#I don't see an end in sight is the issue and that is getting to me more than ever lately

[crobones]

I know Evan's love is toxic. He loves his friends so much that, when they divulge how bad they're feeling - about themselves, about the world around them, about whatever situation they're all stuck in - as opposed to processing these feelings and moving through them to learn and grow, he's like "Nope! Nonstarter, you're amazing and we all love you."

He mentioned it on day one. "There's nothing pleasant in rest." It is a survival tactic. Self-preservation in never staying in one place too long.

But the thing about processing emotions fully is you have to kind of just... sit in it. You need to acknowledge how you feel, understand that dealing with it cannot be avoided or rushed, and take a second to just... stew in it. You can't speedrun every issue in life. And you can't mentslly look at a feeling, point at it, name it, put it to the side, and move on. That's just sweeping the mess under the rug instead of actually cleaning it up.

He's getting close to actually learning how to process emotions, and you can see that when he talks to Sam. But he experienced feeling good all of one time, and decided he never wanted to feel any of his previous sadness ever again. It's an unfortunate trauma response - you tell a person some shit that happened to you and expect them to compartmentalize it just like you did. "Yeah, I got stabbed, but it's fine. Don't worry about it."

It's K's conversation with Tabby about Evan. But, unfortunately, K saw this behaviour in Evan and decided they could fix it for him. But now they realize that that isn't feasible. You can't clean a person's house for them - it's their personal and intimate space and you don't know where everything goes and what's more important to them. Not to mention, it takes away their agency. They dint get to learn how to deal with shit if you just fix it for them.

That's what Evan's doing. Tape shapes aside, he doesn't clean the emotional bullshit, he dumps it all into boxes, throws label on it, and puts it nearly on the pile of a thousand other boxes.

And when Jammer, or Sam, or K gets personal and lets him into their house, well. He wants to be useful. He's looking at the mess, thinks it's a non-issue, throws it in a box for them, and starts a pile. But, they shouldn't worry, he can listen to them describe what the mess is, and he'll put a label on the box for them.

Am I making sense? All of this is dismissive asshole behaviour, but they all know it's well intentioned. They do love each other. The first time he experienced a positive interpersonal interaction, he didn't want to give it up.

Now that they're back, he knows the adventure will come to an end, and that terrifies him. But he's been so task-oriented all his life, any time there's emotions to deal with, he boxes it and puts it aside.

I NEED HIM TO TURN HEEL. IF HE WANTS THE ADVENTURE TO GO ON FOREVER, I'M SURE HE COULD EASILY BECOME THE BAD GUY THEY NEED TO STICK AROUND; TO KEEP THE JOURNEY GOING. BREAK THAT FUCKING WELL, EVAN. NO HESITATION, NO EASING THE WORLD INTO IT - SMASH IT TO BITS ON SIGHT. SUBMIT THE WORLD TO CHAOS.

And what has Sam done every time? She's talked some fucking sense into them. And, well. She's already got a direct line to Evan's most intimate self. They've been in each other's head, they've had their souls entwined with one another. He sees her as the best wizard in the world. What better way to stop Evan from diving head first into the role he's always been afraid of becoming, than making him come to heel and to get his shit together?

[humanmorph]

I'll be honest. I'm sick of doing it scared. But that's also the reason to do it in the first place so I suppose I'll have to keep going

[whateveriwant]

Actually I'm not done talking about Mr. Simon Fucks-Himself-Stupid Riley just yet :(

I'm picturing a scenario where you, a civilian, are visiting your boyfriend at his base. Maybe you're there to deliver something, like a file he forgot at home or the lunch he said he didn't need. Either way, whatever your cover story for being there is, the end result is the same: you, on your back, knees up by your ears, sprawled across Simon's desk as he fucks you like his life depends on it.

Being a Lieutenant grants him the luxury of having a private office where he can engage in such extracurriculars, but that doesn't mean it's without some major risks – namely, prying ears that might be lurking in the hallway outside.

But being discreet shouldn't be an issue, should it? I mean, a man known infamously as “Ghost” should have no problem staying quiet, right?

Wrong.

Turns out, not only does that tight hole of yours reduce your boyfriend to a dumb, drooling mess, it makes him a dumb, drooling mess who can't keep his fucking mouth shut.

So while you have the wherewithal to clamp a hand over your lips to try muffling your lewd noises, Simon is out here moaning and groaning unabashedly like something sent forward in time from the Paleolithic. You could try asking him to cover his mouth, but it seems an impossible task; his hands are a little preoccupied with making sure he doesn't fuck you right over the edge of his desk.

While you don't want to stop, you also don't want to get caught, so you settle for urging him to keep it down. It's after a third softly gasped ‘N-Need to be qu-quiet, Si’ that your warning finally worms its way into his brain, and he acts in a way to appease you, just… not how you expect.

Swiftly, Simon removes his hold of your waist and brings one of his arms forward. He grabs for the center of his t-shirt, tugs the material up, and quickly stuffs the fabric into his mouth.

It only takes a split second for the action to happen, but immediately, you see how effective it is. The moment that standard, army-issued tee is captured between Simon's teeth, there's a drastic reduction of noise in the room.

Now, he can fuck into you with reckless abandon, and he snaps his hips forward with enough force to make your whole body ripple. Even as you pulse and constrict around him (sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not), the sounds that climb their way up Simon's throat are heavily dampened by his cotton gag.

It's as Simon begins the ascent to his peak that the cloth in his mouth really comes into play. As he pumps into you, he starts grunting lowly, gutturally, exhaling through his nostrils in quick, harsh bursts. It's a deep sound, animalistic in nature, like a bull huffing before it digs its heels into the dirt and charges.

His thrusts turn sloppier and sloppier the closer he nears his high, his hips propelled forward only by some basic hindbrain instinct. His lashes start to flutter, his eyes roll towards the back of their sockets, and when he cums, he throws his head back in a full-blown snarl.

Simon's a bit shaky on his feet after he climaxes in you, but he manages to pull out before he stumbles backwards, plopping down heavily into his chair. As you start cleaning yourself up, you see how he makes no attempt to move. He just sits there, completely brainless, pants around his ankles and t-shirt still tucked between his teeth. You have to walk over to him and purposefully tug on the shirt to get him to release it, and once it's freed, you see the damage that's been done.

In the center of Simon's shirt rests a big, blotchy wet spot, like he's tried to do his own slobbery take on the classic Rorschach test. The fabric's been wrinkled to all hell and there's a few imprints left behind from where his teeth had bitten down, and if you were to inspect the hem closely, you'd see where he popped a stitch or two in his ecstasy.

The sight of his mangled shirt has you tutting in disapproval. He can't walk out of his office looking like this, and he certainly can't forgo wearing a shirt altogether. What would the people around base say if they saw their normally put together Lieutenant looking so unkempt? You don't think he'd ever hear the end of it, nor would you for that matter.

In the meantime, as you wait for Simon's brains to un-liquify themselves, maybe you can scrounge up something else for him to wear. There's got to be something lying around here to help make him presentable once again. It's too bad as part of your cover you didn't think to bring an extra set of clothes to change into.

You'll have to remember for next time.

[whytheylosttheirminds]

Don't Call Me Kid - Chapter 4

(Rafe Cameron x Reader, series, 6.6k words)

series summary: You'd had a crush on Rafe Cameron since you were six years old, but he friend zoned you at every turn. Once shy and insecure, you found new confidence and self-love after high school. When your high school friends go on a reunion beach trip, Rafe finally sees what he lost, but he isn't going to give you up without a fight.

tropes: unrequited crush, glow up, she fell first/he fell harder

series content: some angst, eventual fluff, slow burn, tomfoolery and shenanigans, drinking, fem!reader has occasional insecurity and body image issues

additional chapter cw: suggestive language/acts, mature readers only please

⇢ series masterlist

Rafe lifted his fist to knock on your door.

But before he could bring his knuckles to the wood, he froze, suddenly panicked that he had no idea what he was going to say when you appeared behind it. He stepped back, crinkling the package of the candy in his hands.

“Hey, so,” he whispered, practicing to himself. “I’m sorry if that was weird. Not weird. Sorry if that was uncomfortable? I don’t know why I’m saying sorry. Hey, so, Kelce is a dick, right? Maybe I should say sorry. Fuck…”

As he paced back and forth, the floor creaked below him. He was too preoccupied with trying to find the right words to notice he was making noise. He didn’t get a chance to finish his little script, though, because you opened the door.

He froze mid-sentence, eyes wide as he looked at you, realizing you clearly heard him talking to himself. Fuck, that’s embarassing. Before he could spiral about how much you had heard, he noticed the way your nose was red at the end, eyes glossy, and cheeks stained with black smudges. You had been really crying.

“Are you okay?” He asked quietly, struck with the urge to reach out and wipe the water from your face.

“What do you want, Rafe?” You sniffled.

“I wanted to…I was…” Rafe was lost, any words he had planned completely left him at the gut wrenching sight of your tears.

He shuffled on his feet a little as you watched him with an unforgiving glare. He had to come up with something.

He extended the candy to you, “...bringing you this.”

“Thanks but that beer made me sick, I’m not really in a snacky mood,” you snipped.

He felt like a kitten coming to his owner with a present, only to be scolded for bringing a dead bird into the house.

“Right,” he tried to recover. “I just thought maybe you’d want to keep them up here so no one takes them.”

You sighed heavily as you quickly took the candy from him, no lingering graze of your hands like you’d done so many times before the night had taken this turn for the worse.

“Okay,” he exhales. “I didn’t come up here to give you the candy.”

“What did you come up here for then?” You huffed.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he admitted.

You turned from him, exasperated, and set the candy on the vanity across the room. He was tempted to follow you through the door frame, but he had the keen sense that he shouldn't push it, so he froze, feet inches from the threshold but not going over.

“And why wouldn’t I be okay?” You questioned, your back turned to him as you pulled a set of pajamas out of the top drawer, he swallowed any hope of seeing you change into them, knowing it was a delusional thought.

“Because of what Kelce said,” He brought his thumbnail up to his eyebrow, scratching a non-existent itch, desperate for something to do with his hands.

You turned quickly on your heel to face him, hands on your hips. The sudden shift in your features, from indifference to indignance, made him take a step back.

“What, did he say something?” You pressed.

“About how you, y’know used to-” 

“Rafe, I’m fine,” you cut him off, rubbing the backs of your hands across your cheeks to get some of the smeared makeup off.

Even though you always knew deep in your gut that he knew how you used to feel about him, the thought of him actually saying it out loud as you stood in front of him with tear stained cheeks was unbearable to you.

“But you’re crying,” he uttered, eyebrows bunched in concern. “I don’t want you to be alone, crying in your room all night.”

You stepped closer to him, and his heart leapt. Maybe you would invite him in, let him hold you until you felt better. But then, as quickly as it had risen, his heart fell again. You placed your hand on the door handle and glared at him.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

With a definitive click, you closed the door in his face.

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The patter of thick rain drops against your window is what finally roused you from your long sleep. You’d fallen asleep crying into your pillow, an old hobby you hadn’t practiced in years. The light coming through the window was dim, making you assume it was early morning, but when you checked your phone your eyes went wide at the time: 12:04pm.

You swung your legs over the bed with a groan, rising to look out the window. The sky was dark and angry, high waves foaming and crashing in the distance, a storm raging. The rain was so heavy the window was straining to keep it out.

When you opened your bedroom door, you nearly stepped on the tray of food that was sitting outside it. You leaned down and picked up the tray of scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice, smiling at the little note in your sister’s handwriting: “I’m so glad you’re here, we’re downstairs when you’re ready.” She signed it with a little heart.

After eating the breakfast in your bed, you steeled yourself to finally make your appearance downstairs. You were grateful that everyone had let you sleep in, but wondered if the delay in coming downstairs would only remind them of the dramatic way your night ended.

You placed your dishes in the kitchen sink, looking out at the backyard you’d fled so abruptly the night before. It was quite a different scene than the one you’d left, the pouring rain filling the porch with puddles, chairs strewn about from the heavy wind. You let last night play through your mind like a movie; Carter revealing your most scandalous moment during never have I ever, Tom’s big arms on either side of you as he flirted, Rafe’s hands in yours as you celebrated your beer pong dominance, Kelce’s words bringing all your fun to a screeching halt.

“No! Don’t shoot!” 

Yells from the large den adjacent to the kitchen pulled you from your thoughts. You padded quickly into the room to find the source of the commotion.

“That guy was on our team!” Kelce yelled again, ripping a video game controller from Maddie’s hands.

Maddie just laughed at his frustration, “well I didn’t like him so I killed him.”

“That’s not how the game works, Mads,” Kelce scolded.

“Well that’s how I play,” she shrugged, leaning back on the couch.

Several people were piled onto the oversized sectional sofa. Carter was sitting up on the cushion with her legs criss-crossed, Topper on the floor in front of her while she put little braids in his hair. Tom and Kelce sat on the other side of Maddie, eyes locked on the small TV screen as their fingers rapidly tapped on the controller buttons, deeply invested in the game.

In the far corner sat Rafe, reading something on his phone with a concerned look on his face.

“Love the hair, Topper,” you said from behind the couch. 

Everyone’s eyes shot to you, except for Rafe, who stayed caught up in whatever was on his screen. You found his indifference to your arrival annoying, but also intriguing, wondering what had captured his attention so fully.

“You’re up!” Carter exclaimed, accidentally pulling Topper’s hair as she turned to you, making him wince.

“I’ve been up for a while, just needed some quiet time,” you smiled at her. “Thank you for breakfast.”

“Actually, that was all Kelce,” she informed you with a knowing smirk.

“Oh really?” You said, raising your eyebrows at Kelce.

He paused the video game and stood from the couch.

“Wait!” Kelce said. “I have one more thing!”

He ran out of the room and you looked back at Carter with a smirk.

“You better not let him off the hook too easily,” Carter encouraged you.

“Don’t worry, I plan to mess with him a little,” you smiled at her conspiratorially. “Everyone just act cool.”

They all nodded at you, shifting when Kelce re-entered the room. Their attempted acting skills were adorably terrible, pretending to ignore you and Kelce, suddenly very invested in their own hands and the stains on the couch. All but Rafe, who seemed genuinely disinterested in the whole thing, eyes still glued to his phone.

Kelce approached you with his hands behind his back, looking bashful. He revealed his present with a proud flair.

It was a bouquet of wilting flowers, and a couple of weeds, he had clearly pulled from the front yard. You smiled at the sad, but sweet, present.

“I picked them this morning,” he said proudly.

You didn’t take them from him just yet, tightening your lips to hide your smile so he’d think you were still mad at him.

“I’m sorry for being a dick,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that thing about-”

“It’s okay Kelce,” you cut him off before he could elaborate further. “What you said…you were right.”

These words finally pulled Rafe from his phone, head snapping towards you in surprise. The rest of the group struggled to maintain their little charade of indifference, the air in the room shifting as they all silently met eyes, wondering where you were going with this.

“I did stay at those parties for a boy,” you admitted to Kelce.

Carter coughed to disguise a laugh, figuring out your game before anyone else.

“You did?” Kelce asked. 

You stepped closer to him, placing your hand on his arm. His eyes widened and he swallowed heavily.

“For you Kelce,” you whispered. “It’s always been you.”

Topper, Maddie, and Tom seemed to finally catch up with your plan as they tried to stifle their own laughter. Kelce had exactly the dumbstruck reaction you were hoping for, looking alarmed, stammering for words like an idiot.

“Me? You liked me?” He croaked, almost too stunned to speak.

You couldn’t hold it back any longer, his face looked so pathetically shocked you had to laugh. As soon as you cracked a smile, the group took it as a sign they could laugh now too, breaking into a round of giggles at Kelce’s expense. Even Rafe was smirking, looking back to his phone, but not before letting out a soft chuckle.

Kelce looked around helplessly, catching on painfully slowly.

“C’mon man,” he said when it finally dawned on him that you were kidding. “You really had me going there, I'm not gonna lie.”

You took the flowers from him finally, patting his cheek reassuringly.

“I can’t stay mad at you, Kelcey,” you reassured him.

“You forgive me then?” He asked hopefully.

“As long as you promise never to play beer pong again,” you countered, handing him back the flowers. “And you go put these back outside, there’s bugs in them.”

He took the bouquet from you with a dutiful nod and made his way to the front door.

“You gonna forgive Sabrina, too?” Carter questioned.

“No,” you scoffed, settling on the couch next to her. “She can rot.”

“You’re fun,” Maddie giggled. “Who knew you were so fun?”

I did, Rafe thought.

“I did,” Carter said.

The wind kicked up outside the tall windows, a loud clap of thunder causing you to jump in your seat.

“Y’all think I’m gonna be able to work on my tan today?” Tom quipped, an attempt to ease your nerves.

“I don’t think you need it,” you flirted with him, admiring the dimples in his cheeks as he smiled back at you.

Rafe shifted uncomfortably in his seat, finally putting his phone down and sticking it in his pocket.

“What are we gonna do today, though?” Maddie asked.

“I think you’re looking at it,” Topper spread his arms to gesture to the room.

“Good thing you’re so good at this game,” Kelce teased her, re-entering the room and jumping over the couch, making Carter bounce and lose her grip on the braid she had been carefully sowing into Topper’s hair.

“Dammit, Kelce!” She scolded. “We’ve been stuck inside for half a day and I’m already annoyed with you.”

“We could go see a movie,” you suggested hopefully, the idea of a calm afternoon in a dark theater with a big bucket of popcorn exciting you.

“No can do,” Topper explained. “The road is closed because of the flooding, we’re stuck here for the day. Jack and Sabrina went out for breakfast and they can’t even get back into the neighborhood.”

“Oh, okay” you frowned, bummed that your plan was foiled, but not that Sabrina had struck such bad luck.

Rafe didn’t miss the way your lips curved down with disappointment. 

After leaving your room last night, he’d stayed awake for hours, staring at the unfinished basement ceiling trying desperately to think of a way to get back in your good graces. The finality with which you’d shut your door on him made his stomach churn, wondering if he’d finally messed things up with you for good. But it was only your third day here, and he was a gamer; he didn’t quit and he didn’t lose. He decided he would take any opening he could get, and this seemed like a good place to start.

“We could watch a movie here,” he recommended. “We’ll make some popcorn and have our own theater.”

You looked at him for the first time since last night, surprised he was speaking to you, and even more surprised he was being so positive and helpful.

“Can we do it right now? I hate this game,” Maddie complained.

“I’d be down,” Tom agreed.

“Oh, uh,” Rafe sat up, catching Topper’s eye. “I have that thing I gotta do.”

Topper nodded knowingly, “yeah, we should wait until it gets dark anyway,” he agreed, giving Rafe an out.

You were dying to know what they were referring to, what possible responsibility could be tying Rafe down when he’d be stuck in a vacation home all day, but you feigned disinterest. 

It was decided, you’d all meet back here at dusk for your movie night. You had the perfect excuse to finally get some alone time, assuring Carter you were fine before going back to your room, slipping under the cool covers with a smile and pulling out the book you still hadn’t had time to start.

It was such a pleasant afternoon until the plot of your book started to feel a little too familiar for your comfort.  A love triangle between the shy, bookworm protagonist, a sweet, unassuming brunette, and a complicated, brooding blond. You finally shut the book about a hundred pages in, when the blond character, who was continuously breaking the protagonist’s heart, stood her up for a date. You sighed and threw the book back into your suitcase, adding it to your DNF list on Goodreads.

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Carter was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs happily as Topper stood at the stove and added spices to the soup he was making. You stood at the bottom of the stairs for a minute, watching them as long as you could before they noticed your presence. It was a rare moment of calm between them, no arguments or teasing. Topper blew on a spoonful of his soup before lifting it to Carter’s lips. She smiled at him affectionately as he thumbed the corner of her mouth, catching the little drop of soup that had spilled off the spoon.

Your heart warmed at your sister’s smile. She was not a relationship girl, or so she always swore. But you knew her feelings for Topper went far beyond a penchant for messing with him. You were struck with sadness that she would be leaving so soon, studying abroad in the UK to get her masters. Maybe you should’ve spent the afternoon with her, instead of a book you hated.

The door to the basement creaked open, and Rafe stepped out, looking grumpy as he unknowingly interrupted the sweet moment in the kitchen. 

Carter leaned away from Topper when she noticed Rafe, and finally saw you. You spotted the way Topper’s face fell a little as she pulled away.

“Needs salt,” she teased him.

“Yes chef,” he smiled back, though there was a hint of resentment in his tone.

Carter hopped down off the counter and walked over to you, wrapping her arm around you like you hadn’t seen each other in years. You squeezed her affectionately, hoping she could feel the love you had for her in your touch.

She pulled away, eyeing Rafe. He had bags under his eyes and he looked worn out.

“Where have you been all day?” Carter asked him.

“Just had to take care of a few things,” he ran his hands through his hair, which it appeared he had been doing a lot based on the way it was sticking up at different angles. 

As he brought his hands back to his side, you caught a quick glimpse of the pen ink that was smeared on his fingers, only adding to the mystery of what “things” he was taking care of.

You were going to teasingly ask him if he was down there writing the great American novel, but before you could, the large french doors that lead to the den swung open dramatically, Tom standing behind them with a big grin on his face.

“All ready!” He announced it to the group.

“What’s ready?” You asked, an amused smirk at his theatrics.

“Come see for yourself,” he winked at you.

You followed him curiously into the den, the rest of the group trailing behind. Your jaw dropped when you took it all in. He had transformed the big den, setting up a large projector and screen, stringing little fairy lights from the ceiling and filling the side tables with popcorn, candy, and a variety of snacks. The room even smelled good, Tom having lit some candles, and with the rain still coming down outside, the cozy vibes were off the charts.

“You did all this?” You gushed.

“Well you seemed bummed that we couldn’t go to the theater,” Tom remarked. “So I brought the theater to you!”

Thinking that might just be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to you, you gave Tom a big, grateful smile. Rafe muttered words under his breath that you couldn’t quite make out but sounded something like “you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Woah, where’d you find the projector?” Kelce asked.

“They said it was in the attic,” Tom pointed out. “On the Airbnb listing.”

You didn’t understand why, but something about Tom being the only one to actually read the whole listing and pay attention to the details was attractive. You suddenly wished there weren’t five other people in the room with you and him.

“The only thing I haven’t done is pick the movie,” Tom admitted.

The group started chattering all at once, throwing out suggestions and arguing over each other’s taste in movies. After a few chaotic moments, Tom mentioned the name of a horror movie that had come out recently, and while the rest of the room chimed in with “ohhh yes” and “I’ve wanted to see that one,” your stomach dropped. You hated scary movies, you always had. Since you were a kid, you felt anything you watched or read very deeply, so when a movie was dark, it affected you emotionally.

Feeling helpless, your eyes inadvertently met Rafe’s. He immediately picked up on the way you were chewing your lip, afraid to protest to what everyone else clearly wanted. 

Shit that’s right, he thought, she hates scary movies. 

Plus, he knew you’d be teased for saying something, this group was fun but they weren’t known for their sensitivity. Your eyes dropped to the floor in acceptance, all of your excitement over the home theater fading as you settled in for an unpleasant evening. Rafe hated the way you were forced to resign to being unhappy for everyone else’s sake.

“Nah, I don’t fuck with horror movies,” he blurted out impulsively.

All eyes shot to him, most people laughing in assumption he was making a joke. When he didn’t laugh back, but clenched his jaw and stared them down, they fell silent.

“Bro, since when?” Topper asked hesitantly.

“Since forever,” Rafe doubled down.

“You scared, Cameron?” Kelce teased.

“So what if I am?” Rafe bit back, daring him to keep going.

“Hey man, that’s cool,” Tom assured him. “It’s not for everybody. We can just watch something else.”

It was like your heart was strung up with the fairy lights above you, Rafe and Tom grabbing either end of the cord and playing tug-of-war. Just when Tom did something so sweet you thought you might kiss him right here in front of everyone, Rafe jumped in to rescue you from ridicule, proving he remembered intimate details about you in the process, making your heart ache for him. Then Tom said something kind, and you were right back where you started. This wasn’t getting any easier.

Rafe could see the way your eyes flicked between him and Tom, he knew he needed to step it up even more. He rounded the couch and approached Tom’s laptop, which was plugged into the projector. He typed something into the streaming site that was pulled up and the projector whirred to life, the screen illuminating the room as the opening credits of a movie began.

It was your favorite movie of all time. Your heart swelled at the opening song that you’d know anywhere, this having been your comfort film since you were a kid. Rafe stared right at you as the rest of the group settled on the couch, no one wanting to argue with his choice. Your eyes went soft as you looked back at him, mouthing a silent thank you, just like you had done by the fire last night. You were astonished that he remembered how much you loved this movie.

“Perfect, I love this movie!” Tom exclaimed, pulling your gaze from Rafe.

Of course he does, you thought tenderly, your crush on Tom intensifying.

Of course he does, Rafe thought resentfully, his vexation with Tom boiling his blood.

As everyone took their seats, you hung back for a moment, taking in the whole scene and trying to clear your head. By the time your feet caught up with your brain, there was only one spot left on the big couch.

Carter and Topper settled in on the chaise, shamelessly cuddling up almost immediately. Kelce and Maddie sat next to them, sharing a bowl of popcorn. Then it was Tom, an empty spot, and Rafe. You considered sitting on the floor.

Standing between them, both boys looked up at you expectantly, shifting away from each other to make more space for you, both hopeful you’d sit a little closer to them than the other. You thought of the protagonist from the book you were reading, wishing you could take her out for a drink. 

Finally, you took your seat, crossing your legs and placing your hands in your lap. You turned and looked at Carter, who was smiling back at you sympathetically. She looked like she was about to get up from the comfort of Topper’s arms, but you didn’t want to interrupt their time together, so you waved her off and settled back on the couch to prove you were fine.

The movie began, roaring through the speakers Tom had set up, and you were quickly distracted by the familiar sights and sounds of your favorite film.

Rafe’s eyes flicked over to you every so often, melting at the cute way you were mouthing the lines along with the actors, laughing at funny scenes even though you’d seen them a million times. He was trying to respect your space, but eventually he needed to stretch out his long legs, spreading them so his knee was almost knocking into yours. He wouldn’t touch you though, no matter how much he wanted to. It seemed maybe he had almost secured your forgiveness and he wasn’t about to push his luck.

Tom wasn’t in such a difficult position though, his arm fearlessly brushing against yours as he reached for a bowl of popcorn and offered you some.

“Thank you,” you said sweetly.

“Do you like this movie?” He whispered, leaning in a bit too close for Rafe’s comfort.

“It’s my all-time favorite,” you told him.

“I’m glad we picked it then.”

We? Rafe seethed. This whole movie night was his idea in the first place, and once again, here was Casanova sweeping in and stealing away your attention. 

Rafe thought he couldn’t hate him more, and then Tom put his arm around you.

Anything, he would’ve given anything, done anything, to hear you tell Tom to fuck off. But you didn’t. You blushed and shifted a bit, nestling into Tom’s side and tucking your legs under you. 

Your feet, covered in pink fuzzy socks, were just inches from Rafe’s leg, tormenting him. They nudged him every so often when you laughed at the film or leaned in to whisper something to Tom. He got excited for just a moment the first time you touched him, but his heart cracked when it dawned on him that while you were touching him by accident, you were touching Tom on purpose.

Even though he was tempted to storm out, your obvious rejection of him nearly unbearable, he forced himself to play it cool and stay through to the end credits. 

The screen faded to black, and everyone stirred and stretched. You sat up from Tom’s side and looked over to your sister, surprised she hadn’t pulled out her phone and texted you something cheeky about him during the movie, but quickly realized it was because she had fallen asleep. Her hair was messy in her face as little snores escaped her lips. The only person looking at her with more affection than you was Topper, who scooped her up in his arms with ease and a peck on the cheek, and carried her to bed.

“Okay, so that was the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” Maddie said as she and Kelce followed them out of the room.

Rafe sighed as he saw the mess that had been left behind, kneeling down to sweep up the popcorn Kelce had spilled on the floor. He felt the small window of hope that he’d somehow reconnect with you today close as you exited the room.

