think that maybe—just maybe—this book wasn’t the irredeemable mess you’d always thought it was.

After all, it had given you him.

The decision to expedite the wedding wasn’t exactly born of romance. It was born of the Duke’s increasingly deranged letters, the last of which included a poem so long and melodramatic it might as well have been a novel in verse.

Jade, to his credit, only raised a single brow at your muttered curses as you ripped the latest letter into confetti. “Darling,” he said mildly, “perhaps this is a sign to finalize our own arrangements before our dear Duke decides to recite his poetry at your doorstep.”

You had agreed, of course, which led to your current predicament: drowning in swatches, floral arrangements, and pamphlets for curtains—curtains, of all things.

“This one feels too garish,” you muttered, holding up a deep crimson drape. “But this one’s too boring,” you added, pointing at a pale beige option. You groaned and flopped back in your chair, glaring at the wedding planner. “Why is there no middle ground? What am I paying you for?”

The poor planner looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and never come out. Before you could unleash more frustration, Jade plucked the pamphlets from your hands with infuriating ease.

“Enough,” he said, his tone firm but fond. “You’ll give yourself gray hairs fretting over curtains. We can always elope, you know.”

You gaped at him. “Elope?”

His smile turned mischievous. “Yes. A quiet ceremony in the woods, perhaps, with only the birds as witnesses. Far from meddling Dukes and curtain debates.”

For a moment, you almost entertained the idea. But then you shook your head, laughing softly. “I suppose I’m being a bit dramatic.”

“A bit,” Jade echoed, though his teasing lilt softened as he leaned down to kiss your forehead. “You don’t have to do this alone, my love. Delegate.”

The wedding planner, who had been cowering behind a stack of color charts, practically lit up. “Oh, yes! Delegate! Please, delegate!”

You sighed, leaning into Jade’s touch. “Fine. You’re in charge now.”

The planner looked as though he might fall to his knees and kiss Jade’s shoes in gratitude. Jade, ever the picture of elegance, merely chuckled.

“Excellent choice,” he said smoothly, guiding you away from the table of chaos. “Now, let’s find something far more enjoyable to argue about—like the wedding cake flavors.”

As you walked away, you couldn’t help but marvel at how easily Jade managed to turn your stress into something almost enjoyable. Perhaps rushing the wedding wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The room was an over-the-top vision of wealth: chandeliers the size of small planets, flowers flown in from who-knows-where, and a cake so tall you were half-convinced Floyd could climb it and look smug doing it. Every noble in the kingdom was here, decked out in silks and sequins, pretending they weren’t secretly gossiping about you and your eel fiancé.

You barely noticed. Jade was standing in front of you, looking so unfairly ethereal you wondered if the universe had been playing favorites. His mismatched eyes were locked on yours, and his smile was small but so genuine you almost forgot your carefully planned vows.

Then, of course, chaos. Because how could anything in your life go smoothly?

From the back of the ballroom came a loud, wet, obnoxious wail.

“Oh, for the love of God,” you muttered under your breath, and Jade’s lips quirked in amusement.

“I LOVED HER FIRST!” the Duke sobbed dramatically, his voice shaking with the intensity of his grief.

“Shut your mouth before I shut it permanently,” Floyd snapped, his voice cutting through the crowd like a knife.

And if that wasn’t enough, you could faintly hear Azul’s oily, persuasive tone somewhere off to the side. “Yes, Lord Evermore, just a tiny signature on this insignificant little contract. You’re not using your soul for much, anyway, are you?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, biting back a laugh. This wasn’t just a wedding—it was your wedding. Of course it was going to be chaotic.

But when you looked up, there was Jade, his gaze steady and full of a quiet devotion that made the rest of the madness blur into the background. His vows were perfect, as expected, and when it came your turn, you stumbled over the words a little, because how were you supposed to focus when he was looking at you like that?

Then came the kiss.

Jade dipped you in one smooth motion, his lips brushing yours with a tenderness that sent the room spinning. Applause erupted, and you swore you heard someone sniffling behind you.

“Is the Duke crying again?” you murmured against Jade’s lips.

“I believe Floyd threatened him,” Jade replied, far too amused.

“And Azul’s... oh no, is he signing contracts?”

Jade only smirked, kissing you again. “Should I be worried that you’re more interested in their antics than your new husband?”

“I’m not—wait, husband?” You blinked at him, the word sinking in, and for the first time in ages, you felt completely, blissfully happy.

As you stood there with your chaotic, ridiculous found family around you, you couldn’t help but smile. Sure, your life had taken a turn for the absurd, but if it brought you to this moment, maybe that cursed mushroom wasn’t so bad after all.

“Remind me to thank that mushroom,” you said with a grin.

Jade’s laughter was soft, warm, and entirely yours. “If it brought us together, I might build it a shrine.”

You laughed, pulling him closer. You’d faced chaos and conspiracies, chaos and hilarity, but in this moment, you couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

Trash Novel Masterlist

All Masterlists

[idkdudethisisntpermanent]

Can’t Break Tradition

cairo sweet x female reader

summary: You and Cairo are rivals in the workplace. What’s with all the tension at your holiday party?

word count: 3k

a/n: office life au. Merry Christmas!

————

“So I hear you’re still gunning for that promotion huh?”

You shrug, “Mhmm yeah” you say uninterested as your eyes dart around the lavish ballroom your company rented for the holiday party. The massive chandeliers, fancy ice sculptures, and bustling crowd do little to distract from your real focus tonight.

The rando from the IT department that you managed to find yourself in a conversation with responds. “Is that why you and Cairo have this whole thing going on?”

That gets your attention. Your gaze snaps to him, your brows furrowing slightly. “Whole thing?”

“You know what I mean,” he laughs waving his arm off like you said a joke. “Everyone knows," he says leaning in like he's about to share some juicy gossip. "I heard from Iris, who heard from Janice, who heard Winnie talking to Glenn, that apparently Cairo sabotaged your presentation last week so she could take over your clients." He finished cautiously.

Of course you knew what he meant by whole thing. Everyone in your department—Writing and Communications, knew that you and Cairo Sweet were both sworn enemies. Joining the company at the same time, in the same position, had practically set the stage for it—like fate had decided you were destined to clash.

What surprised you is that the tale of you and her had reached other departments. And considering the fact that this was the third person tonight to bring up Cairo to you, it was clear your dislike for each other hadn't gone unnoticed by anyone in the company.

As the IT guy rambled on about something, your eyes finally found what you were looking for. There she was: Cairo Sweet, standing at the top of the grand staircase. Draped in a perfectly tailored red dress that hugged her figure just right, she descended the steps with an effortless grace, completely aware to the sea of male coworkers now openly gawking at her.

You tugged at your red tie, the fabric suddenly feeling too tight against your collar, and scoffed under your breath. “Someone clearly mistook ‘holiday party’ for the Met Gala. Totally unprofessional,” you muttered, the sneer in your voice unmistakable.

“I think she looks incredible,” the IT guy said, glancing at you with a grin.

You shot him a sharp side-eye and rolled your eyes for good measure before scanning the room again. Cairo had disappeared from view, and you couldn’t help but feel a flicker of irritation as you tried to pinpoint where she’d gone.

Knowing where she was meant knowing where to avoid.

“Seriously, though,” the IT guy continued, oblivious to your distraction. “You two really know how to keep everyone entertained. I mean, the banter, the glares—it’s like you’re living in a rom-com, only without the romance part.”

You snorted, finally tearing your gaze away from the crowd. “You sure are right about that. There’s nothing romantic about Sweet. She’s all ego and sabotage wrapped in a designer dress.”

The IT guy just shrugged, clearly amused. “If you say so. Anyways, good luck with that promotion. Looks like she’s already working the room.” He pointed toward the bar, where Cairo was now standing, chatting animatedly with a group of senior managers.

You clenched your jaw, the sight of her effortless charm setting you on edge. Of course, she was already playing the game. Cairo Sweet didn’t just show up—she made sure everyone noticed her.

Determined not to let her get under your skin, you grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server and made your way across the room. You weren’t about to let her win tonight.

But just as you reached the edge of the bar, Cairo turned, her sharp gaze locking onto yours like a heat-seeking missile. Her lips curved into a smirk, and for a moment, the air between you crackled with tension.

“Y/n,” she greeted smoothly, her tone dripping with mock sweetness. “Enjoying the party?”

“Trying to,” you shot back, your voice laced with sarcasm. “Though it’s hard to relax when certain people keep making everything about them.”

Her smirk widened, and she leaned in slightly, her voice dropping just enough for only you to hear. “Jealousy doesn’t look good on you, you know.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but before you could, your colleague and best friend Glenn’s voice cut in.

“Whoa, whoa, easy there, you two,” he said, stepping between you with a grin. “Can’t you at least pretend to get along for one night? It’s the holidays.”

“Tell that to her,” you said, jerking your thumb toward Cairo.

“Please,” Cairo scoffed, crossing her arms. “If anyone needs a lesson in playing nice, it’s you.”

Glenn laughed, clearly unfazed by the tension. “Classic you two. Anyway, don’t let me interrupt. Just thought I’d enjoy the show while it lasts.”

As Glenn stepped away, Cairo leaned in again, her eyes glinting with something you’ve seen countless times. “Careful, Y/n. Keep glaring at me like that, and people might think you actually care.”

With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd, leaving you standing there, your champagne untouched and your pulse racing.

“You know, for someone who claims to hate her, you sure spend a lot of time looking for her,” Glenn says turning around and rejoining the conversation, holding a drink in one hand and his trademark grin on full display.

You groaned internally. Of course, Glenn had to watch that interaction. Your best friend always had a knack for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Don’t start,” you muttered, shooting him a warning look.

“What? I’m just saying,” He teased, leaning casually against the nearby bar. “First thing you do when you walk into a room is look for her. It’s like clockwork.”

“I wasn’t looking for her,” you lied, adjusting your tie again.

Glenn barked out a laugh. “Right. And I’m next in line for CEO. Come on, admit it—you love the drama. You and Cairo going at it is like some kind of soap opera for this office. My sister says even her team takes bets on who’s gonna snap first.”

You rolled your eyes, though your stomach twisted at the mention of Winnie. Of course, Glenn’s sister would be involved— Cairo and Winnie were practically inseparable. And if Winnie was anything—she was observant. If Winnie was running her mouth about you and Cairo, then there was no telling what kind of nonsense the office was spinning.

“Winnie doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” you said firmly.

Glenn raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. “Sure she doesn’t. Look, I get it. Cairo can be... intense. But you’ve gotta admit, she keeps you on your toes. Maybe that’s why you’re so obsessed with hating her.”

“Obsessed?” you repeated, incredulous. “I’m not obsessed. She’s just—”

“Here we go,” Glenn interrupted with a grin, gesturing for you to continue. “Let me guess. She’s arrogant, competitive, impossible to work with—did I miss anything?”

You scowled, crossing your arms. “She’s all of that and more. Trust me, if I could avoid her, I would.”

Your friend smirked, clearly enjoying himself. “Uh-huh. Sure. But you’d be bored out of your mind without her around. Admit it, she makes things interesting.”

You opened your mouth to argue, but the words caught in your throat as your eyes found Cairo again. She was across the room now, laughing at something Winnie said, her smile lighting up the space around her.

Glenn followed your gaze and let out a low whistle. “Man, if that’s what hatred looks like, then sign me up.”

You tore your eyes away, glaring at him. “Shut up, G.”

He just laughed, clapping you on the shoulder. “Whatever you say, buddy. But if there's something else going on,” he winks, "Then feel free to confide in me."

You shook your head, as he walked off looking to network with someone that could probably make him the next CEO. You gave up on the champagne and flag the bartender down to make you something stronger.

The bartender, a sharp-eyed woman with a no-nonsense air, approached with a towel slung over her shoulder. She tilted her head, her lips quirking in an amused smile as she set a tumbler in front of you. "Let me guess—bad night already?"

You sighed, resting your elbows on the bar. "You have no idea."

As she mixed your drink, she glanced at you, her brow lifting. "You’re Y/n, right?"

You froze. "Uh, yeah. Why?"

She leaned closer, dropping her voice conspiratorially. "I’ve heard the whispers. You and Sweet." Her lips pulled into a smirk. "You guys really hate each other that much, or is it just for show?"

You groaned, rubbing a hand over your face. "Seriously? Even the bartender knows?"

She laughed, sliding your drink across the bar. "Hey, I’ve got ears. And let me tell you, office gossip is way more entertaining than the soap operas my grandma used to watch. People are saying it’s like the ultimate rivalry. You know, ‘will they or won’t they.’"

"It’s a ‘won’t they,’" you muttered, taking a sip of your drink. "Definitely a ‘won’t they.’"

The bartender shrugged, unconvinced. "If you say so. But honestly, you two sound like you’re either gonna kill each other or..." She trailed off, her smirk widening.

"Don’t even finish that sentence," you warned, pointing at her with your glass, looking around you for prying ears.

She chuckled, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. I’ll drop it. For now."

As you took another sip, you glanced down the bar and froze. There she was—Cairo—leaning casually against the counter, her red dress shimmering under the dim lights. Beside her, some overly confident guy was clearly trying his luck, gesturing animatedly as he spoke. Cairo’s smile didn’t falter, but you could tell from the way her body angled slightly away from him that she wasn’t interested.

Your grip on the glass tightened.

The bartender, noticing your shift in attention, followed your gaze. "Ah, there she is. The infamous Cairo. Gotta admit, she’s got style."

The bartender then noticed her pushy company. "Looks like someone’s got her hands full."

You rolled your eyes, downing the rest of your drink in one gulp. "Yeah, well, she can handle it."

"Sure she can," the bartender said with a smirk. "But you’re still watching, aren’t you?"

You ignored the comment, setting the empty glass on the counter. "Thanks for the drink," you said curtly before standing and adjusting your tie.

Your focus already zeroed in on the scene unfolding at the other end of the bar. You knew more than anything that Cairo could handle this situation herself, but your legs had a mind of their own.

By the time you reached her, just as you’d predicted, the guy was already retreating, his shoulders slumping with dejection. Cairo’s sharp gaze followed him for a second before shifting to you. Her expression softened, ever so slightly, but her voice remained crisp.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Y/l/n?" she asked, tilting her head.

You slid into the space the guy had just vacated, leaning casually against the bar. "Just doing my civic duty. Looked like you were stuck with a walking HR complaint."

Cairo smirked, a flicker of amusement crossing her face. "And here I thought you were avoiding me tonight. How uncharacteristic of you."

You shrugged, signaling to the bartender for another drink. "Not everything’s about you, Sweet. I was thirsty."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, a playful glint hidden beneath her usual sharpness. "Right. And yet, here you are, conveniently stationed right next to me."

The bartender slides you another drink.

You met her gaze, holding it for a beat longer than necessary. "If you want to believe the universe keeps throwing us together, who am I to argue?"

"Well," she said, her voice quieter but no less cutting, "the universe must have a cruel sense of humor."

You smirked, setting your glass down. "Or it just knows how much fun we have hating each other."

She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "You have no idea."

Before you could respond, someone from your team called her name from across the room. Cairo straightened, her professional mask sliding back into place with ease.

"Looks like I’m needed," she said, her tone light but her eyes lingering on yours for just a moment too long.

"Don’t let me keep you," you said, stepping aside.

As she walked away, you couldn’t help but watch her go, the familiar mix of emotions churning in your chest.

————

The evening progressed with a blur of polite conversation and forced laughs as you navigated the crowd. Glenn eventually found you again, dragging you toward a smaller room just off the main ballroom where some of the younger employees, including Winnie, had apparently decided to congregate.

“Come on, Y/n, this is where the real party’s happening,” Glenn said, grinning as he pulled you along.

The room was cozier than the grand ballroom, with dim lighting and a more relaxed vibe. People were sprawled on couches, perched on armrests, or standing in clusters, laughing and chatting over drinks. The hum of conversation was punctuated by bursts of laughter as someone commanded the group with an animated story.

You scanned the room, and your stomach flipped when you spotted Cairo sitting comfortably on the armrest of a couch, a drink in hand and a look of mild amusement on her face as she listened to whatever Winnie was telling. Great. Of course she was here.

“Y/n!” Winnie called out, spotting you and immediately waving you over. “Come join us. We were just talking about your legendary showdown with Cairo last month.”

You rolled your eyes as Glenn shoved you toward the group. “Can we not?” you muttered, but it was too late.

Cairo’s gaze flicked to you, her expression unreadable, but you swore there was a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

The evening wore on, and the atmosphere grew increasingly relaxed as more drinks flowed. Someone turned on music, and a few people started dancing in the center of the room. Glenn, ever the life of the party, was in his element, cracking jokes and keeping everyone entertained.

Then, out of nowhere, someone shouted, “Mistletoe!”

