#I felt possessed when writing this what happened to me???

[captain-huggy-bear]

The Collection

Pairing: Quinn Hughes x Fem!Reader

Warnings: N/A

Summary: You keep every single puck that Quinn has ever given you, he finds your collection that you've been shyly hiding away. It might just be the thing that makes him realise you're the girl he's going to marry.

Notes: I just want a boyfriend who'll give me a puck from every one of his games, is that too much to ask?

Totally happy to take requests/ideas/prompts at the moment in my ask box :)

Writing Masterlist

It starts quite simply enough with an ice hockey game, like most things did with Quinn Hughes. The two of you had known each other for a while, acquaintances through Kiefer, acquaintances who then had become somewhat friends, but by no means were you close. That had changed one afternoon when Quinn had asked if you'd come to watch him play, not watch the team, not watch Kiefer, but watch him. This had seemed quite the clear hint that he was interested, or at least Quinn had considered this a neon flashing sign telling you he was interested. He considered this him shooting his shot.

It later transpired that Quinn considered this your first date, despite the fact he was on the ice and you were beside the penalty box, and that he'd not mentioned once the word date to you, but that's a story for another time.

The important part of this first-date-that-didn't-seem-like-a-first-date was not just that it set in motion your changing relationship status from somewhat friends to boyfriend and girlfriend, but that it was the first time Quinn Hughes ever gave you a puck. Something which to many would seem inconsequential. People got hockey pucks every day, every game. Thousands of fans owned pucks from hockey games, in that sense you were not particularly special.

It had felt so silly, and so girlish at the time, to be excited over an ice hockey puck of all things just because Quinn had tipped it over the glass to you specifically. And it had been for you, the glare he'd sent to those around you who even looked like they might snatch it had been lethal. It had felt even sillier to take that puck, cradle it the entire game, squirrel it all the way home only to write the date and a simple sentence on it in metallic gold pen, 'Quinn asked me to his game'. You're not entirely sure what had possessed you to do it, why it felt like something you needed to record. It had felt so...silly to do but you'd been unable to resist.

You'd squirrelled the puck away in a box in the back of your closet, out of sight of prying eyes, but it hadn't been forgotten by you. In fact, it was seen every single time you went to one of Quinn's games. After each game you'd inevitably come back with a new puck, another one to add to the collection of pucks that you were growing. At first the number was relatively slow to grow, you didn't go to every game, not during the weird stage where Quinn had yet to outright ask you out and you, oblivious as ever didn't realise he'd been trying for weeks.

As Quinn and you began officially dating you found yourself constantly receiving pucks, every game you went to he had a puck for you and at the end of the night you'd write the date and a simple sentence on it of something that had happened that night, something significant in your relationship or simply something significant to you even if it didn't seem significant to anyone else.

Still, the box remained hidden in the back of your closet, something you almost felt too shy to share. Even now that Quinn and you were in a relationship, even now 2 years down the line when he'd asked you to move in with him once your lease was up, it still felt scary to share it. Realistically you knew Quinn wouldn't be put off by it, the sort of sentimental person he was, he'd likely love it. That didn't stop the irrational fear. Especially given how personal some of the pucks were to you. It just felt embarrassing like showing him your blog from when you were thirteen or sharing a sketchbook from when you were twelve.

Moving apartments had been as simple as moving apartments could get, which is to say not simple in the slightest. Moving your things into Quinn's place had felt a little like playing Tetris, trying to find spaces for all your books and knickknacks without completely taking over his space. Trying to find a balance between his things and yours. In that chaos you'd managed to sneak your box of pucks in and to the back of your section of closet, a, in your opinion, perfect hiding spot.

It was not in fact a perfect hiding spot. Perhaps you were naive to think that Quinn wouldn't ever find them even when you shared such close quarters? Or perhaps you'd simply been avoiding the reality, trying to forget about it except in those few moments when you got home from a game before him and rushed to write on your puck and throw it into the box along with its brethren.

Either way, whether naivety or a desire to avoid the issue, it didn't stop you from finding him in that moment sat on the floor of your shared bedroom, looking incredibly cozy in a big hoodie and sweatpants, but pawing through your box that lay in front of him. The cardboard worn and battered from years of use.

"What are doing?" You knew exactly what he was doing, you could see two years worth of pucks piled high in front of him, one currently being turned over in his hands, but the panic seemingly made your brain stop working. Processing the scene felt impossible, you could see what was happening but couldn't quite comprehend it. Quinn was careful with the pucks, almost reverent as he put the one he was currently holding off to the side and reached for another, reading whatever you'd written on it.

"You kept them?" Quinn's voice is quiet, soft, an almost whisper that has you stepping further into the room even as you twist your fingers together nervous of his reaction.

"How...how did you find them?" Perhaps it was silly to think you could keep them hidden, after all you couldn't exactly claim you'd hidden them in some elaborate or overly complicated fashion. They were simply in a ratty old cardboard box in the very back of your half of the closet. It's not like you'd hidden them in some secret compartment.

"I was looking for my ugly Christmas jumper for the party on Sunday...didn't realise you'd kept them all. Why'd you hide them?" He smiles up and over at you from his spot, looking boyish and sweet even as you internally panic about the discovery he's made.

"I...I just...it's embarrassing." You shuffle nearer even as you say it, seeking his reassurance without quite truly realising it. When you're within reach of him, Quinn tugs on your hand to pull you closer from his position on the floor, cross legged and leaning back against the side of the bed.

"Baby, it's not embarrassing, it's sweet...you kept every puck I've ever given you. That's...I love that. C'mere." He tugs you down to the ground, until you're sitting side by the side with him and he can wrap an arm around you. He's warm and smells like the laundry detergent you use, it's calming, reassuring even as you still feel that rush of embarrassment at being found out.

Quinn reaches for a puck he'd put off to the side, it's worn and tarnished, dents from being hit across the ice during warm ups marring it, the logos of Seattle and Vancouver hidden underneath your writing in gold metallic pen.

"See, look, this is the puck I gave you on the day we had our first kiss." You'd written across the front 'Quinn kissed me today!!!!!!!!!' followed by more exclamation marks than was reasonable for anyone to use. You could remember the game clearly, Quinn had asked you to come along, you'd still not quite realised that he was trying to date you and your obliviousness had set a fire underneath him. He'd been so fed up that he'd forgotten what subtlety was. After a hard fought win, he'd rushed towards you in the corridor by the locker room and kissed you in front of half his teammates, all of whom had decided that was a great time to cheer and whistle like they were at a football game. You'd been surprised by it, taken aback, needing a few moments to process before returning the kiss, but you hadn't been unhappy with the sudden turn of events that had you practically unable to form words afterwards.