Feeling just as tired as Carter looked and eager to crawl into bed, you made your way toward the stairs. Tom caught up with you before you took the first step, saying your name softly to get your attention.

“I had a really good time with you tonight,” he said when you turned.

“Me too,” you told him, blushing bashfully. “Though I don’t think anyone had quite as good a time as Carter.”

“You’re probably right.” He had gotten closer, leaning towards you as he said it, close enough that you could feel his breath on your skin, “the night’s not over yet, though.”

Heat swept across your cheeks and down your back as your whole body blushed. You had really enjoyed your time on the couch snuggled up next to him, but you were a notoriously slow mover when it came to new guys. You thought you might kiss him goodbye at the end of the week, maybe get his number, but that was as far as your imagination had wandered. You’d hooked up with guys at school, and you were certainly more confident with every year that passed, but you had accepted about yourself that you would always be a little slower than other girls, and that was okay with you.

“It’s not?” You asked, hating the shaky nervousness in your voice.

“Maybe I could carry you up to your room, too,” he propositioned.

With that suggestion, he leaned in to kiss you. Your whole body went numb and a nervous hum escaped your throat. You flinched slightly right before his lips met yours, signaling him to pause.

“Sorry,” you mumbled as he pulled back.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, brows furrowed.

“It’s just, a little fast,” you explained. “I’m really enjoying getting to know you, though. I tend to move slow.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” he continued. “Maybe I could just crash in your room? I’m sharing with Kelce and he snores.”

“The couch is pretty comfortable, you could sleep there,” you stepped away from him a bit, voice firmer. 

“Ah, but that’s not as fun,” he flirted again, not letting up. 

“It’s not gonna happen tonight,” you told him definitively. “We can definitely hang out tomorrow, though.”

He eyed you for a second, and your skin crawled with the feeling you were being studied.

“Sure,” he muttered, the softness you usually saw in his eyes was nowhere to be found. “Night.”

As he shuffled up the stairs without another glance to you, you saw that Rafe had been standing in the doorway of the den, for how long you weren’t sure. His hands were full of dirty dishes as he eyed you anxiously.

“All good?” He questioned.

You wanted to put up a front, make a joke to wipe the protective, caring look off of Rafe’s face, but your spirit was a bit shaken, and if you were being honest, you were just glad not to be alone. 

Instead of answering, you reached out, took some of the dishes from his hands and walked them to the kitchen sink. Your wordlessness was an indication that you didn’t want to talk about it any further, so he didn’t push.

Rafe washed and you dried, completely silent as you did the dishes together. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, though, just an understanding between you that nothing more needed to be said tonight. You were immensely grateful to have something to do with your hands, a task to focus on as you recovered from the upsetting interaction you’d had with Tom.

Once Rafe handed you the last bowl, he bid you goodnight quietly and descended the stairs to his room. You dried the bowl and reached it toward the high cabinet it belonged in, but nearly dropped when you heard a loud “fuck!” come from the basement.

You set the dish down carefully before hurrying down the stairs towards the sound of Rafe’s distress.

“What’s wrong?” You asked breathlessly as you descended the creaking steps.

Rafe stepped back to show you the cause of his outcry. Sometime in the evening a leak had sprung from the edge of the basement ceiling, running down the wall and right onto his bed. The rain had stopped about an hour ago, and though it didn’t appear the water was flowing in anymore, the damage was done.

“Fuck,” you echoed him.

Rafe moved his luggage and backpack to the stairs to get them off the ground, and pulled the bed away from the wall.

“I’ll just sleep with my head on the other end of the bed,” he sighed.

“Rafe, you can’t sleep down here,” you countered. “I found some extra blankets and pillows in my closet, I’ll get them for you and you can crash on the couch.”

He nodded in agreement, “thanks.”

Rafe followed you up to your room, stopping at the threshold of your door, just like he had last night. You smiled to yourself at the respectfulness of the action. Though it proved to be unsustainable when you slid open your closet door and tried to get the blanket and pillow stored on the top shelf, unable to reach it even when you jumped.

“Can you help me?” You sighed, indirectly inviting him in. 

Rafe smirked as he approached, barely having to stretch to reach the bedding. Your throat bobbed as you watched him, his frame so long and lean it towered over you. 

“Thanks for these,” he looked down at you, holding the pillow and blanket to his chest with crossed arms.

“Least I could do,” you smiled. “After you saved me again.”

Rafe furrowed his brows quizzically.

“You hate horror movies, huh?” You quirked your eyebrows.

“Oh,” he mumbled, realization sweeping across his face. “No. But you do.”

“And you just really wanted to watch that particular movie instead?”

“No. But you did.”

The room suddenly felt too hot, as you bantered, your voices dropped lower, and so did Rafe’s eyes, landing on your lips. 

Not sure you could stand this close to him much longer without making a decision you might regret, you stepped away and over to your vanity. You unclasped your necklace and started removing your rings, preparing to begin your nighttime routine. You caught Rafe’s eyes in the mirror as he watched you take your hair out of its ponytail, letting it fall around your face in a soft curtain.

Rafe cleared his throat and looked down, digging his foot into your rug. You swore you caught a blush kiss the apples of his cheeks.

 “Well what are you doin’ right now? Wanna hang out?” He croaked.

You smiled at his desperate attempt to keep the conversation going. It was reminiscent of the way you used to search your mind for more questions to ask to keep him on the phone, or pretend you needed to run errands so he’d be in your car longer. Now, here he was, looking at you with big, hopeful eyes, completely desperate. The power shift was electrifying, a newfound dominance rushed through you. You had him right where you wanted, and you couldn’t help but milk it. 

“I’m feeling pretty tired.” You turned to him and faked a yawn, stretching your arms up, the bottom of your t-shirt rising to reveal just a sliver of skin, his eyes catching it immediately. “I think I’m just gonna get ready for bed now.”

He stood across the dimly lit room, every muscle in his body fighting against his attempt to stay in place. You held back a smug smile when you saw he was actually making tight fists to keep from reaching his hands toward you.

This would be all he would ever get, he thought. Just these little moments when his eyes caught slivers of your perfect skin. The tops of your sun kissed shoulders in your swimsuit. The brief hint of a dimple on your lower back when you bent to get a beer from the cooler. The curve of your hips in the tight jeans you wore today.

If this was all he’d get, that would be okay. He’d collect the memories of these moments like rare coins, only to be pulled out on special occasions. If these teases of what it might be like to be with you for real were all you’d ever give him, he’d make do. 

And just as he made himself that promise, you reached down and pulled at the hem of your shirt, lifting it over your head in one motion, tossing it to the floor. 

You were wearing a black bra with a little white bow right where the cups met between your breasts, and he could see the top of your black lace panties barely peeking out of the waistband of your jeans. 

Rafe’s face flushed and his shoulders tensed as he looked you up and down, eyes wide with surprise at how bold you were being. His large body cast a long shadow on the wall, but something about the desperation on his face made him seem so small, so vulnerable. The rush of power felt unbelievable and you wondered how far you could push him before he snapped.

Without breaking the heated eye contact between you, you slowly unbuttoned your jeans and dipped your thumbs under the waistband, pulling them down and over your feet.

“Wh-What are you doing?” Rafe finally choked out, unable to stay silent any longer.

“I’m getting ready for bed,” you shrugged innocently. “And you’re getting ready to leave.”

Your words were pushing him out, but your actions were freezing him in place. He had no idea what you really wanted from him, but he knew exactly what he wanted from you.

Before he could ask if you really wanted him to leave, you pulled back the covers of your bed and climbed in. Once under the sheets, the white linen covering you up to your shoulders, you shuffled a bit, making the blanket rustle with your movement. His brows furrowed in confusion, unsure what you were doing now. Then, your hand reached back out from under the covers and dropped your bra to the floor. More shuffling, and your panties followed, now only the plush duvet and silky sheets stood between Rafe and your completely bare body. Rafe cleared his throat as he felt himself straining against his board shorts.

You propped yourself up on your elbows, the blankets sliding slightly, stopping right before exposing your chest to him. He swallowed hard.

You looked at him, your face unassuming, like this was the most normal thing in the world. The way you were looking at him, he knew he would do anything you told him to, even if that meant you really were asking him to leave. He prayed to whatever god made the perfect creature in front of him that you’d ask him to stay. But you didn’t.

“Hit the lights on your way out?” You said, before laying back and letting your hair fan out over the pillows. You closed your eyes and moaned softly as you sunk into the plush bed.

He bit his lip as he watched you get comfortable, his heart pounding so hard he was sure you could hear it.

“Rafe?” you whispered, eyes still closed.

“Y-yeah?” He stammered.

“Goodnight,” you smiled, putting an end to any hope he had for an invitation to join you in the California King.

He sighed in defeat, “goodnight.”

With that, he walked toward the door, giving himself one last look at you, angelic and at peace in your pre-sleep. He hit the light switch and pulled the door closed softly behind him.

Rafe leaned against the door, one hand over his chest to feel his spiked heart rate, and one still clutching the door handle, unable to fully let go of it, of you. He felt lightheaded, the realization of how badly he wanted you washing over him, leaving him breathless. Why had he been such a dumbass in high school? He thought ruefully of that day senior year. If he had done just one thing differently, maybe he would be in bed next to you right now.

The thought of pulling your soft body into his, holding you under those cool sheets, nuzzling his head into your hair and inhaling the scent of you until you both fall into blissful sleep…he couldn’t remember ever wanting anything as bad as that. His want, his need, for you was too much to bear. 

He couldn’t bring himself to walk downstairs, and as much as he was dying to, he couldn't bring himself to go back into the room and risk your true rejection. As he toiled over his lack of choices, he sank to the floor, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He knew it was pathetic, sitting outside your door like a stray cat. He told himself he’d sit here for just five more minutes, enough time to collect his dignity.

He fell asleep on the floor thinking about the way your hair smells.

(chapter 5: part one)

a/n: thank you thank you thank you thank you for the support on this story! thank you to this anon for the move night idea which really helped solve some plot issues I was having I appreciate you!! in the original draft of this chapter, Tom suggested they watch Hellraiser 2022...is that too meta?

please note, the taglist for this series is currently closed. For updates, follow @whytheylosttheirminds-works and turn on notifs 💕

[emmyrosee]

You went to bed before Kiyoomi.

You never do that. Ever since you’ve moved in with him, your nights end with a massive pile of cuddling limbs and sweet words of sticky nothings that have you cocooned and ready for a peaceful night.

But tonight, he snapped at you. Something about being too “irate” over “something small.”

He missed dinner. And normally, that wouldn’t be a massive issue for you. But he was with asshole of a PR member who’s been trying to get with him for months, calling themselves his “work babe.” Who were you to think nothing funny wasn’t going down?

It's not a lack of trust from Kiyoomi that has you choked up. It's a lack of trust with them.

You know more than anyone when kindness turns to love, it's the same thing that happened between you both, and it kills you to think they could preform the same spell and potentially take your man from you.

You tell yourself that if they can take him, they can have him.

But the idea hurts none the less.

It hurts enough where you're curled up on your side of the bed, far from Kiyoomi's, where his smell lingers and the coldness on your body isn't offset by his warmth like it usually is. You whimper and bury your face in the meat of your pillow when you hear the front door open, and a soft call of your name follows. You didn't even know he left, to be frank, but you don't say anything as he stalks into the bedroom with another call of your name.

"Are you awake?"

"Am now," you murmur.

"Can we please talk about things?" He sounds desperate, like he knows this is killing you, weighing you down like a sac of bricks and keeping you from him.

"You talk," you say, nodding into your pillow. "I have nothing to say."

"Okay. I understand."

A muscular arm reaches over your frame to reach for your hand, and when you don't put up a fight to keep his hand away, he sighs shakily.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, linking his pinkie finger with yours. You screw your eyes shut and sniffle, and you hear him swallow thickly. “I was just so upset to know that you were right to worry-“

“What?”

“Wait- No!” He says quickly, panic in his voice. “No, wait, that’s not what I meant.” He’s never been good with his words. You let him continue, your heart sinking into your stomach all the same. He sighs shakily, “I meant that you were right about me being here. I should’ve been. We haven’t had dinner together in weeks, and I just… I got so caught up in new sponsorships and gigs that I wanted more, and I thought they had more to give.”

“They want you, Kiyoomi,” you mumble. “I see it. It’s the same way I bugged you when we first started dating, just to show how much I liked you. They’re doing that.”

“I know,” he sighs. Then, he pauses, squeezing your pinky, “I went to talk to them. Told them if they couldn't keep it professional and cut the shit, they can search for other clients. Because I don't want them making either of us uncomfortable anymore. And even if they did want me, I don't care.” He crawls over to you and bends slightly to have his head dangling in front of you, curls flipping upside down at the action. “Because I want you.”

You snort at the sight.

“So can we please cuddle, and you grab my teeth or sniff me or whatever feral thing you usually do?” He asks, leaning forward to kiss you on the nose. “Miss your stupid affections.”

“I miss giving them to you,” you say, moving a finger up slowly to try and pick his nose, just to make him squirm, a sign of a truce. He grunts and whips his head back, letting your laughter fill the room, rather than your tears. When you feel him sit back on his side of the bed, you take your time in flipping over, finally meeting his dark eyes again, filled with hope and adoration that has you falling in love with him all over again.

"You are irresistible," you say, reaching for his hand again.

"Don't care. I don't want anyone looking at me if it means you and I never fight again."

You laugh and gently kiss his hand, flicking your gaze up at him, "we'll go look at paper bags for you to wear this weekend."

He removes his hand from yours to gently cup your cheek, thumb stroking over the swells lovingly.

"It's a date."

[auroralwriting]

jealousy, jealousy

bucky barnes x avenger!reader (no use of y/n)

bucky hates when his girl has to flirt with the enemy

word count: 1.5k | warnings: none

The whole idea of it was absolutely, utterly stupid.

Zemo was obsessed with you, that much was obvious when he couldn't leave your name out of his mouth during the whole Sokovia Accords issue. Now, he was up to no good once more after escaping prison, leaving the Avengers no choice but to find out what he was up to.

The only problem? He refused to speak. Well, he refused to speak unless it was with you.

Bucky felt rage creep up his whole body when Steve explained what you had to do. You had to actually pretend to be interested in every single word Zemo said, meaning even if he flirted, you had to just take it. Apparently, this genius idea was Tony's, and the rest of the team had agreed to it, meaning Bucky's opinion was next to worthless, especially when you already agreed.

He trusted you with every ounce of his being, and he knew you wouldn't do it if you couldn't handle it, but he hate the fact that Zemo was probably going to flirt your ear off. You were Bucky's girl, his doll, his special girl, his everything, not Zemo's.

Nonetheless, Bucly had to hold his tongue and silently nod as Steve explained.

"What're you thinking, Buck?" Steve asked, noticing Bucky's silent deminor.

"I'm thinking about how many ways I could murder Zemo," Bucky commented, eyes darkening.

Steve sighed, placing a hand on Bucky's shoulder, "Bucky, she said she could do this."

"It's not her I don't trust, Steve. Imagine your girl getting hit on and you couldn't do jack shit to stop it. How would you feel then?" Bucky seethed, taking a deep breath in. "Sorry, that was hostile."

With a shake of his head, Steve's eyebrows furrowed. "I understand, Bucky. But we have to get to the bottom of Zemo's plan, and he won't talk unless its to her."

The whole team sat in silence, now gathered in the meeting room. The only noise was the whirl of the fan above their heads as they watched the live footage of you standing in front of Zemo's cell.

"Zemo," You said, crossing your arms. "Being stubborn as always, I hear."

A crooked smile formed on the man's face as he leaned his head on the bars, as close to you as he could get. "Darling, I just did not wish to speak to such insolent people such as the Avengers," Zemo scowled as he spoke. "But a dove as sweet as you? How could I pass?"

Bucky felt his fists clench tightly as he watched the interaction. God, he just wanted to deck this guy straight in the nose. Ever since the Sokovian first went on the run, he always seemed to make some time mid-battle to try and make some small talk with you. It annoyed not only Bucky, but everyone. No one talks that much during a fight. However, now that he was captured, it was the perfect time to use his infatuation of you to the team's advantage.

"Tell me, what do you have planned with those," You paused, grabbing your file and flipping through the loose pages, "Ah, 'weapons of double mass extinction' as you so delicately put it."

Zemo laughed, "Extinction is not my end goal if that is what you are asking my dove."

"It wasn't," You added as Zemo continued.

"However, I am just so excited to reveal what they will be used for." He smiled. Your brow shot up, waiting for his answer. "But seeing it will be the best reveal of all."

Sam sighed, watching this all carry on from where the team was still sat. "He's just gonna play games with her."

"She's smarter than you'd think, give her a chance." Natasha said, "I'd know, I trained her."

Tony stood up, "I don't like this, I'm ending it."

Bucky held up his hand, nodding. "For once, I gotta agree with Stark. I want my girl out of his sight."

Quickly, Steve stood up, "This is our only chance to find out what Zemo has planned. He won't lay a finger on her. Is it uncomfortable? Of course it is, none of us enjoy watching him flirt with her, but it'll work." Tony sat down as Bucky grumbled, all eyes falling back to the screen that showed you now closer to Zemo's bars.

"Would your wife really enjoy knowing you're flirting with me?" You slightly taunted, wanting to push his buttons.

"My wife is dead, but you already know of this." Zemo replied.

With a knowing nod, you pursed your lips, "She was Sokovian too, yeah?"

"We were all from Sokovia, my wife and son, as well as myself." Zemo answered.

"Born and raised?" You continued. Zemo gave a nod as you thought for a moment with a hum, "Were you there when Ultron attacked?"

Zemo nodded, "Yes. That is when my family was murdered."

"I'm sorry," You honestly replied. "Does it still bother you? Not your dead family, but the Sokovia thing. You know, the floating?"

A quick glance of the situation, and it would've looked like you were now just chatting with the enemy, but you held down a smirk as Zemo replied. "Of course I am. That was my home."

"New York could be your home now," You offered. "Turn yourself in and we can get you transferred here."

Zemo laughed, "I would not wish to be here after what will happen."

Boom. You looked up to the camera, "You all got that?" You asked the camera, knowing your team was watching. You grabbed your file, standing up. "Thank you for your time, Zemo. This was very informative." You grabbed your comm and pushed it down, "Stand-by. Send Stark-Bots to check perimeters of the state. Zemo's planning on making us levitate like Sokovia."

Face pale, Zemo stood up, yelling incoherent words that fell upon your deaf ears as you left the room. Bucky, who had seen it all, was already waiting for you outside. He was quick to grab you and hold you tight to his chest.

"I'm okay, Buck," You smiled, voice muffled from your face being pushed against his strong body.

Bucky shook his head, "I know, I just don't want you near that freak again."

You couldn't help but laugh at his words as you pulled away enough to give him a kiss. "You jealous of Zemo?"

"You played into it," Bucky muttered.

"It was all fake, love." You replied. "You know I'm your girl."

Bucky couldn't help but smirk, "Damn right you are." He turned to the door that lead to Zemo's cell. "You hear that? She's my damn girl!"

You couldn't help but feel your heart thump at Bucky's words. He was always so damn hot when he was jealous. "C'mon, show your girl how much you love her." You teased, Bucky's eyes falling on you once more. He was quick to grab your waist with his metal arm, pulling you in as his other hand rested on the back of your neck, pushing your face against his as his lips locked with yours, a tight, sloppy kiss ensuing in the middle of the hall.

"I'm never letting you do that again." Bucky muttered, pulling away to speak. His breath was hot on your cheek as he spoke. He pulled you into another wet kiss as a soft ahem came from behind you both.

"This is not a room, but I'm sure your horny asses could find one."

Bucky groaned as he turned around, "Do you have to ruin every moment?" He asked Sam who stood smugly.

He put his hands in the air, "I just wanted to congratulate Nat's best student on her great work. Especially the one where she made her soldier get all jealous"

"Thank you, Sam," You smiled, a light blush on your face.

Bucky took a pen out of his pocket and threw it at Sam, "Get outta here, man!"

"Alright, alright! No need for hostility." Sam defended as he walked away.

As Sam left, you gave a knowing smile at Bucky. "So jealous over my mission, huh?"

Bucky scoffed, feeling embarrassment creep in his chest, "I wasn't jealous."

"I think you were," You argued. "Over Zemo of all peopke."

"Only I can talk to you that way," Bucky said, voice nearly a whine. "You're all mine, not his or anyone else's, and he knows it."

You smiled, giving Bucky a kiss on the cheek, "And that's probably why he loves doing it so much. You know he's got a thing against super soldiers. He's gonna do anything to get under your skin."

"And he chose the worst way to do it," Bucky muttered as you pressed a soft kiss on his lips.

Bucky looked at you with a goofy smile, pulling back. "C'mon, doll. We still got some work to do cleaning up Zemo's mess."

"Someone's feeling better," You teased as you both began to walk. "You'd better show me some more of that jealousy later," You suggested.

"Oh, I will," Bucky smiled. "You bet your fine ass I will."

[wttcsms]

proof of love;

physical traces that reveal just how much you truly mean to him

ft. tobio kageyama, kiyoomi sakusa, atsumu miya

KAGEYAMA, your skincare routine in his bathroom — tobio lives in a stereotypical bachelor pad; you walk into his apartment and it's the very definition of bare-bones. thin, cotton navy sheets line his bed, with one single flat pillow. he doesn't own a dining table, and instead just stands near his kitchen counter to consume his meals. he blushes and tells you that he's just a minimalist. despite it all, though, after fun nights out, you find yourself heading back to his place with him, sleepy and drunk and pouty. you wake up, instantly regretting not washing off your face, moping because "i'm so gonna break out now, tobio!" when kags visits your place, he opens his notes app to get the names of all the skincare products lining your sink. the next night out, you're being carried into his apartment, mumbling drunk incoherencies. instead of setting you down on his bed (which now has two fluffy pillows and a fruit-print comforter that he bought for you), he guides you two to his bathroom where he places you on the counter and starts trying to figure out which steps to do first to help you remove your makeup. drunk-you guides him every step of the way, and the warmth you feel in your chest and cheeks isn't from the drinks — it's from the gentle care of your boyfriend rubbing in an oil cleanser to strip off your makeup.

SAKUSA, your lipstick stains on his water bottle — kiyoomi likes everything in his life to be neat and tidy. he carries a tide pen in his pocket that he ends up using on your clothes more often than his own. he's particular with how his belongings are treated, and you know better than to mess with anything of kiyoomi's. you respect his boundaries and find his oddities endearing, but you feel so much more secure in your relationship when you realize just how loose his boundaries are when it comes to you. on a road trip, you're thirsty and he offers you his water bottle. you don't think too much about it until you finish drinking and instantly widen your eyes at the sight of pink encasing the rim — remnants of your lipgloss. before you can say anything or try to wipe it off, he reaches over and takes a swig from it without a second thought. you try telling him not to drink yet, but he just glances over at you before focusing back on the road. "why would i be bothered by that? i kiss you all the time, don't i?" it's his subtle way of telling you that what's his is yours; you don't need to walk on eggshells with him.

MIYA, a cheap ring that came in a plastic egg — the proposal doesn't go as atsumu plans. things rarely ever go as atsumu plans, but this time — this is the one time he needs everything to go perfectly. and it does: the photographer is well hidden and on time, the decorations came out fantastic, and the ring! the ring is stunning. it's what's on everyone's pinterest boards. the only issue is that he put the ring box in the wrong pants pocket! with sweaty palms and a pink flush creeping from his neck to his cheeks to his ears, he gets down on one knee. he manages to stammer out his proposal speech to you, and you're listening with tears brimming in your eyes and a watery smile on your face, and then, those beautiful eyes of yours widen in surprise when you see, not a velvet ring box, but a plastic orb being revealed to you. he quickly explains that this is not your real ring (no duh), but that in typical atsumu fashion, he messed up. "it's just a placeholder!!! i'll buy you five diamond rings, just don't say no!" you're not marrying atsumu because of the ring, you remind him, but you allow him to slip on the cheesy ring. it's made out of plastic and it's one of those cheap prizes that are available in those weird machines outside the grocery store; the machines where you insert a quarter and twist the knob and a mysterious plastic ball surprises you with a prize. he tells you it took him a dozen tries to get a ring. you're laughing and saying it's meant to be since the ring manages to fit you perfectly. even after getting your real engagement ring, you still keep the cheesy ring to this day. it's evidence that no matter what happens, atsumu will always go the extra mile for you.

[euphorajeon]

trippin' over, gettin' lost on you | jjk (m)

— pairing: jk x f. reader

— genre: fluff, smut | college au, slight coffee shop au (?)

— word count: 12.4k

— warnings: pov change after the first part (its kinda obvious.. i hope), sleeveless jk, jealous jk, like really jealous, side character yoongi, cameo jimin and hoseok, they work tgt in a coffee shop, boxer!jk is back to his nature (he's boxing again, at last), cocky jk (but he's hot so its ok), usual banter between jk and oc, also banter between oc and jimin, mentions of cuts and bruises from boxing, references to the movie Real Steel, uhh what else i dont rmb anything else this thing is GIANT for me, smut in the form of: kissing, marking (hickeys), making out, an attempt at dirty talk, dry humping, cumming in pants, hint at unprotected penetrative sex at the end (don't do this!). [pls lmk if i missed smth]

— summary: a visit to the coffee shop you work at rewards jeongguk not only with a cup of coffee and a plate of brownie, but also with something else simmering deep in his veins. a challenge is issued, and all hell breaks loose.

— author's note: okay first of all full disclosure i started this in sept 2022 and just finished it today ^_^ i tried to edit it as best as i could, so if you see any mistakes, pls kindly... ignore... thank you... ^_^ that aside, i also feel the need to disclose that this is only my second time attempting to write smut so pls.. be kind.. hehe. okay! i hope you enjoy this absolute giant baby of mine!!

masterlist | boxer!gguk masterlist

There’s an advantage to knowing someone for years. Jeon Jeongguk can attest to this fact from first-hand experiences he’d had with you throughout the many years you both have known each other. He’s seen you cry after you almost drowned when you were ten and you’ve seen him throw up his breakfast after drinking skimmed milk when he was twelve, where both life-threatening experiences had been deemed not serious by young-you and young-Jeongguk who used both experiences as means to roast each other. (Though growing up, your hands automatically grabbed the whole milk carton when grocery shopping with him and he’s never let you go within a five-meter radius of a swimming pool without his supervision.)

Years of friendship with you has also given him the advantage of being familiar with your likes and dislikes, from trivial ones like how you don’t drink coffee because it upsets your stomach to more serious ones like the type of boys you would date in your teen years. He’s never had a problem with the former, instead using it as another mean to annoy you (“You can’t drink coffee? What are you? A child?”), but the latter had always bugged him for reasons unknown prior to his big epiphany a little over a year ago. (Spoiler alert: it was the first time he came home with piercings on his eyebrow and lower lip, when he tempted you into kissing him stupid.)

Now he’s confident that the type of a boy you’d date would be someone who is handsome, tall, has a great smile and tattooed bulging biceps on the side. Add a lip piercing (and a fake tongue one!) as well and he’s sure you’re never going to look at other boys ever again. If you do, well, he’d just make the piercing on his tongue a permanent one, even though that means he wouldn’t be able to kiss you for weeks after. But as said earlier, he’s confident that you only have eyes for him alone.

With that same confidence, Jeongguk struts through the glass door of the coffee shop you’re working at for the summer, going up to the counter with a grin painted on his features. Said grin goes unnoticed by you, though, as you’re busy taking the order of the person in front of him. His lips stay tilted upwards as he watches you work, writing the customer’s name on the cup with your big, round, cute handwriting. Only when you’re done taking the order and the customer’s cup has been given to your coworker do you notice his presence, eyes lighting up at the sight of him.

“Hi, what can I get you today?” you greet him in your customer-service voice and smile like you do any other customer that has come before him. Jeongguk gives you an amused smile, making you chuckle as you key in his order even before he says it himself. He eyes the small screen in front of him that displays his usual choice of beverage, making a sound to stop you from ringing him up.