The room fell silent as heads turned, eyes scanning for the culprits. You froze, your gaze darting up instinctively. There it was—dangling innocently from the ceiling above you. And of course when you turn to see who had occupied the space behind you—Cairo.

“Oh, this is too good,” Glenn said, his grin so wide it practically split his face. “Y/n and Cairo, under the mistletoe? This is golden.”

Winnie’s laughter rang out, and someone else whistled. “Rules are rules, you two!”

You felt the heat rise to your cheeks as the room erupted into cheers and chants of, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Cairo, ever composed, arched an eyebrow at you, her lips quirking into a half-smile that only you could see.

You swallowed, your heart hammering in your chest as every eye in the room bore into you. There was no escape, no snarky comment that could deflect this situation.

“Oh, come on, guys. I’m not trying to deal with HR on Monday,” you said with a dry laugh, taking a small step back from Cairo and the mistletoe.

From the crowd, Glenn’s voice rang out, loud and clear, “Boo! Loser! HR’s not invited to this party!”

The room erupted into laughter and cheers, with someone else shouting, “Yeah, live a little, Y/n!”

Before you could respond, Cairo rolls her eyes, and sighs dramatically like what she's about to do will take the life out of her. "I guess we can't break tradition."

And then her lips brushed yours in a soft, little more than corporate friendly, fleeting, yet enough to send a spark through your entire body kiss. The room erupted into cheers and whoops as she pulled back, her expression unreadable.

You immediately wiped your lips as Cairo turned on her heel and walked away into the crowd, leaving you standing there, dazed and entirely unsure of what the hell just happened.

You blinked, still rooted to the spot, before your feet carried you instinctively toward Glenn and Winnie. Glenn’s face lit up the moment he saw you, his mouth opening to unleash whatever snarky comment was brewing.

“Don’t,” you snapped sharply, holding up a hand, your voice laced with a warning edge that made him laugh even harder.

Winnie raised her glass in mock salute, biting back a grin. “What? No post-mistletoe debrief?”

You groaned, rubbing a hand down your face. “I hate both of you.”

Glenn smirked. “Sure you do, buddy. Sure you do.”

————

Moments later in a dimly lit private room in the venue, the faint thrum of the music from the party outside is barely audible through the thick walls. Cairo’s hands are tangled in your hair, her touch possessive and demanding as her back presses against the edge of a table. Her lips are on yours, urgent and searing, leaving no space for hesitation.

You gasp softly, breaking away just long enough to catch your breath, your chest rising and falling rapidly. Cairo’s dark eyes lock onto yours, her flushed face illuminated by the faint glow of fairy lights strung along the walls.

“You didn’t have to look that disgusted when you kissed me,” she breathes, her voice low but edged with challenge.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you tease, lips quirking into a smirk. “Did I hurt your feelings?”

Her expression hardens playfully, and before you can react, she grabs your red tie—the one you deliberately wore to match with her dress. She tightens it just enough around her fist to make you stumble closer—and pulls you into a kiss that obliterates any thought of teasing. It’s heated, raw, and dripping with hours of pent-up tension. Her nails rake lightly against the back of your neck as her other hand fists the fabric of your shirt, holding you close like she can’t bear to let go.

Your hands find her waist, fingers digging into the silky fabric of her dress as you kiss her back with equal fervor, pouring every ounce of your secret into the moment. The world outside could have been burning to the ground, and neither of you would have noticed.

When you finally pull away for air, your forehead rests against hers, both of you panting. A grin spreads across your face as you take in her disheveled hair and swollen lips. “Think anyone suspects us after that kiss under the mistletoe?”

Cairo shakes her head slightly, her lips barely an inch from yours. “Not a chance,” she murmurs, her voice a mix of satisfaction and mischief. “They’re too busy thinking we hate each other.”

“Good,” you reply, your grin turning sly as you capture her lips again. This time, the kiss is slower but no less passionate, a promise that this secret, this fire between you, is yours alone.

For now.

Taglist: @cobaltperun @machyishere @freakshow2501 @nwestra @mcchicken88 @101rizzlrr @snowdrop1026 @ilovesneezing069 @btay3115 @burntoutghost

[zombie-bait]

As an animation student I absolutely hate live action adaptations like the ones Disney's been churning out the last few years. They strip away all the artistic intent of the original pieces of media and turn them into grey, heavily cgi-ed experiences that don't even carry a quarter of the whimsy. The purpose behind these adaptations isn't to fully utilize a new medium and find a unique way of retelling the original story, it's just to make money.

Imagine you see a painting, let's say The Mona Lisa. Now, you can put on a black wig, pose in front of the countryside and take a selfie in the same pose. Is it fun? Yeah, sure. It's the kind of thing you can send to your friends or maybe post on an account. But to argue it is superior somehow because it's "real" is an insult. You could spend thousands of dollars on makeup, cameras and lighting but still, it will not carry the same cultural impact. It can't.

And don't get me wrong, photography and cinematography are 100% an art form. You can do beautiful things with a camera that cannot be done through any other media. Cosplay is another beautiful example of artists bringing their creative interpretations of characters into the real world. People who do those should be admired and appreciated. But we know that's not what's happening here.

You might not think The Little Mermaid (1989) or Beauty and the Beast (1991) are as artistically valuable as something like The Mona Lisa. That's the thing about art, no one really gets to decide what piece of art is or isn't superior to another. But all three are definitively intentional art. It doesn't matter if you're an overworked in-betweener for a mega-corporation in the 90's or a famous renaissance painter working on a portrait. Either way, you're pouring a little bit of yourself into your creation. Every choice you make has intent behind it and years of hard work, even if you're not conscious of that.

These adaptations are an expensive selfie boasted around as a superior product. Because that's all they are, products imitating art. You end up losing those intentional choices somewhere along the way as hand-picked colours, distinct silhouettes and visual storytelling all get dulled into the same "realistic" shape. And children deserve better. Not just because exploiting families by rereleasing content is scummy, but because I whole-heartedly believe that children deserve artistically rich, complex stories. Almost every animation student and professional that I know got where they are because they were inspired by something. Maybe it was Beauty and the Beast or My Little Pony or Animaniacs or How to Train Your Dragon. But there's something immensely powerful about being a little kid and being shown a completely new, beautiful way to imagine and interpret the world. And you find yourself sketching day and night to replicate that interpretation until suddenly you're creating something new, with intention, that's never been made before.

I'm sure there are plenty of kids who like movies with realistic-looking animals. But the animals aren't realistic because these corporations thought kids would enjoy them, they're realistic because studios executives that don't actually give a shit about art or animation think they are more visually impressive and needed to come up with an excuse to recycle content instead of daring to do anything new. They don't care about artists, they care about consumers.

Since we keep getting "live action" CGI remakes of already perfectly adequate animated movies, and because people need to understand that animation is a medium and not a genre, I have prepared this primer about the importance of Visual Language for Conveying Information.

Can you tell what the personalities of these two mice are?

Can you tell now?

Which of these two tigers feels safer to be around?

Which of these three dogs is the funniest one?

If you can answer these questions, then you already have experience with the idea of visual language and stylistic choices being used to impart narrative meaning. If you can understand why these choices were made to impart meaning, then you can understand why animation is a medium for telling stories that has its own inherent value, and is not merely a "placeholder" for the eventual implementation of photorealistic presentation (aka "Live Action" CGI). Animation does not need to be "corrected" or "legitimized" by remaking it into the most representational simulation of observable reality.

[alchemistc]

Part One

The loft is sadly undecorated. He'd tried, is the thing. Gone to the same novelty store they'd found on a random walk after a date, in late September, where Tommy had spent twenty minutes worrying a foam pumpkin in his hands while Buck tried to decide what sort of decor would fit his utilitarian loft.

They'd spent so long lingering over the sculpted white candles, Buck thrilled because Tommy's straight face broke every time Buck pointed out which ones looked like incredibly expensive dildos, that he'd felt bad enough to buy a whole set of them just to appease the girl at the counter who'd been watching them with a half annoyed, half wistful expression while Buck made a comment about dragons that had had Tommy biting his lip so hard he'd actually gone red in the face trying to hold the laughter in.

But every time he'd picked up a glass tree and thought how much fun it'd be to try to make Tommy go full Tik Tok Paramedic on him, every time he'd found something soft or plush enough that Tommy wouldn't have been able to resist running his fingers over it, plucking it up to toss it between his palms - well.

It wasn't like there'd be anyone in his loft long enough to really appreciate his decorations.

"Why'd you kiss me?" he asks, rounding on Tommy as Tommy takes a tentative step towards the kitchen.

"You were being annoying." At Buck's look, he elaborates. "Force of habit."

The finger comes up without any input from Buck, his voice tipping into that same flirty, bickering rapport he'd always pushed as far as he could. "I knew you did it to shut me up."

Tommy expression shutters. He recognizes Buck's tone. A few months ago that tone would start with a round of banter that usually ended with at least one of them with their pants around their ankles.

He looks spooked. He's staring at the island stool closest to the door like he's replaying the last conversation they had here, and Buck feels all his ire rear back up.

"You promised me clarity, Tommy." It's an accusation, and they both know it, because he looks ready to fucking bolt.

Slowly, he steps in. Half a yard closer to Buck, close enough to curl his hand over the island, and Buck is struck again by how goddamn unfair it is that Tommy looks this goddamn good in a suit.

"I did."

Buck's pretty sure he has some muffins he hasn't frozen yet that wouldn't actually damage Tommy, if he threw them at him.

"Can we...?" He gestures, vague as his half a question, and Buck wants to throttle him. Or kiss him again, which is -

"I need a beer. You?"

Tommy sighs. His grip on the corner of the island makes his knuckles go white. "Evan."

"No beer, got it." He swings the door open and doesn't wait for the reaction to either his snippy little rejoinder or the stacks and stacks of baked goods filling up the shelves of his fridge. He pops the cap with his back still turned, let's the fridge door fall closed. "Not like you drove here, but sure. One of us should be sober, I guess."

The switch back to Evan doesn't do anything for him at all.

Buck leans back against the counter and tries not to think about how he'd had this half formed idea of getting a real tree this year, finding some novelty kiosk that made those hokey ornaments for people to mark the years they'd been a family. He'd thought -

Tommy blinks guiltily when Buck catches him eyeing the way he fills out his slacks, a toe to groin drift of his gaze that makes Buck ache for when he could respond to that by dropping to his knees.

"That's a lot of bread," Tommy notes, eyes focused somewhere over Buck's shoulder.

"Why'd you break up with me, Tommy?"

Tommy freezes. Shifts from foot to foot. Sighs, and takes a few steps to the fridge, swings it open to grab a beer of his own. It's still the stuff Tommy likes. Buck's not picky, really, and it'd been habit to grab the six pack he always kept for Tommy.

The last five times he'd restocked.

Tommy takes half a step back to lean against the island, just off center from Buck, so they both have to twist their necks just a little to actually look at each other.

"You terrify me," Tommy murmurs, a few swigs in, when the silence is just starting to make Buck's skin itch. "Evan, I'm not -." He grimaces, frustrated. "I'm not some Super Gay who fights for justice and equality and the ability to make horrible television with Hummel doll sopranists."

"I don't know what that means."

Tommy's smile is wry. He'd had a running list of movies Buck's never seen on a note on his phone - every time Buck missed a reference, he'd added it to the list. They'd gotten through maybe twenty before -

"I led on a good woman for years because I convinced myself I could live my life ignoring a huge piece of myself. I hurled slurs with my buddies just to make sure no one noticed me. I fed into every toxic stereotype I could just to avoid anyone realizing I wasn't one of them. I'm not - I'm not some Gold Star Gay, paragon of the community. I didn't do shit. And even when I made the decision to let myself just be who I always was, I waited until no one in my life was close enough to me to question that I hadn't always been this way. I -." He winces. Shakes his head. "I run instead of fighting. I hide every time someone tries to see me. I'm not - this comfort you're so convinced I have I took at the cost of other people who were braver and stronger than I could ever be. Do you - is that an admirable quality, to you?"

Buck wishes they'd sat, like Tommy seemed to have been hinting at. He wishes he'd spent the ride over preparing himself for this, instead of stopping himself from crawling into Tommy's lap and getting a horrible rider rating for his trouble. He wishes -

"Do you think I don't already know all those things about you?"

It's - actually, it makes him a little furious, to think that Tommy spent six months thinking he'd successfully hid all those things from Buck. And - sure, he hadn't exactly been forthcoming about more than a few of those things, but like -

It wasn't like Buck didn't actively find ways to pry stories from Howie and Hen, even Bobby on occasion. It wasn't like Buck hadn't noticed the clipped way Tommy spoke of his past, his family, always tucking away more than he revealed. It wasn't like Buck wasn't well aware that Tommy Kinard had the capacity to be a total fucking asshole, if he wanted. Just because he'd kept it cool around Buck, made it just flirty enough for plausible deniability -

"You deserve better than that. Than me."

"Then be better than that, Tommy." It's not the best way to get his point across, but... "I've had multiple serious relationships, Tommy. I'm - I've been in love, before, and I've had my heart broken before, and I've had my trust broken before, and I've made people I love feel like shit. You weren't new and exciting, Tommy, we were - we were boring and domestic and it was the best six months of my life. It was what I -."

And this, of course, is where the words start to crest over, too many at once while his mouth tries to keep up and his throat is too tight to -

He swallows. Stares at his toes until his vision swims. Maybe those are tears, or maybe he's just stared long enough to go cross-eyed. His throat feels like he might be able to scrape a few words out

"I go too fast sometimes. I - I get scared I'm falling behind and so I clear a few hurdles too fast to catch back up and it -." Frustration rises through him as he remembers the way Tommy had levered himself up, spun away, broken things off without even a hint of the careful consideration Buck had grown so used to. "And you just - you tell me you want more than anything to be my last but you can't even give me the closure of a clean break! What the hell was that about?"

"Evan, I -."

"No! Okay, no. It's my turn to - it's my turn to be mad. It's my turn to - do you know how lonely I've been? How - how much I'm in my own head about where I went wrong, and what I could have done differently, and why you won't just fucking text me when you clearly want to? Do you know - do you know what it's like to think you've finally found something worth the humiliation of being known and then have it vanish in a single night? Over - you never talked to me about any of the shit you brought up that night, Tommy! You never - if you were so scared of not being enough to keep me interested, or so sure you weren't a good enough man, or so sure I couldn't possibly know what I wanted out of this, you could have saved us a hell of a lot of time and - and hurt by not being exactly the person I thought I could spend the rest of my life with! If that was all a - a smokescreen, some act, then why did you - are you actually so cruel that you convinced me we were falling in love while you had one foot out the door the whole time?"

Tommy's grip on the bottle looks painful.

"It's your turn to talk," Buck snipes, and he takes a little satisfaction in the way Tommy blanches. Just a little. Just enough to ignore how much he wants to rip Tommy's suit jacket at the straining shoulder seams and bite a bruise into that spot below his collarbone that even Tommy's undershirts hid well enough to keep the team at Harbor from putting him on blast for coming to work covered in hickeys.

"Six months with you was more devastating than two decades of hiding who I was, Evan," Tommy says, and it's a horrible opening that makes Buck feel like he's being drawn and quartered but he'd given Tommy the floor, so -

Tommy's eyes are a little too misty to call them anything but welling, and Buck hates it as much as it satisfies the pieces of himself he's spent weeks trying to pick up and glue back together.

"Evan, I lived with Abby for years and I don't think I saw her as much as I saw you. You -." He swipes a hand through his hair, and rustles one of his Superman curls loose to drape tauntingly over his forehead. Buck wants to bite him. He wants it to hurt. "You burrowed in and you just kept digging and I didn't take a second to question it until it was too late."

"Too late for what?"

"For me to take the cowards way out and leave before it hurt."

"Maybe I should have dug further," Buck snaps, and Tommy's gaze flits to his. Holds, for the first time all night. He's breathtaking in the best and worst way possible. He's spent weeks now trying to imagine anyone else ever making him feel the way prolonged eye contact with this man makes him feel.

"You did," Tommy admits, a confession that sounds like it's been gut punched right out of him. "You still -." Another grimace, Tommy pulling back, pulling away, hiding, running, and Buck can't -

"So what is this, Tommy? Is this - are you -?" He shakes his head to clear the cobwebs. Rears up, pushes off the counter, and Tommy's eyes widen like he's just now realized he doesn't have an easy exit. Buck just stands there, though. "If this is it, let this be it. If you don't want - if you're not willing to fight for this with me, tell me now. I know I'm - I know I'm a lot. I know I push for more when I'm scared. I know I'm overwhelming, and I sometimes can't stop talking to save my life, and I know I'm jealous and petty and - I know I'm not perfect."