Quinn's careful as he puts it back before reaching for another puck, rooting around in the box before he pulls out one with the Canuck's orca emblazoned across it. Quinn takes a moment to read it before practically beaming over at you, eyes bright and excited.

"This one is from the game where I took you on the ice after and taught you how to skate," The puck had a creative attempt at drawing yourself and Quinn in ice skates, stick figure form of course, 'Quinn tried to teach me to skate after the game.'

"You mean you tried to teach me how to skate...last I remember I'm still not great..." You tap a nail against the 'tried' in your handwriting and Quinn just grins at you, any lasting embarrassment has started to disappear, and instead you're left with a sense of warmth. That you have all these memories to look back on, moments you might have forgotten about otherwise.

"You're just a work in progress, baby, you can stay upright...most of the time..." You shake your head at him, rolling your eyes as he teases you. It was a well known fact that you were nowhere near as graceful as Quinn was on the ice, having never really ice skated as a child.

You reach into the pile and pick another puck out, a pride night one, reading the caption quickly and very much deciding that this is one Quinn doesn't need to see, "Oh, not, you're not reading this one!"

"Give it here!" You reach away from him, arm as straight as you can get it to hold the puck as far from him as possible. Naturally, it does very little, Quinn and his long arms simply lean over you and pluck the puck from your grip with ridiculous ease.

You groan, pressing your face into his shoulder to hide away from whatever judgement might pass across his face as he reads off the puck, one of the early ones, from before you even realised he wanted you. From the days when you were pining, crushing hard on a man you thought you'd never have.

"Quinn smiled at me during warm ups'...Oh, baby, that's cute," Quinn grasps the nape of your neck in his hand, pulling until you turn to look at him, your cheek still smushed against his shoulder.

"We weren't dating then...and you were always so locked in..." You try to justify it, that back then his smiles were rarer, he was always so focused on the game that a smile was special, that any little interaction felt special because he wasn't yours yet, but it doesn't stop you feeling silly and embarrassed that you'd felt a smile during warm ups was important enough to put on a puck. At the time it had felt like the only thing that mattered, that Quinn had smiled at you, that his focus had been on you.

"I always have a smile for you...even back then, I was always excited when you agreed to come to a game...it made me want to play ten times harder, baby, still does." Quinn can't remember a time when he wasn't excited to see you at a game, to know you were there to support him, even in the early days. If anything the early days were even more exciting, simple because it didn't feel like a given that you'd be there. You weren't his girlfriend back then, you didn't have to be there, he couldn't complain if you weren't. So seeing you had always felt like he'd won a prize because you'd given up your time to watch him play in a freezing cold arena even knowing you'd barely get to talk to him.

"They're silly..." You gesture to the array of pucks, the number feeling ridiculous. How had you managed to collect over 100 pucks? Why had you decided to keep them all?

You stop your self-doubt and wallowing at the feeling of Quinn pressing a kiss to your hair, tugging you into his lap until you're as close as he can get you. Quinn is gentle when he runs his palm from the nape of your neck down to the base of your spine and back again, a soothing rhythm that makes you feel more confident when you look him in the eye.

"They're sweet...this is our entire story in pucks, can't get better than that..." The way he smiles at you is so soft and sweet that you wonder why you were ever scared of him finding them, "Don't stop doing it, baby...Promise me."

"I'll run out of space in my box though..." You look down at the almost full, falling apart cardboard box from one of your deliveries 2 years prior, the corners starting to tear, the free space inside almost non-existent.

"Then I'll get you a bigger box. I want to be 90 years old and have a thousand pucks in a giant box, each with something you thought was special enough to write on it... even if it is..." He picks up a puck squinting at it, "'I made Quinn laugh.' or," Quinn finds another from the pile, "'Quinn said my hair looked pretty', although maybe I need to be setting the bar higher, baby" He teases you, flipping the puck between his fingers with ease.

"I was pining after you, okay, and I wasn't sure you liked me back then!"

"Yeah, I forget, me asking you to come watch me play wasn't clear enough!" Quinn has been adamant for years that it was obvious he was asking you on a date, that you were just oblivious. He was, of course, wrong. Asking someone to come watch them play hockey was not in any way an obvious invite to a date and you refused to take responsibility for the earlier miscommunication which was clearly all his fault.

"It's not clear at all, honey! People ask people to watch them play all the time, it doesn't make it a date!"

"It was so a date!" a date in which you spent near 3 hours in the freezing cold and barely spoke to Quinn...definitely what a date is supposed to be. No wonder he was single for so long when you met him.

"Honestly, I'm starting to think you're lucky I liked you enough to put up with you..."

"...I am lucky...I'm lucky you gave me a chance and that you liked me enough to keep all these pucks and I'm lucky you agreed to move in with me even if you hide pucks in the closet like some weirdo." Quinn grips your hips, squeezing gently, smiling up at you sweetly even as he calls you a weirdo like he's not the one who thought watching him play hockey would be a good first date idea.

"You'll be lucky to sleep in the bed tonight if you keep that up,"

"You'd kick me out of our bed, baby? Really?" Quinn pouts at you as you grin down at him from your perch on his lap, arms wrapping over his shoulders and crossing behind his neck.

"...I'm joking, I can't sleep without your snores." If you could call his barely there noises snores, the lightest of snores, the sort of snores that were almost perfectly rhythmic rather than annoyingly inconsistent. Before Quinn you'd been adamant you couldn't date someone who snored, that it would make it too hard to sleep, now? Now, you genuinely missed them when he was gone. The noise a comforting backing track.

"You should put that on the next puck, 'I can't sleep without Quinn's snores in my ear and his manly arms around me'."

"'Manly arms'?" You pull back from him slightly, brows raised in question and an amused twist to your lips.

"You don't think my arms are manly, baby?" You laugh as Quinn raises one arm, flexing his bicep. You can't even see his muscles underneath his baggy hoodie, too well hidden within his cocoon of comfy cotton and polyester.

"I think you're ridiculous...." You shake your head at him, settling back in against him as he peers down at you with eyes that can only be described as loving, soft around the edges and almost hazy.

"Well, I think I'm in love with you."

You sigh happily as you reach for the box of pucks just behind you. You find a puck you know from sight alone, plucking it from the box and handing it to Quinn in response. You watch him read it, the way his smile turns to a full grin that beams at you like you've given him the moon. When in reality its just a ratty puck that says, 'I think I'm in love with Quinn Hughes'.