“Actually,” he says when you hum in question, “could you add milk to that? Make it a latte?”

“You want a latte?” you emphasize the last word, making sure you didn’t hear him wrong. “Like, with milk and foam on top?”

“Uh-huh,” Jeongguk confirms, leaning his elbows on the counter to stare at you as you change his order from an americano to a latte. “Can I also order you on the side? Look too good not to be devoured,” he adds, a sleazy smirk on his lips.

You scrunch up your face at his innuendo, his words hard to believe when you’re wearing a murky brown apron and a matching cap on your head. “I’m adding a brownie,” you deadpan. “That would be seven dollars.”

“You don’t want anything?” Jeongguk asks as he straightens up, hand reaching for his wallet to take out his credit card. “No coffee though, babe.”

“Nope, I’m good,” you answer as you accept the card Jeongguk hands you, swiping it through the card reader. “Yoongi said I can try the new menu in large for free! I’m saving calories for that so no sugar allowed for now.”

His forehead creases upon hearing the new name. “Yoongi? Who’s Yoongi?”

“Him,” you tilt your head towards a mint-haired guy who’s busy making all the drinks, hands skillfully moving from one cup to another. It’s a wonder how he doesn’t spill even a drop of liquid. “I’ll introduce you later but now you have to move, there’s a line. Shoo.”

Jeongguk gives you a playful pout as a protest but complies with your request to move, sliding down to the pick up counter as you greet the next customer in line. There are two people lined up after him, barely a line like you made it sound like, but he figures because it’s an hour before closing that you consider any amount above one person a line. He also notices that you and the mint guy (Yoongi, was it?) are the only ones manning the counter, so it’s not like you have any spare time to deal with him given the amount of work that has to be done.

“An iced latte and brownie for Jeongguk!” Mint guy shouts as he slides the drink and dessert on the counter, lingering for a second when he sees Jeongguk’s hands reaching for his order. Mint guy’s gaze trails up his arms to his face, eyes meeting Jeongguk’s confused ones. Recognition bleeds into his cat-like eyes as his mouth forms into an O shape.

“Kiddo’s boyfriend?”

The low baritone of his voice is unexpected, though that’s not the only thing throwing Jeongguk for a loop. ‘Kiddo’? He has a nickname for you??

Mint guy—Yoongi!—doesn’t take his lack of response personally, instead opting to turn around and talk to you who have just finished taking orders from the customers. Jeongguk can’t hear what words you and Yoongi are throwing around, but from the way you glance at him, it looks like the mint-haired guy is just trying to confirm the answer to his two-worded question directed at Jeongguk earlier.

Your response to Yoongi’s inquiry makes the guy give you double pats on your cap-covered head, triggering a laugh to come out of both of you. While Yoongi’s laugh looks like he’s teasing you good-naturedly, yours looks like a shy one if the pink dusting your cheeks are any indication. It prompts a scowl to appear on Jeongguk’s handsome visage, furrowed brows and clenched jaw. It is not in your nature to get shy.

As much as he wants to stay rooted to the pick-up counter to keep you and Yoongi in his close watch, he has to move his ass somewhere less crowded to avoid getting eye-fucked by the girl next to him who has been staring at his tattoos for the past five minutes. Prior to dating you, anyone who displays interest in his tattoos would make pride swell in his chest, an ego-booster guaranteed to make his day a thousand times better. He used to subtly flex whenever he caught someone looking at his sleeve tattoos, an equally subtle wink on the side if that someone is a girl he found attractive. But after dating you, he realizes that the only attention he wants (and matters) is yours. Now anyone staring at his tattoos with the intention of flirting or getting in his pants just makes him shiver in disgust.

Though, in this particular instance, Jeongguk admits it’s his own fault by showing up to the coffee shop in a sleeveless shirt. It wasn’t intentional, he just grabbed anything within reach when he packed for the gym earlier in the day, but the way he left his hoodie in the car is definitely intentional. He thought he would give you a distraction surprise by baring his sleeve when you’re working, but you seemed unaffected even when he leaned on the counter to flex his muscles. Which is weird, considering you never missed any chance to ogle his inked bicep whenever he’s boxing.

As Jeongguk plops a small piece of brownie into his mouth, he just realizes that your roles are reversed now, with you doing your thing and him doing the staring. His eyes never leave your figure as you ring up three more customers since he sat down, transferring plastic cups onto Yoongi’s never-ending queue of orders. He watches as you take the last two cups by yourself, re-reading the order before moving to grab the ingredients needed for the drink. Your hands don’t work as fast as Yoongi’s, the muscle memory not yet settling in, but Jeongguk can tell that your help is appreciated by the way the mint guy smiles at you while patting your shoulder.

When the orders are all done, you go up to the glass door to flip the sign so it shows the Sorry, we’re closed! side. A glance at the clock tells him that it is thirty minutes until closing time, meaning thirty minutes until you can get out from behind the cashier and into his waiting arms. He hasn’t seen you all day today and all he wants to do is kiss you breathless the second you get rid of that horrendous apron and cap. Jeongguk starts counting down from the thirty-minute mark, hoping time would tick by faster.

Behind the counter, Yoongi is still busy making one more drink while refusing your offer to help. It’s weird seeing your kindness being offered to someone that isn’t him, but Jeongguk supposes this time it’s strictly work-related as he knows Yoongi has been making all the drinks (except the last two that you did) ever since he sat down with his order. Though, it seems like the drink in his hand is not an order at all, because he gives the plastic cup to you instead of putting it on the counter for a customer to take. There’s an almost childish grin on your face as you sip on the drink, eyes lighting up as you shoot Yoongi a thumbs up. After you exchange some more words with Yoongi, Jeongguk watches as you skip happily to his table with your drink in hand.

You place said drink next to his cup of latte on the table before your hand reaches for his drink to steal a sip. “I just have to clean up and wait for everyone to leave, then we’re good to go.” You steal two more sips of the latte just because you can.

“Okay, babe, but I still want my latte, you can put it down now,” Jeongguk chuckles, watching you do as he says with a guilty smile on your face. But then your hand takes the little spoon that came with the brownie to cut a sizable chunk from his half-eaten treat, quickly plopping it into your mouth. “Finish your brownie so I can take the plate away to wash it.”

“Are you just here to steal all of my food?” Jeongguk jokes, no menace behind his words as he reaches up to thumb away a stray piece of brownie from the corner of your lips. “And you said you didn’t want anything when I offered earlier.”

“I didn’t,” you confirm, “stealing from you is just too hard to resist.”

Jeongguk would’ve continued the banter if not for Yoongi calling your nickname from behind the counter, signalling for you to get back to your job.

“Boss calls,” you say, sneakily stuffing some more brownie into your mouth. “Should get back. Bye!”

“He’s your boss?” Jeongguk asks incredulously, glancing at the mint-haired guy who’s still busy moving around behind the counter. “That young guy is your boss??”

“Yeah, I’ll explain later,” you wave your hand dismissively, turning to leave. “Don��t steal my drink!”

In true Jeongguk fashion, of course he steals a sip from your drink. He does it just to be petty that you won’t explain anything about Yoongi, but he’s also curious what the new menu tastes like. He doesn’t remember seeing any banner for a new menu when he entered the shop earlier, so he’s guessing it hasn’t gone on sale yet.

He scrunches up his face the moment the drink touches his taste buds, tasting the bitterness of coffee among the layers of other flavors. It’s not as strong as the americano he usually has, but he can still feel it linger even after he swallowed the drink. Definitely not the type of drink you’d order on your own, though, so why were you so excited to try this new menu?

Looking around the shop, Jeongguk’s gaze falls on Yoongi. You did say he was your boss, didn’t you? Could it be that this free drink is just a plot to use you as a guinea pig for his experimental weird recipes, knowing that you can’t refuse your boss? Was that why he refused your help earlier? So he could make the drink taste as bizarre as it is right now?

His eyes continue following your and Yoongi’s figures behind the counter, squinting them in distaste whenever he sees you laughing at something the mint-haired guy said. Your smile, your lowered gaze, your shy demeanor, all remind him of a feeling he thought he had buried a long time ago—the same feeling he got whenever you got a boyfriend in your adolescent years. Suddenly, Jeongguk feels fifteen all over again—a clueless doe-eyed boy who donned t-shirts in every color of the rainbow every day of the week and strutted like he owned the school just so you can see that he was cool, only for you to deny him of a Sunday together.

Those years have become a core memory for him that it inspired him to get one of his tattoos: Rather be dead than cool, because he realized the way to your attention was not by being cool, it was by just being himself. (Yes, the ‘him’ who showed up unannounced at your doorstep after two years and ended the day with you on his lap stealing all the breath straight from his lungs.)

Anyways, all of that doesn’t matter because currently, your eyes are not on him but on your mint-haired boss who’s busy grinning while washing some equipment. Why are you both smiling so much around each other? Do you have some kind of inside joke that’s so funny you can’t stop laughing? What is so pleasing about Yoongi’s presence that you keep beaming at him?

Jeongguk chews the straw of your drink in anger, not realizing that he has inhaled almost half of the cup’s content despite claiming that he hates the taste. Sipping on your drink has become an afterthought as he was busy analyzing how wide your smiles are while working with Yoongi and how friendly the shoulder and head pats you give each other are. It’s sickening.

Eventually, everyone else in the coffee shop left and you’re in front of him once again to get rid of the brownie plate from his table, whining when you see the half-empty cup in Jeongguk’s hand even as you’re chewing the rest of his brownie in your mouth. Fair trade, he says as you walk away with the plate and spoon in hand.

Not even five minutes has passed since you left his table, yet Jeongguk feels tired of being patient, taking your and his coffee cups in each hand before coming up to the counter. It seems like Yoongi senses his presence, because he looks up from the calculator app on the tablet in front of him to give Jeongguk a curious glance. Their eyes meet for a split second before Jeongguk moves his gaze past Yoongi’s shoulder to you, who’s still busy wiping down the counter. A knowing smile curves on Yoongi’s lips.

“Hey, Kiddo,” Yoongi turns towards you, the nickname still irritating to Jeongguk’s ears. “I’ll finish closing up, you can go. Great work today.”

“No it’s okay, I can help you mop the floor after I’m finished with the counter.” You don’t even look up as you wave him off, oblivious to Jeongguk’s presence and his increasing impatience in front of your boss. He clears his throat comically loud, making you turn around to see a frown etched on your boyfriend’s face and Yoongi tilting his head towards him with a small, almost teasing smile on his face.

“Oh.” You pull your lips into a thin line. “Okay then. Sorry about him, Yoongi.”

“No worries, Kiddo.”

Yoongi’s nonchalant response is laced with a chuckle, which for some reason, upsets Jeongguk even more than the nickname he keeps calling you by. Is Yoongi not scared of him? Of his tattoos, of his muscles? Is he not intimidating? Can’t he feel the piercing stare Jeongguk keeps giving him ever since he walked into the coffee shop?

“You.” Your stern voice tears his hot gaze away from the mint-haired guy, whose focus is back on the calculator on his tablet to count the sales they made today. “I’ll clock out first then we can go. Please don’t do anything weird in the five minutes that I don’t have my eyes on you.”

Jeongguk follows your figure with his eyes until you disappear into the backroom, leaving him alone with Yoongi. Yoongi, the guy with the mint hair, whose surname he doesn’t even know, who is your boss that strangely have an endearing nickname for you. Things that stream steady questions into his head, about your initial meeting with Yoongi to the extent of your relationship with him. It’s the nickname he can’t seem to shake off of his mind, the way it rolls easily off Yoongi’s tongue, as if he’s been calling you that for years. Has he known you for years like Jeongguk has? Been through near-death experiences with you like Jeongguk has? Has he deserved the right to call you by a nickname like Jeongguk has?

“You can stop shooting daggers at my head, you know,” Yoongi’s low drawl almost makes Jeongguk think that he’s talking to himself, but the sentence is clearly directed at him. The older guy finally looks up from his tablet to look at Jeongguk in the eyes for longer than a second, no coffee orders to complete to interrupt their interaction this time. “Kiddo’s boyfriend, Jeongguk, right?”

As Jeongguk gives a nod to confirm Yoongi’s question, a hand is extended towards him to complete the introduction. “I’m Yoongi, Kiddo’s coworker-slash-boss.”

Jeongguk grips Yoongi’s hand with more strength than necessary, unintentionally flexing his muscles too. He thought that would be enough to tell Yoongi that Jeongguk is your boyfriend and he has no business being so friendly with you, but Yoongi only glances at his tattooed arm before letting go of his hand with a comment about how strong his grip is.

“Thanks, I do boxing,” Jeongguk mutters curtly, upset at the degree of nonchalance Yoongi is showing. He starts glancing at the door to the backroom where you currently are, wishing you would emerge right this second so he can go and doesn’t need to face Yoongi’s mint hair ever again.

“Yeah, Kiddo might have mentioned that a few times, just like she won’t shut up about your sleeve tattoos,” Yoongi says, going back to his tablet. “I used to box too, by the way.”

If you asked Jeongguk what Yoongi used to do, he wouldn’t be able to answer at all as he chooses to focus on the part where Yoongi said you won’t shut up about his sleeve tattoos and tune out the rest of his sentence. “My tattoos? What about them?”

“She said you have tons. Shoulder to fingertips. That’s how I recognized you when giving your order,” Yoongi answers lightly, which piqued Jeongguk’s interest even further. Wouldn’t it be fun to use this coworker-slash-boss of yours to get information about what you’ve been saying about him at work? What else does Yoongi know about him other than he does boxing and has a sleeve tattoo?

“Really? Does she gush about how hot they are to you, too?”

It’s not a question meant to be answered, its sole purpose to show off that you indeed gush to him about how hot his tattoos are. Though, if one thinks about it, why would Jeongguk need to boast to Yoongi about the compliments you give him about the strokes of ink on his arm? What business does Yoongi have knowing about it?

Yoongi seems to be unaware of Jeongguk’s inner dilemma as his face breaks out into a grin. “I think she’d be mad at me if I told you half the things she gushes to me about you.”

So you do gush about how hot his tattoos are to Yoongi. Interesting.

The fact that Yoongi insinuates there’s more to that is both endearing and terrifying to Jeongguk, because while he’s giddy that you talk about him with other people with so much enthusiasm, too much of it could end up in you sharing something about him that you should not have. Not to mention you’re sharing it with your boss, someone you should keep at an arm’s length when it comes to sharing about your significant others. One wrong move and he could use it against you.

Jeongguk is just about to ask Yoongi to elaborate further on his statement when you step out of the backroom, now out of the murky brown cap and apron and in a white t-shirt that looks like it belongs to Jeongguk. All thoughts of Yoongi knowing all sort of things about him evaporates right away, his mind focusing on how cute you look instead. If only Jeongguk doesn’t know basic human decency, he’d pull you by the waist to taste the mouth he’s been deprived of for the whole day, not giving an ounce of care about your boss watching the whole thing.

No, he’s a good boyfriend so he opts to pull you by the shoulders instead, letting your arms go around his waist before squeezing you in his arms. The kiss he drops on your cheek is chaste yet lingering, like he wants to let you know just how much he missed you. You tighten your arms around him in return, wordlessly saying the same thing back.

“Ready to go?” Jeongguk mumbles into your hair, not yet letting go of the hug.

“Ye—oh, wait!” You pull your face away from its initial position on Jeongguk’s chest. “You haven’t met Yoongi yet.”

“We did, Kiddo,” Yoongi waves you off. “You’re free to go. Your boyfriend here has been waiting long enough.”

“No,” you say, pulling away from Jeongguk’s hold. “I mean I haven’t introduced you two properly.” You gesture to the both of them back and forth as you say their names. “Yoongi, meet my boyfriend, Jeon Jeongguk. Jeongguk, meet my boss, Min Yoongi. His family owns this coffee shop.”

“That’s what you mean by proper?” Jeongguk says to you as he takes Yoongi’s hand for the second time that day, regular grip this time because you’re watching his every move like a hawk. “I didn’t know you own the shop. Nice place,” he nods to the older guy, releasing his hand.

“Thanks. It’s my dad’s, though. I just help from time to time,” Yoongi shrugs.

“You ‘just help from time to time’ but willing to dye your hair mint in honor of the new menu.” You nudge his elbow playfully. “Speaking of the new menu, did you finish the whole cup, Jeongguk? I’ve only had a few sips.” You frown as you bring the cup to your eye level, examining just how much of it is left. It’s an exaggeration, obviously, as the cup in your hand is still half-filled. But Jeongguk plays along, saying the reason why he inhaled your drink is because he’s tired from having just gone back from boxing.

“You have your own latte,” you point out, finally taking a much-deserved sip from your free drink. It still tastes okay, so you stop grilling Jeongguk about stealing your drink (even though you kinda stole his too, in the middle of your shift nonetheless.) “Oh, and did you know Yoongi also—”

Yoongi clears his throat loudly before you can finish your sentence. You look up from your drink, alarmed, afraid you might have said something wrong. Your eyes meet Yoongi’s and he gives you a tiny shake of his head, one Jeongguk doesn’t notice because he’s busy taking sips from his own cup of latte. (And because he’s more focused on you than Yoongi.)

“He knows, I told him I used to box too,” Yoongi says.

“You did? I didn’t catch it,” Jeongguk averts his eyes from you, turning to look at Yoongi. “Wanna have a match? I could use an opponent for my session tomorrow.”

“I said I used to, Kid,” Yoongi re-emphasizes on the two words. “I have a shoulder injury. It’s healing, but I still shouldn’t do too much to it.”

“Oh come on, I’ll go easy on you.”

“Jeongguk!” A slap lands on his bicep courtesy of you.

“What? He said it’s healing!”

It’s only now that Jeongguk witnesses the exchange between you and Yoongi using only your eyes, yours looking frantic while Yoongi’s looking as cool as a cucumber. Maybe he should dye his hair a shade of green resembling a cucumber rather than a mint.

After watching you and Yoongi have a silent conversation for a minute, Jeongguk lets out a sigh as he takes the final sip from his latte. “It’s okay, babe, I was just kidding. It’s fine if Yoongi doesn’t want to have a match with me.” He throws the empty cup into a trashcan nearby. “It just means that he backs down easily from a challenge.”

You physically face-palm at his sentence, missing the way Jeongguk throws a challenging smirk Yoongi’s way. The older doesn’t seem fazed at all, instead letting a small smirk take over his features as well. “That’s not a really nice thing to say to someone you’ve just met,” he drawls.

Jeongguk shrugs. “Just stating the truth.”

“Jeongguk, please stop,” you whine from behind your hands, still facepalming because you don’t want to become a witness in case this coffee shop becomes a crime scene.

“Alright, I’ll have a match with you,” Yoongi says finally, tone resolute. You peek out from the cocoon of your hands, glancing back and forth between your coworker-slash-boss and your boyfriend who are having a staring contest, both refusing to back down. “Tomorrow after my shift works? Kiddo here can take the same shift so she can watch us too.”

“Sure,” Jeongguk agrees without a pause. “It ends at three, right?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. See you then.”

Then Jeongguk puts his arm around your shoulders, pulling you away from the counter to finally go take you home as it’s the reason he came here in the first place. You hastily give your coworker a wave goodbye over your shoulder, getting a wave back accompanied with a laugh. Jeongguk uses the opportunity to steal yet another sip from your drink.

“Stop it! You’re gonna finish it all!”

“What even is it? It tastes really weird.” Jeongguk scrunches up his face.

“It’s mint mochaccino, you ass.” You pull the cup away from him, who chases the straw with his mouth while grinning wide. “Stop or I won’t kiss you until tomorrow morning.”

“Always withdrawing kisses when I need them the most,” he pouts, retreating from your drink to let you finally finish the cup yourself. “Can I kiss you in the car or should I wait until we get home?”

(Does not matter what you answer is, because he grips the back of your neck in the car to make out with you for five minutes, and then finish what he started in the safety of his room, under the blankets.)

“Are you sure you want to fight with Yoongi later?”

You and Jeongguk are back in his car, on the way to the coffee shop for you to start your shift and for Jeongguk to get his americano to kick off the day. His nod to your question is firm.

“Yeah. My coach said it’s good to train with an opponent sometimes.”

“You could’ve fought with your coach instead, then,” you point out.

“True, but—” Jeongguk tilts his head, sucking in a breath. “He’s the one who trained me, so he knows my fighting style and pattern. It’s good indeed, but it’s missing that element of fun.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Besides, I want to know what your Yoongi is made of.” He casts a glance at you to see your reaction.

“What ‘my’ Yoongi, what are you talking about …” You heave a sigh, massaging your temple. It’s not even 9 AM yet but you can already feel a headache coming. Sometimes you wonder why you’re willing to date this childhood friend of yours, knowing all of his flaws and bad habits like this. Though it’s given you the advantage of being able to read between the lines of his actions, often you wish he’d just say things outright without you having to dig it out of him.

“You know, the Yoongi you work with? The Yoongi who gives you head pats? The Yoongi who has a nickname for you?” Jeongguk’s tone gets more annoying near the end of his sentence, almost as if he’s trying to get a certain reaction out of you.

“The Yoongi who owns the cafe I work at, which is the sole source of income I have?” you reply instead, refusing to give in to Jeongguk’s silent provocation. “Also, the Yoongi who used to box. I think you should keep that in mind when you fight him later.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bet he wasn’t even that good.”

You manage to arrive at the cafe unscathed, only losing a tiny piece of sanity because your boyfriend couldn’t keep his mouth shut about Yoongi and his non-existent boxing skills (Jeongguk’s words, not yours.) It doesn’t help that the Yoongi in question is already standing behind the register, greeting you with a smile and throwing a lopsided smirk your boyfriend’s way. You don’t like the thick tension between them at all so you quickly slip into the backroom to let Jeongguk be a big boy for once and order his own americano for the day.

Stepping out of the backroom in your mandatory work apron and cap, you’re kind of relieved when you see the shop is still intact, not thrown upside down courtesy of your boyfriend and his inability to control his strength (and emotion) in the face of a threat (read: Yoongi.) Upon seeing you, Jeongguk pushes himself off the counter he’s leaning against before reaching for your waist despite your boss standing just a few feet away. The cup of americano on the counter tells you that you took too long in the breakroom, which if anyone asks, you’d justify with adjusting your work attire. In reality, you just don’t want to face your boyfriend and the sour look he has whenever he so much as glances at your boss.

“You can always cancel the fight with Yoongi, you know,” you murmur, biting your bottom lip in worry. “You could hurt him, he could hurt you … it’s not ideal.”

“Hmm.” Jeongguk purses his lips. “What’s not ideal is your boss having a nickname for you.” There he goes again, always having something to say about Yoongi. “Aside from it being highly unprofessional, it’s also inappropriate since you have a boyfriend and that is me. Jeon Jeongguk. I am your boyfriend.”

“Jeongguk, he knows,” you groan, fed up with the back-and-forth about this whole Yoongi thing. You don’t even know why your boyfriend is so threatened by the older guy when he’s a whole lifetime ahead of him. “It’s not even a nickname. You’re just seeing what you want to see.”

Jeongguk’s reply never makes it out of his mouth as he’s interrupted by Yoongi clearing his throat, making you both look at him tapping on his wrist to signal the time. It’s a reminder that you’re here to work, not to continue the argument that sparked in the car. Your boyfriend rolls his eyes at your boss, sharing a hard stare with him before deciding to do something one should not do in front of their boss: dip down to kiss you, using your surprised gasp as a way to slide his tongue inside your mouth. In the five seconds he manages to tangle his tongue with yours, you completely missed the sound of the glass doors opening and the low whistle that came after, along with Yoongi’s chuckle and greeting to the person who just came in.

Shoving Jeongguk away by your hand on his chest, you try to cover your burning face with your other hand as an attempt to save your dignity in front of Yoongi, though you doubt it’s working at all. Jeongguk licks his lips then winks at you, squeezing your waist in his grip before stepping back to grab his cup of americano, now full of condensation sliding off the plastic cup. He takes a sip to taste test before scrunching up his nose.

“Could’ve been better,” he sneers, making you glare. “Alright, I’ll let you get to work. See you later, babe.” Then, after a second, turns to Yoongi to add: “you too.”

When Jeongguk disappears into his car, you put your head in your hands and let out the loudest groan known to man. “I’m sorry, Yoongi.”

The mint-haired guy only gives you a gummy laugh, eyes turning into crescents as he shakes his head. “Your boyfriend is really something, Kiddo,” he muses. “A really … fun early morning entertainment, you could say.”

“Entertaining it was!” You hear the voice first before you see the person, the one who must’ve come in when you were rather preoccupied with your boyfriend. Park Jimin, your other coworker, slides behind the counter in a brown apron identical to yours and Yoongi’s, just minus the cap. Good, that means he doesn’t have a bad hair day today and can take the position at the register instead of you. You could use some more time to learn to make the drinks, anyway.

“Didn’t know you and your boyfriend were such exhibitionists, Kim,” Jimin taunts you, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. “Although, if my boyfriend were that hot, I would have wanted to exhibit him too…” He purses his lips in an exaggerated manner of faux thinking, obviously trying to rile you up. “Lucky you, Kim.”

“Shut up, Park,” you seethe through your teeth, slapping him with a dish rag while he cackles happily. “We’re not exhibitionists. You just have terrible timing.”

“Oh, it was perfect I’d say, just in time to catch sight of his tongue going into your mouth—”

“JIMIN!”

When Jimin continues making fun of you by making gross kissing sounds, you turn to Yoongi for help. As the oldest amongst you three, he must have a sound solution to get Jimin to stop making those awful sounds and put you out of your misery. Although, your trust in him is probably misplaced as Yoongi just chuckles and tells you something your own mom would tell you whenever you’re telling on Jeongguk: “Just ignore him, Kiddo.” The sacred word of ignore. “Go prepare the breakfast pastries now.”

So much for sound solution.

You go about your shift as usual, with Jimin manning the register like you planned to. Time goes by quickly when you’re busy working (and when your coworker is Park Jimin) that you didn’t realize it’s almost time for your shift to end. You glance at the line in front of Jimin and see that there are still three more people he needs to serve, while you and Yoongi still have about five tickets to finish before you can clock out and leave. Scratch that, might be eight tickets to go considering the workers who have their shift after you aren’t here yet. It’s gonna be a while before you can see your boyfriend and be a witness to an unnecessary fight between him and Yoongi.

“Hey, Kim, where’s your boyfriend? Didn’t you say he was gonna pick you up from work?” Jimin nudges your elbow when he finishes taking one customer’s order, sliding a plastic cup into the queue in front of you. “I want to see just how hot he really is,” he continues while wiggling his eyebrows.

Before you can slap the guy with your dish rag again—it’s looking more like your weapon rather than a cleaning tool at this point—Yoongi pipes up from his position in front of the sink. “Just look for someone with a tattoo sleeve. He loves brandishing it.”

“Ooh, a hot guy with tattoos,” Jimin whistles. “Add some piercings and I might steal him away from you.”

“Jimin, quit drooling over my boyfriend,” you sigh, taking the next cup in line as your coworker turns back to the register. He’s already starting to greet the next customer when you decide to give him a taste of his own medicine, sliding next to him to brew the espresso needed for the order you’re making. “He has one on his lip, but he’s mine. Note that, Park,” you whisper to him while he’s keying in an order, earning a light chuckle from the man.

“He’s just messing with you, Kiddo, don’t mind him,” Yoongi chuckles from beside you, eyeing Jimin whose focus is currently on the cup he’s scribbling a customer’s name on. “He has his eyes set on someone else already.”

“Gossiping, aren’t we?” Jimin turns to you and Yoongi with a sleazy smile. “Careful now, unless you want Hoseok to know about your hot boyfriend too, Kim.” He gestures to the glass doors, where Hoseok from the next shift just walked through. He’s a great guy, but you’ve only shared a couple shifts with him, so you think you haven’t got to the point of sharing about significant others.