Tommy sets his bottle on the counter beside him. Worries his lip between his teeth and rolls his jaw.

"You snore. You're a bitch sometimes and every once in a while it's not even charming. You hog all the covers and then you complain that it's too hot. You're vague about every single thing in your past that you think makes you seem like a bad person. You always think food needs more garlic and sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes when I spiral you just give me that stupid indulgent smile of yours and I know you stopped listening two reddit threads ago. When you're grumpy sometimes it takes everything in me not to pick a fight because you're such an asshole. You get cagey every time I pick at a thread you don't want to unravel and I - I hate it. I wanted a life with you and you couldn't stick around long enough to tell me why you were too afraid to go for it. So if - if you think I'm seeing you with rose colored glasses, or whatever. If you think I'm not - if you think being the first guy makes you too special for this to be real then just..." He sucks in a breath. Blows it out through his nose and feels the ache in his chest that's half remnants of his earlier panic attack and half fear that Tommy will actually turn and walk out at the end of this. "If you don't wanna fight for this I'll fill in the hole I dug as best I can and I'll leave you alone, okay?"

The look on Tommy's face is one he's never seen before. They've done this dance, or parts of it, at least. Tommy'd left him outside Micelli's, breathless and confused and aching, before he ever knew what it was like to hold his hand, to press his nose into the join of his neck and shoulder, to curl a hand in his hair or be filled by him - with attention, with affection, with the weight of his body and the stretch of his cock. Even then, this had felt different. Real, in a way the misty edges of his time with Abby, or the way Buck's puzzle pieces had never quite fit with Taylor's had never been. Even then, he'd just wanted so desperately to know and be known by Tommy that he'd taken his second chance and run with it.

"I don't snore," Tommy says, when the silence gets too heavy, and Buck - god, Buck has missed that tone, the snappy little tilt of his head, the blatant lie that passes over Tommy's lips so smoothly it's hard to tell sometimes that he's not being serious.

"I have audio proof," Buck says, and then doesn't immediately admit that he'd played it on a loop two nights into the breakup when he'd wrapped his entire body around the spare pillows on his bed and still hadn't been able to sleep alone in his bed.

"It bugs me that you spent days following scraps of information about a dead outlaw you convinced yourself cursed you, but you didn't even know what a Kinsey scale was."

This is - progress. This is... not Tommy bolting.

"I'm a two. If that's - is that, like, gay enough for you, or...?"

"You go too fast for me, Buckley," he says, and Buck knows that's a fucking reference to something he doesn't have context for just as well as he knows he's willing to spend the next decade waiting for the reference to pop up on Tommy's list. It's a terrifying, exhilarating thought and it's probably exactly what Tommy means.

"I can slow down," Buck says, and he tries to mean it. Nothing about how he feels about Tommy is slow.

"I don't want you to," Tommy admits, and then lets the silence stretch. They're two and a half feet away from each other and the distance feels like the farthest he's ever been from Tommy and the closest he may ever be again. "Living together, making a life together..." He swallows. "Marriage." That stops him short just long enough to recall how he'd blazed right past the I love you and straight into how he could keep Tommy. "You scare the shit out of me every goddamn minute of every goddamn day and I've never missed being terrified as much as I have since I walked out that door."

"I'm in love with you," Buck tells him, and Tommy blinks back tears. Takes a shaky breath and nods.

"That's what scares me. It's never - it's never been enough, before."

He'd sort of expected this to end with either the echo of his KitchenAid or a frantic rush up the stairs, but when Tommy meets him halfway all he does is sink his nose into the curls behind Buck's ear and breathe.

His arms drag Buck closer, his feet shuffle beneath them, his chin hooks over Buck's shoulder and he breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

---

"Your morning breath is rancid," Tommy tells him, palm centered on Buck's nose when he leans in for a kiss, pads of his fingers curled just slightly so that his hand is nearly encasing Buck's entire face. He wants to be annoyed but it's mind numbingly hot and Buck has missed it. Missed the snark, and the comfortable way Tommy will shoot him down when his head is in the clouds, and exactly how fucking large Tommy is.

"I'm so tired of avocado toast," Buck bats back, and Tommy is distracted enough by his need to make a face at that for Buck to swoop in and press a kiss to his cheek. He makes sure to make it a little wet just to watch Tommy's face crinkle in mock disgust.

He's in one of Buck's hoodies, is wearing the pair of his own sweats Buck had buried in the back of his closet in a fit of pique three days post breakup. He still looks properly debauched and Buck wants to drag him right back to bed.

Except -

"You don't have to go," Buck repeats, for the fifth time since he brought it up somewhere between peeling Tommy out of his suit pants and rolling out of bed to warm a hand towel under the sink so that Tommy could clean the cum off his abs. "But I need to shower and leave in like - twenty-seven minutes."

Tommy catches him by the waist and drags him in. "I won't be able to stay. You baked and I took as much holiday overtime as I could, but if you seriously want me there -."

"I seriously want you everywhere."

Tommy raises a brow.

"I mean that in a horny way and a codependent way."

Tommy snorts. "Good to know we're approaching this in a healthy manner."

"You told me not to slow down," Buck reminds him, and he gets a smack to his ass for his trouble.

"When Maddie pulls me aside, do you think she'll just slip me a poisoned glass of wine, or is she gonna get up on a step stool and make me stand there while she strangles me to death?"

"She won't do that." Buck leans in again, rolls a loose curl between two fingers. "She'll just stab you in the middle of the kitchen and warn my parents not to step in the blood."

"That's comforting."

Tommy takes a utilitarian shower in the downstairs bathroom and doesn't let Buck join him, and then rifles through Buck's closet until he finds all three of his button downs Buck had tucked away.

He has to borrow a pair of Buck's slacks and Buck absolutely does not mind that his ass is definitely gonna stretch them out.

With about seventy seconds to spare, Tommy presses Buck to his front door and kisses him just long enough to screw up Buck's meticulous timing - by the time he pulls back and gives Buck enough room to glance at the time on his stove, Buck knows they're gonna hit just enough red lights to make them late.

"I love you too, by the way," Tommy murmurs, and just this once, Buck decides not to be a brat about being five minutes late.

[umadosedepascal]

DIRTY HOLIDAY | Pedro Pascal X f!reader | One Shot

Written by Santa Trindade

Banner by @missyorkswhore

Made in Brazil

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x f!reader

Summary: You go with friends spend the holidays in Mexico, such a coincidence to be at the same resort as Pedro. What a world, so small huh?

wc: 3.7k

rating/warnings: [little surprising plot] [Pedro being Pedro][unprotected PIV][oral sex m/f] [alcohol comsuption] [Curse words]

a/n: C’MON GUYS. Do I need to explain myself after yesterday pictures and videos? NO. FUCKING HELL NO. wtf Pedro.. WHY is he so fucking hot??? WTF. 😭

You are going with your friends to Mexico to spend the holidays this year. It was a tough decision to make because you always spend the holidays with family, but this time you decided to try something new away from home since your whole family always judges you. Your dad always comes to you saying, “You’ve been drinking a lot, my baby; slow down…”

All you want to say is that you are a grown woman and do whatever you want, but every year you keep behaving as an angel to them.

You and your girlfriends get on the airplane on the 24th, heading to Mexico for 2 weeks.

All of you are very excited and feeling some freedom in the air.

“Hell yeah, the first thing we get there will be a round of tequila shots… you gotta deal with me…” and your friends laugh with your sassy attitude.

A promise is a promise. You check in, change to your bikinis, and go to the bar by the pool.

“Hey buddy, 3 shots of tequila, por favor?”

The barman looks at you with half-closed eyes. “ID first, my ladies; you look under 18…”

Although you are all over 27, actually, you three hand your IDs on the counter and look around the pool waiting for your drinks.

One of your friends comes to you and says, “Hey, isn’t that guy from….”

Your jaw drops, your legs start trembling and shaking, trying to hold on to something and not to fall… “YES?”

Pedro is lying down on a sun chair in red shorts, drips of water are running down to his bare chest, and he is really deep into a book.

“I need my shot RIGHT NOW!” You say loudly to your friends, trying to compose yourself at the same time.

They know you have a crush on him and talk nonstop about his work, so this is going to be a wild trip if you get to meet him even for a second.

“Second round is on me; let’s do it,” one of your friends says.

All you can think about is him. You don’t stop to look in his direction and try to plan how to approach without being a silly, stupid, drunk idiot.

The most down-to-earth friend of yours tries to calm you down, saying that you will have your chance, etc., but you are so far away in your thoughts that you ask for a large margarita and tell them you're going to take a sun chair as close as possible to him and see what happens.

“You crazy! But yeah, good luck; I hope he’s not a dick with you…” one of them tells you, hopeless, not trying to hurt your feelings.

“Dick? Yeah, I want some dick… You laugh, already buzzed, walking towards the chair right next to his.

As long as you get near him, by himself, still deep into the book.

You already worked up the courage and asked, “Hi, is this chair taken?”

He gives a side eye, looking at you from head to toe. “No darling, all yours…”

As you sit on the chair, you can hear your friends from the bar cheering like party animals.

You look at him saying, “Jeez, these people know how to party, huh?” Hoping he didn’t see you before taking shots with them a few moments ago.

“Yeah, yeah… young people... having their time…” he says with a smooth voice.

You feel relief because he didn’t see you before with them and anxious at the same time because YES, you could start a chit chat with him.

“Erm, yeah…” You don’t know how to keep this going and pick anything that you find inside your ecobag just to create other possible ways to talk.

Lay down on the chair, put on your Ray-Bans, and open the FUCKING MAP of the resort.

Jesus, what am I doing? Should I say I know him? Should I just ask what he is reading or maybe wait for another brief comment coming from him?

You can see by the side of your eye that from time to time he looks at you, but very, very fast, you just hold that giant map, feeling like you're on mushrooms with empty thoughts on your mind.

You’ve got your friends getting drunk and cheering for you from the bar and the hottest guy in the world by your side.

Think wisely…

You grab your drink from the side table and sip it.

“Is that good?” He asks you.

Pretending like you got scared, almost dropping the fancy glass on the floor… “Did you just.. talk to me? Um, well, I had better ones. But this one isn’t bad at all…” you describe your drink with a shy smile.

What the fuck did I say???

He chuckles, closing his book and now sitting down on the chair.

“Hm... 3-star review? I’m getting one myself; I like cheap stuff.”

You simply just give a “ha” to him as he stands up and walks towards the bar.

Your friends get wild; at this point, they might think he is going to talk to them for sure.

You immediately look at them trying to mimic something like, “Nooooo, noooooo, don’t say shit, you motherfuckers!!!”

You are in a panic because you know them and what they are capable of, especially under alcohol influence.

But they understand wrong; they know you always need a hand in terms of trying to flirt with someone else.

You see one of them approach him, saying something and looking at you at the same time.

You are screwed up. You know.

The only thing you can do now is wait for your end, getting big gulps of your drink and trying to calm down.

He comes back with a wild smile on his face saying, “I just met your friends over there; they told me things... you don’t need to hide anything…”

You sit down quickly. “What? Hahaha, they… They are buzzed; don’t believe in what they say…”

He keeps looking at you with half-closed eyes. “Hmm,” he sits on his chair sipping his drink and says, “Yeah, it’s not that bad at all…”

You simply don’t talk for some moments; your anxiety is building up like a pressure cooker.

Until then… “Hey Pedro… I’m sorry… I just wanted to say hi, but I’m already drunk, and I don’t know how to start a proper conversation. They probably told you I’m a sucker for you… and the ‘dick’ thing as well. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a stalker; I don’t want to bother you. I just think you're awesome, and it was a stupid idea to come over right here, right now.” You run over words.

“Wow, wow, wow, they just told me to be nice to you, haha, because you care... about me.” Pointing to himself.

After you say all that with a flushed cheek, you let out a loud laugh looking at your friends that are already out of sight. You get more desperate saying sorry a million times, trying to compose yourself.

“What more did they say?”

“That you are awesome and know everything about my stuff, but with moderation… I don’t know what they meant, but yeah, I just didn’t catch your name…"

You tell him your name with eyes open and disbelief that your friends, for the first time, did a good job, but not you… not you.

“What’s the dick thing you told me?” He asks you with a smirk.

“Aaah, nothing… being a dick… that’s it.” You say, looking to the ground with shame.

He grabs you by the chin and says, “I would never be a dick to a beautiful girl like you…”

You feel a shiver down to your spine when he touches you like that.

Oh shit…I’m already wet without even getting into the pool.

“I, I think I need to… brb…” You leave everything behind and go straight to the toilet, locking the door and sitting there.

Breathe in, breathe out.Ok, I will just grab my stuff and disappear…What did I do?

As soon as you open the door, Pedro is there waiting…

“I usually don’t do things like that; it can be the vibe, my drinks, or even Xmas. I don’t know…” He says, grabbing your hips, pushing you back to the toilet, and closing the door behind him.

“Is that what you wanted? hm" He rubs his beard on your face, searching for your mouth.

He guides your hands to his growing bulge while running his right hand from behind you, rubbing one finger over your pussy.

You moan when he rubs his finger roughly against you…

“So wet already for me…” he says in between sloppy kisses.

“Since the moment I spotted you here, yeah…” you whisper, with both hands stroking his cock over the shorts…

Then Pedro takes you slowly to the sink and sits you there, spreading your legs…“Let me see what you got, beautiful… spread more…” putting your bikini bottom aside and lowering to the same level.

You grab his wet hair with one hand while he tongue darts you deep, sucking your lips and moaning low with pleasure…

You don’t even blink, just looking down at him savoring you, such a tease.

No fucking way this is happening…

You can feel his nose rubbing against your clit; you are getting close to the edge, but suddenly people knock at the door…

“Oh dammit…” You murmur disappointedly.

Pedro stops his worship on you and tells you with a low voice, “My room isn't far... want to see what naughty presents Santa has for you?" His fingers trace small patterns on your thighs, making you shiver.

“But we need to be discreet… What’s your room number? I meet you there…”

Pedro chuckled softly, his breath tickling your ear. "Discreet, huh? I like the way you think." He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against your earlobe as he whispered, "Room 217, second floor."

Luckily nobody is at the door anymore, so you sneak out the toilet.

You try to find your girls just to quickly freak out and disappear again, but there's no sign of them.

You come back to the pool area, and Pedro isn’t there anymore; you bite your lip, get a deep breath, take your stuff, and go towards the elevator.

Room 217

You knock twice.

The door slowly creaks open, revealing Pedro standing there, his shirt half unbuttoned, revealing his chiseled chest. He's holding a bottle of tequila and two glasses. His eyes roamed over your body hungrily.

Stepping aside to let you in, he whispers suggestively, "Merry Christmas to me, indeed." He gently shut the door behind you, his free hand trailing down your arm. "Hope you like tequila..."

“Hm, yeah, better be careful… right?

Pedro's eyebrows shot up, a devilish grin spreading across his face at the memory. "Ah, but that was just a sample of what I can do sober. Imagine what I'm capable of now, all loosened up." Doing a little dance…

Then he pours two generous glasses of tequila, sliding one towards you before picking up his own. "I've got a list of naughty things I want to do with you..."

Oh, he wants to play a game…I’m just gonna faint 😮‍💨

“Oh… tell me more…” You push him to the sofa, sitting on his lap.

A deep, sexy chuckle escapes his lips as he lets you push him onto the sofa, his hands immediately finding your curves. "Mmm, you're being a naughty girl..." He takes a sip of his tequila, then offers you the glass. "You first."

“My list? With you... it is an extensive list. Better you tell me yours first…”

Pedro leans back into the sofa, a confident smirk playing on his lips as his hands continue their exploration of your body. "Well, since you asked..." He takes another sip of tequila, his eyes never leaving yours.

The motherfucker is a tease; I knew it… I knew it!!!

His hands wander up and down your body possessively as he continues. "I want to see those perfect lips wrapped around my... gifts." He punctuates his words with a gentle bite to your neck.

"Then I want you bent over this fireplace mantel while I take you from behind, watching your reflection in that mirror across the room.” His fingers trailed along your waistband suggestively.

“Wow…You really don’t waste time on your list, huh?” You start unbuttoning his shirt all the way down.

He chuckles, his eyes locking onto yours as he sees you unbuttoning his shirt, revealing his chest and abs one button at a time. He helps you finish the job, tossing his shirt aside. "Guess not..." He growls, pulling you closer.

Pedro's lips curled into a wicked smile as you slowly head down towards his chest, his hand lightly gripping the back of your neck.

"Well, since you asked so nicely..." you murmur approvingly, pressing your lips against his nipple.

He let out a low groan as you began to suck, his other hand coming up to gently stroke your cheek. "Fuck, just like that..."

You let out a soft laugh. “So… you like some worship on your nipples, huh?”