[writingdevil]

I LOVED Tongues and Teeth; it's such a good fic! And you said the ParaCold crumbs you sprinkled into it were just for you but they also felt like a gift to meeee :D I LOVE THEM! So may I request anything you might feel like writing for ParaCold?

(AAH!Of course!I love your blog and your ParaCold stuff!I'm so happy that you requested this because now I have an excuse to write about them!Enjoy!)

Cold had a staring problem.

Paranoid knew this because he fucking hated being stared at.

Normal eye contact was fine-Paranoid could deal with that without twitching too much.But he couldn't stand blatant,intense staring,as if somebody was trying to see through his bones and feathers and find all his fears and secrets within him.It made his skin crawl and his mind whirl with an endless variety of creatures that wanted to reach out and snatch him up and into the darkness.

The only person that Paranoid was semi-okay with staring at him,was Hunted,and that was because Hunted was an intense creature with a need to check everyone and make sure they're alright,so Paranoid would just grit his teeth and bare it in those moments.

But any other time,he would feel this intense itching,and a crawling fear would creep up his spine,and all Paranoid would want to do was run to the darkest corner he could find so that nothing could perceive him anymore.

Cold had been staring at him lately.

Anytime Paranoid walked into a room,his feathers would puff up in alarm and his heart would pound, and he would be spinning around like a madman, looking for the culprit.Sometimes it would happen when he was just out for a walk!

It was Cold.It was always Cold.

Paranoid would find the bird in the corner of a room that nobody seemed to care about,and Cold's steel gaze would linger down his body like frost,leaving him shivering yet burning at the same time,and he would just glare at Cold from afar and go somewhere to escape his icy eyes.

As much as it irked Paranoid,he knew that it was just Cold being Cold.Maybe a few months ago,he would've marched up to him and told him to knock it off,but that would've been pointless.

Besides,he knew Cold was just eying up something potentially interesting.He goes through phases of intrigue with each member of the flock from time to time,but that intrigue never lasted long,except for maybe Contrarian,who Paranoid still couldn't quite understand even now.

Cold would lose interest eventually,Hero assured, and Paranoid personally couldn't wait to stop feeling Cold's eyes on him.

A week passed,and he still felt Cold staring at him. Then another week,and Paranoid started to stay in his room longer,as the itching was seriously freaking him out now,and he was losing sleep on top of it.

On the third week,a knock was heard at his door, and he didn't even stop to ask who it was before he opened it without a thought,finding Hunted nervously standing in front of him,switching between glancing down the hall,then back at him.

"Hunted?What's wrong?"Hunted's body straightened up in alertness,as if ready to pounce. He looked at Paranoid for a split second,before doing a double take,eyes wide and twitching. Paranoid was about to ask what was wrong,but then Hunted shook his head,as if to rid himself of his shock.

Paranoid had no idea what to expect,but when Hunted nodded out towards the hallway and said, "Follow,"he thought it best to obey him.

They walked side by side,and Hunted was making an obvious effort to not look at Paranoid for whatever reason,and he explained,"I need your help."Hunted briefly made eye contact with him and added,"No one's in danger."

That,at least,made some of the tension leave Paranoid's body."What's got you so wound up then?"

"It's Cold,"Hunted grumbled,and Paranoid immediately stopped in his tracks.Hunted stopped as well,but continued to calmly explain,"He was out with Contrarian this morning,and now his feathers are a mess.He needs to preen.Now-at once."

Now it was beginning to make sense.Preening was one of the very few non life-threatening activities that Hunted took very seriously.To the point where Contrarian had dubbed him the 'Preening Patrol' because of how serious Hunted took preening.If there was even a feather out of place,Hunted wasn't above chasing someone and pinning them to the ground to take care of their wings.Stubborn learned that the hard way.

Cold,predictably,had no interest in preening,seeing it as a useless waste of time and pointless.Paranoid has never seen him preen his wings,and to his knowledge,Hunted is the only reason his wings looked presentable half the time.

But that still didn't explain why Hunted needed Paranoid."Okay?"he said in confusion,"Then go preen his wings.You've never had a problem with this before."

"I can't,"Hunted insisted,"he won't let me."

Paranoid chuckled."That's never stopped you either."He's had the pleasure of watching Hunted drag an unimpressed Cold back to his room for preening with an iron grip around his wrist,and there would always be a hint of mild frustration on Cold's face everytime,as if this was the last thing he wanted to be doing.But Hunted always got his way when it came to preening.

Right now though,Hunted just looked more and more antsy as he finally looked Paranoid in the eye, who squirmed at the action,and said,"I can't.He said he'll only let you preen him."

Immediately,Paranoid's feathers puffed up,and a heat that could only be from nervous panic took ahold of him in that moment.

What?Him?Why?Why him?It was only ever Hunted that preened Cold-Why did Cold want somebody else now?

It was a trap,Paranoid was sure of it.This was a trap,and Cold was going to do something awful to him-that was what the staring had been all about. Cold was trying to figure out what the most fun and interesting way to torment him would be,and now he found it,and now he was going to do something that would set Paranoid on edge forever.

"No,"the words were barely out of his mouth before Hunted swiftly stood right in front of him,a pleading look in his eyes."Please."

"No.I don't trust this."

"It's bad to have wings as messy as his.What if there's danger?What if his feathers tangle together into tiny knots until he can't fly away,and he's killed instantly?"

Paranoid gritted his teeth,crossing his arms in frustration because he knew Hunted was playing to his sensitivities and fears-because those were all thoughts Paranoid would have.

Still,he turned his head away,not convinced that the danger wasn't Cold in this situation.

But then he saw Hunted lower his head,making himself look smaller as he leaned closer to Paranoid,and he found that he couldn't look away as Hunted stared up at him with big,shiny,and irresistibly adorable eyes."Please,"he once again said,feathers puffing up to make him look less feral, and Paranoid immediately felt his heart melt at the sight.

Damnit.Opportunist taught Hunted well.

He scrunched up his face in confliction,but he couldn't tear his gaze away from Hunted and his adorable face,until he groaned loudly."Ugh!Fine!I'll do it!"he conceded,and Hunted immediately dropped the cute display,going back to calm vigilance,if a bit satisfied with himself.

Paranoid glared at him,pointing a finger to his chest and said,"But if anything happens to me in there,you're gonna be my bodyguard for a whole month,okay?"

Hunted nodded his head solemnly."I will."Then a pause,then Hunted quietly said,"Thank you,"and that made all the annoyance leave Paranoid's body, and he sighed and said,"Yeah.I'll let you know when I'm done."

He walked past Hunted,who gave him a soft forehead bump on his arm as he passed,and Paranoid smiled at the gesture-until he got to Cold's room.