With the mention of Hoseok, you and Yoongi move to finish the orders you have left before handing over the shift to the aforementioned man. When all your orders are done and you’re ready to head to the backroom, you turn to ask Jimin to go with you only to find him still rooted in front of the register. “Jimin, you’re not going?”

“Oh, I’m actually covering for Eunbi.” Jimin shrugs, sliding a cup into Hoseok’s line of orders. “Go, Kim. Have fun with your boyfriend,” he grins, sending you a teasing wink.

Hoseok, a clueless witness, looks at the both of you with a scandalous stare. “What, what, what did I miss? Why are you winking like that, Park Jimin?” he says, urging Jimin to elaborate while pouring drinks into a plastic cup.

“You should ask her, Hobi,” Jimin snickers into his hand as he turns to greet a customer. Hoseok turns to you, his expression hopeful that you will shed light on the reason behind Jimin’s wink.

“My boyfriend is about to fight with our boss and I don’t know how to talk him out of it,” you say through your teeth, giving an overly-sweet smile to a confused Hoseok. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet him and make sure he’s not gonna bite Yoongi’s head off.”

“Bye, Kim,” Jimin sing-songs, waving his hand to you. “Say hi to your boyfriend for me!”

You’re already walking away, turning to tell Jimin off when you bump into Yoongi who’s just came out of the backroom, void of his work apron and ready to go. He grabs your shoulders to turn you around, pushing you into the backroom to prevent anymore banter between you and Jimin. “Let it go, Kiddo.”

In the backroom, you catch a text from Jeongguk saying that he’s already in the coffee shop, ready to go when you are. You emerge from the room after clocking out, moving your feet to the dining area of the cafe while waving to Jimin and Hoseok behind the counter. Scanning the room, you search for a familiar mop of black hair that belongs to your boyfriend.

It’s easy to spot Yoongi’s mint hair amongst the sea of other natural-colored hairs. What’s not easy is believing your eyes when you see the person sitting in front of Yoongi waving wildly at you, grinning like a mad man. It’s your boyfriend, the person you’re supposed to see after work, the person you’re supposed to supervise when he fights your boss later, alright, that part you know. The part that you don’t know and have a hard time believing is:

Jeongguk’s hair is mint.

Not black, not brown, not the experimental half-half he tried in high school. Mint.

The exact same shade as Yoongi’s.

It feels like you’re on autopilot when your feet carry you to their table, jaw on the floor while your eyes are stuck on Jeongguk’s freshly-dyed strands.

“Hi, babe,” your boyfriend has the audacity to say, lips stretching impossibly wider. He reaches up to run his fingers through his mint hair, an act so deliberate even Yoongi sighs at the sight of it, but it makes your heart skip a bit nonetheless. “Do you like my new hair?”

The light green strands previously tangled with his fingers fall back to cover his forehead and frame his face perfectly, the light hue somehow blending well with Jeongguk’s skin tone. It also accentuates his jaw more, making it appear sharper when the grin on his lips morphs into a smirk once he notices that you can’t stop staring. Oh, that smirk. Usually hot with his previously black hair, it is now lethal with his mint hair, toeing the line of playful and dangerous at the same time.

You want to scream at the obvious and cheesy question.

Yoongi, the third person who’s been watching the entire interaction unfold before his eyes, clears his throat. “If you’re done eye-fucking your boyfriend, can we go now? I have somewhere else to be after this.”

“Yoongi!” you whisper-shout, half scandalized, half disbelieving that your boss can say something so crude in the middle of his own buzzing coffee shop. Maybe he’s been hanging out with Park Jimin too much. (Or maybe he’s just sick of you drooling over your boyfriend time and time again … yeah, maybe that.)

“Can’t wait to lose to me, Min?” Jeongguk snickers, taking your hand in his as he follows Yoongi—who pointedly ignores his taunting question—towards the glass door of the coffee shop.

You catch Jimin’s eyes as you’re stepping out, his eyes rounding in surprise before a sly smile takes over his features. Have fun! he mouths, giving you a wink. Ugh, you’re gonna face a lot more questions the next time you have a shift together with him.

After another futile attempt at talking Jeongguk out of fighting with Yoongi, you’re seated where you usually are, on the sidelines of Jeongguk’s gym, this time with heightened anxiety out of fear that your boyfriend and your boss could hurt each other. You’re worried less about the physical part—boxing is a very physical sport, after all—and more about the mental part.

Boys are full of pride, full of ego. They pride themselves on their ability to box, delivering punch after punch until their knuckles bruise. They pride themselves on their muscles, bulging biceps that took years to build and maintain. They pride themselves on their strength, how they are able to hold you up against the wall when you’re busy sucking air off each other’s lungs.

Oh, and in case it’s not clear, by boys you mean Jeongguk.

You have a lot of faith in your boyfriend, of course, but knowing Yoongi’s boxing skills, no matter how long ago it was, the outcome of the fight today could just be the one that would hurt Jeongguk’s pride. The possibility of it happening is so high that you’re already preparing yourself for when Jeongguk comes back to you with his ego bruised. God, you can only hope Yoongi won’t hit too hard.

You’re too busy thinking of the many possible outcomes of this fight that you don’t realize when Jeongguk is back from putting his gloves on and warming up, now standing in front of you. “Wish me luck?” he says, along with a toothy grin your way.

“Yeah, good luck, Ggukie,” you reply, lacking your usual sarcastic bite. Jeongguk seems to pay no mind to it, though, ducking down to peck your lips before turning around to face his opponent for the day.

You catch Yoongi’s eyes when Jeongguk has his back to you, quickly mouthing don’t hurt him! to your boss, which he only responds with a smirk. All the blood drains from your face. Looks like your worries about someone getting his ego bruised won’t be just worries after all.

When the fight has started (Jeongguk’s coach started it—you’re grateful he’s there because then you don’t have to worry too much about Jeongguk and Yoongi beating each other to a pulp), you can’t help but watch. You just realize, in the years you’ve known Jeongguk and watched him box, you’ve never actually seen him fight anyone else other than his coach. He’s said before that he only took boxing as a way to work out, not to actually fight, so you guess that makes sense.

You don’t watch boxing matches a lot (actually, you don’t watch them at all), your only knowledge of boxing you get from watching Real Steel, a movie about boxing matches for robots, set in the far future when human boxing is not interesting anymore due to the limited brutality. You’re not sure how much information you retained from the movie, and how accurate they are, but you’re pretty sure you don’t need much boxing knowledge to know that right now, Yoongi is playing defensive while Jeongguk is playing offensive.

Alright, you admit, you have no idea if the terms you’re using are right, but it’s the simplest ones you can use to describe the sight in front of you. Since the start of the fight, Jeongguk has been throwing punches continuously, while Yoongi has had his gloved hands covering his face the entire time. Okay, not the entire time, but he’s only thrown one punch compared to Jeongguk’s one hundred ones.

As the fight goes on, Yoongi starts throwing punches here and there while still dodging Jeongguk’s aggressive fists. You’ve never seen Yoongi move this much in the entire time you’ve known him, and it surprises you how agile he is. The way he ducks under Jeongguk’s arm and throws him off balance is admirable, sometimes a little bit funny (just a bit, you promise) because it shows just how calm he is compared to Jeongguk’s aggressive, almost-angry boxing style.

When Jeongguk’s coach declares a break, your boyfriend walks back to you with his brows furrowed, tearing off one of his gloves so he can remove his mouth guard and grab his water bottle. After chugging down half of its content, Jeongguk heaves a frustrated sigh.

“I can’t grasp his fighting style,” he grumbles to himself. His eyes are set on Yoongi, who’s on the other side of the room, drinking from his own water bottle. “Who the fuck ducks all the time while boxing?”

“Maybe it’s because you keep throwing angry punches at him, babe,” you say, initially to keep his frustration at bay, but instead it makes him raise his eyebrow at you in a duh way. You backtrack immediately. “Okay, okay. But it’s just your first time fighting him, isn’t it? Be patient, Jeongguk, and maybe let up your punches a little bit?”

“Baby, it’s boxing,” he says exasperatedly. “Someone has to throw some punches.”

“I know, but you just seem so … angry. Yoongi’s only ducking to dodge that. I’m saying maybe you can tone it down so he could stop dodging, so then you can see his fighting style better.” You’re saying this while gripping his biceps, hoping your words can go through his seemingly-clouded mind. “When you see his fighting style, won’t it be easier to figure out a way you can beat him? Isn’t that what you taunted him with at the cafe?”

You know it’s not even remotely possible to learn one’s boxing style just from a single fight, let alone “figure out a way to beat him”. Somewhere in his fogged mind, you believe Jeongguk stores this fact as well, he’s just currently too deep in frustration to place it in the front of his mind. You’re not even sure your suggestion to learn Yoongi’s fighting style is registered well in his head, considering your boyfriend is now back to eyeing your boss with fire in his gaze.

“Jeongguk?” You give his shoulder a firm grip as he puts his mouth guard back on. “Tone it down. Yoongi could just be waiting to punch back. You don’t want that.”

Jeongguk parts ways with you with an absent-minded nod and two pats to your head with his heavy gloved-hand. On the other side of the room, Yoongi looks ready to go back into his fighting stance. You sigh internally. Jeongguk is so going to punch him aggressively, again.

The next thirty minutes of the fight goes like a blur in front of your eyes. Jeongguk throws a hook that Yoongi dodges, Yoongi retaliates with a jab to Jeongguk’s side which makes you wince, rinse and repeat. Maybe you’re wrong about your boyfriend for once, you think, seeing his calmer fighting style now. With the way he left your conversation minutes prior, you really thought he was gonna continue raining punches on any part of Yoongi’s body he could reach. You’re relieved that that’s not the case.

Although, perhaps your relief came too soon because a boxing match isn’t over until it’s over.

Watching Jeongguk fight with Yoongi is like watching a cartoon character with an energy meter atop his head, except for Jeongguk, it measures his patience instead. As the minutes went on, you feel like you could see the patience meter above his head depleting until it’s all gone, and that’s the moment he went back to his initial fighting style: aggressive and angry. You almost pull your hair out in frustration because you just know that this is what Yoongi has been waiting for ever since the fight started.

The next thing that happens reminds you a lot of one fighting scene in Real Steel, where Atom was waiting for his opponent to run out of energy so he can fight back. In the movie, Atom knocked the other robot down with a final uppercut, gaining him a win and advancing him to the next round. Well, uh, in this case, just replace Atom with Yoongi and the other robot with Jeongguk.

Yoongi’s clean uppercut wiped your boyfriend out, who’s now lying on the ground clutching his face—which you’re sure is beginning to swell right now. Despite already knocking Jeongguk down, Yoongi is still in his fighting stance, never lowering his guard even as Jeongguk’s coach counts to ten. Your boyfriend remains immobile, though, and the second the count is up you’re running towards Jeongguk’s limp body.

“Gguk, are you okay? Baby, look at me,” you say hurriedly as you try to pry his arms away from his face. He doesn’t budge, and for a second, you’re scared that Yoongi has maimed your boyfriend for life. “At least let me know you’re alive,” you continue when his silence becomes concerning.

“Hmmph,” Jeongguk grunts. You heave a huge sigh of relief.

“Okay, good.” You run your fingers through his sweaty hair, trying to offer some comfort even though you know he had this coming. Gigantic ego, big talk, cocky as shit? Yeah, you understand that Yoongi would want to knock him down a few pegs. But now is not the time to launch into an ‘I told you so’ spiel, not when Jeongguk is still freshly bruised—both his body and his ego.

So instead, you lash out at your boss.

“I told you not to hurt him, Yoongi,” you snap-slash-whine, a frown on your lips. You thought, as the oldest among all of you, Yoongi could be trusted to knock some sense into Jeongguk’s mind without physically hurting him like this. As it turns out, all boys are the same.

The older guy just shrugs. “Probably wouldn’t get my point across if he weren’t knocked down.” He shakes the sweat out of his hair as he starts taking off his boxing gloves. When he sees you’re not impressed, he chuckles. “Relax, Kiddo, I didn’t even hit him that hard. He’ll be okay.”

“Really, Yoongi?” You roll your eyes. “You gave my boyfriend an uppercut just to prove a point!”

Yoongi just continues laughing as he chugs from his water bottle. His nonchalance about this is starting to piss you off. Maybe it’s your turn to put on the boxing gloves and sock him in the face, give him a taste of his own medicine. You scoff to yourself, picturing your own body lying next to Jeongguk if you really did that.

“Just tell your boyfriend here that there’s no need to be jealous of me, Kiddo,” Yoongi says, picking up his bag. Just then, Jeongguk’s coach appears with an ice pack in his hand, offering it to you so you can place it against Jeongguk’s swollen jaw. Despite your attempt to coax him out of his arm cocoon, he still refuses to move.

“Yoongi, look at him, you really broke him.” You’re flat-out whining now, kicking your feet like a child. It doesn’t even occur to your mind that you’re all still in the middle of a public boxing gym, with other people around you, being witness to this ridiculous scene.

“Oh my God,” Yoongi laughs before crouching down at Jeongguk’s legs. “Hey, Jeongguk, you hear that? Your girlfriend is worried about you,” he says, nudging Jeongguk’s leg lightly. “She only has eyes for you and your tattoos, too, you don’t need to be jealous at all.” You smack him on the shoulder for that.

Jeongguk finally removes his arms from his face at Yoongi’s words, his doe eyes menacing. “Go away,” he grits out at the older male, his scratchy voice making him sound less threatening than he intended. Despite that, Yoongi still holds his hands up in surrender.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Yoongi relents, standing up while adjusting the hold he has on his bag. “Was gonna go anyway, I have a date to get ready for,” he throws a grin your way. “Alright, I’ll be going first. Take care of your boyfriend, Kiddo.”

Yoongi retreats with a wave towards you both.

Jeongguk lets out a groan, shifting your attention away from your boss who’s already backing his car out of the parking lot. “Quit your job tomorrow,” he says. “I hate your boss.”

“Stop moving around!”

“It hurts!”

You’re both back at Jeongguk’s house now, with you sitting atop his outstretched legs on the bed, attempting to take care of his battle wounds courtesy of his fight with Yoongi. Aside from the swollen jaw, Jeongguk has a cut on his eyebrow and a split bottom lip. For a boxing match, you’d say these are minor injuries—proving Yoongi’s words right, he didn’t hit Jeongguk that hard—but your boyfriend is acting like a baby. He keeps jerking his head away every time the alcohol swab comes in contact with either of his cuts, it irritates you to no end.

“You have a goddamn full sleeve of tattoo and a lip piercing, quit acting like this hurts more,” you hiss, pressing the cotton in your hand to the cut on his lip as Jeongguk hiss back in response.

“At least when I got my tattoos and piercing, the artist didn’t do it while yapping my ear off,” he lisps through the cotton. “What happened to the caring girlfriend at the gym? Did she go away too, alongside Yoongi?”

“Oh, shut up, if I yapped back there Yoongi would’ve stomped on your ego more than he already did, do you want that, Jeongguk? Huh?” Your words are harsh, but you try hard for your hands to be the opposite, gentle as they cover the cut on his eyebrow with a band-aid. Jeongguk’s forehead is still damp from his quick shower earlier, beads of mint clinging to his skin. He might look smoking hot with his newly dyed hair, but the way the color rubs off on anything is starting to get onto your nerves. You wipe lightly at the color to make sure the band-aid sticks to his skin and does not come off the second he jumps around again.

“My ego is fine, you don’t need to protect it like this,” Jeongguk grumbles, adjusting the ice pack he’s holding to his jaw as you press a new cotton ball on his lip, discarding the one stained crimson red to his bedside table. “Maybe if you care about me as much as you care about my ego, everything would’ve been better.”

The way he’s rambling like he got his sense knocked out of his head as well makes you roll your eyes to the back of your head. “Don’t test me, Jeon. If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t be here sitting on your thighs patching your minuscule injuries like they’re fucking wounds from a war.”

“Maybe,” Jeongguk half-agrees, a pout on his lips. “But you haven’t kissed me even once ever since the fight ended. Do I not deserve a kiss because I lost? Do you not want to kiss me ever again because I can’t beat Yoongi in boxing? Do you think Yoongi is way better than me now? Do you want him to be your boyfriend instead of me?”

With every nonsensical question, his pout deepens, and his eyes droop to stare blankly at nothing.

“Hah, ‘my ego is fine’ my ass,” you mumble, mostly to yourself as you turn the gears in your head on how to stop the bleeding on Jeongguk’s lip. It keeps gushing out blood, and you can’t exactly stick a band-aid to it like you did his eyebrow. At last, you just hold a cotton ball against it and hope it stops bleeding soon.

“Yoongi was right, you know,” you say clearly now, the tumble of Yoongi’s name out of your lips making Jeongguk glance up and focus his sight on your face. “You don’t need to be jealous of him at all. Heck, you don’t need to be jealous of anyone, Jeongguk. I’m your girlfriend and will always stay your girlfriend, no matter what. You don’t need to beat anyone in boxing or dye your hair the exact same shade as anyone for me to stay. You, Jeon Jeongguk, are enough.”

Jeongguk’s eyes, gazing into yours, are glassy with unshed tears. You don’t know if they are there because he’s touched by your words or are leftovers from crying over his bruised ego from the fight with Yoongi. Either way, it throws you off balance. Next thing you know, you’re being tugged down by the nape for a kiss.

Jeongguk’s lips are warm, like usual, but the tinge of metal you taste on your tongue is making you worry. Before you lose yourself in his kiss, you pull away to thumb at his lip lightly, seeing streaks of red on your skin. You’re about to continue pressing the cotton ball in your hand to his lips and stop all forms of kissing immediately, but your boyfriend has a mind of his own as he instead sucks your thumb into his mouth, wrapping his lips around the digit delicately as he holds eye contact with you.

Gone is the trace of any tears from his eyes, now replaced by something you can only identify as lust. As flattered as you are that Jeongguk finds you desirable in your current situation, it also makes you confused. He’s hurt and the only thing in his mind is getting his dick wet? Unbelievable.

The ice-cold feeling on your waist tears your attention away from Jeongguk’s dark eyes as you yelp, hand instinctively prying the cold thing away. The ‘thing’ turns out to be his hand, which was previously holding the ice pack to his swollen jaw. He’s sneaked his fucking cold hand under your shirt to hold your waist when he should’ve kept holding the ice pack to his jaw—his swollen jaw!

Your boyfriend has a swollen jaw, a busted lip and a cut eyebrow. This is not the time to be screwing around.

Pulling away your thumb out of Jeongguk’s mouth at the speed of light, you attempt to climb off his lap, but he’s read your mind even before they are conjured up in your own brain. His hands are back on your waist—yes, the cold one too—and they hold you firm in place. The side of Jeongguk’s lips turn up into a sickeningly sweet smile, before he tugs your body towards his, making your hips come in contact with his crotch. He’s hard. Oh, fuck.

“You know, I never really understood why you’re so bratty whenever you’re horny and I can’t tend to you right away, but I think I get it now,” he says right by your ear, making a shiver run down your spine. “I’ve been trying to will away my boner ever since you sat on my lap, but your weight on it is so damn distracting, it’s hard.”

“So,” he punctuates the word with a kiss on your neck, “I started saying anything to get my mind off it, but the way you care for me just … turns me on even more, if that was even possible.” He noses his way down your throat, coming to a stop at your collarbone. “And then all that talk about how I am enough … holy shit, I lost it. All I could think about was how I want to kiss you and fuck you into next week on this very bed.”

You can barely hear the last few words Jeongguk is saying, because he’s mumbling them into your skin as he peppers kisses and nips there. His fingers are now pressing into your back, pulling you closer and closer to him until there is no space left between you. You crane your neck so he can have more room to splash reds and purples onto your skin, sighing to the top of his mint head.

“You know, for someone claiming to be horny, you’re doing a terrible job at dirty talk,” you jab at your boyfriend, earning you a bite on your neck and a tightened grip on your body, making you close your eyes with stuttered breath.

“Easy, babe,” Jeongguk chuckles. “You talk as if you won’t be a moaning mess by the end of this,” he continues with much confidence. “But also, my lip is still kinda bleeding and my sides are still throbbing from the bruises. Kinda debating should we continue or just go to sleep.”

“Jeon Jeongguk I swear to God if you leave me high and dry—”

“Maybe you should kiss them better,” he cuts you off with a suggestion, his lips still trailing butterfly kisses on your neck and collarbone. The hands still on your back sneakily climb up and up until they’re reaching for the clasp of your bra, easily opening it to free your breasts from its confines. Your sound of protest gets stuck in your throat as a strangled moan comes out instead when Jeongguk massages your breasts tenderly with his fingers.

“Maybe I would—fuck—if you get rid of your shirt,” you say, tugging on the offending piece of fabric still covering your boyfriend’s gorgeous body. It’s not fair that he’s got you half naked already and he’s still fully clothed.

Jeongguk parts himself from your body long enough to tug his t-shirt off from the back of his neck in one smooth motion, exposing the golden expanse of his skin to your hungry eyes. If you thought his mint hair was smoking hot with his shirt on, it’s literally burning a flame of desire deep in your belly with his shirt off. You’re tongue-tied as you marvel at the sight in front of you, you almost jump when your own shirt and bra are taken off your body.

Now both bare from the waist up, Jeongguk wastes no time leaning back in for a kiss on the mouth, this time open-mouthed so he can slide his tongue inside. You keen happily, slipping a sigh in between as he slowly lowers you to the bed. Jeongguk anchors his hands on your hips, teasing at the waistband of your sweatpants as he keeps your mouth busy with his own. In contrast, your hands are everywhere, from his broad shoulder to his firm back, from his bulging biceps to his rock-hard abs. You even tease your fingers past his waistband, grabbing onto his ass and squeezing, making him groan hotly into your mouth. It’s only when your fingers brush against his sides that he winces, reminding you of his earlier request.

“Flip around,” you whisper against his lips, “so I can kiss your bruises better.”

“Hmm?” Jeongguk hums, your words a murmur in his head. “But I like having you like this. Under me, naked, panting, wet,” he says, slipping his hand beyond your sweatpants to prove his words right—you’ve soaked through your panties. He drags a finger slowly up your center. You shudder.

“Yeah? I can be naked, panting, and wet on top of you as well.”

“Ooh, tempting.” Jeongguk licks his lips. He flicks your clit with a cheeky smile dancing on his lips, before settling his hands back on your waist. “Alright, I’ll flip over.”

The next second, you’re staring at him from up top, admiring how his mint hair looks against his dark grey bed sheets. Although, his hair is the least of your concern right now, as you’re tugged back down for another bruising kiss. Now that you’re on top, Jeongguk takes the opportunity to return the favor that is slipping his hand into your pants to squeeze your ass, but his version involves pulling your hips down while his thrusts up, creating a delicious friction between your body that makes you exhale a moan into his mouth.

You move away from his lips, down to his jaw where you take care to land a kiss light as a feather, before moving to his neck and collarbone where you have your own share of bites and licks. Aside from your infatuation with his tattoos and biceps, you actually have another one with his collarbone, this one you keep secret from him lest he goes around the house shirtless more often just to brandish his clavicle. But maybe he’s already noticed from the way you always make sure to cover that body part of his in blooms of red and purple, taking care to trace each and every bite mark slowly with the tip of your tongue.

While you’re busy with his collarbone, Jeongguk keeps dragging your crotch steadily over his, like he can’t get enough of the feeling and wants to keep chasing it. The delicious pressure on your center is a bit distracting, so you smooth your palm across his chest to pinch at his nipple in warning. Jeongguk lets out a broken whine from his throat.

“Stop humping into me, do you want to cream your pants?” you chide, fingers still giving tiny pinches to his nipple to keep him on his toes.

“Was trying to get you to cream your pants,” Jeongguk grins guiltily, his hips snapping up yet again to collide with yours. Even if you roll your eyes at his antics, you still continue your journey of kissing down his body, making sure to suck and lick on his sensitive nipples. You love the moans and groans that slip out of his throat every time you do things to his nipples. He likes it so much that his hips keep chanting up, searching for friction, that you have to pin them down so you can slide down to pepper kisses on his abs and waist.

Jeongguk works really hard to maintain the body he has, clearly evident in the eight pack he’s sporting on his stomach and the tiny, minuscule waist that’s way too slutty for a man to have. Sometimes you’re jealous of how nice his body looks, how firm it is to touch. You told him this one time, along with your regret that you couldn’t give him a similar experience, but he’d only laughed and said that admiring and appreciating him was enough, before proceeding to show you how he admires and appreciates your soft body (he kept biting into your inner thigh as he was eating you out, coaxing you into four orgasms back to back that day.)

And so, you admire his body by kissing the taut muscle one by one, tracing the lines outlining them with your hot tongue, caressing his bruised waist with the pillow of your lips and the feather of your touch. You know he’s hurt, but you can’t hold yourself from nipping on his slutty waist, gifting him another bruise that’s not a result of a punch. From the choked sob that rips out of his throat and the jump of his dick somewhere on your stomach, you take it he likes the bite.

“So,” you say as you mouth at the seam of his waistband, hand massaging his hard cock through his pants. “Do you want to cum in your pants, in my hand, in my mouth, or—?”

“Fuck, in you, please,” Jeongguk begs, eyes glassy from your ministrations. “But can we go back to dry humping for a while? Kinda like the friction on my sweatpants,” he breathes.

“Like this?” You move your hand up and down his cock, dragging the material of his sweatpants with it, paying special attention to the head. With every rub of the sweatpants against his head, a bead of precum comes out, with Jeongguk throwing his head back in silent pleasure. “Yeah, fuuck, that feels good.”

“But babe, want you, on top,” he demands, making grabby hands at you. “Was serious when I said I wanted you to cum first,” he continues, sighs in content when you oblige, resuming your position on top of him and lining your clothed crotch with his. He starts dragging your hips against his, building the pleasure up the faster he goes. “Want to fuck your swollen pussy, dripping with cum. Oh, I’ll slide right in, no problem, so wet, warm … fuuuck.”

The grip Jeongguk has on your hips is bruising, you have no choice but to let your body be manhandled by him. Slowly but surely, the band inside your stomach begins to tighten as your hold on his shoulders does as well. You’re so close, just one more move to tip you over the edge. When Jeongguk sucks one of your nipples into his mouth, the band inside you snaps and you come with a jerk of your hips and a whine from your throat.

Jeongguk slows down his move, taking care not to cum before being inside you, before stopping altogether and wrapping his arms around you to bring the both of you into a sitting position. Your limbs feel like jelly, still trying to come down from your high, when Jeongguk pecks your cheek before carefully lying you back down on the bed with your face down. He then maneuvers himself behind you, lifting your hips off the bed. You’re starting to have an idea what position he wants you in when he spreads your knees and slowly peels back your pants and panties to reveal your bare ass and pussy.

He takes his time caressing the globe of your ass, inching his fingers towards your pussy lips before spreading them apart, tearing a low whine from your chest. You guess he’s admiring the way cum still drips out of your cunt, because he’s silent, immobile for almost a minute.

“Gguk…” you whisper out. “You gonna fuck me or not?”

Jeongguk scrambles to get his pants off. “Fuck, yes, of course, baby, you just look so beautiful like this, I want to stare all day long,” he breathes, lining up his dick with your entrance.

God, I’m so thankful you’re mine, is his last warning before he slides home in one thrust.

Later, when you’re both freshly showered and cuddling on Jeongguk’s bed—with blue bed sheets this time, because you forced him to change the sheets as the grey ones smelled gross after your activities—you ask him a question.

“Are you still jealous of Yoongi?”

There’s a three second pause before Jeongguk’s answer comes. “Maybe a tiny bit,” he says, nearly connecting his thumb and forefinger together in a ‘tiny’ motion. “Of his boxing skills only. Amazing how he could still move like that with an injured shoulder. I want to be like that too.”

“You want to injure your shoulder?”

He gives you a flat look. You giggle.

“His shoulder is actually healed, you know, so he’s still actively boxing until now. He trains the boxing club at my campus whenever our coach can't, that’s where I know him from and how I’d gotten the job at his cafe.”

Jeongguk purses his lips. “So he lied to me.”