A deep, sultry chuckle escaped his lips, his voice husky with desire. "You're learning my secrets, aren't you?" His hand urges your head towards his other nipple. "Not just my nipples... but every part of me deserves some worship."

“That’s how I make my way down…” you whisper.

His breath hitches as you whisper your intentions, his body tingling with excitement. "Well then, I can hardly wait to feel those heavenly lips trailing lower..." He guides your face down his torso, his abs clenching instinctively under your touch.

As you kiss and nuzzle your way down his abdomen, Pedro's hands rest lightly on your head, his fingers gently guiding you. "Lower... lower... yes, just like that..." He hisses as your lips brush against the waistband of his red swim trunks.

You slowly peel back his zipper, the sound echoing in the room. Pedro's breathing grows heavier as you reach inside and wrap your hand around his thick, hard length. He lets out a low groan as you pull it free, his eyes rolling back in his head. "Fuck... oh god..."

Pedro's cock twitches eagerly as you firm your grip, the skin velvety soft, a prominent vein runs along the underside. The head is broad and round, flushed a deep red, with a tiny slit oozing with pre-cum. His hips giving an involuntary thrust forward, seeking more of your touch. "Don't tease me, beautiful..." He breathes out, voice strained with lust. "Put those gorgeous lips to work."

As you bob your head up and down, Pedro's hands tighten on your shoulders, his fingers digging into your skin. He starts to thrust gently…”Fuck... You look so beautiful with your mouth full of me..." He pants, his abs flexing with each thrust. His hands move to cup your jaw, his thumbs caressing your cheeks as he guides your movements. The wet sounds of your sucking fill the room, mixed with his guttural groans.

I take you out of my mouth for a few seconds. “You taste so good, but I don’t want you to reach the edge, hottie…”

His breath catches at your words. "Mmm, teasing me now? You know exactly what you're doing..." His tone is a mix of both frustration and deep satisfaction. "Yeah, don't make me come just yet…”

“Yes, let’s work on your list…” You say, sitting back on his lap, cleaning the corner of your mouth with his precum.

Pedro's eyes darken with desire as he watches you clean your mouth with his precum. "Fuck, you're so naughty... I love it." He reaches out and runs his thumb over your lips, spreading it around before leaning in to claim your mouth in a deep, passionate kiss.

“So…What did you say about the fireplace? Second of the list…”

Pedro smirks mischievously. "Ah, the fireplace... I was thinking we could move our little session over there." He stands up, lifting you with him effortlessly. "I want to bend you over the mantel and fuck you from behind, watching your reflection in that mirror across the room.”

Pedro carries you to the fireplace, setting you down gently on your feet. He spins you around and bends you over the ornate wooden mantel, the cool marble pressing against your skin. "Keep those elbows locked," he commands, a firm hand on the small of your back.

Not happy with that, you just suggest, “Why don’t you just take me to the bed?”

"Because the bed is too ordinary," Pedro murmurs, running his hands down your thighs possessively, "I want to do this here, where I can watch myself take you in the mirror." He steps back to admire the view, his eyes roaming over your arched back and rounded bottom.

With a mischievous tone, you ask him… ”and you like to watch yourself?”

"Right now I’d love watching myself fucking you," Pedro confesses, his voice low and husky with desire. "Seeing my cock disappear into your pussy, feeling your body shake as I pound into you... it's fucking incredible." He reaches out to run his fingers through your hair, tangling them in the loose strands.

"And the mirror," he continues, his other hand reaching out to the mantel to steady himself as he lines himself up with your entrance. "Watching myself push into you, feeling your tight little hole squeeze around my dick as I fuck you hard against the mirror... fuck, it's going to be perfect."

With a deep grunt, Pedro thrusts forward, sheathing his hard length inside you in one smooth motion. He pauses for a moment, savoring the feeling of being buried inside you before he starts to move, his hips slamming against your ass as he fucks you hard against the mirror.

"Look at us in the mirror..." He reaches around to cup your breasts while continuing his steady pace. "Watch how beautifully you take my cock. Those whimpers you're making... fuck, you're perfect." His pace quickens, his breath becoming ragged against your ear.

His fingers pinch and tug at your nipples as he fucks you relentlessly, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing through the room. The mirror fogs up from your panting breaths and his sweat, obscuring parts of the reflection but not enough to hide the lewd scene unfolding before it.

In between moans, you beg him to take you to the bed; you can’t stand your legs anymore with so much pressure.

Pedro growls, pulling out of you abruptly and spinning you around to face him. He lifts you up and carries you to the bed, tossing you onto it before climbing on top of you. "I need to be inside you again, now."

He settles between your thighs, his hard cock pressing urgently against your slick folds. "Wrap your legs around me," he demands, easing the tip of his shaft teasingly along your slit. As you comply, he grips your wrists, pinning them above your head with one strong hand.

Pedro leans down, capturing your lips in a fierce, dominant kiss. His tongue pushes past your lips, claiming your mouth as his other hand guides his cock to your entrance. In one powerful thrust, he buries himself inside you again, swallowing your gasp with his mouth.

He breaks the kiss, his eyes blazing with lust as he begins to move, thrusting into you with deep, measured strokes that make the bed creak beneath you. "Fuck, your pussy feels amazing," he grits out, angling his hips to hit that perfect spot inside you.

Pedro quickens his pace, his grip on your wrists tightening as he chases his release. The room fills with the sound of his hips slapping against yours and your breathy moans. "I'm going to fill you up so full," he pants, nipping at your jaw. One of his hands slides between your bodies, finding your clit and circling it with his thumb. "I want to feel you come on my cock…”

"Fuck, you're getting tighter... Is this what you need, baby?" His thumb presses harder against your clit as he fucks you with deep, forceful strokes, the intensity in his eyes unwavering. "Come for me..."

Pedro feels your walls clench around him, and he growls, "That's it, cum on my cock." He slams into you one last time, burying himself as deep as he can go. His thumb circles your clit frantically as his release builds. "Fuck, I'm close..."

With a loud grunt, Pedro explodes inside you, his cock pulsing as he fills you with his hot seed. His thumb presses hard against your clit, sending you over the edge as you scream in pleasure, your pussy milking his cock for everything he's got.

He stays buried inside you, his thumb slowly circling your sensitive bundle of nerves as he nuzzles his face against yours, breathing heavily. "Damn it, I will tell your friends you are amazing… they were right..." He murmurs, his voice muffled against your neck.

After a moment, Pedro slowly pulls out of you, his softening cock slipping free from your still-quivering pussy. He collapses beside you on the bed, pulling you into his arms and holding you close. "Can we keep up with this list?" You say.

He kisses the top of your head, his heart still racing from their intense encounter. "I think we should keep going, yeah. There are a lot more things on that list I want to try with you." He pulls out his phone and starts typing, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Hey, I need to check on the girls...” you say, worried about them being away for a couple of hours already.

Pedro looks up from his phone, his expression softening. "Of course, go check on your friends. I'll be here when you get back. But don't be too long, okay?" He says giving you a little wink.

As soon as you go back to your room, you find your friends passed out on the bed.

Well, I guess you will leave a note at the door saying thanks for the little help, and you guys will catch up on the next day because you won’t sleep in the same room for a while… The list is endless.

😈

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Thanks for being here and read our delusional fics, likes are appreciate, comments even more. If you want to ask anything, blast it!

[bananapeeeeellssss]

I was reading a bunch of DPXDC stuff on here and AO3 with Ghost King Danny, and thinking about how people wrote when he spoke if it wasn’t hear-able to human ears or a different languages and that got me thinking - what would that sound like? Then my brain did some braining and thought - wouldn’t it be cool if it was just all languages overlapping? Like “Who goes there” in English, but at the same time every known and unknown language (or just the dead ones, since he *is* the Ghost King) at the exact same time with the translation. That would support the whole ‘super hard/impossible to translate’ because it could change every time depending on what languages or sounds are enunciated more.

Add in the fact that logically, the vast majority of gods would not just speak the language you know or maybe even the most commonly used, this kinda makes sense? Well, not really, but who cares. As a wise author once stated, “canon is a sandbox and I am the lightning which will shape it to glass” or smth like that. Also, anyone who dies instinctively knows how to understand the language(s) so they can understand their king (as Ghosts). So now I’m just imagining a situation like this (forgive me, I don’t know how to bold or italics or anything on tumblr I’m new):

Constantine, furiously flipping through translations book after translation book of paranormal languages and not finding anything on God speak: “Bloody hell, where is it!”

Danny, who just got summoned by some cult/to save the world/for some other reason and has crazy social anxiety but needs some kind of ‘sacrifice’ to make the summoning legal or else do a bunch of paperwork, thinking: *Can I just ask for a sacrifice? Would that be rude?*

Danny, Awkwardly: “I need a sacrifice before I can leave. Just like a rock will do. I don’t like paperwork.”

Constantine, attempting to translate, gesturing vaguely and panicked as he continue to flip through book after book: “It’s saying that it needs a sacrifice in Kevlar**, something about a crystal, and Korea?*** I think it wants Black Bat as a sacrifice?

Jason: *Cackling* How did you translate that so badly?

**Sacrifice in Hmong is Kev txi

***Paperwork in Acoli is “Karatac”, also I know Cass is Chinese not Korean but for the sake of this Constantine does not and/or assumes that the Ghost King can’t tell

Or, Jason randomly discovering that he can understand any language now. Just not speak it.

In conclusion, I have now decided that whenever a god speaks it is representative of all those who have ever entered their domain or presence, and because mortals are not capable of understanding the complexities and beauties of language, they will never understand.

…crap, now I want to write a tragedy or essay or poem or something about the symbolism

TLDR: God language is just all languages overlapping at once, scenario, and author having a mental breakdown over ELA and this being much longer than expected

[chaos-vixen]

@starry-bi-sky AAAAAA it’s 1:01am

I’m reading all the dp x dc I can find

And I want more scenes!

Like- Vlad has a business meeting in the morning, so Danny is forced to stay at this fancy ass expensive hotel (small miracle that Vlad got him his own fancy master bedroom type deal) overnight. But before that, we need to leave the party >:)

The Gala was set to end for roughly another hour, maybe hour and a half.

Danny didn’t give a shit.

So what if people parted a little when he walked back into the room. He didn’t give a shit.

He didn’t give a shit when he locked eyes with Bruce across the room. (not with the same damn subtle furrow in his brow he alway had when he was concerned but in public)

He didn’t give a shit when Vlad gave him a thinly veiled stink-eye. (Damned piece’s shite! What right- what right does that smug self serving bit-)

He didn’t give a shit when Tim found him in the bathroom trying to cover at least some of that lingering smoke smell (Didn’t give a when Tim gave him some of his cologne– that it hid the smell decently. Didn’t give’a when he told Tim that he was “Just a bit tired, head’d ou’early”. Didn’t give’a when half way through his goodbye his accent slipped with a wet voice crack. Didn’t give’s when Tim looked him with something horribly close to pity, made worse by the undertone of understanding)

Didn’t give anything (no reactions. No evergreen left for that or caring) when Vlad saddled up to him at the exit wondering just where he was going.

Did’t give a blessed thing about the one paparazzi guy touching it out to see who the first to leave was, not the final flash (heh, just one bright flash of light-) as he stepped and followed the sidewalk to where the cars where, knowing that Vlad was probably seething behind him.

Danny felt numb all the ride back in the car, up in the elevator, and down the hall to their neighboring rooms. Where Vlad, in his infinite wisdom, poked the bear.

“You know,” Vlad started, in all his slimy evilness (yes evilness- sue him, Danny’s too tired for better adjectives), “Ypu have cost me quite a bit of grief tonight, first with the cameras, then wondering off, then with this! Why, it’s like you want me to stop lending a helping hand to your parent’s funds! Or my little nudge for Jazz’s tuition?”

Danny cares. He doesn’t care about much. But Jazz?

He looks Vlad dead in those greedy, self-important eyes, his breath fogs, his rage and grief weighing the air down, thick like blood, suffocating– “You touch her, you threaten her or what she loves, and you’ll face Rath.”

Then he turns on his heel and slams the door (albeit not too hard, it’s a hotel) firmly shut.

A glance to the bed, perfectly inviting and soft. The alarm on the bedside table reads 10:37.

Whatever logic is left in his frizzled brain says that a shower would might help, but the rest says that bed is way to comfy to ignore. The only good thing to come of being forced to travel with Vlad was that the beds were usually not too bad.

Danny ends up staying up late, time slipping away (‘Why are there so many cursed metaphors?’) surfing through florist after florist for the perfect selection (Jay had always loved red—they’d joke about what color their suits would be if they where one of the richy-rich— also the zinnias where weirdly hard to find), though honestly there weren’t as many florists as there typically would be for a city as big as Gotham.

‘Probably Ivy’s fault’ he thinks tiredly, glancing at the alarm 1:07 seems to jeer from its spot on the bedside table.

With a big stretch and a groan, he decides with a mutter, “welp. ‘M already dead anyways”, rolls off his bed and heads to the balcony for a smoke.

Just as he stands, a ding sounds from his phone.

And for one, ancient’s forsaken moment, his stupid, hopeful mind thinks ‘it’s him’-

It’s squashed the the parasite it is.

Jazz, checking in, seeing if he’s alright. He flips back down on his bed, send a quick reply, how he’s turnin’ in early. He doesn’t bother trying to say that the Gala ended early- even hundreds of miles away Jazz could sniff his bs.

He also should maybe sleep. She concludes the same.

And eventually (but not peacefully, never peacefully) he drifts into the darkness.

——————————————————————————————————————

The morning is bright- because idiot tired Danny didn’t bother to close the fucking curtains.

Thankfully, Gotham isn’t exactly early riser either (smog doesn’t let much sun in until it’s bright enough to stab through the cloud coverage). This allowed a peaceful and lazy wake up all up until the Thud Thud on his door. Clock reads 8:23.

‘Never too early for the bullshit is it, dear universe?’ He thinks bitterly, dragging himself out of bed, mentally trying to prepare for whatever this could be.

There, as expected, stands Vlad, with his usual smug self standing straight with a slight smirk- until he sees an unkempt Danny, still in his suit and that smirk drops to a distasteful sneer.

With an upturned nose, “Disgraceful, anyways, I’m headed off to a business meeting elsewhere in the city. Plan leaves at 3 o’clock.”

Danny gives a slight nod, and immediately shuts the door again. That enough frootloop, especially since he hadn’t even had caffeine yet.

The promise of drugs (the legal kind) has his mind finally figuring out a course of action: shower, dress, boy flowers … then a visit to Jay. A proper visit.

So, with a list of tasks in mind, he sets off to do just that

Unbeknownst to him, a certain revenant was just waking up after not falling asleep 3 hours ago.

I desperately want to keep writing- but my shift starts at 7:00 am tomorrow and it’s already 2:24 am! Plz continue this!

also quick headcannon(s)

Danny still smokes the same cig brand Jay use to carry, the first cig he ever smoked, Jay’s brand

Jay is heartbroken at this broken echo of who he knows and loves (/pl)(present tense because angst) crumbled by grief, pit back together given hope just to have it all ripped away again

Alfred wants to see his honorary grandkid

Since Young Danny insisted on helping with dishes

Aaaand it’s now 2:30am

I’m probably screwed a wee bit. Oops!

*2:32

Childhood Friends Danny and Jason

(cw underage smoking / smoking as a form of bonding) (cw Jason thinking Danny killed himself but its only for a moment) (cw depictions of murderous intent? Danny wants to murder the Joker and he's a little descriptive about it

This is… aha. Massive. Word count check: 9k+

this has probably been done before but hey, everyone loves a good trope and I wanted to share my take on this idea. 👏👏 So, Danny Fenton and Jason Todd being childhood friends. The Fentons lived in Crime Alley for a good long while during Danny's childhood. Nobody wanted to fund their research and Jack and Maddie struggled to keep any form of work for a multitude of reasons. Jack worked in construction due to his big build and Maddie had another job elsewhere.

Danny and Jason were friends during that time, really great friends. I'm not super solid on how they met yet but I do know it involves Danny committing petty crime and Jason deciding to jump in and help when he sees Danny struggling. Danny was distrustful (as all crime alley kids ought to be) but they eventually became thick as thieves, committing petty crime together.

While it's all too easy to make Danny the weaker one of the two with Jason protecting him, I actually really like the idea that they protected each other. Growing up (essentially) on the streets means Danny forcibly had to grow a backbone unless he wanted to get trampled all over. He is just as willing to scuffle with the bigger kids as Jason is, and he and Jason regularly fought each other whenever they needed to let off steam, or just because. They were a duo, having each other's backs in tough situations.