It was as if the very temperature around the room dropped,and Paranoid felt goosebumps shoot up his arms.In the back of his head,whispers of worst case scenarios and flashes of potential horrors flooded his mind,and he took a second to press his palms against his eyes until the whispers shut up-and he felt relatively calm again.

He took a deep breath in,staring at the door.Should he knock?Should he just walk right in?Cold didn't seem like the type to care about locking doors.But what if this was the one place where Cold would lock a door,because it was where Cold felt safest and he didn't want anyone to see him-

"You can come in,you know."

Paranoid yelped at the voice,but it did help stop his mind from spiralling further.He glared through the wooden door,at the insufferable bird on the other side of it,and that last little spark of anger was what pushed him to open the door and walk in.

He took a step into the room,before a full body shiver overtook his body,as he stared into Cold's eyes.

He was sitting on his bed,as if waiting for him, kneeling and facing him with a mask of boredom on his face,although Paranoid did catch a little spark of surprise in his eyes,as if he hadn't expected Paranoid to go through with this.

In a really fucked up way,Paranoid felt like he was back in that cabin,walking down to confront the Nightmare.

Of course,Cold was staring at him,and Paranoid tried to ignore the horrible sensation it brought upon him,by clenching his fists and studying Cold's room.

He hadn't really known what to expect,but a random assortment of items felt the most appropriate for Cold.There were many feathers scattered in every spot in the room,along with books strewn about the floor,and Paranoid recognised a few of them as belonging to Skeptic.

Cold also had many handmade weapons just lying around,which definitely didn't help Paranoid's heart calm down.There was a bow leaning against a wall next to the window in the room,and a pile of both normal and broken arrows,and Paranoid bet if he looked out the window,he'd find a bunch of arrows popping up everywhere.

There was also a bedside table that had five or six handmade knives sat atop of it,and that was when Paranoid became immediately aware of the various scratches and marks on the walls,and even noticed a crimson tint on some of the blades.He forced himself not to dwell on it.

There just seemed to be a lot of miscellaneous items that Cold had tried to amuse himself with, before losing interest and throwing them aside.He felt a draft slip in from one of the wall marks near him,and it merely highlighted how bitterly freezing the room was.

Eventually,his gaze made its way back to Cold,who hadn't taken his eyes off him the entire time-in fact, it only seemed to get more intense.

Paranoid shut the door behind him and said,"I hear you're causing problems for Hunted."

"Am I?"Cold said,then lifting a wing to show off,and Paranoid winced at the state of them.Hunted probably almost lost his mind when Cold refused to let him preen him.

"Why do you want me to preen your wings?You know Hunted's the best at it."

Cold shrugged."Got bored of him doing it.He just focuses on the task and then scurries off.He doesn't even respond when I try to talk to him."

"Probably because you keep trying to convince him that there's danger around every corner."

A quirk of a smile."He's more interesting that way. Jumpy and unpredictable."

"Scaring our most competent flockmate won't bode well when there's an actual threat that needs dealing with."Cold rolled his eyes.

"Anyways,"Paranoid said,"back to the issue at hand-why me?Why won't you let anyone else do it?"Cold shrugged again,then casually replied with,"You were the first one to come to mind."

His heart pounded in dread.Cold was definitely up to something.Cold was absolutely going to try something if Paranoid went through with this.He should leave.He should turn around and just tell Hunted to slam him to the ground and preen him, because there was no way that Paranoid could go through with this.

But then cold air hit his face,and he flinched as his feathers puffed up to keep him warm,and he focused back on Cold,just as he turned around so that his back was facing Paranoid,and he glanced over his shoulder and said,"Well?Aren't you going to start?"

He should leave.He should leave.He should leave.

He found himself walking forward.

Paranoid chalked it up to not wanting to upset Hunted further,as he kept his eyes on Cold's hands, which were politely folded in his lap,but that didn't mean he didn't have a weapon hidden somewhere, if his room was anything to go by.

He kept his fists clenched tight as he slowly walked forward,then sunk his knees into the bed,and Cold sent him one last look before turning to face ahead again.Finally,his skin didn't feel on fire for the time being,and he watched as Cold spread his disastrous mess of wings out for him.Shit,how long was this going to take?Paranoid didn't even take time into account for this.But he's here now,and he has no choice but to go through with it.

He started with the right wing,and they were sitting in silence for a few minutes,but Paranoid knew that wouldn't last.

At some point,he got really stuck into the preening, almost completely forgetting who he was with-until Cold suddenly flapped his wings wildly,sending feathers and dust everywhere,and Paranoid jumped back in shock,putting an arm out to block the rough action.

When Cold decided to stop,Paranoid looked up, only to find that all his hard work had been erased, Cold's wings looking as messy as the beginning.

He glared as he sat up,even though Cold couldn't see him."What the hell was that for?!"Cold shrugged,tossing him a nonchalant look over his shoulder as he said,"I needed to stretch my wings.I can't help that."

"Tell me that next time!"Paranoid ordered,then sighed as he started all over again.But merely five minutes later,Cold's right wing jerked itself out of Paranoid's grip,as if spasming,before settling back down.

"You're doing this on purpose!"

"My wing cramped up.I can't help it."

"You can't seem to help anything.Is this all you really wanted me for?"he asked,spreading his arms out as he said,"Did you just want to piss me off?"

Cold didn't reply for a few seconds,before lowering his head as he said,"You're here to preen my wings." Paranoid glared harder,ignoring how soft those words were spoken.

There was nothing he could do but begin again, quickly this time,so that maybe Cold wouldn't do that again,and in an attempt to distract him, Paranoid asked,"Why don't you like getting your wings preened?You're able to do more things with well-groomed wings,like flying,and I doubt you'd want to give that up."

Cold shrugged."It's too tedious to think about in the long run."Paranoid managed to get a small clump of dirt out of Cold's wings,and he felt the appendages tense up for a second,then relax.

"The only way you can experience things in the present is to not get bogged down by the past or the future."Paranoid flicked the dirt away,having many qualms about that logic,but now wasn't the time to get into that.

Especially when Cold turned to give Paranoid a sharp side eye and say,"Like how you do."

Paranoid froze,fingers tensing up while still buried in dark feathers.Cold kept his eyes locked on him, and then slowly tilted his head back until he was staring at Paranoid upside down,and Paranoid's hands were uselessly floating by Cold's head as his wings moved out of his grip.

The itching came back full force,but he also felt like if he moved,Cold would strike,and have no mercy with him.At this angle,Cold was maybe giving him either an intense look or just a weird,curious look, but Paranoid couldn't focus on anything else other than Cold as he said,"You let silly little things like the past give you fears,and the future give you mistrust.You never let yourself just be in the moment."