“Hmm,” you agree. “I figured it was to ‘teach you a lesson’, that’s why I asked him not to hurt you before your fight. Did you, though? Learn your lesson?”

“What? To not be jealous of him?”

You pinch his waist. “To knock your ego down a peg and stop feeling insecure whenever I interact with other men?”

“Baby, the guy had a nickname for you. My insecurities were valid!”

“You mean the ‘Kiddo’ one?” you ask. Jeongguk nods. “He calls Jimin Kiddo. He calls Eunbi Kiddo. He calls you Kiddo. He calls everyone younger than him, Kiddo.”

More silence ensues.

“So … my jealousy was for nothing?”

“Yes! What I’ve been saying!”

Jeongguk giggles. Then he kisses you. Then he giggles again, while still kissing you.

“How about an apology?” he offers.

“In what form?” you challenge.

“Round three?”

“No.”

Well, at least he’s not jealous anymore.

a/n: thank you for reading!! please let me know what you think of this, i literally almost cried in the process of writing it and when i finally finished it :') and yes this started because of that one mint jeongguk in memories 2020/2021, i think? the one with him in a black sleeveless and a pair of sunglasses, hahah. wish he'd dye his hair mint again (he looks rly good in it ugh)

→ request is open for my 1k folls celebration!

[everyonewooeverywhere]

NSFW BLOG | MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED

chapter 1 : oh shit. a cowboy.

summary: when you come into his shop to get your boyfriend's car fixed, yunho can help but wonder what a hardworking, pretty girl like you is doing with someone so...pathetic. and maybe, just maybe, he feels like he could treat you better.

pairing: cowboy mechanic!yunho x female!reader

genre: non-idol au | strangers to lovers | angst | fluff (no smut yet, but there will be eventually)

rating: 18+ (for the whole series bc there will be smut eventually)

word count: 4.9k

content/warnings: pet names (sweetheart, doll), strangers to lovers, toxic relationship, yeonjun slander 😗 (sry baby), yj and reader get into a pretty big fight

notes: literally thank you so much to @ateez-main-yapper for helping me write this! like this would not exist without her letting me yap in her dms. or letting her help build the story up. or asking her to help edit. this was a two woman job 🙂‍↕️ so thank you baby 💗

ALSO there have been a couple changes and edits from the teaser, so not everything of the first 1k words is the same ☺️

and YES there will be a part 2 (& 3 💀) so PLEASE don't ask for it 😭 she will come when she's ready

Where the fuck was this place? You took another turn down another shaded alley, the sky strangely overcast for two in the afternoon.

The tapping of your fingers on the steering wheel was the only music since the stereo had broken months ago when Yeonjun slammed his fist against it in a fit of rage when you asked him to skip his gig this weekend to attend your sister’s wedding. Now it just blinked periodically when the car hit a bump, giving it miniscule signs of life. And for a man who focused his whole life around his music, he seemed uncharacteristically uninterested in getting it repaired. And maybe it would never get fixed because you could only afford to get the big issues fixed today.

After six wrong turns you finally pulled into the parking lot. Your friend had recommended this garage when you’d told her this car had been having all sorts of issues, and she insisted on here. You had your doubts when she pulled up the Instagram of one of the mechanics to show you the shop and ended up going on about how hot he was for several minutes, but you didn’t really have any other options.

It looked official enough. The brick building was large enough to house two large garage doors that opened up the shop to the dusty parking lot. Peering inside, you could see that there weren't many people inside the garage. There were only two mechanics in your line of sight, the closer of the two venturing back and forth between his toolbox and the taillights of an old Chevy, and you were their only customer as far as you could tell. You shrugged, Maybe they’re understaffed. 

You shrugged before swinging the car door open and grabbing your purse out of the passenger’s seat, brushing off your pants before you made your way in. There wasn’t a front desk or a receptionist to talk to, and you got the feeling that this shop was solely run and staffed by the men inside. 

You spent several moments hovering by one of the garage doors, shuffling your feet and trying to catch the eye of one of the mechanics, but neither of them looked up. Entirely too absorbed in their work to notice your presence. They must not get very busy. 

“Um…hello?” You spoke, trying not to startle either of them. 

They both turned to you, and the man who’d been fixing up the Chevy opened his mouth to speak. But he was cut off by his coworker, who jogged over from where he'd been partially hidden from view behind a rack of miscellaneous parts, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder and muttering a quick, “I’ve got her, Min.” 

“Min” chuckled and rolled his eyes, returning to his work.

Oh god. 

“Hey Doll, what can I do for ya?” Something about the way he sauntered up to you and smiled so gently immediately filled your stomach with butterflies, but you chose to ignore them for the sake of your own sanity.

Doll. That was a new one, and you felt that anyone else uttering that word toward you would’ve disgusted you to your core. But something about this stranger was strangely comforting. Maybe it was the way he tilted his head as he waited for you to speak. Maybe it was the baseball cap strewn backward on his head. Or maybe it was the strands of his taupe hair that fell in front of his face, strands you imagined yourself brushing up under his hat.

Your fingers fidgeted with the strap of your purse, “I’m, uh, having some car issues.”

The laugh he let out, and the curve of his lips that accompanied it, made the tips of your ears burn, “‘Course you are, sweetheart. Anything in particular, though?”

“Oh,” you chuckled softly along with him, “Well, he mentioned that the acceleration’s been kinda weird, and I thought the engine was a little loud when I drove it here today. Sorry, I don’t really know a ton about cars.”

He hummed and tapped his foot a couple of times, “Which one is it?” 

You pointed across the lot. 

“Alright, let me pull it into the garage,” he put his hand out in your direction. 

You stared at it, confused, and when you looked back up at his face he was smiling at you again. Stupid smile. He made your heart flutter more than you would’ve liked to admit.

“Keys, sweetheart. Your keys.”

“Oh,” you scrambled around in your purse before handing them over, embarrassed. 

He took them from you with a 'thanks doll' and a tip of his head, hand hovering over his forehead in a way that made you think he was used to wearing hats much bigger than this simple baseball cap. Before you could even question it further he was jogging across the lot and pulling the car through the big garage doors. 

When he stepped out of the car he looked at you curiously, “This your car?”

You shook your head, “No it’s my boyfriend’s. He’s been…busy…lately, so he hasn’t been able to bring it in. He keeps complaining about it, though, so I just decided to do it for him, I guess.”

He raised his eyebrow at you, nodding slowly. 

“What?” you asked, moderately offended.

He shook his head, waving a dismissive hand, “Nothing. Sorry. You just seemed a little unsure is all.”

“Yeah…I don’t know. I honestly think he just kept complaining so I would get tired of his whining and go on and get it fixed myself,” You chuckled awkwardly. Why the fuck were you telling him this? You started to feel a little embarrassed.

And that feeling only got worse when you saw the mildly horrified look on his face. 

You shook your head and ran a frustrated hand through your hair, “Can you just fix it?”

That pretty fucking smile came back, and your grip on your hair tightened just a little in frustration. “Of course I can. Glad you brought this in when you did, honestly. Seems like your boy toy’s got a bit of an exhaust leak. Could be pretty dangerous, so it's good to get it off the road.”

“Ah, perfect.” You shifted on your feet, “How long will it take, do you think?”

He lifted his hat and ruffled his messy hair before readjusting it on his head. Why did every little movement he made drive you crazy? “Unfortunately, issues like this take a couple days. I doubt I could get her done any sooner than tomorrow.”

You nodded, “Okay. I’ll try and get a ride home then.”

“Alright, Doll. Let me write down your number real quick so I–so we can call ya when she’s ready.”

You wrote down your name and number for him on a pink sticky note that he stuck to the dash. 

“Perfect!” He smiled at you, “We’ll call ya tomorrow.”

You couldn’t help but smile back, “Awesome! Thank you…Oh. I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“Yunho. My name is Yunho, sweetheart. It’s nice to meet you.” He stuck out his hand for you to shake.

And you couldn’t help the ramming of your heart in your chest when he took your hand into his own.

Yunho watched as you stepped out into the parking lot to call someone, presumably that questionable boyfriend of yours who seemed to be way more trouble than he was worth. He couldn’t help how his heart had dropped when you told him you had a boyfriend in the first place. After a long while of singleness, he was kind of hoping to test the waters when he saw you, and it even seemed like you responded positively to his obvious flirtations.

“So a boyfriend, huh?” Mingi startled him from behind.

Yunho let out a small sigh, trying not to let himself get too worked up about it. You had only met twenty minutes ago for fucks sake. “Yeah, seems like a real piece of work though.”

“Really?” MIngi gave his friend a skeptical side-eye, “Or is that the jealously talking.”

“No, seriously! This is his car. And she said it’s been actin’ up for a while, but he never made the time to bring it in. She only brought it here ‘cause he wouldn’t stop whining ‘bout it.”

“Huh. Sounds kinda child-like to me, but who are we to judge? We haven't even met the dude,” Mingi pat his friend on the back, “Try not to let it get you down, man. I’m sure there’s a cowboy-lovin girl right around the corner waiting for you.”

Yunho nodded, moving along so Mingi would let the whole thing drop. But no matter how many times he repeated in his head that you were taken, he just couldn’t stop looking over in your direction. You just seemed so…tired. He didn’t want to assume, but he got the feeling that this boyfriend of yours might be the main cause of that. And try as he might to reign in his ego and keep it in check, he couldn't help the part of him that knew that, whatever this man was providing for you, he could do so much better. That wasn’t really his place, though. So he let you be. 

“Yeonjun what do you mean you’re busy? You were on the couch when I left an hour ago,” you sighed through the phone.

“Baby, come on. You know I have a gig tonight,” You fought the urge to roll your eyes. “And I need to get in the right headspace, so I can’t leave the apartment. It’ll ruin the mood.”

“Is that really more important than picking me up? I’m stuck here.”

“I don’t know. Call an Uber?” Oh, you were gonna kill him.

“What? Why would I pay for an Uber when I have a boyfriend at home with my perfectly functioning car who could drive his ass over here and pick me up? For free!”

You hated how difficult it was to get him to help you out in any way. Why did he have to be so stubborn? “Listen, I really can’t break my flow right now. Maybe wait a couple hours, and I’ll come pick you up, okay? Or maybe have one of your friends pick you up.”

“It’s 3 pm on a Tuesday, Jun. Most people are at–” He hung up on you, “Work..” You trailed off.

God, this is so embarrassing. What the hell were you going to do now? You could call an Uber, but you could barely afford groceries this week. And getting this car fixed was gonna drain the last of your paycheck. 

You bit at your lip anxiously, wracking your head for options. Your friends would be more than happy to pick you up, but most of them wouldn’t get off work for another two hours. So maybe you could just wait until then. Or maybe you could hitchhike? The highway was miles off. And your gut wrenched at the idea of a stranger knowing where you lived…But maybe that could work. Or maybe you cou–

“Everything alright out here, sweetheart?” 

You jumped at his voice, “Oh! Yeah,” you scratched at your head, trying to force a smile, “My boyfriend’s just really busy, so he can’t come get me.”

“Do you…need a ride?” He offered sincerely, “I don’t wanna overstep or anything, but I could help ya if you need it.”

“Oh god no! You don’t have to do that.”

He grinned softly at you, “It’s really nothing at all. I’ll tell you what, I’m leaving here in about an hour. If you can’t find a ride before that, you’ll let me give you drive you home.”

Just say ‘yes.’ Your brain was practically begging you to speak, but you knew this would cause an argument with Yeonjun. A random handsome man bringing you back to the apartment? Oh, it was a recipe for disaster. But what other choice did you have? It wasn’t like he was gonna pay for an Uber to help you home or pick you up himself. No, he left you stranded here with a shit reason, so you were gonna get home the best way possible, and, if it pissed him off, that was his own damn fault.

“Ok,” you smiled up at him, “If you really don’t mind.”

“Trust me, Doll, it’s no problem at all. Let me just finish a couple things up and change, and then we’ll get going, okay?”

You sat on the bench inside the shop while he finished his work. Trying to give yourself a moment to breathe. This was supposed to be your day off. You had finally been able to get a break from both of your jobs, and this is how you were spending it. Trying to fix the car of your boyfriend who couldn't even put his “pre-show ritual” on hold to make sure you got home safe. Part of you was mad at him. Livid that his priorities were so far in the gutter. But you were mostly angry at yourself. Because at the end of the day, when all was said and done, you were the one who had spent six whole years of your life bending over backward for a man who wouldn’t even reach out his arm to catch you. 

You worked two jobs to support the two of you. Your paychecks paid for groceries, rent, insurance, everything. And what did he pay for? Nothing. Because he didn’t have a job. He played two gigs every month at the dingy bar two miles from your apartment, which somehow justified not even bothering to look for employment. 

How did you even get here? A deep sigh rose out of your throat. What the hell were you doing all this for? Your head hurt just thinking about all the times he’d let you down and all the stupid little arguments those let-downs had caused. And yet you were still out here paying his bills and running his errands.

“Alright, sweetheart, ready to go?” You broke out of your spiral when he called for you, and you looked up to see him no longer in the denim and baseball cap he was sporting earlier. 

Lord help me. You silently prayed to whoever might be listening, swallowing around the sudden dryness in your throat. He was sporting a light blue button-down shirt with the top two buttons left open so his collarbones were exposed and a light brown cowboy hat that almost exactly matched his hair. A cowboy. Of course. You couldn’t help the racing of your heart as he reached to adjust the brim of his hat. Unsure of whether you wanted to praise or curse whatever fate had sent him your way.

You cleared your throat and stood up from the bench, barely pushing a ‘yes’ out of your mouth. 

He grinned and motioned for you to follow him to the parking lot. The innocent gesture left you lightheaded as you focused on the way his index and middle fingers curled towards his wrist.

As you approached, he gestured to a baby blue pickup truck, “Here she is. My baby.” You chuckled, endeared by the pet name, the image of him gently patting the hood of 'his baby' as he walked around the front of the truck with you reminding you of cowboys in old westerns, leaning their foreheads against their mares as they gently stroked their manes. 

It was sweet. So sweet that you almost missed the fact that he was coming around to the passenger side of the truck with you.

He brushed past you, reaching for the passenger-side door. Swinging it open, he held out a hand to you, and you took it without much thought. 

“Up you go,” he said with a playful lilt to his voice, helping you hold your balance as you climbed into the truck.

“Thank you, Yunho.”

“It’s not a problem at all, Doll. I got ya.” He was going to be the death of you for sure.

“Ten years. You’ve been working there that long?” you looked over at him, amazed, “How old are you?”

He let out a hearty laugh, “Twenty-five. Mingi and I used to come up after school every day and help out. His grandpa used to run the shop but he retired a few years back and left it to him.”

“Oh, that’s sweet!” The thought of a little Yunho sweeping the floors and vacuuming cars made you smile. 

He hummed, “Yeah, it’s been a real nice job. Flexible hours, good pay, get to meet pretty girls from time to time.”

The tips of your ears burned at his blatant flirting. You looked over to see him focused on the road in front of you. The rays of the late afternoon sun shone on his face, letting you see the tan glow of his skin up close. 

Why did you have to meet such a seemingly perfect man today? Why couldn’t this opportunity have fallen into your lap six years ago? 

And fuck you knew you needed to end things. But more than half a decade of your life had been poured into this relationship and you couldn’t find it in your heart to let that go so easily.

Yunho noticed you looking over at him in his periphery, expecting some kind of playful rebuke, but was more than a little worried by your silence. Afraid he'd crossed a line, he was quick to apologize, eyes sincere and tone sober when he chanced a proper glance your way. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’ mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No! It’s fine,” You assure him, unconsciously threading your fingers through the ends of your hair, “I just don’t usually get this kind of attention. I know you’re just being playful.”

He nodded, some of his playfulness seeping back into his expression as he cleared his throat, adjusting the brim of his hat as he fixed his attention back onto the road in front of him. “I promise I’m not lyin’ about the ‘pretty’ part, though. I hope you know that.”

You scoff, but you can feel the heat in your cheeks rise, “Thank you…”

Silence enveloped the two of you after that, but he didn't seem to mind. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and humming along to the music playing out of the car's stereo. In another life, one where the man waiting for you back at your apartment wasn't hell-bent on driving you insane, you wanted to believe that you could be strong enough to look away. To ignore the butterflies filling your stomach. To ignore the way he made your heart flutter. But you just couldn’t find it in you to look away, but he didn’t seem to catch on.

He thinks it's cute that you think he doesn’t notice. He’s very keen on noticing your every little move. The way you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear when he called you pretty and the way you awkwardly fidgeted with your bag when you told him that you didn’t normally receive that kind of attention.

It took every ounce of self-control in his body to keep him from prying. But he couldn’t help the way he started to hate this man that he’d never met even more. What he wouldn’t give to have a partner who was willing to go get his car fixed without asking. Someone who was so dedicated to the relationship that they were willing to sacrifice the little free time they had just to help out.

As he pulled into the parking lot of your apartment complex, he glanced over at you and met your eyes for a second. You quickly whipped your head away, embarrassed that you’d been caught red-handed. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling, smiled, “Here we are.”

“Mhm,” you nodded awkwardly, busying yourself with checking that you had all your things set to go. “Thank you for the ride. It means a lot.”

“Not a problem at all, Doll. Need me to walk you up?” he asked, leaning forward to try and meet your eyes.

You shook your head, “No, I’ll be alright.” You gave him a smile, “So you’ll call me tomorrow?”

He nodded, the tip of his hat dropping slightly, “Yep, I should be done with ‘er around noon.”

“Perfect! Again, thank you so mu–”

You were cut off by the sound of someone pounding on the passenger side window. Both of you turn at the sudden commotion. 

Yunho watched as you hurriedly swung the door open and slid out of the car. And he heard a muffled, “Jun, what the hell!?” after you’d slammed the door of his truck.

Ah, the boyfriend.

“Are you insane? What the fuck is your problem?” You yelled.

Yeonjun glared at you through the wild strands of his crimson hair, “My problem!? Who the fuck is that?”

“Oh, that’s your issue? That I had to have the mechanic drive me home?” You seethed, jabbing a finger into his chest, “This could’ve easily been avoided if you had picked your sorry ass off the couch to drive me home yourself. Like any decent partner would.”

Your not-so-subtle jab seemed to go over his head, his mind too focused on the image of you smiling and blushing in response to a man that wasn’t him. “You really couldn’t have found a woman to drive you home? It just had to be this dick.”

“No, Yeonjun, I couldn’t find a woman to drive me home. You know why? Because it’s a Tuesday afternoon and all of my friends have jobs. Unlike you who can’t even take the time to take a break from whatever the fuck you do all day to give me a ride.”

He gawked at you, clearly offended, “I have a job.”

“Oh my god. This again?” You ran a frustrated hand over your face, “No. You don’t. Practicing with your bandmates twice a week and playing a single gig a month is not a job. You make $100 a month.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want a nine-to-five? I like my schedule the way it is.”

You could feel angry tears forming at the back of your eyes, stinging as you held them back, “You think I DO!? Yeonjun, I work sixty hours a week trying to keep us afloat. I pay for our food, our rent, our insurance, your fucking car! And I can’t even get you to pick up the damn apartment when I’m gone.” The tears started falling before you even realized it, shocking both of you. It had been a long time since he’d last seen you cry. Because you always chose either anger or an eerily calm response to his childishness. Knowing deep down that he wouldn’t be able to comfort you if you slipped into vulnerability. “I’m fucking tired Jun. This was my first day off in three months, and I spent it trying to get your car fixed. And I can’t even get a ‘thank you’ out of you. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. You aren’t nineteen anymore, and I think it’s time you grow the fuck up.”

He didn’t say anything. The anger in his face replaced by a mix of shock and awkward discomfort, one of a man who was embarrassed to even be in this situation.

You stayed like that for a beat, holding your breath, praying for the moment when he realized everything he’d done wrong. Where he woke up from the immature daze he’d been trapped in since you were teenagers. But you supposed that was all wishful thinking, the tension broken not by either of you, but by a honk from behind him. His bandmate was here to pick him up. 

He couldn’t even look you in the eyes. “We’ll talk about this later,” he mumbled before jogging up to his friend’s car and sliding into the passenger seat. You watched him give his friend one of their ridiculous handshakes, the sound of blaring music and feminine laughter spilling out into the parking lot before the car door slammed shut. The scene was so ironic in the face of everything he'd just yelled at you for that you really couldn't stop the laughter that bubbled up through your tears, bitter as acid on your tongue.

Yunho sat in his truck as he watched your asshole of a boyfriend leave the parking lot. He stayed like that for a while, watching you wipe at your tears and try to compose yourself. When you’d calmed down enough for his conscience to let him leave, he looked down at the passenger seat and noticed you had left your purse behind.

Grabbing the bag, he exited the truck and approached you. Trying his best not to startle you, he cleared his throat. 

Surprised by the sound, you turned around to find Yunho standing there awkwardly, holding out the purse you now realized was missing from your shoulders, “You left your bag.”

“Oh…thank you.” You mumbled, closing the distance and grabbing it from him with a bit more force than you meant to. The mechanic didn’t so much as flinch.

How could he when his heart hurt for you? This woman he could barely even claim to know. He hated the fact that you felt the need to respond defensively, the pain in your eyes, and how you could barely look at him. You shouldn’t feel ashamed of this. It wasn’t your fault. But Yunho knew without you having to say anything that you were incredibly embarrassed. 

“Listen–”

“Oh god. Please don’t”

His shoulders dropped, “I just wanted to–”

You lifted a hand to stop him, “Yunho, please. You’ve been so kind to me, and I really appreciate your help today. But please for the love of god don’t make me dump my relationship problems on you.”

“Hey now,” he said, holding both his hands up in a calming motion as he spoke in a voice so deep and steady in contrast to your own that it caught you by surprise, “I don’t mean to push or pry, Doll, you just look like you could use someone to talk to is all.”

“I just don’t want you to think down on me,” you sighed.

He looked at you sincerely, slipping the hat from his head and placing it on the hood of the truck, “Now, have I given you the impression that that’s somethin’ I would ever do?”

The appreciative smile you gave him almost made him melt. You leaned back against the side of his truck, tilting your head back until it hit the window with a soft thud, “I’m just so tired.”

Yunho slid next to you, awkwardly scuffing his boot into the pavement, “Would it be too rude to say I could tell?”

You chuckled, “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve been trying for years to get him to just put in an ounce of effort, but he won’t budge. But we’ve been together so long I don’t know if I have it in me to end things.”

“You know it’s not your job to teach him how to be an adult, right? He’s a grown-ass man. You shouldn’t have to beg him to help you out.” 

The somber look in your eyes when you looked up at him made Yunho want to pull you in and hug you to his chest, but he respected your boundaries. 

“I know. I just…” you trailed off, no longer finding it in yourself to argue for your relationship.

Yunho took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he wanted to get off his chest, “Look, Doll, I don’ wanna overstep or anything, but I’m gonna be blunt with you.” He paused, giving you room to tell him to stuff it and save it for someone else if you wanted to. But you were looking up at him expectantly, teary eyes nearly pushing his little speech clean out of his skull. He had to clear his throat a little before continuing. “The way that man treats you is just disgusting. For everything you do for him? The least he could do is make sure that your apartment is spotless and you never have to cook again. And I’m not saying it’s me who should give it to you, but you deserve worlds better than that.”

“Yeah…” was all you could get out before you felt a tear fall down your cheek, and you tried to wipe it away before Yunho saw. But of course he noticed.

Tentatively, he placed a hand on your shoulder in comfort, running his thumb along the fabric of your t-shirt. You surprised him, though, when you turned into him and started sobbing into his chest. Your fingers desperately gripping his button down.

“Oh sweetheart,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around you and rubbing your back. Holding you with so much warmth and sincerity that you felt safer than you had in years. In the arms of a stranger, no less.

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ok cowboy: @saintriots @ateezswonderland @fairyofhueningkai

[autistichalsin]

Some of my favorite, understated moments with heartbreaking implications for Halsin

1. Halsin threatening to turn into a mouse in the epilogue if the player brags about his achievements- he's so shy and humble that just being acknowledged for LITERALLY BUILDING A COMMUNE HIMSELF makes him want to hide. A mouse is a very symbolic choice here: not only easy to hide, but also easily overlooked and forgotten. The idea of his accomplishments being acknowledged is so terrifying for him that he wants to turn into an animal no one will notice, instead of his usual strong, large, noticeable bear.

2. "Sometimes, I think people look at me and imagine my feelings can't be hurt." This isn't the kind of thing that happens after one or two people act like jerks. This is years and years of cruel treatment, of his emotions being demeaned and mocked because of his size. Of people judging him before even meeting him- and forming an entirely wrong view of him. Halsin is a bighearted, tender, sentimental man, yet because he's big... Well, big people don't have feelings, surely. /s

3. "You and I may struggle to go unnoticed in such environs, Karlach[...] Folk of our stature can be a lure for drunkards seeking a brawl, I have found," combined with, "There is a particular discomfort to besting one you know to be weaker than yourself - even when needs must," from a different scene. People have sought him out and fought him because of his size (which had to have been terrifying, especially the first time), and he feels guilty when he takes out someone he knows is weaker, even if they STARTED it. How many times has the poor guy been traveling and then had to defend himself against someone 1/2 his size, making HIM look like the asshole to onlookers, and reinforcing that whole "people think I can't be hurt" thing?

4. "It was always destined to be so, if we prevailed. But the foreknowledge makes it no less bittersweet..." (About the players' paths diverging post brain battle), combined with "I see... After all my years of living, I know all too well that nothing lasts forever. Yet a parting can sting, nonetheless," if the player breaks up with him in the ending. This poor guy was having the time of his life adventuring with the group (and possibly falling in love there) yet never believed it would truly last (because of his abandonment issues). And then to have it confirmed.... he must have felt so awful in that moment, even if he was being dignified about it.

5. "You came for me... thank you. I feared Orin's accursed smile would be the very last sight I beheld," when Halsin is freed from Orin, combined with, "Orin's blades. I hoped my friends would save me..." If he is killed by Orin instead and Speak With the Dead is used on his corpse. The tone of his voice in the first line, especially added to that bit in the second... he never thought the player was coming to save him. He HOPED they would. Not "believed". Hoped. He thought he was going to die there- just like how he was in the Underdark for THREE YEARS and no one came to save him. And if it's confirmed... Yeah. That. (Sidenote: if you ask his corpse if he has any regrets, he says not telling Thaniel and Oliver goodbye, and not getting to see their land flourish. :( My heart. :( )

6. "I... have not had true confidantes for some time. The Shadow Curse robbed me of almost all my peers, and replaced them with the weight of responsibility. Perhaps that caused me to gild undeserving memories of my youth." Halsin was so miserable and stressed being Archdruid that he romanticized his past as a sex slave, viewing it as a safer, even happier alternative. There were actually times when Halsin thought he might rather be a sex slave than continue to be Archdruid. In a sense, for the 100 years the Shadow Curse was around, Halsin was just as much a prisoner as Thaniel was in the Shadowfell, but Halsin's prison had invisible bars. The Shadow Curse took away his entire support system, and being Archdruid forced him to be the strong one, always, never allowed to be weak or scared, forced him to take control of situations when he hated it, forced him to spend his time sorting out people instead of being in nature. And he was MISERABLE. For 100 years.

7. "You understand me almost perfectly. Only my late mother may have bested you." (Said if you get one question wrong at the love dryad test). He misses his mama. :( Especially when you consider that if you steal Balthazar's "Mother Dearest" and taunt him about it, Halsin disapproves (and is the only one to do so), while returning her gets you approval (which only Halsin approves of). And then the line when you look into a mirror while controlling him, "more like my father, with each passing day..." He really misses them. :(

8. "I am loathe to see anyone behind bars. It reminds me of my time as a guest of the goblins." He is, secretly, still quite traumatized from his time in the goblin pens, but he brushes it off. Just like every OTHER time he is hurt.