(Sometimes the pair of them would sneak out at night and try and get a glimpse of Batman and Robin while they soared through the air. It was like a game between the two of them to see who could spot the dynamic duo first. When they were a little older, Jason would steal his dad's cigarettes and share them with Danny while they searched for Batman and Robin)

So when Danny has to move away when they're eleven years old, it's pretty safe to say that Jason didn't speak to him for a week afterwards. Nothing Danny did could persuade him to otherwise, even when Danny insisted that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't want to move away either, but he didn't have a choice in the matter.

When the week was over, Jason climbed through Danny's window and sat in his room, dead silent and looking upset. he didn't speak until Danny fished out a stolen pack of cigarettes from his bed and handed one to Jason.

(It was a ritual they had where if one of them was upset about something but wasn't saying anything, the other one could then hand them a cigarette -- whether it be the one they were using or a new one -- and that would be an open invitation for the person to vent. The other one who handed him the cigarette wouldn't speak until the venter handed back the cigarette. Then back and forth it would go until the cigarette was gone.)

Jason ranted about how pissed he was about Danny moving, and they promised to try and stay in touch after he leaves. Neither of them had phones, but Danny was determined to send him a letters.

Danny moves to Amity Park and it's... an adjustment, that's for sure. He's angry, grumpy, upset, and every other negative feeling under the sun. He was going to a new middle school with new people he didn't know, away from all of the people he did know and away from his best friend.

(He does however keep his word about sending letters, and mails one out to Jason at the first opportunity.)

He refuses to get along with anyone, butts heads with the teachers, is combative, rude, and openly smokes in class -- which gets him plenty of detentions and a bad reputation. He speaks in a thick Gotham street accent and wears hand-me-down clothes that are too big and baggy on him. (His parents have yet to replace any of their wardrobes as they settle into their new life, and Danny is hesitant to spend the money to get new clothes.)

He only manages to befriend Sam and Tucker because one of the football kids was bullying Tucker and Danny stepped in. It was some blond jerk named Dash and when Dash threw the first punch, Danny broke his nose. Tucker found him later that day and reluctantly thanked him for his help.

Sam and Danny do not get along for the longest time. Sam questions Danny about his upbringing, his accent, his smoking. She judges him for talking back to the teachers despite doing it herself and for ruining his lungs with cigarettes. Danny tells her to fuck off, and when she tries to judge him and Tucker for not being vegetarian, he calls her a privileged brat.

Sam doesn't even look at him for two weeks after, and Danny refuses to apologize. Tucker is caught between a rock and a hard place as his old friend and new friend are feuding with each other.

They... sort it out eventually.

Danny and Jason send each other letters near religiously. Danny complains about Amity Park, and Jason complains about how Crime Alley isn't the same without him. Danny talks about the school and what he's learned, about Sam and Tucker, and how he's been getting into the astronomy books in the library. He steals Jason a book and sends it to him.

When Jason tells Danny that he was adopted by Bruce Wayne, Danny calls bullshit. There's no fucking way Bruce Wayne would even look at Crime Alley, regardless of his charity efforts towards it. But when he checks Gotham news later that week, he's hit in the face with every single news article announcing Bruce Wayne's newest ward; Jason Todd.

Cue freaking out. Jason talks all about living in Wayne Manor and what it's like there. He says that there's a monster library in a part of the house that Bruce says he has free reign over, and that Jason can have anything to eat as long as he asks Alfred to make it and it isn't a desert, and that he has his own monster-sized room that he got to pick out himself and decorate.

(When they both get phones, the first thing either of them do is add each other's numbers.)

When Sam complains about having to go to a Wayne Gala that her parents are dragging her to one weekend, the first thing Danny asks is if he can go with. It surprises Sam and Tucker; Danny was the last person they would have thought wanted to go with. HE hates the rich even more than Sam does. Danny stands firm in his decision, and refuses to elaborate.

"Besides." He says to Sam, with whom he's begun to get along with via 'the enemy of my enemy is a friend'. "Would you rather go alone or with someone you can tolerate?"

She brings him with and convinces her parents to allow Danny to come along, citing that she'll be on her best behavior if they do. They agree, and buy Danny a suit when he says that he doesn't have one of his own.

(He discovers that he hates wearing suit jackets and ties, but vests he doesn't mind. He doesn't like that he has to comb his hair back, but he does to make Sam's parents happy. They give him a crash course in etiquette that Danny's going to forget the next day, and soon enough off they go in a private jet to Gotham)

(he does not tell Jason he's coming.)

he feels mischievous and nervous as they touch down, his stomach swirling as Sam's parents usher them to a high-profile hotel that Danny's only ever dreamed about going into. He feels largely out of place as they walk through the lobby, and falls back on old habits: square shoulders, set jaw, make yourself look like the biggest person in the room.

They get ready in the hotel room, Sam's parents primp and preen for the night incoming, and Sam is dragged into it by her mother. Danny does only what's required of him, and fiddles with the sleeves of his fresh-ironed button-down that's been tailored to his body. He's itching for a cigarette, and didn't bring any with.

Sam's dad helps him with his tie, a bout of kindness that Danny doesn't think is one. Just obligation to prevent Danny from looking like a mess. Sam pesters him again about wanting to come, and his reasons for it, and Danny keeps mum.

He's stone-faced with anxiety as they get closer to the gala, and before they leave the limousine the Mansons rented Sam links arms with him. A form of solidarity that Danny needs as he squeezes their arms together and smiles weakly at her.

The paparazzi are loud, bright, and demanding, shouting questions over questions at them like overlapping tidal waves. Danny ignores them all and focuses on the front doors instead. Sam's parents whisper at the stairs that they are to greet the Waynes first, and Danny's heart leaps to his throat.

His heart is in his ears as they drift closer, Mister Wayne is preoccupied with another rich couple, smiling that charming billionaire smile that Danny saw on every billboard in Gotham, and then some in Amity Park. Getting so close to him feels unreal.

And there by his side is the one and only Jason Todd, who isn't even trying to hide the bored look on his face as he watches Bruce interact with the other adults. He's gotten taller in the year they've been away, and healthier. His hair looks like its been cut professionally and he doesn't look as street kid skinny.

Danny's arm, hooked with Sam's, tightens up, and he resists the urge to rush forward and hug Jason. He watches Jason's eyes sweep left, away from him, and then right, towards him. The air stills for a moment as their eyes lock.

Danny grins toothily at him, lopsided and playful in nature, and sees the moment Jason processes the sight before him. His arm starts slipping out of Sam's at the same time as an ecstatic smile stretches across Jason's face.

His lopsided grin fills out on the other end. "DANNY!" Jason yells, cutting off whatever Bruce Wayne and startling everyone within earshot. There's barely a moment for Bruce to look down when Jason shoves past him and runs at Danny.

Danny yanks his arm out of Sam's, "JASON!" He yells with just as much enthusiasm, and Jason nearly topples them right over when he collides with Danny. His arms wrap around Danny's shoulders, holding onto him tightly, and they're both laughing, spinning around like tops out of joy.

"You didn't tell me you were coming!" Jason cries, sounding accusing. Danny hugs him just as tightly, and laughs when Jason pulls away momentarily to punch his shoulder.

"I wanted it to be a surprise!" He defends, laughing between words as their spinning comes to a stop. They're both reluctant to pull apart, but they do and clutch the sleeves of their elbows tightly. "How could my best friend be adopted by the Bruce Wayne and have me not come confirm it with my own two eyes?"

"I sent you newspaper clippings!" Jason says, narrowing his eyes while his smile betrays his face. Danny quietly notices that his Gotham street accent is faded slightly.

"Oh that's what it was?" Danny's grin turns again, edging into a smirk. He feigns innocence, "I thought that was fire kindling." He has the newspaper clippings hung on the corkboard in his room, proud beyond words about his best friend.

Jason punches him in the shoulder again, hard enough to leave a bruise. "You jackass." He says, ignoring Danny's laughter even when he's holding back his own.

There's a soft, sharp clearing of someone's throat, breaking their attentions away from each other to the one that made the noise.

Bruce Wayne was a tall man, taller than Danny expected, and he looks exactly like his billboards. If less promiscuous than his perfume ads. Danny expects him to be upset with them both for disrupting his pretty rich gala, but instead he just looks gently amused, with an arched eyebrow. Overall though, he just looks fond.

Danny would be the first to admit that Bruce had taken in Jason as a charity case, something to fill the void after his other kid Dick Grayson finally moved out. But Danny’s a good judge of character — or he likes to assume he is — and those are not the eyes of a man who would take Jason in as a charity case. Those are the eyes of a man who actually, genuinely, cares about one Jason Todd.

The wriggly protective thing settles in his chest.

He doesn’t let go of Jason, but he does twist his smile into something a little more polite. Mister Wayne’s eyebrow arches higher, and he turns his blue-blue eyes onto Jason. “Who’s this, Jason?” He has that fancy Gotham Elite accent -- something that sounds like a mix between old transatlantic and faintly British -- that Danny's only heard in passing when he and Jason snuck up to the nicer parts of Gotham.

Jason stares at Mister Wayne, his grip on Danny tightens as his eyes flick to the other onlookers in the room. “This is Danny, B.” He says once his eyes turn back to Mister Wayne. “We grew up in Crime Alley together, he moved to Illinois last year."

Danny can see the uncomfortable expressions cross every rich person's face, murmurs sweeping across the room as soon their uncomfortable gazes turned judgmental and flinty. He's kept track of the tabloids after Jason's adoption, the ones calling him a charity case and looking down on him for being a street kid.

He inches a little closer to Jason, straightening up instinctively, as if they were back in Crime Alley and facing a pack of kids that didn't like them. He can see Sam's surprised expression from the corner of his eye -- he never told Tucker or Sam about where he grew up, although he's sure they had their suspicions.

He looks back to Mister Wayne and meets his blue-blue eyes, his smile has slowly begun to fade. Mister Wayne doesn't miss a beat however, and his smile stays plastered to his face. If anything, it gets a little softer, a little wider. "It's nice to meet you Danny -- Daniel? I'm so glad that Jason has a friend here." He holds out a hand.

Danny eyes him unsurely, and then takes his hand. "It's jus' Danny, Mister Wayne." He says, some of his old accent slipping through as he shook his hand firmly. He would have done it harder, but this was Jason's new guardian, and from Jason's letters he didn't sound too bad. "It's, uh, nice to meet you too. Jason's told me lots about you."

Mister Wayne's brows jump momentarily, he looks intrigued. He looks between Danny and Jason, and claps his hands together softly. "Well, Jay, how would you like to stay with Danny for a while, hm? I'm sure you too have a lot to catch up on."

Hope simmers in Danny's heart, and he glances to Jason to see that same hope on his face. "Really?" He asks, and Mister Wayne nods with a laugh.

"Of course! How could I keep two friends apart? Go on ahead, chum. I'll come get you when the gala ends."

And just like that, Bruce Wayne leaves Jason with Danny, diving back into a conversation with one of the rich gothamites and taking the attention with it as if he were the sun and everyone else a planet orbiting him.

Danny and Jason share grins, and throw their arms around each other with laughter. Danny is on cloud nine, pressing his nose into Jason's shoulder and breathing him in, fingers digging into the back of his suit hard enough to leave wrinkles in his jacket.

Sam demands answers when they finally, for real this time, pull apart. Why didn't he tell her that he was friends with Jason Todd!? Danny slings his arm around Jason's shoulders and keeps him close, and tells her that it was because he wanted it to be a surprise.

Sam's parents have unreadable expressions on their faces, part greed -- Danny is their in to the elusive Bruce Wayne -- and part disdain -- a Gotham street rat. Danny ignores them, they're unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

He introduces Sam to Jason, and Jason to Sam. And off they go to a corner of the room near the buffet table where they can eat and shit talk everyone else in the room in peace.

At some point in the night Sam is called back to her parents to meet some other fancy rich kids her parents want her to get along with, and Danny and Jason go off to the west end balcony to avoid anyone who may try and approach the new Gotham ward.

Danny hops up onto the balcony railing, kicking his feet as Jason pulls a cigarette pack out of his inner jacket pocket, and grins. "Don't tell Bruce," he says, handing the box to Danny first. "He's been trying to get me to quit."

"Hah!" Danny takes one just as Jason slips out a lighter. "That sounds like Jazz. She's been trying to get me to stop since we moved to Amity." Granted, she's been trying ever since she found out before they moved, but now she was even more insistent. "She hasn't found my stash yet."

At the end of the night when the Mansons are leaving and Danny has to leave with them, he walks back to Mister Wayne with Jason to tell him that he's leaving. Mister Wayne mourns his going, and tells him that he's always able to come visit.

"Any friend of Jason's is always welcome to the manor." He says with a blinding grin, pulling Jason close to his side and squeezing him tight. Jason's nose scrunches up, but he doesn't push away.

It becomes a new routine for them. The Mansons are all too happy to bring him with to the Wayne Galas (of which they start receiving more invites to due to their connection with Danny) and Danny is all too happy to spend the evening with Jason again. No matter what, they always end up on the balcony at some point in the night.

And, eventually, Danny is invited to stay at Wayne Manor either for a weekend or for a break. He jumps at the chance when winter break rolls around and his parents start their debate over Santa Claus again.

Danny and Jason stay up late into the night talking or playing video games during their sleepovers, and in the warmer nights they climb out and onto the roof to stargaze. Danny points out constellations - - things he can find in neither Gotham or Amity -- and rambles on and on about space.

There are plenty of times during the Wayne Galas that the event gets attacked by a rogue. More often than he'd like he loses Jason in the crowd, and has later stopped Robin or Batman in his panic to find him.

The first time it happened, he was in tears with terror. He grabbed onto Batman's cape, stopping the man from going back in as he babbled that his Jason Todd was still inside, that he disappeared during the chaos and he couldn't find him. Batman took his hands and calmly told him that he'd find Jason for him, and that he was sure he was okay, but he needed to calm down.

He found Jason later once everything had calmed down, and he screamed at him for disappearing during a rogue attack, if he ever did it again he'll kill him. Then he cried.

The second time it happened, Danny didn't even realize that Jason was gone until everything was already over. They'd been separated before the attack happened. He stopped Robin and Batman before they could leave, trying to keep his breathing under control as he asked again, if they had seen Jason Todd.

"That- that asshole keeps fucking ditching me when these things happen." His voice has an embarrassing wobble in it. "Please-- please tell me you've seen him, that he's alright."

Robin this time steps up to reassure him, that Jason Todd was out of the building. He got him out. "He's probably looking for you too, uhhh..."

"Danny" Danny says, and eyes him up and down. "You're the new Robin right?"

Robin stilled up, and Danny could understand it a little. He'd seen the thoughts on the new Robin online. He wasn't very popular at first. Robin nods curtly, and Batman was shuffled a little closer to him, almost protectively.

Danny grins at him. "Cool." He says, "Me and Jay used to sneak out onto the rooftops sometimes to try and spot Batman and the first Robin, we made it a game." He holds out a fistbump, "Thanks for doing what you do, man. I might not live in Gotham anymore, but I mean it. You're a living legend."

Robin looks like there's something stuck in his throat, and after a beat he returns the fistbump tentatively. "Th- uh, thanks." He stumbles out awkwardly, and then turns away, "Me and B- uh, better go."

Before Danny could even respond, Robin already had his grapple in hand and was grappling away. "You too, Batman." Danny says before Batman can follow.

When Danny sees Jason after that, and weight lifts off his chest and he hits him in the arm again. And then complains that he should have gotten Batman and Robin's autograph, it would have been epic.

By the fifth time it happens, Danny is cussing up a storm when Robin saves him, cursing out Jason and claiming that he needs to put that boy on a fucking leash. "We're a duo!" He scowls when Robin gets him outside, "I got his back, he has mine! I can't have his back when he's got no back to fucking have."

The eighth time it happens, Danny gets held hostage by one of the henchmen. He's become a recognizable friend of the Waynes, and when the Waynes are nowhere to be found, then the next best thing was up to offer. Danny isn't even mad this time around -- just relieved that Jason was fucking off somewhere where he couldn't get hurt.

Robin, however, seemed furious when he arrived, and broke the hostager's jaw with a single flying kick to the face. Jason found him rapidly quick soon after the situation had settled, and apologized over and over again.

Danny slings an arm around his shoulder and laughs that it was fine, Robin saved the day! His legs were shaking with the worn off adrenaline, something he tried to hide from Jason. "I'm just glad it was me instead of you, Jay." He grins. Jason looks like he swallowed a toad.

Jason stops disappearing as often after that, sticking close to Danny's side until the attack was over.

When Danny is fourteen, Jason dies, and his world unravels.

He calls the manor on a late night in April after Jason had stopped responding to his texts. Danny knew that Jason was just recently in a fight with Bruce, but he knows that Bruce loves Jason. He would know where he is, right?