"So?"Paranoid managed to grit out,"It's almost impossible for somebody to not be thinking about the past or future,even to a small degree."

"But the amount you let it control you seems unnecessary."

"Unnecessary?"Paranoid repeated in shock and disbelief,letting a sharp laugh out,then retorted with,"If I wasn't constantly thinking about what the princess's next move would be,then we would all have died a lot quicker."

"But we still died,so how useful was it really?"

"Way more than you could ever understand."

Cold's eyes widened for a moment,but Paranoid couldn't tell if it was from shock or amusement.He got his answer when Cold's gaze hardened as he said,"I understand that hiding in your room all day doesn't seem very useful."

Paranoid's fingers curled,as if he could imagine digging them into Cold's skull.

"You think I didn't notice?How you suddenly stopped popping up around the place with your nervous mumbling and twitching?I'm fairly certain that holing up in your room won't help you in case something attacks us,arguably more than unpreened wings."

He noticed.He noticed his absence and had done all this just to drag him out of his room.Sure,Cold hadn't actually done anything yet,but the mere fact that Cold had planned this to get him out of his room was enough to have Paranoid shaking in fear.

Cold's eyes flicked across his face,and Paranoid wasn't sure what he was looking for-but he found it, and straightened back up so quick it made Paranoid flinch.

He found his fingers grazing soft feathers again, and he found himself petting the feathers down softly as a way to bring himself back to reality.He kept doing that until the trembling subsided,and all Paranoid was left with tense anxiety,trying to understand what Cold's goal was here.

He hadn't even realized that he had started on the other wing,until Cold once again flapped his wings aggressively about,undoing all his hard work.

Paranoid tipped his head back and groaned loudly."I was halfway done!Why do you keep doing this?You're just dragging this out longer than it needs to be."Cold's response was a shrug.

Paranoid stared at Cold.Well-the back of Cold-and he was beginning to get sick of this fear having a chokehold on him,so he just sighed and calmly asked,"What do I have to do to get you to stay still?"

That was Paranoid's mistake.

Cold hummed in thought,then glanced back at Paranoid and said,"Let me preen your wings as well."

"What?They don't need to be-"

But when Paranoid glanced down at his own wings, he realized with horror that they did need to be preened.Quite badly,in fact.Did he not preen at all in his bedroom?

Then Paranoid remembered the way Hunted was looking at him as they walked,how he looked nervous and twitchy.It was because Paranoid's wings were a mess.

He tore his gaze away from Cold's intense eyes,his mind screaming,'No!'

He didn't let anyone touch his wings.He preened them himself because he only trusted himself to do it right.The only exception was Hunted,and that was because not letting Hunted preen his flockmates was as cruel as Paranoid not having his chant-and now he was starting to realise that he let Hunted get away with way more than he should.

His eyes kept flicking between Cold and his hands, that were still gently holding his feathers.He couldn't go through with this,right?He couldn't actually let Cold preen him,right?What if this was where he made his awful move?

On top of that,Paranoid had finally gotten his wings to a presentable state.With Hero's help,he managed to stop nervously overpreening,and now Paranoid was actually quite proud of how they looked.Was Cold going to undo all that?

But then again,Cold hadn't actually done anything yet.

He doubted that Cold was going to pluck every feather from him,so whatever he had planned,it was probably just to anger or spook him,and Paranoid found that he could deal with that.He could deal with mind games,no matter how jumpy it made him-the Construct had felt like one big mind game.Besides,he's come this far,so he can't exactly back out now.

As he made himself look Cold in the eyes,he found himself unable to look away,the temperature of the room rising and making Paranoid flush with stress. He nodded his head,and he gulped at the wicked smile Cold sent him.

It was sickening,how Cold didn't move a muscle as he preened his wings again.

Paranoid was finished-all too soon-and he just stared nervously as Cold scooted out of the way for him.He stared at the empty spot for a second, before slowly moving to be in front of Cold.

He twisted his fingers around in his lap,his head ducked low as he waited for whatever Cold had planned.He tried to remain calm,to not think the worst of Cold in this moment.But after a few seconds of nothing but silence,Paranoid tensed up, attempting to turn his head to see what was wrong-when hands suddenly slammed down onto his shoulders.

He screeched in shock,and would've jumped ten feet into the air,if not for the tight grip Cold had on him,claws clutching his shoulders and keeping him on the bed.Paranoid held a hand to his chest, attempting to quell the shaking of his body,when he heard Cold chuckle in soft amusement.

His hand curled into a fist against his pounding heart,but before he could yell at the other-Cold squeezed his shoulders,then began to gently massage them.Paranoid wriggled on the spot,not used to the weird feeling,until he eventually felt the tension in his body leave against his will,and he shut his eyes tight,hating how his body relaxed against the ministrations,until his shoulders slumped and his wings weren't pinned to his back anymore.

He focused on getting his heartbeat under control, as Cold slowly slid his hands from his shoulders down to his back,dragging his claws lightly as he went.Paranoid ignored the shiver that went through him,or how he could still feel the path Cold had made,even when he stopped halfway.

Cold just splayed his palms against his back,and Paranoid sighed,blindly waving an arm back at him. "Are you going to preen me or not?"he asked Impatiently,and Cold just hummed in response, then lightly grazed a finger across his right wing and said,"I've just never seen them like this before. It's a funny sight."Cold finally started to preen his right wing,but it felt like he was barely making an effort to do it right,and then he asked,"Do you think you'll be able to fly?"

Paranoid felt apprehension at the thought of flying, so simply said,"I don't think I'd be very good at it." Cold hummed again,twisting a feather between his thumb and index finger,and said,"That would be an interesting sight to see."

It was at this moment,that Paranoid realised that he hadn't felt that itching sensation once since Cold started preening him,but of course-as soon as he realised that,was when Cold decided to strike.

There was a few seconds of peaceful silence,and Paranoid actually felt like everything was going to be okay,when Cold suddenly leaned forward, pressing his chest against his back,fingers still buried in his feathers-and then Cold rested his chin on top of Paranoid's shoulder,sighing in relief as if this was what he wanted all along.

Paranoid could do nothing but shake in that moment,frozen as the itching came back full force, crawling all over his body like bugs trying to rip his skin open and escape.All he could do to keep it together was stare into the distance,and mutter his chant under his breath as Cold pressed up behind him.

He could feel Cold's icy breath hitting his flushed skin as he asked,"Why were you hiding in your room for days?What scared you that badly?"