9. "I am aware [of having a habit of getting captured]. Perhaps I put too much faith in my skills of negotiation, or want to see good where there is none. It would be easy to resort to nature's fury whenever something stood in my way, yet I cannot help but feel I would be sullying the Oak Father's gifts. Naive perhaps... but I still draw breath." Halsin is aware he gets hurt often because of his desire to see good in people until he has no other choice, but refuses to give up anyway (which is backed up by that letter Gut had on her where she reveals Halsin TRIED to help the goblins, saying he could cure them of their tadpoles, only to be thrown in the cage, with Gut threatening to have his stomach cut open and maggots placed inside it.) Further, even though he is an Archdruid, and one of the most devoted, and explicitly has Silvanus's favor (Halsin says that gaining his favor was the only way he was able to open the portal to the Shadowfell), he still constantly worries about using Silvanus's powers, to the point of wondering if an actual threat to his safety actually merits using his powers. Which... combined with some other stuff, reads like one hell of a problem with self-worth.

10. "At least you were not present. Grim as [the ruined battlefield] is now, it was worse on the day of the battle. A vivid wound upon my memory[...] I was lucky - I lived, when so many did not. It would take me a day and a night to recite the names of all the friends I lost" combined with, "I was [present when the Shadow Curse was unleashed]. Part of my spirit was shorn away from me here, and never left," and, if Last Light falls, "All gone... devoured by the shadows. Oak Father preserve us, it's just like a hundred years ago[...] We are [still standing]. Yet there is a burden to being the survivor... the witness to others' tragedies. It only grows heavier with time." He has so much PTSD and survivor guilt from the Shadow Curse. :( No wonder it's all he can think about- to the point that some of the other companions even get annoyed at him for his obsession.

11. "I never quite realised how burdened I was, until I met you. The threat of the shadow curse, the politics of the grove... I was forgetting who I was, but you lifted the fog. Thank you." Not only does this tie in with the above, with his PTSD from the curse and his utter misery at being Archdruid, but this HEAVILY implies Halsin had depression. Like... that "fog" line hits HARD if you have or have had depression, because that's exactly what it feels like. And the "forgetting who I was" bit too. Not just losing his sense of self to the depression, but to the neverending responsibilities of being Archdruid. I keep repeating myself, but damn, this guy has really and truly spent an entire century being absolutely MISERABLE. :(

12. "Forgive me. I... lost the run of myself. Sometimes, if blood runs hot enough, it's difficult to tame the beast." With that little disgusted groan/sigh, the fury and disgust at himself visible on his face, and the way he rushes to get out the rest of it- he thinks he fucked up so badly that you're about to leave him, maybe forever. And then if you reject him after this? "Ah... I see. Well, of course. Back to camp then." He has the most heartbroken look on his face here, and the way he says "of course" like he just... knew this was coming the instant he accidentally wildshaped. He felt that the first time he let ANY of his imperfections show, the player would leave him. :(

13. "Death is nature's final slumber - it awaits us all. Do not punish yourself over those lost, or give in to despair - not while there are still folk in need of your help." (Said to a Dark Urge if they tell him they're not much of a hero and most people needing them end up dead) Not only is Halsin speaking from experience here, but it's very clear he is STILL doing exactly what he tells Durge not to do, to himself- punishing himself over those who were lost, struggling with devastating survivor guilt.

14. "The grove has cut itself off from the world, to jealously guard its own little pocket of nature. No one shall ever enter or leave again. And I have been evicted from the very place I was charged to safeguard. A telling summary of my time as Archdruid, perhaps..." If the Grove is sealed and you ask him about it later, this is what he says. Interesting that he views being evicted from the place he was in charge of protecting to be a "telling summary." He was forced to take the leadership role there, and yet it was clear he wasn't wanted or respected by a great number of the Druids (exempting Nettie, Rath, and Apikusis). He got a truly thankless job that took damn near EVERYTHING from him emotionally/mentally, causing him to develop depression and causing him to backslide in his previous healing from his trauma from his time as a sex slave, he still gave EVERYTHING to the Grove, and in return...... almost none of his Druids appreciated or even liked him. (I could seriously write at least five metas about how obviously miserable Halsin was at the Grove, despite caring for it deeply).

15. "You could have done anything, gone with anyone... yet you chose me." Said at the epilogue to a solo romanced player who went to the commune with him. There's so many layers of heartbreak here. He is still surprised, six months later, that the player chose him. He even thinks the player will regret it, and will decide they want an adventurer's life after all after seeing everyone else. He doesn't think he is good enough- doesn't think he deserves the player, and yet at the same time he loves them so much that he is heartbroken over the possibility they might agree with him. He thinks that given a chance, there is little chance they would actually choose him again. (He is put at ease quickly when the player promises they picked him for a reason, but even the explanation he gives for why he was so worrie is heartbreaking- that he's so used to a tumultuous life that he thinks something must go wrong. He has been so traumatized so many times over the years that he just has almost no ability to think that true happiness is possible [or deserved] for him.) Something about that is just heartbreaking, even though his ending is one of the happiest of any of the companions.

Someone give this sweet bear man a hug, please :(

[luveline]

I'm in an angsty mood.. and I love love love Spencer x bombshell!reader.

maybe she gets hurt somehow (maybe like an unsub or something) but refuses to get checked out

ty for requesting!! sry this isn't super angsty 

cw criminal minds typical gun violence

Blood is a strange thing. It can run quickly or slow, feel tepid or burning hot. It's warm and uncomfortable as it slinks down the curve of your shoulder to the very tip of your index finger, dark as coal pitch in the poor lightning. 

The gunfight is promptly ended, so quickly that no one even knows you've been hit. Morgan throws himself at one unsub and the other is shot in the thigh. Your ears ring, a gun firing too close to your head, clearly. 

In all the hubbub, nobody notices you're hurt. 

You'd like to keep it that way. 

It's not that you believe you're infallible, nor that the others believe it either, but in the grand scheme of things it is a very small cut that you can attend to in your hotel room alone with a butterfly stitch or even a roll of bandages. There's no way it requires real stitches, and no way you're gonna sit in the back of an ambulance for the next hour. 

Your jacket is black. The wound clots itself while you're in the SUV —you choose a window where your arm faces away from everyone and you manage it. And truthfully… you would like the others to think you're smarter than getting hit by a stray bullet. After everything that's happened lately, you've reason to build yourself up. Let the others hold you in some prestige again. 

It works for a time. You get back to the hotel, and everyone says goodnight. Your room is clean and waiting for your return. 

You'd collapse into bed if it didn't mean you'd leave a bloody line on the linens. You shed your ruined jacket and throw it in the trash. Your shirt is split where the bullet nicked you, and that comes off next. The wound begins bleeding sluggishly at the agitation but doesn't erupt, and stays strong as you wipe the skin clean around it. Your fingers mar with copper stain, the face cloth you've sacrificed turning an ugly brown, but eventually you've cleaned the skin enough to see the damage. 

It's deep but small. A nick. 

The issue is your lack of bandages. It's a hotel room, a small one. There's no first aid kit and your go bag is sorely lacking. Which means… 

You have to go bat your eyelids at someone, and if you're being honest, you only ever want to do that to one Dr. Spencer Reid. 

He's not expecting you, clearly. You weren't expecting it either. "Hey," he says, rubbing his eyes, his pyjama pants flush to the floor. 

"You were sleeping? I'm sorry." 

"Don't be sorry, are you kidding me?" He opens the door wider to encourage you in, turning away from you as he murmurs, "S'like my dream." 

He must be very tired. You beam like a fool and follow him inside. "I had a dream like this once, too. Same kind of dream, do you think?" 

"Knowing you, probably." He's growing more comfortable with you, but he's still clearly a little flustered to be this suddenly presented with you, wrapping himself up in a cardigan hanging over the single sad chair. "What's up?" 

"I'm glad you asked." You take your uninjured arm out of your coat, and then the other. You know what you're doing, laughing softly as his eyes turn to dark dimes in an otherwise pale face. "I need your help with something, Spence." 

"Uh–" He stammers, looking you up and down with shock. "Um, I–" He licks his lips quickly. "Okay." 

You kind of hate that you aren't there to seduce him for a split second. Too bad your arm has started to throb. "I need a bandaid," you say, turning your arm into his line of sight. "Help me out?" 

—

"I know something you don't know," Morgan sing-songs. Emily sips her coffee, mildly interested by her friend's taunting. She doesn't give him any feeding, waiting, and sure enough he cracks. "What, you don't want to know?" 

"You want to tell me, right?" 

"Mm, no. I'll tell Penelope." 

"Fine! Alright, what is it?" She breaks, putting her coffee down on the little table in front of her. They're sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for Hotch and the others to collect their things. The jet awaits, as do a few hours in the air before she gets to sleep in her own bed again. 

"I saw–" Morgan laughs. "This is too good. I saw a certain bombshell visiting Reid last night. After hours."

Emily's heart kicks in. "No way!" she gasps. "I mean, I know there's something between them, we all know that, but– his room, seriously?" 

"He didn't even question her. She knocked, he answered, she went inside." 

"What were you doing up?" 

"That's my business," Morgan says. 

Emily leans forward to gossip. This is insane. Sure, you flirt with Spencer relentlessly, and sure, he blushes like he loves it the majority of the time, he even manages to get you back, but you're sleeping together? "This is so scandalous," she whispers. 

Her job is hard, but God does Emily love her team. She's genuinely happy for you both, but seriously! She giggles to herself at the drama of it all, and Morgan looks like he might say more, but then he looks behind her and stops. 

Emily turns. You and Spencer are walking out of the elevator together, and while you aren't looking more coupled than usual, Spencer's acting unusually. "You're sure you're okay?" he asks, hushed but carrying in the relatively quiet lobby. 

"I promise I'm okay, Spence." Your voice drops. "It's our secret, okay?" 

"Sure, but–" He takes your hand, there, where everyone can see, the love in the line of his shoulders clear to anyone who might be watching, which Emily and Morgan very much are. "Can I look at it again?" 

Morgan laughs into his hand, hiding it with a cough too late. Emily kicks his leg and he looks admonished, but it doesn't convince you where you look up from your conversation, the same surprise written in your features as Emily herself feels while Spencer continues, "You need to let me take care of you," he says, practically pleading. 

"Spencer," you say, looking Emily straight in the eye, "you took care of me just fine last night." 

She gawps. 

Spencer whispers in response to your lowered tone, making his answer partially inaudible, "It was my first…" He shakes his head. "I've never…  and I know you said it didn't hurt that much but… go see a doctor–" 

You stop him with an affectionate smile. "You could never hurt me, handsome. Do I look like I'm in pain?" 

"No." Spencer drops your hand. "If you're sure. Let me go get you a drink, okay? Go sit down." 

"Yes sir." 

Nothing about you says anything different to usual as you sit on the lobby chair next to Morgan's, beside your worn hoodie. You fiddle with a fraying sleeve as you kick one leg over the other, giving your friends a pleased smile. "Morning," you say lightly. 

Emily genuinely doesn't know what to say. Her mouth hangs slightly ajar. "I…" 

"You're shameless," Morgan says with a laugh. 

"Look," you say, shrugging though the action makes you wince, "I could tell you the truth and you wouldn't believe me." 

"Sure we wouldn't. Reid looks like a lost puppy right now." 

Spencer stands anxiously by the coffee machine across the way, his gaze locked solidly on you where you sit. You throw him a smile and he looks away. 

"I don't deserve him," you say softly. 

Spencer carries your bag for you all the way to the BAU. Emily doesn't think it's a question of deserving, though you do, only an example of Spencer's big heart. And, you know, post hookup appreciation, or something. 

[hoseoksluna]

PROMISES | myg

pairing: idol!yoongi x f. reader

genre: fwb au / angst, smut

word count: 9.3k

summary: when you needed your social battery recharged by your fuck buddy yoongi, you didn't expect to have your undiscovered feelings for him reciprocated. 

pin: promise / taglist: join / discord: join

warnings: strong daddy issues, slight dd/lg, manipulation, tiny rough treatmeant, edging, fingering, oral sex (f. receiving), teasing, mixed feelings, oc is confused abt her feelings and the whole situation, fight, yoongi counts down, unprotected sex, pussy spanks, nipple play.

note: this has to be my worst work in the whole hoseoksluna universe. i'm terribly upset, disgusted, unmotivated. i wrote this all week, hated every second, and i'm sorry to say this is my last smut for a while. i'm really struggling mentally, i'm struggling with writing, and i don't know what to do anymore. i'm posting this a day early because i can't stand this fic anymore. i can't stand smut. you're free to skip this one until i get better.

You were a folded swan, drifting upon the smooth, glittering surface of a river that led nowhere—a dead end, bearing the face of a man you’ve been casually seeing for the past few months. A man that clutched adrenaline and tenderness in his fist like a bouquet of the prettiest woodland wildflowers, on top of which perched a note signed in your name. Scratchy Latin letters, doused in ebony ink, they had more life than you did at this moment; poetry-woven experiences that had you feeling life like life should be felt—drastically, enthusiastically and delightfully. Every vowel depicted the closure of each night you spent with him: mouth parted agape, through which the sweetest moans would erupt and saturate him in a certain kind of fatherliness, pride and manliness. 

It’s what you need, laying as you are on the linen sheets of your bed, dressed down to your lacy underwear that you thought would make you feel better, somehow would recharge your dead battery that was stuck on zero percent for longer than you care to admit. Father issues, dissatisfaction at your workplace, at your home life, at life itself. You were tired, your concentration running thin as you were watching your well-loved K-drama that you have seen a hundred times before. Through your vision, your own non-romantic interest would fly by, smiling down at you in your dejected state and form. Your body knows him more thoroughly than your heart, stirring erratically at the memories that would begin to flood your system. Tongue, lips, hands. His cock that he would tease you with, giving it to you and not giving it to you purposefully because he enjoyed the sight of your desperation for someone like him—a person who has seen the worst of life, its characteristics engraved upon his skin, and yet you still yearned for him, yearned for those scars. You didn’t have to tell him, but he knew. 

He knew by the way you would so very often trace the scar upon his shoulder, either with your fingertips or your lips. You were friends, fuck-buddies to be more precise. You were aware that someone entangled in a special friendship such as this shouldn’t do something like that, but you couldn’t help it. Yoongi taught you many times to listen to your body and you were doing just that. 

Following your body’s inclination to sink into his soul that he wasn’t too scared to let you inside of. 

He allowed you to do it to such an extent that the threat of his quick orgasm would appear and he would slip out of you, distract himself between your legs, make you come twice in a row—perhaps as a playful punishment, or perhaps as a reward. 

He saw you—and right now you need to be seen, folded in your forest-scented exhaustion while the river flows on, the trees sway on and everyone else passes by while you remain fixed on the same spot, stooped in your ungratified, seemingly unnamed problem. 

You can text him, ask for a quick fuck, something he’s very well acquainted with, used to at this point—so much that everytime you leave his place stuffed full of his cum, he stuffs you with something else as well. 

A promise for the next time.

A package of something to make you look forward to your tight-knit time spent with him. The last time, he had promised to take you to a running sushi restaurant, where you didn’t linger for long because you got fed up with the way other people would steal the sweet plates you wanted to try. He had fucked you in his car to make you feel better about your innate misanthropy and while he was balls-deep in you and you struggled to catch your breath, he promised you ice cream. With each thrust that squeezed your soul, he described how you’d enjoy each lick, the details of the flavor and how he’d buy you any ice cream you wanted. You hadn’t realized it then, within the stupor of your mind-numbing pleasure, but now as you are recollecting it, you perceive how bothered he was by the way other people ruined your night with him. 

And that rips open the restraints around the butterflies in your stomach. 

You want some ice cream—and more than that, you want to see him. Close your mouth around the adrenaline he’s always so willing to fill your life with. 

You don’t know what he’s doing at seven PM on a Thursday night. You usually meet him on Fridays or during the weekend if he’s working the day before. You’ve never shown him your neediness—and there’s a certain dangerous feel to it, baring yourself naked in this way, despite the fact he’s seen, touched, and licked every inch of you. And it’s hard for your brain to comprehend that you yearn for him when your social, emotional and physical battery is dead. If anything, you should be resting as you are, get right in order to be at your best for the next time you see him. 

But alas… 

With a sigh, you turn to your other side and reach for your phone that you’ve been charging, gliding your hands down the cable, imagining it’s his arm. And with a frustrated furrow of your brows, you tap on the circle above your messages. A pinned picture of him that you took, his face caught in his gummy smile against the dark backdrop of his car interior, filtrated with the twinkling lights of Seoul’s city buildings. Another sigh leaves you, one that exasperates you because why are you so needy for him? Why can’t you be a normal girl, independent, okay with your own company shared with the fictional people that you love? You’ve spent your girlhood like this, and happily so. Why does growing up mean you need the male energy more than your own? 

Biting your lip, your anxiety spikes up, but your desire for Yoongi overwhelms it, wins. And that settles a layer of calmness over it, gives the command to your fingers to type what they need to type. 

hi

what are you doing 

The bubbles don’t emerge from the dark motive of your chat until a few minutes later, the green of his message brightening up your phone—and your life, too. 

About to have a concert. Having a shot right now for your health. 

Oh, shit. A strange concoction of disappointment and a deep, low, murmuring stimulus rises in you. The swan in you elongates her neck, interested, but still dispirited considering her options. She will have to fold back into her form, and continue on her long, somber voyage back from the dead end, dwelling on the thrill of the flirtation of the man that she likes a little bit too much. 

Staring at the thick canvas of trees and shrubbery that aren’t letting you in to see him, you think about what to type, your thumbs hovering in the air. Life dislikes you; life wants you to suffer—

A ringing tone of your phone tugs you away from your distressed thoughts. The Latin letters of Yoongi’s name expand across the screen behind that picturesque and private shot of him, enlarged, stirring your heart. Silence spreads through your mind and your thumb quivers as you slide it across the bar to accept his call, placing the device against your ear. 

It feels as though you’re pressing the side of your head against his, especially so once you hear the warmth of his raspy voice pronouncing your name in his accent, marked by the liquor he drank prior to your messages. 

Enlivened, your body is. Just from that. 

“What’s up with you?” Yoongi asks, and the swan sails a little bit more swiftly, her tucked-in wings fluttering against her feathery body. You play with your necklace, your trembling so, so terribly evident. You’re glad he didn’t video call you, but the phone call is much more intimate and pleasant. 

You huff out a noise of desperation without meaning to and cringe at yourself, crunching up your features. Yoongi calls you by your name with a tiny hint of alarm and you curse yourself, silently. Your misanthropy gets pointed at you. 

“Noth—”

“Should I cancel my concert right now?” he suggests, cutting in, and you can hear the drunken playfulness in his voice, the one you have enjoyed on many occasions. Even acted out on your pleasure from it by making him, physically, feel good about it. You wish you could suck his dick right now, right before his concert, so he gives out his best for his fans. 

The sighs are ceaseless and you don’t bother to stop them at this point, your enlivened body soaking up in a swelling, unmet desire. 

“You’re sighing,” he notes, and you discern a cube of ice clinking in his glass, then a swallow of his throat, as if the indication of your yearning got him going, got him needing that burning liquid. “Are you horny for me?” 

Enlivened, your butterflies are, starting a war just from that sole question: desire versus your mental health. 

And using the vanilla scent of their wings, they remind you of the fact that you’re an adult woman and that you’re allowed, and more than allowed, to do whatever your body asks for. And if it’s asking for Yoongi, you’re going to go the extra mile to get him. 

Brazenly and femininely—and a little bit slyly. 

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m really craving that ice cream you promised me,” you say, lowering down your tone, and you play with the lacy lining of your bra. Think you can tease him with it for a good effect. “I’m wearing a nice lacy set right now.” 

Yoongi sucks in a breath and lets it out in a sigh that is entirely redolent of you, making your mouth curve in a soft smile. “What color?” 

Your expression of a muted joy expands as you tell him. “Red.” 

He swears, raspily, and the shade of your lingerie becomes more vibrant in the dimmed yellow light of your bedroom. And there you feel it—a more intense tendril of lust slithering down your sternum, moving your body side to side against your sheets in need. And the whimper that comes out of you is more primal than it is forced. 

At the sound, Yoongi pauses. You imagine him biting his lip, the gears in his brain turning, and he doesn’t disappoint you. He never does. 

“Do you have a dress of the same color?” he asks, small pants escaping his mouth, and you smirk. 

“I do.” 

He chuckles in personal delight. “Wear it for me. The set, too. I want to see it. I will pick you up after the concert and get you that ice cream.”

Your butterflies spring to your lungs, making it hard for you to breathe. And you don’t know whether to be glad, to be happy, to jump on your bed or to get ready. All those emotions simultaneously gather in you, spreading sparks of excitement down your nerve endings. And most of all, you want to hug him. 

You want to hug your adrenaline-infused angel. 

“Okay,” you agree, prolonging the vowel, the muscles in your cheeks aching. “How long is the concert?”

His delight leaks out through a deep hum, one that causes you to tense your body in feverish eagerness. “Two hours. Can you wait that long for me without touching yourself?” 

You sink your teeth into your bottom lip. Think you can wait however long for him, just as long as you get to see him. “I can, but my panties will be ruined. Sticky and uncomfortable.” 

The hum is strangled by his strained intake of breath, turning you woozy, your fingers itching to slide beneath your said panties, knowing his noises alone would make you come in seconds. You weren’t wet before he called, but now you can feel the center of the fabric dampening the longer you talk to him. 

“I’ll take them off as soon as I can. I promise. Hold it out for me.” 

And you believe him. You compress that promise into your hand, warming it up with your body heat before you tuck it safely into the chambers of your heart—and you wait. 

You wait for him to fulfill the myriad of his promises. 

You did hold it out for him, and brilliantly so. You watched one episode of your drama with a little bit more vehemence, despite the fact Yoongi swam past your thoughts more times than you can count. You’ve never watched him perform in real life as his own private life was always kept in secrecy from his fans, but your curiosity led you to search him up online and watch a playback of one of his more upbeat songs. Dressed in a long black coat, white shirt and a tie, your mouth was wide open, as well as your eyes, as you took in his ferocious energy, enhanced by his passion, and you never looked at him the same as before. He became someone else, a figure of brutal yet tender power and it made you want him even more zealously. 

The memories of that performance resurfaced in your mind every now and then, and his Agust D persona would melt into the male interest of the show, deepening your desire for him as you dreamed. 

Dreamed of reaching different highs with him. More profound, more devastating. 

A dream that could never come true. A promise that would never flow past his mouth. 

You didn’t let that ruin your night, however. As the second hour wrapped around you and your body lacked the heat it needed, you shut your laptop and stood up to your feet, walking over to your closet. Your fingers found that red dress you had spoken about first before your eyes did, silky and sleek amidst the thick, woolen fabrics of your winter clothes. It was the only nice dress you had, one you haven’t worn before, and you were thrilled you got to wear it for him tonight. 

It fit you like a second skin, hugging your curves just right, fading into the lacy linings of your lingerie. One would have to sharpen their gaze in order to notice it—and you wondered if Yoongi was going to scout it with his eyes first or with his fingers. 

The unknown excited you, so much that your panties gained that stickiness you mentioned in the phone call. And when you sat down to slide your feet into your black strappy heels, the feeling was so intolerable that you cringed—and your brilliancy ended there. 

How were you going to sit against your cold arousal for another hour? 

The awaited text didn’t come through until you were dousing yourself in your vanilla perfume. Yoongi was downstairs, waiting for you in his car. Left my lights on for you, he had typed to reassure you because he knew how anxious it made you, looking for his parked car in the dark when you couldn’t see anything. 

Your heart blossomed two times bigger when you checked it from your window. Yoongi in the passenger seat, scrolling through his phone, the headlights filtering through the mist of the deep of the night. You smoothed a hand down your tummy, calming your butterflies, and, reapplying your lipstick, you grabbed your coat and went outside to meet him. 

He spotted you long before you lifted your head to smile at him and he reached over to the side and opened the door for you. The motor was running, keeping the warmth intact for you, and you sighed in relief when you entered it—only to realize that Yoongi had turned on the seat heater for you. 

You melt into the leather, closing your eyes, the ambience of the present moment nestling upon you like the most delicate layer of snow that dissolves when you feel a swift breath along your neck and it’s Yoongi, lengthening his arm and closing the door while keeping his twinkling gaze on you and giving you a pleased smile. 

The butterflies kick against your stomach. 

“I was going to do that,” you say because you truly were—it’s just that the snug, comforting heat he prepared for you made you want to stop and bask in it as the short walk from your apartment building to his car numbed your bones to such an extent that you needed the time to defrost. And he quickened the process by placing an even warmer hand upon the nylon of your inner thigh that the slit of your dress and your trench coat exposed. “It’s just so cold.” 

He fondles the fabric of your tights on the top of your thigh with his thumb. A gesture of comfort that diffuses life down your legs and colors your cheeks in a shade of pink that irradiates the subdued atmosphere of the car. It’s hard to breathe—and it’s hard to resist him, keep yourself cool and not swing your leg over. 

Fuck the ice cream. You want something way creamier. 

“It’s only right I close it for you after I opened it,” he reassures, the deep tenor of his voice puncturing right through you, looking for your core, and you shift your hips, the discomfort of your wetness not allowing you to relax as much as you need. Yoongi’s eyes flick down to your movement and he parts his mouth as that distinctive smirk of his divulges his enjoyment in seeing you so horny for him. “Are you still sticky for me?” 

It’s now that you take the time to fully look at him. There’s a certain glossiness to his long hair that tells you he went home and took a shower before he got inside his car and drove through the quiet night to meet you. You can smell the rosemary of his shampoo and the usual minty aroma of his body wash, blended with his natural musky pheromones and the wood, the tangerine of his perfume. He’s the synthesis of your internal woodland, the breath of the trees that your swan inhales and a punishment, all in one; and you’re not sure if you can hold out any longer. Both emotionally, both physically.

“Very sticky,” you say, wrapping your hands around his arm, descending your fingers down the bulky, wooly material of his winter jacket like you were touching your charging cord—a temporary dream come true. You enclose your palm around his knuckles, think that if he feels how wet you are, he’ll realize that you sentimentally require more than he normally gives you—that your flesh will somehow tell him and give him the bravery to do so. 

But Yoongi doesn’t move an inch. His fingers remain fixed on the inner of your thigh, digging dents into the skin as you feel the bulging of his bicep the more you push his hand towards your wetly clothed cunt. His smile falls, his eyes droop—and the energy is charged with such unnamed intensity that you let go of your pursuit, slipping your fingers beneath the edge of his sleeve as a sign of your submission. 

That quickly. 

“You promised to hold out for me, didn’t you?” he asks, waiting for your agreement, and you nod, feverish, dripping with perspiration, with this great need that towers over you. “Then, be like Daddy and keep your promise or you’re not getting anything.” 

A shiver cascades down your spine—not merely from his authoritative voice, but from the role he dipped into that immediately puts you into yours. You begin to giggle, palming your mouth as the blush in your cheeks bursts and tears of overwhelmingness add a certain glint to your eyes that sparkles beneath the yellow-tinted car interior lights. And using this fatherliness of his, he interweaves your arousal around his long, piano fingers, announcing he’s its King. 

Your essence trickles out of the confines of your panties. 

“You’re doing this on purpose,” you whine, still giggling, you can’t help it. Yoongi takes after you, blessing you with that gummy grin of his that you adore so much. Your heart enlarges. 

“What exactly am I doing on purpose?” he challenges, kneading the flesh of your thigh, and he senses his answer right away. Your essence travels to his hand, stopping there, and once again Yoongi’s smile falls, eyes plummeting to it, hand lifting—and fingers gathering that warm slick. 

And it drips onto his own pants-clad thigh when he plunges his fingers into his mouth, shocking you to your core. 

“Yoongi—”

He hums in titillation, interrupting you, and smacks his mouth. For a brief amount of time, he seems to be in his own world as he tastes you on his tongue. And then, he takes those same fingers, turns the key in the ignition, moves forward the shift stick, and without sparing you a glance, he drives out of his usual parking spot and doesn’t hesitate to correct you. 

“Not Yoongi. Daddy.” 