When he calls, Bruce answers with a hoarse "hello?" as if he'd been crying all day, and Danny's blood turns to ice. The anxiety he'd been feeling beforehand doubles in size, and he feels himself stammering.

"Mister- uh- Mister Wayne? Um, I'm calling because Jason--" he hears Bruce inhale sharply on the other line, and his anxiety skyrockets into fear. "--hasn't been answering any of my texts and- and I'm gettin' real worried."

There's silence on the other end, and Danny feels a rock forming in his throat, gross and heavy like he was on the verge of throwing up. "Mister- Bruce? Mister B?"

There's a shaky breath, and then Bruce's voice crackles through the phone. "Um-- Jason, he, he's--" there's a sound like rustling, "he's been killed."

Danny's vision whites out with skyrocketing terror, his mind skidding to a stop. His body rapidly grows hot, and then chills, like a blacksmith striking a heated weapon. "What?"

When the phone call ends, Danny screams himself hoarse. Jazz and his parents come running into his room, his parents equipped with ghost weapons. Instead, they find Danny curled up in his bed, sobbing hoarsely.

Danny almost -- almost -- refuses to attend the funeral, nearly paralyzed with grief. Jazz coaxes him to go, to find closure if anything else, and he drags himself out of bed to go.

He feels numb the entire time. It's closed casket, so he can't even see him for one last time before Jason is buried in the ground. He's silent, and if he think he looks bad, then Bruce looks even worse, like he hadn't slept since Jason died and worse.

Danny grabs his sleeve before he leaves, and when Bruce turns to him with a dull look in his once vibrant eyes, he clings to him tightly. And cries. Bruce clings back just as tight, Danny feels tears drip into his hair.

"Who did it." Danny whispers, voice too hurt to speak any louder, when he pulls back. His fingers curl around Bruce's jacket tightly, desperately. His eyes hurt with tears. "You said he was murdered, B. Please, who did it."

Bruce looks down at him, and for the first time it really does feel like he's looking down at him. His face is blank, and his eyes close in grief. There is no answer, a silent no.

Danny's face twists up all ugly like, and he shakes Bruce's jacket. "Bruce, please. Tell me who did it."

Bruce refuses, his face full of grief.

Danny never returns to Gotham.

Prior to Jason's death and post their reunion, Danny had slowly begun to improve in school. He started caring more, he was putting in more effort, he was doing his homework and was actually enjoying class. There was the bullying from Dash and the A-Listers, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle, he was ignoring them for the most part.

Come Monday after the funeral, and Danny breaks Dash's nose when he starts up with his shit. He withdrew into himself, and it was like he was back to square one again, except this time it was much worse.

Everyone knew Danny was close friends with Jason Todd. So when news of his death finally reached the ears of Amity Park, the students of Casper High School kept their distance.

That following Friday, Danny dies in the portal and comes back. A month later he becomes Phantom, the ghost-fighting ghost. the ghost Phantom wears his hazmat suit partially undone, showing a tanktop he didn't wear in death under the initial suit while the sleeves are tied around his waist. Vicious, glowing lichtenburg scars travel up his arm and neck and torso, covering half of his face while a pair of scientist-like goggles covers his eyes. He's bitter and angry, showing off his death.

Look at me, Phantom's form says, I am a dead child. Look at me look at me look at me. Mourn me. I am a dead child. LOOK AT ME. MOURN ME.

A few weeks later he enters the ghost zone and realizes that he could find Jason. And he spends a weekend scouring the ghost zone for him. He finds Gotham in the zone, and rather than finding Jason, he finds Robin.

Danny didn't know he'd died. And he flies towards him, asks him if he's seen Jason, reveals that it's him, Danny Fenton. Robin stares at him, mouth agape, and peels off his mask to reveal Jason Todd.

They both cry, and when Danny tells him how he died, Jason looks pale in the face. "You didn't- you didn't kill yourself because of me, did you?"

Danny fervently denies it. No, no. He didn't, he didn't. It was an accident. Totally unrelated. But enough about that, what the hell happened? Bruce wouldn't tell him anything at the funeral.

Jason clams up, his ghostly face losing its color, and Danny curses himself. He tells Jason that he doesn't have to tell him, he doesn't have to say anything. They sit in silence.

"It was the Joker." Jason says.

That's all Danny needs to know. He nods quietly. 'I'll kill him.' He thinks to himself, a stubborn set in his jaw. "Okay."

It had always been a plan; a thought wriggling in the back of Danny's mind ever since Bruce told him that Jason had been killed.

Not died. Killed.

Danny wanted the fucker dead the moment he realized it. He just needed to know who did it. He thinks Bruce knew it too, could probably see it in his eyes the moment Danny asked him who did it. He isn't sure if he should hate Bruce more for keeping it from him now.

They spend hours together, just soaking in each other's presence. Danny tries to take him through the ghost portal, to bring him back to the land of the living. But much like Kitty, Jason's form is tied to the zone. Danny promises to visit every day.

And he does. Or he tries to. The grief doesn't go away, but with the comfort of knowing that Jason was on the other side, Danny feels a little better. He tells Jason about being Phantom, and Jason helps train him. It feels like they're kids again and are fighting just because they want to. Its a bout of familiarity in a place that feels unfamiliar. All they need are cigarettes.

And then six months later he loses him again. Danny scours the ghost zone for him for the second time, and this time he doesn't find him.

His haunt is still in the zone though. He didn't move on. He's still here, somewhere.

Danny is convinced that Jason was in the Elsewhereness, and looks for him in between ghost fights and his social life. He visits Jason's haunt every day, knowing that Jason should be able to feel when another ghost enters his home. He does not show up.

(He never thinks that Jason came back to life, and Jason doesn't remember his time in the ghost zone)

When Danny is nineteen, Vlad Masters blackmails him into going to another Wayne Gala. Begrudgingly, Danny goes. He's taller than he used to be, having inherited his dad's monstrous height and his mom's leanness. He has piercings, some of them he got after a lost bet from Sam and Tucker, and he's given himself an undercut.

He still prefers vests over suit jackets, and he still smokes. A little less than before, he sneaks a pack into his pocket before he leaves, along with a lighter. Vlad gives him a dirty look the whole time - he knows.

"Don't give me that look." "That stuff kills, you know" "I'm already dead."

It's like deja vu when he arrives; an awful bout of deja vu, that is. The paparazzi is still as bright and loud and annoying as it always was, and they don't recognize him at all. Something he thinks of as a soft mercy up until one of the reporters asks Vlad who he is.

Vlad smiles and tugs Danny into the camera frame, "Why, this is my godson!" He crows, and shoots Danny a look that is downright smug I'm sure many of you may know him as Daniel Fenton?"

If looks could kill, Vlad would be ash. Danny isn't quite sure why he still agreed to this -- blackmail or no. He felt itchy being in Gotham; jumpy. He's never forgotten his vow to kill the Joker, in fact it was something he still desperately wants.

But the threat of Rath, the name he chose for his evil future self, haunts him just as much as his murderous intent. If he kills the Joker, would he stop?

Danny's almost afraid of what he'll do if he ever lays eyes on the Joker in person. He doesn't think he'll be able to stop himself from wrapping his hands around that stupid clown's neck and watching the light leave his eyes.

He pushes the thoughts to the side, and smiles lopsidedly as cameras and microphones flood his face, reporters yelling over themselves as they clamor to get a shot of the old Wayne family friend.

Danny turns and walks inside without answering a single question, flexing his fingers in and out of fists. Vlad gracefully hurries after him, and Danny can hear his glare burning into his back.

"You told me to come," Danny hisses to him once he's beside him, meeting Vlad's gaze piercingly, "not that I should play nice."

"Don't embarrass me, Daniel." Vlad hisses back, trying to look the upmost calm as eyes turn onto them. "I'll make you regret it."

"You embarrass yourself, fruitloop." Danny shoots back, walking away before Vlad could get a retort in. He sees Bruce Wayne on the other side of the room.

His heart seizes with nostalgia. He hasn't seen Bruce since Jason's funeral, hasn't spoken to him either. He doesn't know how to feel about him, but he'd been keeping tabs on Bruce both as himself and as Batman.

Danny's feet carry him forwards before he can think about it, silently weaving between the throng of rich people vying for his attention. It's only when he gets closer does he see the little shadow clinging to his side: Damian Wayne.

The newest little bird, Danny realizes, and stifles a smile at the surly expression on Damian's face as two older women coo over him. He reminded him of Sam, who had long since stopped coming to these things the moment she was able to.

The feeling of eyes on him turns Danny's attention away from Damian, and instead finds them back on Bruce's, who stares at him with a little furrow between his brows. As if he recognized him, but he wasn't sure from there.

Danny grins crookedly the moment he's within earshot. "Mister B!" He exclaims, slipping into what remained of his Gotham street accent. Recognition flashed in Bruce's eyes, and the man smiled widely. "Long time no see, old man."

"Danny," Bruce says, his name breathing out like relief. He slips between the crowd surrounding him -- who are now watching Danny -- and pulls Danny into a close hug. "It's good to see you again."

Danny hesitates for a moment -- he wasn't expecting Bruce to hug him -- and returns the gesture. "It's good to see you too, Bruce." He admits. Bruce was still using the same cologne that he did when Danny was a kid. He blinks heavily.

He pulls away quickly, clapping Bruce lightly on the shoulder as Damian quickly latches onto his father's side again. Damian glares daggers at him, fingers digging into Bruce's pantlegs like a possessive little kid.

He made Danny's ghost sense tingle in the back of his throat, creeping up slowly like a spider before stopping suddenly before it reached his mouth. It hummed, and then disappeared.

Danny smothered a frown. Since when did Batman work with ectoplasm? “This must be Damian." He says to Bruce, and holds out a hand to Damian -- he doesn't crouch, he had a feeling that Damian would be less than appreciative if he did that. "You've really expanded the nest since the last time I saw you."

Damian's eyes narrow at him. Bruce laughs lightly, "Ah yes, Tim is around here somewhere. I'm sure you'll see him soon."

"Father," Damian says, his voice layered with an accent. He glares up at Danny with piercing green eyes. "How do you know this man?" He sounds distrustful, Danny respects that and drops his hand.

"This is Danny Fenton." Bruce says, and Danny lets him introduce him. "He was Jason's friend."

An expression similar to bewilderment flashes briefly over Damian's face, and he eyes Danny in disbelief. "Todd had friends?"

Oh. So that's how he wanted to be. Bruce had a little elitist on his hands. Danny's smile drops like a deadweight, and any lingering endearment he had hardens like ice in his chest, fury slowly taking its place like a flickering candlelight. "It's not polite to speak ill of the dead, Mister Wayne." He says coldly, his voice made of chips of ice.

Damian blinks, the disbelief disappearing from his face. The closest thing to a recoil Danny thinks he's going to get. He doesn't care. No one speaks about his best friend that way.

"I grew up with Jason, actually." He continues, breathing in slow and deep, trying to keep the ghostly possessive-protective-rage under control. "I was his best friend."

He turns, almost robotically, towards Bruce, and tries not to look so angry. "I'm going to go find Tim, Mister B." He says, and tries to offer up a weak smile for the man. It comes out as a grimace instead.

"And..." he pauses, flicks his eyes towards Damian, and then looks at Bruce. "I'll... try and keep in contact, B. Tell Dick I said hi, alright? I'll see you in a little bit."

Bruce nods, looking vaguely disappointed and sighing slow through his nose. Danny walks away as Bruce turns to address his youngest, and doesn't bother listening in on what he has to say.

He does, eventually, find Tim Drake. He spots him in a crowd instantly - it's hard not to, and he makes his way over to him. He's not sure Tim Drake would recognize him, Bruce didn't at first and Danny had been around him constantly.

Except Tim Drake does recognize him, much to Danny's surprise. They lock eyes and Tim immediately makes his way over to him. "Danny Fenton!" He says and stops in front of him, "What a surprise, we weren't expecting you tonight."

"Tim Drake," Danny replies, smiling a little as his earlier hurt begins to fade away. "I'm surprised you know me."

"There are pictures of you in the manor with Jason." Tim explains, stuffing his hands into his pockets with an easy-going smile. "It's hard not to know you."

"It’s hard not to know you too,” Danny retorts, a sly smile slowly spreading across his face. “Although you’re a lot taller than you used to be, when you were lurking around Bruce and Jason and I.”

Ohhh Danny recognizes him alright. One part due to all the news articles and tabloids on him after he was adopted by Bruce, and the other part because he remembers the little shadow lurking near plants pots and table legs that used to follow him and Jason around at galas just like these.

Knowing that Jason was Robin, he wonders if Jason knew he was there too.

The effect is immediate: Tim’s eyes grow comically large, and a red tint glows at the tip of his ears as he shrinks back like a turtle trying to hide into its shell. “You— you noticed that!?” He hisses.

“I did!” Danny grins, large and wide, stifling a laugh as the red tint spreads over Tim’s cheeks and nose. He looks mortified. Danny coos. “Aww, I thought it was adorable that Jason had a little shadow. I’m sure he would have loved you if you had just come over and said hi. He had a big soft spot for kids.”

Tim snorts and it— it almost sounds derisive? “Sure he would.” He looks sad, and the mirth in Danny’s chest shrivels up like a flower without light. The smile fades from his face, and all that’s left is a strange, staunch reminder that Danny and Bruce weren’t the only ones that probably mourned.

He touches Tim’s shoulder lightly, “Hey, I’m sorry.” He says, trying to look as apologetic as he feels. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m sorry, I miss him too.” Like a fucking limb he missed him.

There’s something that flickers in Tim’s eyes, passing through too fast for Danny to realize what it is. He assumes its gratefulness, because Tim relaxes a little and offers him a weak little smile. “I wish I had talked to him.”

Danny sees an out and takes it, he forces out a short laugh, grinning widely. “I can tell you all about him if you’d like,” he offers, “I told Mister B I’d keep in touch anyways. I’ve missed him and Alfred quite a lot in the last few years.”

“Not Dick?”

“That dipstick wasn’t around often enough for me to form any sort of emotional attachment to him.” Danny says in a half-complaining tone, placing his hands on his hips. “Although I did like his puns.”

Tim snickers, “I’ll tell him you said that then. Nobody likes his puns.”

“Go on ahead,” Danny grins, laughter swirling in his chest and making his core thrum with warmth. Damn, he’s missed this family. “I stand by my decision. Puns are funny.”

“Let’s get a photo then.” Tim says with a hand already fishing in his pocket for his phone. “He’ll be devastated to know that you were here and he didn’t get to see you.”

“Sure.” And Danny sidles on next to Tim, throwing an arm around his shoulders — and making a noise of surprise when his arm was able to fit comfortably — as if he was just resting it on a counter.

He totally forgot how tall he was compared to Tim. Forgot that he’d been looking down the entire time they’d been talking. “Why’d I get my dad’s height.” He complains, and bends his knees as Tim raises the phone with the front-facing camera on.

Tim snickers under his breath, and takes the picture while they’re both smiling wide. Danny immediately stands up, and peers over Tim’s shoulders to look at the picture.

It’s a good one, with the fringe of Danny’s curls falling slightly over his left eye and making the dimple on his right cheek more prominent. He could see the barely-there smattering of freckles he had across his nose, the ones that became more prominent when the sun was out. His smile was lopsided, Danny’s favorite kind of smile.

He whistles lowly, “That’s a good one,” he says aloud, and smiles impishly at Tim when he looks at him. “You should send that one, I look hot in it.”

Tim snorts, his ears reddening as he looks down at his phone. “Yeah sure, no problem.” He says quickly, and Danny looks away when he pulls up the messenger app. He’s never felt comfortable looking over people’s shoulders when they were on their phone.

“I’m gonna go take a smoke break.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and curls his fingers around the box and lighter inside. “I’ll—“

“Be on the west-end balcony.” Tim finishes, the red in his ears darkening as he glances up from his phone to smile embarrassedly. “I know.”

Danny snorts, “Okay.” His voice is thick with amusement. “Let me know how Dipstick reacts, alright?” He backs up slowly, awaiting Tim’s response. Tim merely waves a hand at him, a weak gesture of “yeah yeah” that makes Danny grin before he flips around and marches towards his favorite smoking balcony.

———————

(Tim pulls up the family group chat and loads the selfie into the text bar. His face feels warm with embarrassment even as his thumbs fly across the screen.

Tim: look who i found at the latest charity gala :) [image]

Hee awaits eagerly a response, and finds he doesn’t have to wait long. Dick’s thought bubble appears on screen, then Cass’s — of which it only exists for a moment before disappearing.

Dick: holy shit, is that who i think it is?

Tim responds quickly, and his message sends.

Tim: yep. He wanted me to tell you that he thinks your jokes are funny.

Dick: they are funny

Tim rolls his eyes and thinks for a moment, really thinks. He weighs his pros and cons. And then his fingers fly across the screen again.