Paranoid finally got his nerves under control just enough to hiss out,"You were the reason.You kept staring at me."

"Why was that so bad?"Cold asked,stroking his hand over his wing almost lovingly.Paranoid hated how nice it felt.

He gripped the sheets next to him and quietly snapped,"You know I hate staring.You know I hate the eyes."Cold turned his head slightly to stick his face into Paranoid's neck,and that was also when he fixed a particular feather that had been irritating him,back into place.The whole thing made Paranoid release a breath,but he wasn't sure if it was good or bad.

Cold hummed,and it vibrated through his skin so much that it almost got rid of the the itching.He didn't even notice that he leaned his head back to give Cold more room.

"I apologize,"Cold murmured against his skin,"for frightening you.That wasn't my intention."

"What was,then?"Paranoid whispered,his mind whirling with too many feelings and sensation to string a single coherent sentence together.

Cold leaned back just enough for Paranoid to hear the hidden sincerity in his voice."I just find you interesting.You jump and tremble and fear-but you also snap and stress and protect.You let your mind cage you with your delusions,but you still know exactly what to do to keep the others safe.I remember enjoying our conversation about pain.I kept feeling a need to talk to you again,but I was trying to figure out why."

"Then you locked yourself in your room and everything got so dull again.Nobody to scare and nobody to challenge what I know.I needed a reason to see you again,to understand what I'm feeling."

Paranoid wanted to understand too.His heart was pounding,his feathers were puffing up,and his skin was on fire.All of these were usually signs that something terrible was about to happen-but the itching was gone.Cold was staring at him and the itching was gone.In fact,everything actually felt-quite nice.

The weight of Cold against his back,the sound of his voice so close to him,the gentle grazing of fingers in his wings-it made his mind melt,and it finally shut the whispers up.

Paranoid has never felt relaxed before,but Cold was apparently changing that.

His voice came out breathless and strained as he tried to explain,"I-I just-I thought you would-were going to do something b-bad to me."

"Oh,is that what you believed?"Cold said,not sounding offended in the slightest.In fact,he actually sounded amused.Paranoid could barely focus on his voice as he felt Cold drag a hand over his back.Cold tilted his head an inch closer to whisper,"Do you want to know what I believe?" Paranoid bit his lip,but nodded.

"I believe you think far too much for my liking."

Then Cold dragged his claws down to the base of his back,right in-between his wings,where all of them were extremely sensitive.

Paranoid couldn't stop himself as he arched his back and let a soft moan out,but even though his face was on fire,his head was swimming with pleasure-no worries,no fears,nothing but sweet, sugary pleasure.

He could feel how ragged Cold's breath had gotten, and his voice lowered to a husky tone as he whispered,"I think I like that reaction."

The next thing either of them knew-they were twisting around to meet each other,and crashing their lips against one another.

Everything was hot and desperate,and Paranoid threw his arms around Cold's neck,while Cold kept one hand in his feathers,and the other bringing Paranoid closer,and the feeling of Cold's icy breath in between their lips only urged Paranoid to keep kissing,keep chasing this pleasure,keep chasing Cold-

But then they suddenly parted,and Paranoid panted as Cold gave him a soft and wary look,his voice uncertain and almost scared as he whispered,"Do I still frighten you?"

Paranoid stared at him,really stared at Cold-at the clouded look in his eyes,at how carefully he was holding Paranoid-and no itching feeling overcame him in that moment.

So Paranoid cupped Cold's face and brought him into another searing kiss.

[callmemonster68]

JUNGWON - The Blood Moonlight ( smut )

Y/N’s life changes when she takes a job at a secluded mansion, organizing the library of seven mysterious vampires. With Jungwon, the hottest moments unfold as she faces danger, passion, and a rival clan under the blood moonlight.

Pairing: Jungwon X FemReader

Genre: Obscenity / Dark Fantasy

Note 1: This story will have eight versions, with only the smut section varying. One will involve the group, while the other seven will focus on individual characters.

Warning: graphic description of gore ( bloond/injuries ) explicit content, unprotected sex, suggestive, penetration, explicit language, climax, sex, swearing, loss of virginity, hickeys, messy make-out sessions, dirty talk, compliments, rough sex, touching bruises, handcuffs, chains, sadomasochism , masochism, brands, group sex,double penetration, oral sex, anal sex, masturbation

Note 2: I'm recently starting to write, and English is not my native language. I apologize for any mistakes and hope to improve my writing. Feedback is always welcome! Text not revised!!!

Y/N never imagined her ordinary life in a quiet town would be transformed by fate. It all began when she accepted a job at an old mansion deep in the forest, tasked with caring for the personal library of its new residents. The mansion was home to seven mysterious men, each exuding a dark charm and harboring deep secrets.

Jake, the leader, radiated authority and charisma. Jay, enigmatic and seductive, sparked Y/N’s curiosity with his intense gazes. Jungwon, youthful in appearance but with wisdom spanning ages, had a kindness that contrasted with his true nature. Sunoo’s radiant smile masked a darker side, while Niki, the most playful, teased her with jokes and piercing looks. Sunghoon was cold and reserved, his silent intensity impossible to ignore. Lastly, Heeseung, a mix of sweetness and danger, seemed to be the bridge that united them all.

Over time, Y/N noticed they weren’t merely attractive and mysterious. There was something supernatural about them: the way they always seemed to know what she was thinking, their inhuman speed, and their aversion to sunlight.

When the truth was revealed—that they were vampires hiding from humanity—Y/N should have run. But the connection between her and the seven was irresistible. Each of them seemed to fill a void within her, and their attraction to her was equally overwhelming.

Life in the mansion grew more intimate as they protected and courted her, sharing moments that transcended the physical, diving into deep emotional bonds. Amid their passion, they faced external threats. Rival vampire clans sought Y/N, believing her blood possessed unique properties capable of empowering weaker vampires.

As the bond between the seven and Y/N deepened, the mansion became not just a home but a refuge against outside dangers. They would face threats, battles, and their own conflicted emotions to protect what they had built together.

    ═══════════════════════════════════════

Jungwon was the most cautious when approaching Y/N. He wanted to ensure she felt comfortable with the idea of being with someone like him—someone who carried centuries of history and a darker side. Their first time happened on a quiet night in the mansion's garden. They talked for hours under the stars, and Jungwon confessed he was in love with her. When Y/N took the initiative and kissed him, he responded with tenderness and restrained passion, as if wanting to make that moment last forever. Their first time was filled with gentleness, marked by soft touches and an emotional connection that brought them even closer.