You clamp your mouth shut. Think you need some kind of plug to stop your arousal from flowing down your thigh. Yoongi doesn’t mention what just happened throughout the whole drive, but you do notice his semi-hard manhood poking out of his groin area. You salivate, but don’t tempt him, squeezing your thighs together so tightly that your muscles cramp. 

You’ll save it for later. 

You listen to him talk about his concert experience of tonight while the drum in your clit matches the beat of the songs of his playlist. He speeds down the road, keeping his hands on the steering wheel and the shift stick, and he doesn’t look at you until he halts the car at the first red light. 

He smiles at you, knowingly. A dirty, dirty smile that turns your world upside down, vexes you deeply—enough for you to swivel your head in the other direction to ignore him because if you looked at him any longer like that, you’d be unbuckling his pants. But Yoongi does what he pleases. With his index finger, he whips your chin back to him, leans over and grins before he presses his lips against yours. 

A gentle, gentle kiss. One that does not mirror his demeanor. 

Your walls flutter, your whole body, too. Shock seizes you in its grasp at that gesture of affection and you can’t breathe—he’s stolen all of the oxygen in your lungs. The trees sway and bend, the swan in you dances quite buoyantly, despite the fact that a storm is coming. 

A storm of your emotions. 

He’s never kissed you like that—out of the blue, at the red light. He kisses you when he’s drunk, handsy and touchy-feely as he everlastingly is, but he doesn’t kiss you just like that when he’s sober. 

“You doing good?” he murmurs against your lips, ripping away the fingers of your shock, and it feels as though you’re waking up from a dream—only to glide, boundlessly, into another one. Yoongi waggles with your chin before he pulls away, the yellow light bathing him in its shade momentarily before the green blinks and he jumps back into his own world. 

Does he really think you won’t erupt in this storm? Disintegrate into smithereens and wipe everything clean that he is? 

“What was that for?” you ask, softly, your lips numb and aching for more of his tenderness, one that you would, in all honesty, die for. You trace the print of his own lips on yours, feel its heavy warmth, and you might as well be drunk just from that. 

You need a shot. And not just one. 

Yoongi bites his bottom lip. “You’re holding out so well. I thought you deserved it.” 

You roll your eyes back—not from raw annoyance, but from the pristine pleasure you receive from the dominant, fatherly energy of his words. Suddenly, you don’t know what to do with your hands, what to say, what to think. What you do know is that you surely will be crying into his pillow by the time this night is over and he’s fast asleep. 

But you can’t cry much. Can’t wake up with puffy eyes. Can’t reveal to him the gravity of your feelings. 

You don’t even remember the moment you realized you loved him. Think you loved him the first time you laid your eyes on him, but you buried it deeply in you—so deeply that you didn’t even recollect your feelings when Yoongi told you, straight away, that this was just a friends with benefits kind of arrangement. Truth be told, this business is the sole kind of relationship you can give him as you hate men. Always hated them. But you don’t hate him. 

He’s not them. He’s different. 

You may have wanted adrenaline and joy tonight, but as you dwell in this state of mind of yours, you slouch deeper into the leather and come to a heartbreaking understanding that you’ll never be happy in this life. 

The night-clothed streets pass by you in soft shapes in colors, disappearing instantly out of your view. And the woodland, the trees and the swan, they disappear, too. Shrouded by the fog of your abysmal sadness. 

***

Yoongi took you to such a small hotel that its luxuriousness pierced your eyes with its glorious light. You thought you were dining and ending the night at his place, but once Yoongi ordered your favorite shots of sweet rum with cocktail cherries, you perceived you were staying here. Perceived he was unknowingly giving you the opportunity to drown your feelings in alcohol as well. 

You almost didn’t wait for him to take his own shot before you downed yours, but hearing the click of his tongue, you stopped midway. And to make sure you did wait, he placed his palm upon your wrist, bringing your arm down onto the table as he ordered your dessert. 

Chocolate ice cream, just for her. Thank you. 

He made everything worse. 

You weren’t sure why you wanted to be so good for him, listening to every order of his that came to his mind. Why you wanted that validation, that praise. You could just do whatever you desired—it wouldn’t scratch your relationship with him. You could be bad and he wouldn’t mind. Hell, you think he would even enjoy it. But why is it your inert yearning to please him so much? It’s devastating—and it’s your personal ruination. Because the more you do things that caress his ego, the deeper the abyss of your feelings for him goes. 

You shouldn’t. Not in the construct of your friendly relations. For the sake of your well-being.

You pry his fingers away and take that shot, watching his eyes grow large in their surprise. You never slide the cherry along with the liquor into your mouth, so once you swallow it, you open it wider and begin to chew it. His brows twitch, his own mouth parting at the sight and he leans back into his chair, completely submitted and enthralled by your act of defiance. 

And it feels good, going against him like that. Living your life by your own decided rules, and not his. 

You don’t hesitate to gulp down the other shot, but it’s not the slight burning of the liquid that gives you the buzz. It’s the way he seems to be completely pleased by your self-will, smiling lazily at you with his head tilted to the side. It propels you to steal his shot, too, and the brief facade of his pleasure collapses. A dark tendril of concern lines his eyes and those brows that twitched furrow, casting a dusky shadow over those slits. 

Now he’s aware of it, the tornado that spins within you. But he doesn’t know the cause of it, the decadent poetry verses that cover it. 

And he’ll never know—he’ll never read them. Because you’d much rather keep it in secrecy than risk losing him for all eternity. Feelings can be hidden, feelings can wander off, lose their bearings until they no longer remember that your body used to be their home. But Yoongi… he’s a person that you meet once in a lifetime. And losing him would mean that you lost not just your life, but the blood pumping in your veins as well.

It’s wrong, being attached like that to someone, regard him this way. And you’re cognizant of the fact it’s temporary—and for that sole reason, you bask in it. Because your life would be prosaic, and not poetic, if you didn’t. 

That is the motto you carry in your pathetic, but strong heart. 

And the darkness of his concern, it intoxicates you more than the last shot you take. 

The backdrop of dining and chattering people sway, just like your past trees, behind him. Manifestations of foreign lives you’ll never witness twice in your life, that are a part of you today and will part from you tomorrow. Yoongi, in the middle, remains stable. A beacon of light, unmoving, a great pillar of fixedness and steadiness. He peers at you through the thickness of his eyelashes, his aura solemn, no longer playful. Your sighs emit out of you in a constant stream while your eyes roam at everything in motion but him and he seems to strongly, strongly dislike that. 

“What’s up with you?” he asks for the second time around this evening, but the question has a loftier ring of seriousness to it. It passes through you, puncturing you until it pokes out of your back and transforms into a pair of monumental wings. Ones, upon which your feelings are mockingly hung, for his eyes to see, but not to recognize.

And the swaying of your body brings forth wetness to your eyes, for it is an anamnesis of the inner world you lost due to the comprehension of your feelings. 

“Nothing,” you say for the second time around, too. A hefty blanket of silence is thrown across the table, scattered with empty shot glasses that were meant to be shared between the pair of you. Unable to look at him, your eyes drop to them, count them—one, two, three, four—and then your irises wind up at his clenched fist. At the white valleys of his knuckles that are composed only when his fingers are wrapped around a microphone. And the blanket of the silence is warmer than the warmth he has given you—a sweltering layer of heartsickness that you can’t bear. With your drunk brain, you think you should pierce it, as if with a needle, with a response to a question he didn’t ask you. “I haven’t eaten much today, that’s why I’ve gotten drunk so quickly.” 

Yoongi runs a tongue down the inner flesh of his cheek. Ponders the information you have given him before he scolds you. “You didn’t eat and you drank four shots in a row. You won’t tell me what it is, fair enough, but I know you’re hiding it behind the pretense of you being horny.” 

His head swivels to the side, sensing a presence. And he watches as the waitress puts down an ornamental plate of two scoops of chocolate ice cream in front of you. You don’t pay her a second of your time. You set your eyes on Yoongi, on the darkness of his energy that you are ever so slowly and magnetically pulled to. 

Yes, he sees the problem, but doesn’t recognize it. He sees the shape of your wings, but he can’t recognize their color. 

The solidness of his call-out quivers. You’re not sure if you’re hiding it; you’re no longer sure about anything at this moment, but you don’t care. You have to stick to your secrecy, you have to keep your feelings safe and tucked away, no matter how far on the edge of the cliff they are. 

“I’m not hiding anything. I was horny,” you retort, not caring that the waitress is still present, picking up your shot glasses. Yoongi gives you a look while you tip your chin down and gaze at him through your long lashes—just like he did. A taste of his own sweet poison. And then you lift your foot and rest it between his outstretched legs, the sole of your stilettos pressing lightly against his soft groin. 

This is fun. This is the adrenaline you were seeking. Who would’ve thought you would be your own provider of that. 

Surprised by the abruptness of your act, he doesn’t let it show on his face, but his hands drift upwards from his thighs before he settles them around the bridge of your foot. He waits for the waitress to finish her job and, sensing the pressure, she scurries away without asking if you wanted to order another round. 

And in her absence, Yoongi begins to touch you. 

He sails his fingernails from your toes up to the thin strap of your shoe, wrapping them around your ankle. He squeezes your limb once, warning you about something you don’t know, his eyes tiny, tiny slits. Perhaps if you keep up with this, the night won’t end so prettily like it normally does. 

But you don’t believe it. You refuse to. And to be frank, you can’t. 

You shall have your fun. 

“Eat your ice cream before it melts,” he orders like the father he is, pointing at the dessert with his irises. 

You look at it, at the bits of the chocolate bars jutting out of it, then back up at him. “Feed it to me.” 

The slits break, his eyes enlarging. His reaction spreads all across his face—brows curling upwards, mouth parting, his thumb absentmindedly swiping across the skin of your shin, exposing how much he liked your request. Such an intimate place for that to happen. 

Then, he examines his surroundings. Then, he gets up from his chair and sits next to you on the booth, taking a hold of the spoon and your leg simultaneously, hooking it over his thigh. Scoops the ice cream and turns to you, his arm suspended in the air. 

“Open,” he rasps, and your eyes wet first before your mouth complies, opening wide for him. Yoongi slides the spoon into your mouth with expert gentleness, careful not to hurt you, and your first tear of the night cascades down your cheek when your mouth closes around the silver, your tastebuds cheering due to the chocolate flavor that overwhelms them. 

Yoongi, the man that could never disappoint you. Yoongi, the man who has given you more fatherly love than your own father ever did. 

How could you not love him? How could you not want more from the casualness of your relationship with him when he treats you like this? When he prepares a warm faith in men within your chest, a wet soil—out of which the tenderest sprout of joy shall grow? 

The second tear cascades down. The ice cream melts on your tongue. You swallow. 

Yoongi sighs, dropping his hands, the corners of his eyes rounding in an emotion you’ve never seen upon him. “You have to tell me what’s going on.” 

Your wings, swan-like, flutter behind you, ruffling the hair on the crown on his head. “The ice cream tastes good.” 

You brush away your tears, lamenting your foolish mistake, and fold your hands on your lap. Give him a teary smile that you can’t hide and open your mouth for him again. Yoongi doesn’t say anything as he continues to feed you and frown at you, not until another waitress comes and asks if you wish to order another round. His anger is evident in his voice as he turns her down, stating you won’t be drinking any more than you have. 

And again, he makes everything worse when he wipes your mouth clean after you finish the dessert. Pats your head to reward you. 

You hold your tears, watch him pay for you, give him your hand when he leads you towards the elevator up to the room where you’ll be staying tonight. 

Him, completely sober; you, drunk out of your mind. 

He doesn’t let go of your hand, even as you and him stand side by side, the silence as thick as death. You can’t stand it, can’t do anything else but to break it all over again. Though this time, you don’t do it with words. 

You do it with your actions. 

Stumbling on your feet like a freshly-born fawn, it’s only then that Yoongi looks at you. Holds you steady as you move in front of him to face him. He doesn’t swim along the current of all these brown shades of the elevator, but you can see a deep emotion waving through his ice-cold eyes that heat up, melt and droop when you envelop your arms around his neck and press your face against the side plane of his, kissing him there a hundred, a thousand times. You sink your fingers into the hair at the nape, tracing circles along his scalp and Yoongi shudders, breathes evenly against you, and it reminds you of the wind that swept past your woodland—the one that made your trees sway. 

All of that is gone because of your mistake. 

And something tells you that nothing will ever be the same. That something groundbreaking awaits you once these elevator doors open. 

And they open too quickly. 

Breaks your wordless actions that speak your gratitude for his fatherly behavior by gathering you into his arms, carrying you out of the elevator. Doesn’t let your aching feet touch the ground until the snugness of the tiny room welcomes you in. A queen-sized bed, a mirror across the wall that faces it, a round table by the balcony. It would be stifling if you were here alone, but Yoongi, somehow with his domineering energy, enlarges the room—makes it his. 

He empties out his pockets. Phone, wallet, keys. A white lighter and a pack of cigarettes. His jacket follows next, hooking it around one of the chairs, and once he notices your wavering feet, he sits down at the edge of the bed and sheds your trench coat, throwing it over his own jacket. Bends at the waist and takes off your heels, one by one. Only then, when you’re comfortable, does he set you down in the center of his lap. And you realize that the mirror is right in front of you. 

You watch him through it. Watch his face nuzzling into the crook of your neck; watch your own form disappear into the buffiness of his body as his hands begin to roam. His watch glints in the dim light of the room and his own being coalesces, becomes one with the murkiness. 

You want to do that, too. Forget who you are. Forget what you’re feeling. 

Tears prick at your waterline and you let out a pained sigh. Another foolish mistake of the night, one you’re about to pay for. 

“Talk to me,” he begs, a wisp of a tiny whiny weaving into his voice inconspicuously, but you catch it—and it vibrates through you, weakening you. It makes it so much harder for you, his unyielding need to know what’s troubling you, but how can you tell him? How can you risk never seeing him again? 

You remain silent, painfully so. 

Yoongi lifts his head from your neck and stares you dead in the eye through the mirror, chilling you down to the bone. 

“You truly think I’m just a guy you fuck?” he spits, his anger on full, unabashed blast that you should’ve seen coming with your restrained behavior, but it’s better to take his anger than to take his absence—and you shall devour that emotion of his. His question causes a hiccup to ensue in your chest, the secrecy of your feelings leaning over the edge of the cliff. Dangerously, dangerously close. “That you can’t confide in me? You think I’m just gonna fuck you and pretend I didn’t see you cry?” Your eyes dart away, a heavy load of agony settling over your heart, but Yoongi prevents you from looking away. Makes you look at him by grabbing your chin and keeping your head still, facing the mirror. “Is that what you want? You want me to be this kind of asshole?” 

You bite your lip, not knowing what to say, not knowing who you want him to be, not wanting to be in this situation at all. But Yoongi can’t stand your silence. Can’t stand the privacy of your trouble, as if he inertly knows that it has something to do with him. 

He softens his touch, but he doesn’t do the same with his voice. 

“Answer me.” 

You cry out in unnamed desperation, which propels Yoongi to lift your head up to him, so you can look at him—so you can see how much this matters to him. The emotion in his eyes vivaciously thumps, urging you to speak to him. He holds you to him like this, gripping your cheeks with the littlest amount of pressure, sucking in small breaths and you can’t. You’re going to explode if he keeps at it, and you’re going to die.

“Yoongi,” you whisper, tiny cries emitting out of your throat, and it’s almost a cry for help. You bunch up his T-shirt in your trembling fist, seizing the solidness of him like your fear seizes you, and you don’t know whether to run or stay put on his lap like this. You’re appalled about where this is going and you’re certain that the same dead end is impatiently seeking you—

Yoongi shushes you. Averts his hand and caresses your hair down. Kisses your forehead, where he lingers a few long seconds that subdue the expression of your storm. Waits until your breathing evens out, so he can unravel the words swelling in him. 

“Even if you asked me, I couldn’t be this kind of asshole to you,” he reveals against that plane of your face, punctuating his sentence by pressing his nose against yours. And you can’t believe his actions, you can’t believe the kind of affection he’s bathing you in; it lessens your fear, slashing it apart until there’s nothing left of it. “Something is hurting your heart and that bothers me. And what pisses me off most of all is that you think I can’t help you.” 

You sniffle and slide your hand upwards to his neck. Try to memorize every inch of this paintwork that your life is graced with as tomorrow won’t have the same paints, the same brushstrokes—

“I’m not gonna fuck you. If you want to be touched, I’ll touch you, but don’t think for a second you’re coming tonight, not if you won’t talk to me,” he murmurs and you gasp, lowly, your wings slumping limply.

The promise of him fucking you was your only salvation for tonight. You gaze up at him with wide eyes, your mouth falling agape, unbelief clutching you at the intensity of his stubbornness. 

And you want to know the meaning behind it. 

“Why?” 

He scoffs, kissing your cheek as if you were a baby he’s cradling, and you can’t take it anymore. You untangle yourself from his grasp and stand up to your feet, your back against the mirror. Yoongi peers at you disapprovingly and then he shakes his index finger at you. Your legs mimic the same movement, trembling, weakening at that. 

“You need to be taught a lesson,” he says and flattens his lips, pauses before he opens his mouth again, but you stop him, despite how much you like it. 

“No, Yoongi. Why are you treating me like this?” 

He props his knuckles against his thighs. A powerful, powerful stance. Curls his lips around his teeth. “Like what?” 

You reflect him. “Like I’m something more.” 

Yoongi chuckles, humorlessly, at that. You spewed it out so rapidly that you don’t realize what you said until he lets out that noise that returns the drum to your sensitive parts. And briefly, as if you uttered something stupid, you grow smaller and smaller—until his following words change your life once and for all. 

“Because you are and because you always have been,” he rasps, the corners of his mouth downturning for a split second, exposing his own secrecy that brings you to your knees. They scruff against the white carpet, stained by time, and Yoongi’s eyes flash with light to see you in this position. 

Your heart hammers with more life than it ever had, with a kind of adrenaline it never felt before, and wetness clouds your vision, misting this situation in a cloud of disbelief. Your lungs fail you, shuddering underneath his hard gaze, and they swell greatly when Yoongi clasps your face in his hand, the one that pointed at you so fatherly, so devastatingly. 

“You’re not just a girl I fuck and I know I’m not a guy you fuck. What we have is irreplaceable, what we do has always been something more, beyond the label we gave it and I regret it,” he lets out, a pained sigh—just like yours—wafting over your features, and Yoongi leans over, propping his elbows on his knees, his other hand joining your face, fingers gripping your hair on each side. “I should’ve treated you more properly, with respect. Take you out on dates. Get to know you. Wait before you let me touch you… because that is what you deserve. You’re not a girl to mess around with. You have a dignity that needs to be taken seriously, that needs to be respected and I wish I had done that. I wish…” he trails off, clicking his tongue in ultimate regret, and you break. You break, break, break. Sob in his hands that hold you so steadily, that give you life, adrenaline and a new meaning to your whole being. Suffocate under his watch, the earth-shattering notion that this has changed the course of your trajectory of your relationship with him forever constricting your throat. “I wish I had allowed myself to court you like you deserve. I wish I had been better mentally, but I’ll make everything right if you want me to. If you want me as much as I want you, I’ll make it right. I’ll try my hardest.”

Your own words, your heartstrings tangle up in a complex manner. Your tongue twists, your speech held back, and you have no control over what comes out of your throat. You’re crawling through a limbo that has no end and each movement you make, the way back gets erased. You need to keep going before it swallows you, but you need him to lead you. You need him inside your skin, inside your heat, inside your mouth. You need to be connected to him in a way you’ve never been connected to him before. You need his breath in your lungs—and your attachment to him bursts in flames. 

Sated, elated, magnificent. 

“Fuck me and make me yours, Yoongi.” 

He sucks in a breath as if he didn’t expect you to accept his favor. The light in his eyes soaks his irises in wetness and his mouth trembles in a tender emotion before he smashes it against yours. And within that lip lock, the swan in you is reborn. 

A baby swan, learning how to sail upon this new, new river—needing her father more than ever before. 

The kiss is hard and the kiss is catastrophic. Yoongi moves his mouth against yours, sucking every bit of your old life out of you to fill you up with newness. Lifts you up and sits you back on his lap. But the kiss is too brief and you soon perceive that his anger hasn’t been shunned out. 

Wet and blue flames lick over his black pools. 

“Not until you tell me what’s bothering you. What I said still applies.” 

The zipper slides down, the straps follow suit—and your silk is ripped away from your body that Yoongi turns over and moves to his preferable position, cradling you sideways like a child. And there—as he gives you a once over, studying the red lace of your lingerie, the swell of your breasts, the little valley of fat upon your tummy, the ruination of your panties and the stickiness of your thighs—there you realize that he’s as punishing you as much as he manipulating you into telling him. 

And it’s as arousing as it is bad. 

His free hand begins to roam while the other one holds you close, wrapped around your back, preventing you from running away. It ghosts over your breasts, causing your spine to arch into his palm and his throat to emit a delicious groan that drenches your panties. His fiery hand ventures down, his tongue gracing you with little praises of how beautiful you are, and when he reaches the V-line of your private parts, he discovers how much his deep voice and his touches affect you. 

He lifts his fingers and catches them glistening in the orange light. And this time, he doesn’t plunge them into his mouth. No, he sinks them inside your own. You swirl your tongue around them, coaxing that throaty noise of his that makes your hips buck up. Your tangy sweetness stupefies you and your so-loved woodland is remolded by that intimate act. By your connected gaze that could start a foreign war and bring the world down. 

“Suck on them,” he orders, and you comply. Hollow out your cheeks, make sucking noises as you find everything you ever searched for in his eyes. Stability, warmth, a father. Switch, cutely, between sucking them and dancing your tongue around them. His index and pinky fit just right between the elongated clefts of your cheeks and he coos, grows hard underneath you, kisses the tip of your nose, onto which he whispers: “Such a good little girl.” 

You moan and he reacts so trenchantly fast, withdrawing his fingers and using them to slide your panties to the side, placing them on your clit and not moving. 

“So swollen,” he comments, kissing you for a beat of time without closing his eyes, without missing this moment. “I like it when you’re like this. Swollen, dripping and so horny for me. Like I’ve never taken care of you before.” He glides his fingers down, past your lips to your hole before going back up, rooting on your throbbing clit before starting over. He etches desperation into your veins, stirs your butterflies to madness, and you breathe heavily. “No one will ever see you like this. No one, you hear me?” 

Your nod is automatic, thoughtless, and he’s pleased to the core. Enough that he begins to massage circles on your clit, your wings fluttering, no longer limp, but full of zest. And he can sense it—and it touches him so much that he deepens the pressure while the circles remain agonizingly slow. Your body writhes. Yoongi smirks down at you, grins fully when you clutch the nape of his neck and make little noises into his T-shirt. And just as soon your vision begins to blur and you reach the cusp of your orgasm, he stops.

“What’s hurting you?” 

He reciprocates your feelings, so you have no reason not to tell him. It’s more of a problem with your speech. You’re so fucked out that you can’t speak. 

Yoongi waits for a few seconds before he spanks your pussy. Maneuvers you so you can look at yourself in the mirror, your back against his chest, and he collects your arousal while he pins back your thigh, drifting all four of his fingers along your femininity, stimulating you and punishing you at the same time. Then, he lets you see your slick trickling out of his digits. 

“Look how wet you are, don’t you want to come?”

He’s a dark figure behind you while you are a small creature, spread wide, drooling, dressed in a sinful shade of red that doesn’t indicate her purity, whose smeared red mouth leaks loud, whiny whimpers when he sticks one of those fingers inside your heat, adding another one right away once you accommodate around him. He fucks you with a force that reverberates throughout your whole body and his name that pours out of your mouth like a prayer is a cry for help all over again. He pumps his fingers and pulls away, edging you in such a sinister way that drives out your tears. 

He worsens your condition—like he invariably does. But the rapidness of his pace, it unlocks your mouth, it untwists your tongue, and you begin to babble. 

Incoherent words, nonsense noises; sounds that blossom in volume when he withdraws ultimately, pushes the lace of your bra away from your breasts and kneads them with wet fingers. 

And you erupt, at last, when he flicks your nipples. You flood his pants-clothed thighs and knees, your slick streaming all the way to the carpet. And the river continues on with his words.

“I know you want this cock. I know you want it deep in you. But you’re not getting it if you don’t tell me right now what it is you’re using me to forget about,” he whispers into your ear, tweaking your nubs, his hands descending down your body and pinching your clit. You cry out, the aftershocks of pleasure dizzying you, his manipulation technique in full effect, and you’ll give it to him. Because of his cock, because of his affection. “You have three seconds. One, two, three—”

“I love you,” you confess, screaming it out of your lungs, and his eyes enlarging and his mouth parting in shock is all you see before you’re thrown on the bed.

Before your panties are ripped in half and flung behind him. 

Before your pussy is eaten and fingered in a way that makes you come in four heartbeats. 

Yoongi’s skilled tongue flicks your clit, his fingers curl in that special spot that bespeckles your vision with the stars of the night sky beyond the hotel room window. And you don’t latch onto the fact you’ve drenched him with your juices until he straddles your thigh, arches over you and kisses you with love-drunkenness, his fingers sliding back inside. 

And he doesn’t start fucking you until he confesses something, too. 

“I love you, too.” 

His digits drill you, his eyes pierce your soul and your orgasms are countless like this, not bound to time, not bound to anything at all. You squirt on him, bathe him in the newness of your relationship, cleansing off the old. And then he’s inside of you, murmuring reassuring words against your mouth about how that shouldn’t be troubling your heart. And you cry, you sob, you scream, overtaken by it all, your mouth numb by his constant hard kisses and if you ever belonged to him in the past—you didn’t. Because at this moment, as he stuffs you full of his cum, you’re interwoven into his DNA for all eternity. 

One that he nurtures as he holds you in his arms and asks you about how long you’ve loved him. And he in return tells you that he loved you the moment you first had a taste of what he could give you—laughter, guidance, and orgasms. All from the first date. 

And when you kiss him for the last time before sleep steals you away, you know that you’ll never lack adrenaline in your life ever again. As long as you’re with him, you’ll be on the receiving end. And his unchanging promises will make you look forward to each day, your batteries charged and green—like your blooming woodland.

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: tkslovechild , @jjk7k , @parkinglot-nights , @bethvar , @Sexytholland , @yoongibaybee , @crystaleah ,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan , @euphoricmyth , @jungkoock , @cinmmongirl , @hoseokkie-caeks , @kam9404 , @fr0ggieth1nk .

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

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[vultbae]

small world ❀

art donaldson x female reader

part two (soon)

↳ summary: Art and Patrick were once your peers at the Mark Rebellato Academy —not the nicest ones. Five years later, you've made a friend that can help you fuck with their minds a little.

↳ warnings: making out, dry humping, manipulation, a lot of pettiness, mentions of bullying, and weight!! the dumbification of art donaldson tbh

↳ notes: Istg I be having the most random ideas, but I hope you enjoy!! as always, english is not my first language lolz

word count: 3.1k

Tashi enters the living room with a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes, moving gracefully in a beautiful blue mini-dress. With a soft pop, she eases the cork, instantly pouring the effervescent gold-ish liquid into the two glasses. 

"You shouldn't even worry about them," Tashi says with a wry smile. As she finishes serving you some rosé Veuve Clicquot, she hands you the glass. "What are you—like, the second or third in Europe? They are gonna be broke by their thirties," she concludes, staring at you with confident eyes.

You nod, taking a sip of champagne. "Don't see it as serious; it'll be fun."

Tashi raises her glass, a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. "Im just saying, don't stress over men."

You clink your flute against Tashi’s. "Alright."

A year and a half ago, you had met Tashi Duncan, who you believed was a hard-hearted bitch but ended up being a close friend of yours. She is merciless, proficient, and goddamn; she has that vicious aura you worship so much. While living in Biot, you'd always look for the nearest CRT to watch Tashi flawlessly play, enchanted by how she unnerved her adversaries.