Tim: hey Jason are you not gonna say anything?

There’s no response for all of thirty seconds — of which it stretches on to an uncomfortably long minute — and then Jason’s thought bubble appears.

Jason: what do i have to say to a bunch of idiots blowing up my phone in the middle of patrol?

Tim: harsh. do you recognize the guy in the photo?

Jason’s response is instant. Too fast for him to have actually looked at the photo itself. He’s just trying to spite Tim then. Tim doesn’t care, he has the upper hand here

Jason: no and I don’t care, i have patrol

Tim knows he didn’t look at the photo, and yet he can’t help stifle a shit-eating smile and feign innocence

Tim: really? You and Danny used to be so close, color me surprised

His teeth dig into his lower lip, he doesn’t need to in order to hide a smile. But it gives him something to do. Jason is worryingly silent for a long, long time, and Tim can almost imagine him staring long and hard at the selfie. Tim knows he will be later.

Finally, Jason’s text bubble shows up. It exists for a long time, before finally Tim’s phone buzzes with his message alert.

Jason: that’s danny?

Tim feels all too gleeful. Smugness swirling in his chest like kicked up sand as he types his response: yep! Apparently he showed up today, although I’m not sure with who since I don’t see Miss Manson around here.

Damian: Father says to get off your phone, Drake. We are at a Gala and your behavior is most unbecoming

Tim: can it demon spawn, I was just telling Jason that his friend Danny is here

Damian: He can’t be too important if he doesn’t even know Todd is alive

Tim: how would you know that?

Damian: When Father introduced him as Todd’s friend, I expressed my surprise that Todd even had friends, considering how unpleasant he can be. Fenton became quite cross with me after that and quickly excused himself thereafter

Dick: you said what!? Damian that’s not okay

Damian: Father made that quite clear after Fenton left in a huff. My mistake for thinking that Todd had told his ‘supposed best friend’ that he was alive.

Dick: he didn’t even tell us we were alive at first

Damian: He did eventually, didn’t he? Clearly Todd doesn’t seem to care too much about Fenton if he hasn’t even informed him of his being alive at this point.

Jason’s thought bubble quickly pops up, and then dissipates, then pops up again. Tim quickly pockets his phone before he can see Jason’s response. He doesn’t feel smug anymore, just uncomfortable.)

———————

Stepping out onto the west-end balcony feels like a blast from the past. A painful one at that. Danny’s fingers dig into his cigarette pack, and he pulls it out with a sense of bittersweet familiarity.

It feels like a lifetime ago that he once stood here with Jason. The package clunks dully as his fingers scrape against the side, and he fishes a cigarette out of the box before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“Quite the night isn’t it.” He says to nothing, to ghosts of the past, to himself. He turns and sits on the railing, sticking his legs out like a tripping hazard while Gotham’s hot city wind blows through the air.

He looks up and only sees the ugly pollution yellow sky looking down at him. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to him. He loves the stars and yet when faced with a smog that covers it, he feels more at home.

Danny’s fingers find the lighter, and with a few clicks a small open flame appears in existence. There’s a poem here, he can feel it. But he feels too tired to find it.

The cigarette lights, and the lighter dies in response. Returning back to his coffin-like pocket until he needs to use it again. He pulls a leg up, resting his chin on his knee with a heavy, tired sigh.

He soaks in the sounds around him. The ugly city warmth nips at his jaw. The music inside is muffled by the force of two glass doors and walls on all four sides, and Danny can hear late night traffic coming by on the road nearby. It’s a special kind of ambience you can only find on the west end balcony.

Half a decade ago, Danny had played a part with that ambience with Jason. Now it was just him, and Jason was nowhere to be found. It left a hopeless kind of feeling in his chest. An all-suffocating kind of fear that filled him head to toe with an intensity only ghosts could have.

His body winds up like a spring, and Danny holds his breath. When he exhales two minutes later, the spring stutters and jolts, and his body relaxes with a tremble.

He misses Jason. He misses Jason.

Ghosts are emotional creatures. They feel it from their crown to their soles. And emotional wounds never really heal. They scab over and fester, waiting to be picked at again and again so it can bleed as fresh as it did when it first opened.

Danny’s grief is never going to go away, he thinks. It’s clung to him like a parasite; shaped him and molded him. The wound was too close to him when he died, and now it will stay with him forever.

He opens his eyes when his ghost sense tingles, a heavy feeling in his throat that is neither nicotine nor grief. It’s just like Damian’s, but stronger. Potent. Older. It reaches the top of Danny’s throat and sits at the base of his tongue, like a hand about to suffocate him.

He looks up, cigarette hanging off his lips, and the Red Hood drops down beside him. He stands in the same spot Jason once did, and that alone makes the ghostly core in Danny seize possessively.

Don’t you dare stand where he stood, it hisses, coiling around his lungs like smog. Danny grits his teeth and feels his ghost sense evaporate. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, and nicotine smoke pours out like a cheap version of his ghost sense.

“Red Hood.” He says plainly, his free hand coiling and uncoiling like cat’s claws against the railing. “A surprise to see you here.”

Danny knows through process of elimination who most of the Gotham vigilantes are: Dick is Nightwing, Bruce is Batman, Tim is Red Robin, Damian is Robin, and Cass is Orphan. There are a few who he doesn’t know, however. Like Batgirl and Red Hood.

It’s fine, he doesn’t need to know. Danny of all people understands the importance of a secret identity.

Red Hood doesn’t say anything, just stares at him as if he’s a deer in headlights. His body all tensed up like he isn’t sure what to do now that he’s here in front of Danny. Like he wasn’t expecting Danny to be here at all.

Danny’s brows furrow. “Sorry, am I in your spot?” He asks, and begins to push off the railing. “I didn’t think vigilantes used the Wayne Hall west-end balcony, I can leave if you want.”

He’s already begun to move towards the door.

The Red Hood lurches in his spot, “No!” He yells, and Danny stops in place with raising eyebrows. Red Hood’s fingers cringe, and he straightens up.

He’s shorter than Danny, he notes. Which isn’t much of revelation. Everyone is shorter than Danny.

“No,” Red Hood repeats, sounding sturdier than before, “No. You’re fine. I’m just stopping here for a quick rest before resuming patrol.”

…Danny doesn’t question it. It’s none of his business about other vigilantes and their practices. He shrugs and breathes out more smoke, “Alright.” He says, and walks back over to the railing to sit on it. “I’m Danny, by the way.”

The Red Hood nods, and a silence falls over them. Danny doesn’t care enough to make it feel uncomfortable, but the Red Hood seems unsettled by something. Lost in thought. He leans his back against the railing similar to Danny, and then switches a few seconds later to a new pose.

He does it again, and again, and again. Until finally he flips over and leans his stomach against the railing, arms resting against it. It is starkly like what Jason used to do, and Danny stares at him long and hard.

He frowns. And says nothing.

When Danny’s cigarette is nothing more than a butt of nicotine, he crushes it in his hand and watches the ash flutter down to the ground. The heat stings his hand, but its nothing his ghostly healing can’t fix.

The Red Hood is already holding out another one when Danny’s hand drifts to his pocket for the box.

Danny stares at him, sudden wariness opening up like floodgates that sit at the bottom of his stomach.

His frown deepens, his eyes flicker up and down at Red Hood. His hands hover over his pocket. “I have my own.” He says, and watches subtly as the Red Hood hides a wilt. As if he’d been expecting Danny to take it.

“Alright.” The Red Hood says, trying to sound unbothered. He retracts the cigarette away from Danny, quiet all the way. He’s looking away.

Danny plucks the cigarette out of his hand, startling the Hood enough that Red snaps back to look at him. Danny yanks his lighter from his pocket. “I won’t say no to a free cigarette.” He says, slightly muffled with the stick between his teeth. It lights.

Silence falls over them again, and when one minute stretches into five, whatever hope that had been digging into the shoulders of Red Hood finally pulls away and leaves him slumping subtly.

‘A ciggie for your thoughts?’ Nine year old Jason Todd whispers one night with an impish grin, holding up a cigarette pinched between his two fingers. ‘I stole it from my old man. He won’t even notice its gone.’

Danny is halfway through it when he speaks. “The Joker killed my best friend.” He says, and watches from the corner of his eye as the Red Hood flinches. Is he startled by Danny speaking, or startled by the bluntness of him starting?

“He beat him to death.” Danny continues, staring stone-faced away from Red Hood. His grief claws up his lungs and burrows into his heart again. His fingers dig into the railing. “He beat my best friend to death.”

The Red Hood is silent, his body as still as the grave. Silence stretches out between them both, and like he’d been thinking, the Hood finally speaks: “How do you know?”

He’s not holding the cigarette, he broke his and Jason’s rule. Danny bounces the stick between his fingers. “His ghost told me.” He says, taking a trembling breath. “His ghost told me so, before he disappeared.”

The Red Hood says nothing, and Danny gathers his thoughts. The ones that had been buried deep next to his core, shoved down ever since Danny learned of Rath and a terrible future where a world is destroyed by one ghost’s hands.

Danny has never said it out loud before. His face scrunches up briefly, and then smooths out when his eyes squeeze shut. “I’m going to kill him, Red Hood.” He murmurs when he opens his eyes, turning his face toward the vigilante. The sound is sucked out of the air.

The Red Hood stares at him, but he doesn’t say a word. Danny pushes on, teeth grinding into teeth as he flips his silvery scarred hand back and forth. Palm up, palm down. “It’s why I haven’t been back to Gotham in a while.” He admits, voice still quiet. “If I see the Joker I will kill him, and I won’t feel bad for it.”

“Not today though,” he says, and closes his hand, “today I’m here on a favor to Vlad Masters. Then after this I’ll go visit my friend. I need to apologize for not seeing his grave in a while. I’ll have to stop by a florist to see if they have any zinnias. Jay likes those.”

He takes out the cigarette in his mouth and breathes out one last cloud of smoke. And then he crushes the cigarette stick under his foot and walks back inside.

[tealvenetianmask]

Is anyone else worried that this

Is the beginning of Andealphus deciding that something needs to be DONE about Octavia?

Presumably, the time when she comes of age and her psychopathic uncle loses power is looming (whether that's at 18 or 25 or whatever...). And I think it's possible that he would be fine with that if Via were able to be molded and used as a puppet for some time. (Although his ultimate goal is clearly to be SEEN as powerful. Did you see all those ice sculptures he made of himself?)

But Via is not moldable. Not in the way that Andrealphus needs her to be- she'd need to be easily intimidated, and she'd need to value conformity, because that's honestly all that he and Stella have when it comes to getting her on their side.

Stella let Stolas raise Via. Stolas raised her to think for herself, to pursue her own interests, to speak her mind, and to love herself. And among other great things, that produced a snarky kid who can't be easily bullied.

So Andrealphus leaves the scene upset.

He goes from speechless to falling back on classism to malice very quickly. I think that "you will regret this" applies to every single character present.

But even more, I think he's starting to see Via as an obstacle, and this will only increase as they keep spending time in the same household.

Octavia is not safe, and this will be a huge threat in Season 3.

(@akirathedramaqueen your fic hits all the notes)

[midnightswels]

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES HEADCANONS

a/n: was thinking about being roommates with ellie and realised i NEED to write it down [recent work]

tw: i mean, it's poor fluff, mention of drinking, making out

roommate!ellie who is looking for a new roommate after her last one moved out to live with their partner. dina, ever the matchmaker, gives ellie your number, telling her you're perfect for the spot since you're laid-back, responsible, and (most importantly) not annoying.

roommate!ellie who rolled her eyes when dina mention you're into girls. "why does this matter?", she'd ask in an irritated tone but secretly thinks it’s awesome—less chance of awkwardness and more chance for shared queer culture jokes (and subtle flirting, though she'd never admit it).

roommate!ellie who was very nervous when dina invited you to a movie night together for you to meet her before moving in. she keeps overthinking—“what if she hates my movie choices? what if she thinks I’m a slob?” she even cleans the living room twice, just in case.

roommate!ellie who tries to act chill during the movie night but ends up awkwardly offering you snacks every five minutes to fill the silence ignoring dina's chuckles. when you compliment her vintage movie poster collection, she stumbles over her words and just mumbles, “yeah, uh, I guess they’re cool.”

roommate!ellie who turns out to be the perfect mix of chill and chaotic. she’ll let you borrow her clothes, but only if you ask first, because “boundaries, dude.” however, she’s also the type to borrow your hoodie without asking, especially if it smells like your perfume but she says it's just comfy.

roommate!ellie who can’t stop herself from smiling when she sees you curled up on the couch with her t-shirt with band picture on, binge-watching something ridiculous. she teases you about stealing her clothes but secretly loves it.

roommate!ellie who has an entire bookshelf filled with graphic novels, old paperbacks, and her sketchbooks when you have one with books and diaries. she’s shy about showing you her sketches at first, but eventually, she leaves one out for you to find—a drawing of you laughing during one of your late-night conversations. same about you: at first you refused to let her read your annotated copy of your favourite childhood book but then lent her it.

roommate!ellie who blasts her guitar late at night, apologizes profusely for it, then invites you to listen instead of going to bed. she’ll sheepishly admit she’s working on a new song but won’t look you in the eye when you compliment her voice.

roommate!ellie who invites you to play video games with her but always lets you win because she loves hearing you gloat about how “you’re the superior gamer.”

roommate!ellie who shake her head when dina and jessie hinting that she probably likes you. "that would be too cliché," she would say.

roommate!ellie who insists on cooking dinner together once a week. it’s usually something simple like pasta or tacos, but she’ll make it competitive, declaring herself “the gordon ramsay of roommates” when her side of the meal turns out better.

roommate!ellie who came up with the idea of making fridays your guys unofficial roommate day. she decides to surprise you one friday with homemade pizza, her guitar, and a makeshift dance floor in the living room. she twirls you around, singing the song off-key but with so much enthusiasm that you can’t help but laugh.

roommate!ellie who always finds little excuses to be near you—helping you hang posters, sitting close during movie nights, or brushing your hair out of your face when you’re deep in thought. when you call her out on it, she just shrugs and smirks. “what? i’m a tactile person.”

roommate!ellie who secretly learns how to bake your favorite dessert just to surprise you on a bad day. she’ll act casual about it, saying, “It’s no big deal,” but blushed when you tell her it’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you and got embarrassed when you started crying with happiness.

roommate!ellie who gets oddly protective of you when you’re upset. she’ll sit with you on the couch, offering her shoulder and awkwardly patting your back, mumbling, “i’m not great at this comforting stuff, but I’m here, okay?”

roommate!ellie who has a polaroid camera that she uses to document your time as roommates. she has a growing collection of photos: you holding her cat, you mid-laugh during a late-night chat, you asleep on the couch with her hoodie on. one night, you stumble upon a stack of these pictures and realize how much she’s been cherishing these little moments but was too embarrassed to tell her you saw it.

dina who is the ultimate instigator, constantly pointing out how much time you and ellie spend together. “roommates? sure. more like a domestic partnership.” ellie always rolls her eyes but can’t help the blush creeping up her neck.

dina and jessie who smirked when you both show up late to group hangouts but actually set you up for couple-y questions during truth or dare. “ellie, would you ever kiss your roommate?” jesse asks with a mischievous grin, and ellie glares at him, muttering, “you’re the worst.”

roommate!ellie who thought a lot after that night (thanks to jessie and dina) and almost confesses during a deep, late-night conversation. you’re lying on the couch, sharing a blanket, and she says, “I feel like... I don’t know. I don’t deserve how good you are to me.” you tease her about being sappy, and she loses her nerve.

roommate!ellie who spends the rest of the night sulking, when she saw one of your friends flirts with you during a party. when you finally ask what’s wrong, she blurts out, “I don’t want to watch someone else get what I—what we could have.”

roommate!ellie who offers some wine to relax after a stressful week full of exams.

roommate!ellie with whom you playing cards while being tipsy and who leans in to grab the deck from your hands, and you both freeze when her face is way too close to yours.

roommate!ellie who stares at you, her lips parting slightly, and before you can think, you lean in and kiss her. It’s short and sweet, but it lingers in the air like an unspoken promise.

roommate!ellie who's eyes widen, and she blurts out, “was that...?” while looking away, but you were too fed up about it so cut her off, laughing nervously. “yeah. It was.” after a moment, she smirks, “wanna do it again?” and you simply nodded kissing her one more time — now passionately, like your life depends on it.

roommate!ellie who ends up making out with you next 20 minutes before you two fall asleep

roommate!ellie who wakes up the next morning with her head still spinning from the kiss(es) you shared the night before. She finds you in the kitchen, making coffee like nothing happened. ellie nervously clears her throat, scratching the back of her neck. “so, uh... about last night—”

you cut her off again, smirking over your mug. “what about it?”

ellie shifts awkwardly before finally blurting out, “I liked it. like... a lot. and I don’t want it to just be a one-time thing.”

you step closer, setting your coffee down and tilting your head at her. “good. because I liked it too.”