Jungwon slid his fingers over her hand, observing her with a calm intensity that seemed to hold entire universes. Jungwon: "You make me feel human again, Y/N," he whispered, his voice laden with emotion. "After so long in the darkness... you are my light."She smiled, her eyes shining under the moonlight. Y/N: "And you make me feel safe, Jungwon. With you, I can be myself."He leaned in slowly, capturing her lips in a kiss that started soft but quickly deepened, filled with restrained desire. When he pulled away, his eyes locked on hers, warmth evident in his expression. Jungwon: "You have no idea how long I've waited for this... to touch you, to kiss you. I was afraid of scaring you, but now I can’t hold back anymore."Y/N placed her hand on his face, stroking it tenderly. Y/N: "I was never afraid of you, Jungwon. I just want you to show me everything you feel."Her words seemed to shatter the last remnants of his restraint. He pulled her closer, his arms encircling her securely as his lips trailed kisses down her neck. Jungwon: "You are so perfect, Y/N," he murmured against her skin, his voice low and heavy with desire. "Every part of you fascinates me... and tonight, I want to make you feel as special as you are to me."

His touches were gentle but purposeful, every movement showing how much he adored her. He laid her down on the soft grass of the garden, his eyes shining like stars as he gazed at her. Jungwon: "I will never hurt you. I want you to know that," he said, holding her hand. "But I also want you to know how much you make me lose control."When she pulled him closer, Jungwon smiled softly, though there was a growing passion in his gaze. Jungwon: "I will worship you tonight, Y/N. Every moment, every breath of yours will be mine."

And he kept that promise. Every kiss, every touch was filled with care and devotion, making it clear that being with her was more than desire—it was pure, absolute love. From that moment on, every touch, every kiss reflected the devotion he felt. There was no rush, just a genuine desire to fully share the moment.

Jungwon positioned himself over Y/N, their bodies pressed together as they kissed fervently, their hands exploring each other, whispers spilling from both of their lips. Jungwon's hands found the hem of Y/N's dress; he was eager to see her bare, but he wouldn't proceed without her consent. Jungwon: "May I?" he asked. Y/N: "You have my full permission. Do whatever you want with me," she replied with a sweet smile. Jungwon nodded, smiling back, then removed her dress, leaving her only in her panties, already soaked with anticipation. Motivated even more by this, he quickly discarded his own clothes. He placed a tender kiss on her lips before trailing kisses down to her clothed core, sending shivers through Y/N. Grasping the waistband of her panties with both hands, he looked into her eyes for permission before removing them.

Positioning his hardened member at her entrance, he leaned in for another kiss, this one even softer, filled with emotion. Slowly, he entered her, her walls gripping him tightly, eliciting a groan from him during the kiss. Once he was fully inside, he intertwined their hands and began to move—slowly and deeply—his eyes never leaving hers, constant praises spilling from his lips.

As Y/N neared her climax, she wrapped her legs around him, stopping his movements. Y/N: "Please, let me worship you too."With that, Y/N gently flipped him over, changing their position. Now that Y/N was on top, she set the rhythm, her movements fast and intense from the start, drawing the most beautiful expressions and sounds from Jungwon. Y/N: "You’re so beautiful. I can’t stop admiring you."Jungwon, too lost in pleasure to speak, pulled her into a messy kiss, promises and praises spilling from their lips as Y/N rode him mercilessly. Y/N reached her climax first but didn’t slow her movements. Y/N: "Come for me, Jungwon."Jungwon: "I’ll fill you, mark you as mine."

With that, Jungwon released inside her, a breathy moan escaping his lips. Still connected, Y/N rested her head on his chest. As the night melted into the early hours of the morning, Jungwon wrapped her in his arms, murmuring sweet words as the moon continued to illuminate the garden. Jungwon: "Thank you for trusting me," he whispered, kissing her forehead. Y/N smiled, resting her head against his chest, listening to the steady sound of his heart. Y/N: "Always, Jungwon. Always."

    ═══════════════════════════════════════

The nights at the mansion were growing darker. The rival clan hadn’t given up on capturing Y/N, believing her blood to be unique—something that could grant unimaginable power to vampires. Despite all the protection offered by Jake, Jay, Jungwon, Sunoo, Niki, Sunghoon, and Heeseung, an ambush caught them by surprise.

Y/N was gravely wounded during the attack, blood slowly dripping as she collapsed into Jake’s arms. Her eyes filled with tears, but she managed to murmur:

Y/N: "I don’t want to die..."

The mansion fell silent as the seven vampires gathered around her, their faces etched with despair. They knew there was only one way to save her—to turn her into one of them. But it wasn’t a simple process. It wasn’t just about drinking their blood; it was crossing a barrier that would bind their souls forever.

Jake was the first to speak, his voice firm but laden with pain:

Jake: "If we do this, there’s no turning back. You’ll become like us, and the world will never be the same for you."

Fighting against the pain and the darkness threatening to consume her, Y/N looked at each of them.

Y/N: "I trust you. I want to stay with you... forever."

Jay was the first to kneel beside her, his intense gaze locking onto hers. He made a small cut on his wrist, letting the blood drip onto Y/N’s lips. One by one, the others followed the same ritual, each drop of blood becoming part of her.

When it was Heeseung’s turn, the last of them, he hesitated briefly, holding Y/N’s face in his hands.

Heeseung: "This will hurt, but I promise I’ll stay by your side the whole time."

He leaned in to lightly bite her neck, sealing the ritual. The pain was followed by a wave of heat spreading through Y/N’s body, accompanied by a sense of rebirth.

The transformation was quick but intense. Y/N screamed, her body arching as if being ripped from her humanity. Her eyes flew open, glowing a deep red before returning to their natural color. She gasped, feeling every sense heightened: the scent of the mansion’s old wood, the sound of the wind outside, and most of all, the seven hearts around her beating in unison.

She wasn’t alone anymore.

The transformation brought more than power; it brought connection. She could feel their thoughts, emotions, and the depth of love each felt for her. But with that came an intense thirst—a hunger no mortal food could satisfy.

Jake helped her stand, holding her hand firmly.

Jake: "You’re one of us now. Strong, immortal... but it comes at a price. Your thirst will be relentless, and the world will see you as a monster."

Y/N looked at him and the others, her determination growing.

Y/N: "I accept the price. Because with you, I fear nothing."

As the full moon illuminated the mansion, the seven vampires surrounded her, each vowing to protect and guide her in this new existence. They knew the rival clan was still a threat, but now, with Y/N as one of them, their group was complete and more powerful than ever.

Her first hunt that night, guided by Sunoo and Niki, ended with a piercing scream echoing through the forest. The transformation was complete, but something about her blood seemed different. Jungwon, observing her from afar, realized she wasn’t an ordinary vampire. Something in her blood made her a unique predator, and he knew this was just the beginning of something far greater.