During summer break, your father dragged you out of the academy to visit California for a benefaction event. Amidst the glamour and chatter of the event, you caught sight of Tashi —most likely attending due to her relevance spiking around the area. Luckily, your connection rapidly deepened, fueled by reciprocal admiration and tennis dependence.

And the commitment to stay in touch despite the geographical distance worked. Tashi became pretty much your best friend, and you became hers. Aside from the workaholic aspect, the resemblances between you were too much to ignore. Sooner than later, you discovered much about Tashi's personal life, the players she liked and despised, and her daily anecdotes regarding tennis and her intimate life. And that's how you became acquainted with Fire and Ice's peculiar hyper-fixation on Tashi.

Art Donaldson and Patrick Zweig.

You thought it was a unique offering from God. You didn't expect you'd get the opportunity to face the golden pair again. When Tashi told you she had met Zweig and Donalson, a powerful sentiment of gratitude washed over you. You nearly fell to your knees when she proceeded to explain they were a walking boner for her. If that wasn't high power granting you a second chance to delight yourself, it was an insane coincidence.

But telling Tashi the backstory was a different pain in the ass. Although she expressed some sort of disgust towards Zweig and Donaldson's brainless carnal-based attitude, you couldn't buy it.  And your skepticisms were demonstrated as valid when she —dreamy voice and all that shit— confessed through the phone she nearly had a threesome with them. A fucking threesome. You couldn't hold it back anymore, so you told her everything.

Tashi was aware of tennis's influence on your household, as you were raised by two renowned tennis coaches from the States. When you turned eight, your parents turned you in at the Mark Rebellato Academy —as if you were condemned to play tennis by default. The detrimental part of your journey was developing thyroid issues when you were twelve. Jesus, twelve years old — the commencement of the preteen period where kids either kiss your feet or bully you. One year after, along with the anticipated weight gain, you met Art and Patrick. And as if you weren't unfortunate enough already, the two —who at the time looked like fucking Beavis and Butthead— decided they didn't like your physical appearance. They hated it.

“Hey, Y/l/n!” Patrick’s voice rang out, sharp and mocking.

You froze, your heart sinking to the underground. You tried to focus on your serve, but your hands were immobile. 

Patrick sauntered over, his smirk widening as he looked you up and down. “What’s the matter, Y/n? Ball too heavy for you to lift?”

You heard Art’s laughter behind your back. He joined in a kind of trembling voice. “Or maybe she’s saving her strength for lunch. She doesn't hesitate when it comes to eating.”

The echo of them and the rest of the kids on the court laughing was a sound that felt like daggers piercing your heart.

After two years of ceaseless bullying and humiliation—which also distracted you from tennis—your parents sent you to The Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Biot, a small town in France. You are not sure if it was the harassment itself, the low self-esteem, or possibly your undeniable attraction for Donaldson. It didn't matter. By the age of seventeen, you were undoubtedly one of the major promises of European tennis.

So, explaining the theatrical, soap opera-like backstory to Tashi for your detestation of Zweig and Donaldson took time. But when you did, it was worth it because Tashi didn't distrust your testimony, and if anyone was exhilarated to play some moves against them at the beginning, it was Duncan. 

That's the explanation behind Tashi pitching a tremendous party to celebrate her commitment to Stanford. This was absurd, to say the least, considering she had college offers piling up, and no one doubted she would commit to a prestigious school. But Tashi knew you'd visit from France, and this was just the perfect instance to hook you up with both condemned.

Because, of course, her biggest fangirls would attend. 

It didn't take long until the country house was full of people ranging from Tashi's cousins to bare acquaintances. And spotting Fire and Ice was easier than you thought. 

Tashi elbows you discreetly and signs with her head the direction they are standing. "There they are."

Your gaze falls over Art, who is laughing with —who you assume is—Patrick. His features are sharper and more defined. The lanky, slender physique you remembered from his premature teenage years had filled out into a more athletic build, with broader shoulders tapering to a trim waist covered in a light pink shirt. His blonde hair, which was no longer too light, was now strawberry blonde-ish, slightly tousled, and cascading over his ears.

Patrick, standing a few feet away, was equally transformed. His brunette hair, just a bit longer than you remember, frames a face that had hardened over the years—angular jaw, defined cheekbones, and piercing eyes that seem to miss nothing. The fucking smirk is still there, and you can see how he displays it every two seconds at whatever thing Art is telling him.

The interior of your stomach resembles a volcano about to erupt. You feel ambivalent, so many emotions overlapping each other. You see two cute, hell, gorgeous guys, and you wish you could approach them without considering crucifying them before. And you can't help but feel envious at how effortlessly Tashi managed to tame Art and Patrick while the only thing you got from them was hostility.

Your eyes can't seem to unbuckle from them. Tashi catches you slightly frowning at the panorama, and she isn't certain if you are infatuated or planning murder on the spot. "Come on."

You have no time to react before Tashi leads you through some partygoers to reach where Zweig and Donaldson are. Like dogs sniffling fresh meat, it's pathetic how their heads twist simultaneously when Tashi approaches them, conversation instantly pausing. It is as if Tashi's presence was magnetic for them.

"Well, hello, both of you," Tashi greets them excitedly, still holding your hand. "Didn't think you'd come."

Art's eyes widen, "Are you kidding?" he's about to keep speaking, but his gaze merges with yours for a split second, and he shuts off. Dead. Silent. 

"—Stanford's a big deal, Tashi." Patrick interrupts, compensating for the awkwardness of Art's sudden number. "I had to drag this lazy fuck out of his bed, but we made it."

Suddenly, Art's out of the trance, tearing his blue eyes off you to bombard Patrick with a killer look. "Hey—shut up, Patrick."

Tashi sweetly, softly giggles at their word exchange. God, she's good, you think. Tashi turns to gesture to you, "This is my friend, Claire, by the way. She is visiting from the Mouratoglou Academy—

To be fair, Claire is a believable name.

"Wait, the Patrick Mouratoglou Academy? In France?" Art runs over Tashis's sentence, incredulously shooting you a broad-eyed glare. You nod in agreement, still processing you are having a civil conversation with Art Donaldson.

You feel Tashi squeezing your hand at your quietness.

"Yeah, you know it?" you timidly ask, forcing a polite smile that, if you were Art, you wouldn't buy it. But, of course, he's as dumb as a pigeon.

"Heck... Of course, I do. I wish I could go there."

Tashi smirks, enjoying the spectacle. 

Patrick’s investment in the conversation piques. "Mouratoglou, huh? That's impressive. Maybe we could hit the court sometime."

And that's the first time Patrick makes eye contact with you. He's stabbing you with his stare. You abruptly wonder if he's as dumb as Art, probably not. 

You squeeze Tashi's hand.

Tashi leans closer to Patrick, her voice dropping to a more intimate tone. "Hey, Pat... do you remember what you mentioned about erectile dysfunction? My aunt's a sexologist, I think—

Patrick loudly chuckles, apparently alarmed by the deficiency of filtering confidential information. "I need to smoke sum' stronger. Wanna come, Tash?"

Tashi purses her lips, casting a quick glance at you. "Sure."

Your point of view is like a sitcom scene, swiftly panning from Tashi's body leaving your radar to the boy in front of you, staring at you with soothing eyes and reddened cheeks. It's basically comical.

Art's eyes dart around the lively yard before landing back on you. He clears his throat. "So, uh, Claire? That's a cute name."

It takes tons of willpower not to drop the good girl act right there. You attempt to return the sentiment with a quirk on the corner of your lips. "I need to get a drink. Come with me?"

He shakes his head up and down, finding it easier than answering with words.

For the first time in a couple of months, the inside of Art's mind has more than a giant cardboard cutout of Tashi Duncan. He is in awe. 

You lead the way, weaving through clusters of drunk teenagers towards the house. You feel Art's gaze lingering on your back —or ass, you don't know—a magnetic pull that makes you hyper-aware of his presence.

You arrive in the kitchen and quickly grab a bottle of vodka, a can of soda, and a party cup. Art watches you closely with a look of hypnotic admiration as if you were concocting the most complicated cocktail in the world. You want to roll your eyes so badly.

"That dress looks amazing on you." Art blurts out, unable to contain his thoughts any longer. 

You look at him. Art is sitting on one of the high stools by the kitchen island, his elbow resting on the table's sleek surface, supporting his chin with his hand. There is a softness in his eyes completely foreign to you, an infrequent vulnerability that contrasts sharply with the characteristic asshole demeanor you remember.

To Art, you appear almost ethereal, like an ideal concept from a wet dream of his. His thoughts are a kaleidoscope of jumbled fragments of memory that make no sense. You look so familiar... but no. 

There's no way he would forget about you.

You glance up, a faint blush coloring your cheeks. "Thank you," you reply, handing him a drink.

Art sips on his red plastic cup, eyes hooked on yours. "So, uhm. I just realized I never introduced myself properly. Im Art—

"Yeah, Donaldson, I know." you cut him off, leaving him completely silent and confused. "I've seen you play. Not bad," you clarify, with an unconscious hint of pride in your voice.

Art's smile widens. "Wait, you've seen me play?" he exaggeratedly emphasizes me. 

You nod.

His eyes twinkle with excitement. There’s this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "That's, uh, great. Next time you are watching, I'll play better..."

His innate nerdiness and try-hard flirtiness provoke nausea in you. If you didn't know him, it would be a different story. But seeing a former, intense crush who shamelessly bullied you for so long, giving you heart-shaped eyes...

It's fucking bizarre. And it pisses you off.

Art begins conversing about something else. You don't know what—tennis-related, maybe. You are not wearing earphones with noise cancellation, but you can't hear him anymore. It's a blur as his words course through one ear and depart through the other. Immediately. Your brain has simply blocked the action of listening to him.

You step closer, so close you can see the fine lines in his eyes, the flecks of green amidst the blue, with a hint of brown sectoral heterochromia on his right eye. You can smell the faint woody scent of his cologne, something spicy that makes you salivate. His lips keep moving, forming words that dissolve into the dim background noise. The music, the laughter, the chatter—they all blend into a distant hum.

Art's voice vanishes into oblivion as you fix your gaze on his mouth, the curve of his lips, the way they part and close as he speaks. "Art," you say, stopping him in his tracks.

His eyes flicker with uncertainty, puzzlement, and a spark of hope. His adam's apple throbs as he notices you staring at his lips.

You lean in, your breath mingling with his, your heart pounding in your chest. Your hand reaches up, fingers brushing against his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and the slight stubble that prickles against your touch. Art's breath hitches, his eyes widening in surprise, but he doesn't pull away. Instead, he leans in, too.

Your lips crash against his. Although you don't want to make it weird, you fail. It's not a gentle kiss or a precious, out-of-a-book lips meeting. It's fierce, instructing, a clash of sour sentiments and intent. You pour all your frustration, your pent-up anger, and your fucked-up desire to overpower him into that kiss. 

Art's shock melts away and quickly replaces it with an appetite that matches yours. His strong arms wrap around you, pulling you closer, his body pressing against yours. The kiss deepens, his lips parting to allow your tongue to explore, to taste the unmistakable flavor of cigarette and cheap vodka. You can feel the warmth of his breath and the way his hands tighten on your waist. It's almost as if he's frightened you'll pull away at some point.

And you can only fantasize about the moment you walk away.

—but not yet. You push harder, your fingers tugging slightly in his messy strawberry-blonde hair. He lowly moans into your mouth, a sound that dispatches a shiver down your spine. His hands roam your back, tracing the curve of your spine and dangerously lowering to your ass level. There's a distress in his touch you never thought would come from him.

The way he's dissolving under your venomous touch is already a win for you. You've managed to put him under you. And it's intoxicating, this control you have over him, this ability to make him forget everything else.

You pull back, your lips hovering just above his. Art's eyes are half-lidded, his lips swollen and ridiculously red from the intensity of the kiss. He looks at you in pure infatuation, "What- I... Did I do something wrong?"

You press a finger to his lips, silencing him again. "Come with me."

You peek at the party going outside—most people are outside. The living room is nearly empty, with a few alcoholized individuals entering the country house to refill their drinks. It's perfect.

You take Art's hand, your fingers lacing through his, and you lead him toward the sectional, six-seat couch in the center of the living room. You push Art down onto the couch, and he complies without resistance, his lust-drunken eyes never leaving yours; he nearly chokes on his spit at the sight of you slowly straddling him, your knees sinking into the soft cushions on either side of his hips.

"Jesus, Claire—"

You get the ick at the roleplay name Tashi baptized you with. 

"Shh," you whisper, leaning in to brush your lips against his in a soft, teasing kiss. "You never shut up, Donaldson."

And that's odd for him. He gives it a second thought because he isn't aware of how much he has talked, but definitely not that much. 

The overthinking vanishes as soon as you begin to kiss him again, slowly at first, savoring the way his lips deliciously move against yours. Art's hands rest tentatively on your hips, his fingers twitching as if afraid to hold on too tight. You guide his hands around your waist, urging him to hold you closer. His grip tightens, and you can feel the heat of his palms through the delicate fabric of your black mini-dress.

A sigh rolls out from your throat when you perceive something hard putting pressure against your core —which, because of the dress, is only shielded by thin lace panties. The coarse fabric of Art's light denim jeans rubs splendidly against your pussy. 

A primitive groan slips out of Art's lips the moment you grind your hips against his clothed dick. Suddenly, he breaks the kiss, and his eyes wander downwards. "Shit— you'll kill me," he pants into your mouth.

You pull back slightly, looking into his eyes. They're dark with craving, his pupils dilated. "Then let me."

You are about to attack his lips again, but he hesitates. You tilt your head in confusion, murmuring a low what?

Art starts to speak, his voice shaky and breathless. "I... I was wondering if you wanted to go back to my hotel with me."

Before you can respond, Tashi suddenly appears in your vision behind Art's head. "Claire, there you are," she says, fucking loud with a knowing, manipulative smile on her lips. "Your dad called, he's outside."

You feel a surge of delicious triumph as you see the apparent dissatisfaction in Art's eyes. 

"Sorry, Art," you say, standing up and smoothing your dress. "Maybe another time."

There’s a raw sadness in his eyes, an almost childlike hurt that he can’t quite conceal. He isn't even drunk; he's fully conscious of the stunning girl he just met and now is evaporating as if she was going to turn into a wolf at midnight or something. 

As you are about to disappear from Art's vision, he shouts at you, "I'll see you later, right?"

But you don't answer.

Instead, you hurriedly walk with Tashi to reach the front yard. 

"I didn't lie about your dad being here, though," Tashi clarifies, pointing at the big Jeep parked in front of the country house.

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you had been holding, a smile tugging at your lips. "Yeah, alright." You glance back at the house to ensure you are out of earshot. "I think fucking him would've been better. Do you think he's gonna remember about this tomorrow?"

"Oh, yeah. This is definitely gonna fuck his head up for a while." Tashi chuckles, "he's pretty obsessive."

You feel a swell of fulfillment at your best friend's words. "How obsessive?"

Tashi smiles. "A lot."

❀

[milkyhoneybee]

Unethical magic friend who uses you to solve their problems without asking you or considering your comfort

They ran out of milk for their morning coffee? They snap their fingers and suddenly your tits are massive and leaking milk. They take what they need and don't bother changing you back until they remember hours or days later, even if you try to remind them they just wave you off saying 'sure, sure, I just need to finish working out this summoning circle' and get distracted again

Sometimes they read something in a book that gets them horny or there's something they couldn't figure out, or they just pass someone in the market who takes their fancy, so guess who's helping them recreate it? You lose track of the amount of times you've been turned into the current object of their desires-- you don't even remember what your original hair colour was at this point, though you think you're mostly the same as you were when they change you back... but, enough subtle differences over time can build up...

Not to mention the times you've ended up with tentacles or horns or fangs or a foot long tongue, genitals of every configuration, or been transformed into slime and used just for their pleasure, or, more humiliatingly, been used in some test or experiment, or used to get spell ingredients

You would leave, you think, even if it didn't usually feel so good you lose control of yourself, but you didn't realise how binding a mage's "friendship bracelets" were when you first accepted it when you became friends, and now even if you do go anywhere, they can summon you back without trouble

They just conjure you some souvenir or some kind of 'treat' if you complain, and you feel your cheeks flush with the patronising nature of it. None of your complaints are ever taken seriously

Sometimes they'll summon a demon or other creature either for information or for some task, and you've ended up being used as payment or to placate them. You start drooling and going weak at the knees whenever you smell succubus milk or incubus cum from the amount of times you've been exposed to it already-- you're honestly worried it'll become an addiction before too long...

The one time you tried to sabotage one of your friends spells, hoping they'd get a taste of their own medicine, and while at first it was satisfying seeing their look of panic when the magic went awry, it didn't last long...

When you looked at their spell book and saw they were trying to create an armour spell as strong as dragon scales, you figured out just what your interference had caused, watching those glistening sapphire scales spread along their growing, shifting limbs, long claws growing in, a tail stretching out behind them, horns and wings starting to form

Unfortunately, your friend was still conscious enough to realise it was you that had caused the issue, and they had no qualms about 'punishing' you for it

Increasingly they grew larger and stronger than you, long maw full of sharp fangs and a wicked tongue grinning as they pinned you down under one paw. The tongue that shoved itself inside you was larger than some of the cocks you'd taken before, making you squeal and writhe, body shaking when the edge of claws sent little trickles of blood down your thighs and sides. They pressed you down harder into the floor, growling like a thunderstorm and started fucking their tongue into you. Suddenly, their haunches were over your face, their serpentine body much more flexible and longer than their human one, and your eyes widened at the sight of the cock hanging heavy and flushed, pushing past the split of scales between their legs

Even trying to keep your mouth closed didn't save you, your draconic friend simply smothering you with their cock until you were forced to take a breath, and after letting you get a little air, they took the opportunity to ram their cock straight down your throat. You can't fight back at all as they fill you from both ends, feeling like a toy being hollowed out

Their cock is covered in ridges and the slick confines of your throat drag against them in a way that, from what you can still manage to piece together due to the lack of consistent air, must feel good. They even get their tail wrapped around your throat, making your watering eyes roll up as they tighten their hold

You pass out, of course

Thankfully, they must have pulled out before the lack of air completely did you in (though you have no way to tell, perhaps they could still cast necromantic magic in dragon form?) but you come to in fits and starts, finally piecing enough of yourself together when you're being held in both of their front paws, your hole stretched and leaking around their cock as they bounce you up and down its length

From the way your belly sloshes, and how sticky your legs are (not to mention the rest of you, you assume), you can guess they've already cum in you a few times while you were out cold

When the draconic mage finally finishes with you, you're left slumped over, face half laying in a puddle of cum and you don't think you'll ever not smell like it or if you'll ever taste anything else again. You don't know if you can even talk any more from having your throat so thoroughly fucked. Not to mention if your holes will recover after being stretched out and absolutely ruined on that massive dragon cock...

Of course, leaving them a dragon doesn't seem like a good idea for anyone. Once you get enough energy and brain cells to rub together, and manage to clean up a bit, you get herded over to their spell book. They eventually nudge you and manage to gesture, growl, and, at times, roughly manipulate you, until you can brew a potion to change them back

Once they're back on two legs? 'Well, that was fun, wasn't it?'

[nochepsicodelica]

Please Please 🙏🏾 Write something with Toji and female reader who does that tiktok trend when she’s about to change her clothings but asks her BF (Toji) to step out or look away btw this would not be in early relationship I’d say they been together for a long time 🥹🩷🩷

Hehe, this is silly. I love this! ☺️ Thank you for the idea <3

Suggestive

"This dress or this dress," you say, pushing both options into Toji's face. You laugh when he swats at them.

"Well, if I could see them properly, I might be able to help you," he grumbles.

"So sassy," you say under your breath, rolling your eyes as you pull them back for him to see them more clearly.

"What's that?" He asks, looking over the dresses, at you as he waits for you to repeat yourself.

"I said, this dress or this dress," you repeat, louder, purposely ignoring what he actually wanted to hear.

He scoffs. "So sassy." He looks both dresses up and down and immediately makes his choice. He likes feeling up on your body through silk, so there goes his vote. "That one," he says, pointing at the dark blue, smooth dress.

"Okay," you say, sitting down on the edge of the bed, back turned towards him as you begin to lift your shirt. You can feel Toji's eyes burning a hole into your back, causing you to turn your head to the side to look at him. "Can you... Do you mind?"

"Do I mind what?" He asks, sitting up on the bed so he can watch you closely.

"Can you go outside while I change? Just really quick. It'll be like two minutes," you elaborate.

"Why would I do that?" He asks, almost baffled by this sudden change in you. You've been together for a long time and have gotten so comfortable around each other that the bathroom door isn't locked when either of you showers. He's gone in to piss while you're showering and vice-versa. You even hold conversations during those times, but all of a sudden you don't want him to look at you while you change?

"Can you at least turn around? You don't have to leave, but can you face the wall or something?" You request, pulling your shirt back down to really sell your bit.

"What's up, ma?" He asks, now truly concerned for what's going on in your head for you to suddenly act this way.

"Nothing. Just want a little privacy is all. I'm about to take off my shirt and my shorts. I'm gonna be in just my bra and underwear for a few seconds."

"Yeah, I know, but I don't get why you're trynna hide from me. I've literally seen you naked, countless times. I've touched every part of you. I've been inside you."

"I don't know. I guess I just want a couple minutes to myself. Like I said, it'll be two minutes, then you can look at me."

It's weird. You're acting weird. This has never been an issue. Normally, you want him to watch you. You get a kick out of knowing that he can't keep his hands off of you, even during the brief period where you're indecent while you're changing. Did something happen? Did someone say something to you? He'll kill them.

He'll comply with your wishes, this time, but this little mystery of yours will be cracked by the end of the day.

He drags himself towards you and wraps his arms around you from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder. "You okay?" He asks, watching you closely.

"Yeah, i'm okay," you respond, smiling at him.

"Okay," he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. "I'll be in the living room. Call me back in so I can help you tie your dress." You nod and he releases you before he climbs off the bed. You quickly pull off your shirt and kick off your shorts and when he's at the door, you call for him.

"Wait, Toji!"

He turns around and catches your semi-nude body. "Shit, sorry, doll," he says, turning to face the door.

"Toji, look," you say, your voice going sultry.

"You told me not to. So, can I look at you or not?" He asks, still facing the door.

"Just look, Toji. I'm waiting for you to look, already, so I can get dressed."

He turns around, and immediately takes in the sight of your boobs. "Damn-"

"Why are you looking?!" You ask, stifling your laughter when his shoulders jump.

"Fucking hell," he says, grabbing the doorknob and pulling the door shut on his way out. The second he's gone, you're laughing so hard that you wheeze, but you chase after him. You see him on the couch, the most subtle pout on his face.

"Toji~" you call.

"Nah, I don't wanna get yelled at again."

You giggle as you approach him on the couch, plopping yourself onto his lap and smiling innocently at him. "Look," you chirp, taking a deep breath, puffing out your chest before letting the breath out, to lure his attention to the area.

You certainly managed to grab his attention with the gesture. He sighs, choosing to let your silly act slide, but only because you came with a peace offering.

"Fine," he grumbles. He encircles his arms around your waist and pulls you closer to him, before he buries his face right into your chest.

[primofate]

You, Wriothesley's therapist.

TW: mentions of murder, depression, trauma

Sigewinne takes care of the physical injuries in the Fortress...but that place must have a lot of mental instabilities, trauma, depressive states as well, right?

Enter you who is hired by the Iudex to take frequent visits to the fortress and check on a list of people's well-beings.

The Iudex hired you, not the duke, though it WAS the duke's idea, he didn't think he was fit to choose and hire a "therapist", Neuvillette was probably more adept at that.

On the first day of your job, the list or people to check on is rather extensive and you talk and meet with a lot of new people just on the first day.

That guy who killed his best friend and is haunted by dreams of the scene.

That young lady who has spiralled into depression because she's separated from and unable to see her daughter.

That old man who has anger issues because he just didn't think he had done anything wrong.

It was probably a week or two after you were appointed that you finally met the person in charge of the place. The Duke, as they call him.

He seemed like a pretty strict guy, but when he thanked you for looking after the people here, you thought he wasn't that bad.

"I'm just doing my job,"

"A really hard one at that," he comments.

The next time you see him is months after, but this time he only passes you a glance, and rather quickly strides off to his office.

The next day, he seeks you out and apologizes for it.

"I was...in a bit of a rush,"

You wonder why he even apologizes. "...It's no big deal,"

"...I hope that you know that you're welcome here. I don't think you quite understand how difficult your job is, trying to shoulder everyone's past and fixing their psyche for their future,"

You look up at him, and tilt your head a little, squinting your eyes and trying to get a good read out of him...then it hits you.

The Duke needs therapy too.

"...I think you're a little stressed, your grace. Is there a quiet place where we can comfortably chat in?"

How were you to know it was going to end up in tea time? Yes the duke had issues, some deep seated ones, but not as much as the common folk that you were trying to work with. And yet you found yourself having tea with him even though it wasn't "work" related anymore.

All the two of you talked about were stories of the past, and shared a laugh or two about some silly or outrageous story he or you shared.

Weeks later there came a time when the angry old man you'd been working on had an outburst. He didn't mean to. None of your patients ever mean to, not when they had such big emotions, such big events to get over, such pent up emotions and such deep, deep regrets.

Old man had thrown a wrench at you, he was surprisingly strong, probably from working in the fortress for a while. You were caught off guard, not to mention you weren't even sitting too far away from him. You managed to shield yourself from it, but your arm bruised hours later.

You didn't think it merited a visit to Sigewinne, besides it was nearly home time for you.

"Done for the day?" You bristled a little at the sudden voice of the Duke, not expecting to see anymore of him today.

"Mmhmm," you simply answered his grin. You also didn't think it was something to hide from him. So your bruised arm was there for him to see in plain sight.

His grin disappearing and his eyes narrowing at the sight alerted you that it was perhaps something that you should've kept from him. "Where'd you get that?" He was 1000% sure you didn't have it when you had tea with him at noontime today.

"This...Well...Corrin was...having a particularly bad day," you moved your arm behind your back with a small smile, wanting to brush it off, but Wriothesley puts his hand out in expectation.

"Let me see it,"

For a moment the two of you just stare each other down. You wondering what the big deal was, him not backing down. When you didn't move an inch he gives in and adds the magic word. "Let me see it, please,"

You lift your arm up towards his head with a sigh and he receives it shockingly gently. He inspects it like it's some kind of puzzle he needs to solve, thorough and detailed. "Did you let Sigewinne see?" before you could even reply he adds "How did this even happen? Why was I not told?"

"It's..." You start. How do you explain? That you were supposed to be your patients' safe space. That nothing is supposed to harm them when in a session with you, that everything was in confidentiality. Working with troubled people, things like this were bound to happen, and it was only the first time.

He catches on to it quite quickly. "...It's your job," he finishes for you.

"...Precisely,"

The big sigh he lets out at the same time as releasing your arm has you wondering, really, why he seemed so stressed all over again. Over you.

Did you really not know the reason? You had an inkling why, you were a therapist after all. You got into people's minds for a living and Wriothesley wasn't exactly being subtle, but... you didn't want to assume.

"...How about I come with you next time?" he offers. You smile a little. "I don't think Corrin would be comfortable enough to talk with you hovering around,"

He grumbles something under his breath, like a defeated, stubborn puppy. "He doesn't have to know... I'll stand outside, or something,"

You laugh a little. "...The Iudex already has terms on my working contract when things like this happen. I'm supposed to drop the patient if "physical disputes" happen a total of three times and after three warnings are given."

Wriothesley huffs, though it sounds more like a scoff. "Leave it to him to think of everything. Doesn't seem fair," he moves so that he stands next to you, and places a hand on your upper back, pushing you the slightest bit to walk with him. You notice he's steering you towards the Fortress' infirmary.

"What doesn't seem fair?" You ask with genuine curiosity, not knowing what he was implying.

He's silent only for a beat more, but he doesn't look at you as he answers, only continues walking forward. "That he gets to protect you and I don't,"

You can't mistake the somersault your heart makes, you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling silly.

The Duke needs the occasional therapy.

Or maybe he just needs you.