[kaisaerinlover]

tw: mention of abuse

michael kaiser’s birthday, the twelfth to be precise, marked the first time he ever did something for himself. it’s when his life really began, when he finally started the long path of living for himself instead of just to serve as a punching bag for his piece of shit dad. a day when he became more than just a remnant of everything his mother left behind after she abandoned the small family that she began to build.

and now his twenty first birthday marks a new change in his life too. nine years after the fact. christmas means nothing to kaiser, so it means nothing to you too. kaiser doesn’t like getting gifts, they’re worthless to him. he has enough money, and was never taught how to react. but you are a gift within yourself, maybe the first one that he ever received. he knows he doesn’t know to act with you either, the same sadness he feels when he receives a present from somebody washing over him every time he mistreats you, his best gift. you’re the best thing within the possession of his cold hands and even colder heart; he swears he loves you. he loves you so much, you are everything and nothing all at once, he just can’t help himself.

he never gives himself a rest; after all, holidays are worthless to him. he doesn’t do christmas festivities, maybe he’ll take you to one of the many christmas markets berlin has to offer to get yourself some nice things, a sweet outing. a weak and cowardly apology for all the bad he does to you. he’s a fucking coward, he knows it. he can’t cover your bruises and cracks with cold hard cash forever, but you won’t care, you love him too. that’s the only festivity he doesn’t refuse to participate in. no rest and no breaks - he only has time for practice on christmas.

training in the empty club facility when everyone else is at home with their families, their wives, parents, hell some of his teammates have began building families already. he could never do that though, kaiser is a vindictive man; don’t let any of these words fool you into believing he is anything but evil and manipulative. kaiser knows himself what type of person he is. he knows he’s scum of the earth, but for the most part he simply doesn’t care. one of the very small amount of considerate things he has done is decide to not have children. he doesn’t want to hurt his own child someday, doesn’t want to have you pack up and leave just like his mother. doesn’t want to subject anyone to the torment he grew up with all those years ago. he only thinks he can’t fix all of the bad caused by his brutish nature to you with cash because even after almost a decade of being away from the shithead he’s forced to call his father, he still isn’t fully healed. hell, that’s why he takes it out on you so much. he kicks the ball extra hard at the thought of that. he’s a real piece of work, and if he wasn’t so selfish, he would leave you. it’s best for you anyway.

on the walk home in the snow he ponders hard. he didn’t want kids, so why did he allow himself a girlfriend. kaiser is a selfish man, he’s a really fucking disgusting person (don’t doubt it, seriously) so why is he indulging himself with you? he’s not quite sure himself, he also refuses to acknowledge the warmth that grew and expanded since he met you and passed time with you. he didn’t drive today, the streets are cold and quiet and he likes the alone time. the winter is cold and lonely, a fitting sentiment for him. solitude matches him the best, which again leads to the question, why does he indulge himself in you so much? he’s trudging through the snow on the path, fresh snow. pure white and innocent snow. it reminds him of you. you’re so sweet, pliable, innocent. everything he isn’t. every crunch he hears from under his boots, every piece of dirt he imagines he’s leaving in his trail; it reminds him of you. how he’s so scared to corrupt you. but he only thinks of the negatives and never the positives. stupid micha, doesn’t he realise the snow is still falling? fresh snow covering his tracks, covering the dirt and cleansing all of the bad - of course he doesn’t think of that, this man is so in his head!

stepping into the warmth of his lavish house is liberating. a stark contrast from the cold nonstop nipping at his nose. the man is white as the snow outside, his face probably looks ridiculously red. he lazily kicks off his boots and unzips his coat and tosses it across one of the stools for the kitchen island; you’ll clean it up anyway, you always do.

he glances at your empty cup on the island. it’s cute and pink, like you. you’re so sweet. but he’s a little disheartened, you’re probably asleep already. he glances at the grandiose clock you insisted you had to buy for the kitchen which sits on the wall above a picture of you two sitting next to each other. it’s 11pm, he didn’t realise it was so late. no wonder he’s so worn out. he lazily crosses off the 24th before he trudges upstairs and goes to bed. he smiled a bit when he did, you decorated the 25th with such cute stickers and a big pink heart drawn around it. you’d never forget his birthday, even if he wanted you to oh so desperately. sweet angel that you are.

he strips and flops into bed next to you, feeling your warmth and gentle breathing is enough to lull him to sleep instantaneously. he’ll shower in the morning, he can’t be fucking bothered right now; cut him some slack too, it’s his birthday!

as soon as you hear him snore you jolt up. michael kaiser you will not escape your birthday, you promise him that in your head. missing christmas is a crime in itself that maybe you can let slide (well not really, he always indulges you and lets you put up a few decorations around the house. but you digress.)

you work yourself tirelessly putting up birthday decorations and getting the food you had baked by a pretty expensive baker a few days ago for him, and you also baked him a cake yourself. you’re surprised he didn’t notice the white boxes in the fridge, but honestly christmas season is when he stresses himself out the most with soccer; so it doesn’t surprise you the more you think about it. he must be really tired ‘cause you almost fell down trying to hang up the big ribbon banner at least five times and not once was he awoken by the nuances of the night caused by your sub par decorating abilities.

kaiser is awoken suddenly, and he jolts up confused and (embarrassingly) a bit frightened. but he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees your big eyes in front of his face blinking. he’d be a bit alarmed if it was anyone else but you’ve always been a bit of an odd one, so he just brings his hand up to lightly pet your cheek as he yawns. “morning engel, why are you all up in my face, it’s too early” his voice is really hot after he’s just woken up, you observe. “micha, it’s your birthday” you say in an oh so monotone voice. he knows it’s his birthday, so why are you telling him this?

his question is answered when you throw yourself on the bed out of his face in exhaustion and he sees what you’ve done to your shared room. balloons and a nice happy birthday banner across the wall directly infront of your bed, ribbons everywhere, sweetly wrapped gift boxes and a bowl of his favourite garlic bread rust sitting next to a birthday cake and cupcakes. he’s actually in awe, like, really. he doesn’t know how to react at all. he just looks at your form flopped down on the bed in exhaustion and feels even worse seeing the bruises he’s left on you before, feels even more guilty for all the harsh obscenities he’s shouted at you more times than any normal person would like to admit. he swallows the build up of saliva caught in his mouth he didn’t even realise was there.

“das alles ist für mich...? du hast das getan...?” he swallows again. his throat is so dry, his voice shakes a little. he really can’t believe it. he is showered in love every day by adoring fans and the whole nation of germany. the whole world for that matter, he’s one of the best players of today. he’s a prodigy, a gem, a talent and everything else synonymous to this. yet all the love and adoration thrown at him by all of these people cannot even compare even by a tiny fraction to your love. your adoration. the way you cherish him. he’s so blessed, he never believed in gods before, he believes in the impossible but not those types of things. he’s not a follower he’s a leader, he is the only god. but jesus fucking christ, god has to be real. you must be one of his angels, he swears it. you’re way too fucking good to be true.

you prop yourself up on your elbows to answer him, “ja, who else?” and kaiser’s eyes seriously water, he’s not even the emotional type, but he’s a bit moved. he also tries to uphold that stoic front of his, but man, he’s just so affected by this. in a good way; at least he thinks it’s good. he just can’t hold it anymore and shifts to pin you down to the bed and kiss your face all over. he feels even more bad about the black eye he gave you too. you’re too good for him, you really are. he feels his heart clench a bit; an unknown sensation. he loves you so much, he really does, and he knows he’s so disgusting sometimes and he doesn’t show it, but he promises he does. he shoves his tongue down your throat and grips your wrists so tight they could shatter, but he doesn’t care. he’s so fucking in love with you, you’re so fucking sweet. you’re panting for air and you’re seriously in pain from his rough display of love, but when are you not hurt by this man? you are light and he is dark, you are an angel and he’s the sin of man embodied. you are every single good thing in this universe and he is the complete opposite. you both acknowledge this, and usually he relishes in the dynamic. but he feels so guilty. you’re as sweet as sugar. he’s kissing you so hungrily; as if he wants to eat you.

when he finally pulls away, he’s hovering over you. his hair is so beautiful, he’s so beautiful like this. you have to blow a piece of his hair out of your eye, and he laughs. you’re priceless, you really are. you’re so cute. so special. you’re everything. holidays and birthdays were always foreign to him. he doesn’t care for them at all - or didn’t. he does now, he really fucking does. love does that to you. he’s so glad he took the risk, took a risk of dating you, found someone so angelic. so perfect for him. he can’t help but think about what his 12 year old self would think of this. if he would have even believed he would have someone so loving and compliant by his side ever in his life. believed that he was anything other than a worthless piece of shit.

all the years of pain and longing for a love which he believed could never be bestowed upon a man of his caricature paid off. all the time he (begrudgingly) yearned for love. for a partner. a princess to call his own. the lonely emperor who wanted nothing more than to be treated as if he was someone special and meant something. he’s so emotional, very rare for him. he’s so emotional seeing how much he means to you. how much you’re willing to do. and for the first time in his life, he feels joy on his birthday. “prinzessin, i love you” he leans down to whisper in your ear. and you giggle and kick your legs as much as you can beneath him like a giddy schoolgirl. “love you too micha, you deserve the world”

he doesn’t know how you do it, how you can act like this despite the way he treats you. he knows he’s a manipulative asshole, but he never took the time to care about anything other than himself and maybe you. but now he almost feels sorry. almost feels like his heart could open up into a black hole and swallow him up for doing this to someone so sweet. but he told you before, if you didn’t like this you could just leave (he’d never let that). you also told yourself something, you would fix this man. you’re an empath. a pure soul full of compassion. you’re as broken as he is. maybe that’s why you stayed, why you grew to like the toxicity, why you believed you could fix him. and it’s paying off.

you did get up eventually, to sit on the floor and open the gifts he got from yours truly. you’re in pink panties a pink bra and his jersey, currently getting frosting all over it from a slice of cake he cut for you. isn’t it funny, this jersey would go for thousands on the internet, so many fangirls would kill to be wearing this. and you’re messing it all up. his piece is sitting next to him as he holds a particularly sentimental gift from you in his hands and stares down at it. he doesn’t know how to react. he never did know how to react to gifts. but he wishes you knew how grateful he is for you. so grateful that you stay through all of this.

you do know, you really do.

hours later and his pure unbridled joy is yet to die down. you’re spoon feeding him cake as you’re both sat on the floor laughing. the pains that his birthday brought him are forgotten for now, as are the injuries he inflicted upon you. the holes in the wall he leaves when he’s angry are covered with decorations. the small specks of blood adorning the floor from a particularly nasty nosebleed you had caused by his fist are hidden by the wrapping paper from all of the thoughtful gifts you bought for him. his tattooed hand is on the floor ontop of your smaller one. the crown covering your own. his princess.

michael kaiser was born on christmas, he was a gift his parents neglected. weren’t grateful for. a gift to his parents that they didn’t even realise. a gift to the soccer world. a gift for you. special gift for you. the best gift you could ever receive. so you’ll treat him like that, despite the violence. you are so empathetic to him. so sweet. kaiser deserves the world he really does.

and as he watches you giggle as you feed him cake and eat spoonfuls for yourself too, he realises you’re a gift too. you’re not born on any particularly noticeable holiday the way he is. but your birthday is the biggest celebration in itself. he’s so thankful to whatever god decided to grace the world with your presence and then send you in his direction. his eyes are so soft for once and he wears a small smile. let’s forget about all of the violence and anger, all of the sadness, the shattered and messily glued back pieces of the little boy he truly is for once. let’s just have fun.

he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear as he looks into your eyes so deeply. “you are the best gift i could ever ask for, mein schatz”

[caderno-do-tedio]

ok i've just found out about this community and this post reminded me of something: in the culture of brazilian native people (i mean, at least some populations believe this, native people's culture is very broad), there's almost no difference between humans and animals. every living creature is part of the same nature. so they have many stories that could be part of their religious beliefs or just part of their culture in general, of animals talking to them, animals shapeshifting into humans, humans shapeshifting into animals, humans drying and reincarnating in animals, animals dying and reincarnating into humans, stuff like that.

HOWEVER, INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ARE NOT THERIANS FFS!!! therian is a modern identity (in the context of understanding what an identity is and claiming one for yourself), and the experience of indigenous people is their own thing and it's incredibly complex and it's not meant to be assimilated by non-indigenous people. also please don't appropriate indigenous culture, this is just a fun fact explained by a white girl.

still, it got me thinking about a bunch of stuff and how we really are so disconnected from nature nowadays. anyways, i'm not a therian either, just got really curious and decided to dive into it a little bit more. as long as you're not hurting anybody or yourselves idc much tbh good luck to yall

I don’t understand how people fail to see the beauty in therianthropy.

A human body whos soul is one of an animal. Or whos mind is one of an animal. (or both.) Intertwined with nature. Their spirit bonded to a creature who their body fails to be. Limited by the flesh and form of an animal that is not fully themself.

A being whos calling is away from modern society and belongs to the forest, the savanna, the prairie, the valley, the skies, the mountains.

Whos instincts are mixed with different creatures, giving them both advantage and disadvantages against the world around them.

And shifts, where they can feel where their lost body parts used to be. Where they can let their mind change into the full instincts of another.

“Oh but its cringe!” “Its weird!”

No, it’s beautiful. Its mystical. It’s something that feels straight out of fantasy books.

Its odd to not embrace it because its “different”.

[ivesambrose]

Pick a pile : 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 ❄️

A little gift as the year comes to a close. I intend that this winter brings you what you're looking for 🤍

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• You'll be confronting your shadows (habits and doubts) that hold you back and emerge stronger. It's a blessing to master your impulses rather than be consumed by them.

• You'll be able to outsmart people trying to sabotage or trick you.

• Moments of joy and celebration with people you know and trust rather than having to be around people you don't out of obligation.

• Some of you might even be able to be sober or cut out an unhealthy addiction or attachment around this time. Please be kind towards yourself and celebrate your wins.

• You'll have the necessary tools and resources to bring what you want in your life. This means, if you think that you're falling short of something, it's not true. Think again, you'll always be provided for, stealth opportunities will always arrive, solutions will always be presented, you also likely have the skill required for XYZ etc.

• Very niche blessing, but if some of you were struggling with hair issues, this will get better. Expect healthier hair regardless of whatever length you're going for.

• Some of you will also be blessed with better colleagues or social circles/network.

• Look out for messages in your dreams or any 'hunches' that you get.

• There's also a message I'm getting to expand your horizons, don't confine yourself because you're used to it.

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• The comfort you've been seeking? It's here. Some of you may have also be seeking a new home or a place that feels like one, it's all coming.

• An absolute boost in your finances and resources. Some of you might also get a high paying work from home job or something involving houses etc or your own business that will be successful wherever you decide to run it from.

• Wisdom and clarity in your intuition will guide you the most. You'll be blessed in making decisions quickly and effectively. You'll also feel a lot more authoritative in your life. You'll also be able to switch off external noise, retreat and be content with yourself and your inner knowing.

• Blessings of steady progress and tangible results. Whatever efforts you've put in and continue to put in this season will lead to substantial accomplishment in the coming 8-9 months. It will be a very visible progress.

• You'll be blessed with something that makes you rather excited even if it seems like a lot of work is required in it you'll be more than happy to do it. Some of you may also be preparing to travel. I'm also seeing peace, prosperity and a sense of balance coming out of said travelling.

• It seems like during Autumn season some of you diligently 'locked in' be it in your mindset or anything that you believed in and this winter is bringing you the results.

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• You'll be blessed with moments of pure joy and happiness. Maybe in the beginning it might even feel difficult to process an emotion this lovely but it will start becoming your new normal. Promise yourself to strive for the same.

• You'll have recognition and acknowledgement even for the small wins. It will flow in easier for you. Whether it's a compliment or a thank you or a simple celebration. You'll feel appreciated. And you deserve it!

• Your smaller wins will accumulate into bigger ones. You may also get a lumpsum of money or something tangible out of the blue.

• Balance will come to you naturally. Be it your personal and professional life or your own physical health etc. you won't feel like you're always on the edge of tipping over.

• You'll be blessed with a better sense of self and well being which will come through sooner once you acknowledge your own ways of self sabotage and decide to not let this be something you hold onto any longer. It's not worth it. That your self worth isn't tied to others or anything outside of you. That you are capable.

• Some of you, if you've been struggling with authority, leadership or a father figure in your life. Expect things to get better.

• Some of you who are athletes or in any kind of sports or entertainment, look forward to much awaited recognition as well as allocades.