What destiny lay ahead now that Y/N had crossed into immortality? No one knew for sure, but the mystery lingered like mist under the moonlight.

Their story, far from over, had only just begun.

✿ If you don't reblog and comment, you can be sure I'll be showing up in your dreams tonight... and I won’t be as sweet as in the story ✿

[littlelamy]

could you do one where rafe and reader have known each other since they were kids. where they played pretend marriage and rafe has always believed it was real even when they were kids and some girl tries to come between that but it doesn’t happen.

love your writing

a/n: thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it! 💗🤍

rafe cameron had always been a part of your life. from the time you were toddlers, running through your backyard with imaginary crowns on your heads, to the moment you both said your pretend vows underneath that old oak tree. you were six, maybe seven, and it had been all fun and games—at least for you. rafe, on the other hand, took the "marriage" very seriously, even as kids. "you're my wife now," he’d say with a grin, tugging you along whenever someone tried to play with you. you always brushed it off as rafe just being rafe.

but now, as you stood at another one of toppers' parties, you noticed something had shifted. maybe it was the way rafe had been more possessive lately, a hand always at your waist, or the way he’d glare at any guy who got too close. then there was jessica—new girl, pretty, and definitely interested in rafe.

“so, are you and rafe, like, together?” she asked you casually one day at school, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. there was something smug in her tone that made your skin crawl.

“we’re just friends,” you said, even though the words felt wrong coming out of your mouth. were you really just friends?

"oh, that’s good to know," jessica had smirked, and you knew she had plans.

tonight, you watched from the corner of the room as she slid up to rafe, placing a hand on his arm and laughing a little too loud at something he said. your stomach twisted, but you told yourself it didn’t matter. you and rafe were just friends—childhood friends with a long history of playing pretend, but that was it. still, your feet started moving before you could stop them, weaving through the crowd toward them.

“hey, rafe,” you called out, slipping into the space between him and jessica like it was the most natural thing in the world. his eyes lit up when he saw you, that same boyish smile he’d always had whenever you were near.

“there you are,” he said, wrapping an arm around your shoulder like it belonged there. and maybe it did.

jessica’s expression faltered for just a second before she plastered on another smile. “oh, hey. i was just telling rafe we should go out sometime. get to know each other better.”

before you could even process her words, rafe chuckled. “yeah, i’m gonna have to pass on that.”

jessica blinked, clearly thrown off. “what? why?”

rafe’s gaze softened as he looked down at you, his hand absentmindedly playing with the ends of your hair. “i’m already married,” he said, his tone light but firm.

you froze, heart pounding. "rafe—"

"we got married when we were seven," he added with a grin, not giving you a chance to finish. "i’ve been off the market since then."

jessica laughed awkwardly, clearly not getting the joke. “wait, you’re serious?”

rafe shrugged, pulling you closer. “dead serious.”

it took everything in you not to laugh at the confused look on jessica’s face, but the truth was, you didn’t know if rafe was actually joking. he looked so calm, so sure of himself, like this was the most natural thing in the world. like he really did believe you were his wife, even now.

“uh, okay. whatever,” jessica muttered, clearly flustered as she backed away, shooting you a look before disappearing into the crowd.

you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, looking up at rafe. “what was that?”

he raised an eyebrow. “what was what?”

“you just told her we were married!”

rafe grinned down at you, his blue eyes sparkling. “because we are. or did you forget?”

you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. “rafe, we were kids. that doesn’t count.”

“it counts to me,” he said, his voice softening. “you promised, remember? you said you’d always be mine.”

your heart skipped a beat. “we were pretending.”

“maybe you were,” he shrugged. “but i wasn’t.”

you stared at him, unsure of what to say. all these years, you thought it was just a silly childhood game, something you both would laugh about when you got older. but rafe... he had never stopped believing it.

“rafe…” you started, but he cut you off, stepping closer so that his forehead nearly touched yours.

“you’re mine,” he whispered, his thumb brushing over your cheek. “and i’m yours. it’s always been that way.”

suddenly, the party seemed to fade away, the sounds of people laughing and music blaring becoming a distant hum. all you could focus on was rafe—his words, his touch, the way he looked at you like you were the only person in the world that mattered.

and maybe you were.

taglist: @namelesslosers @princessslutt @averyoceanblvd @iknowdatsrightbih @starkeysprincess @sixrosberg @anamiad00msday @ivysprophecy @wearemadeofstardust0

[anieswrld]

NASTY DOG !!! -> TOJI.F

warnings: mdni, toji is fucking nasty. mentions of: shooting someone, squirting, sex tapes. he’s kind of an asshole but a nice one? idk this came to me at 3am<3 i’ve been cooking this for days to get me out of my writing slump :)

Toji is a nasty man, that we know. But, my god….he was so fucking nasty. He loved fucking you in the craziest positions just because he loved the way your pussy swallowed his big cock. The first time you two fucked you swore to whatever god was out there that he was gonna split you right in fucking half. 

That was also when he found out you could squirt for him, and oh fuck that sight was like a drug to him. He was addicted to watching you gush all over his face, fingers, and especially his cock. He loved recording it too, you were just so fucking good for him he couldn’t get enough of watching how his dick got lost in your cunt. He reassured he would never dare let anyone feast their eyes on such a sight, if anybody ever caught a glance at one of your home videos he would grab his .44 and shoot them right in the fucking face. 

And you knew it too. And fuck it made you wet. If you two were out and a guy stares at you for a little long you didn't have to look at Toji to know that he subtly flashed his gun that rested in the waistband of his pants. Safe to say the guy fucked off after that. He was possessive but he couldn’t let a pretty little thing like yourself get taken from him, he would one hundred percent crash out a kill a motherfucker if he lost you to some fucking guy. 

“Toji, I’m not gonna let some dude steal me from you, are you fucking stupid?” Is what you’d always tell him and without missing a beat he would always answer with a scoff. “Yeah yeah but if some guy whisked you away I would fucking snipe him.” 

At the end of the day though? You both matched each other's freak so well. You were just as nasty as him in his eyes. I mean why else would you suggest grinding your soaked cunt against his thigh for three hours as foreplay? Why would you beg him to fuck your throat and cum in your mouth? You were just as fucking nasty as him. 

He had you on your side, laid behind you stroking his cock a few times,  his phone was propped up on his dresser, a full view of everything that was happening. He pushed into you without a warning,  a groan leaving his throat. He started  kissing the back of your neck as he began to fuck you with all his strenth. He was making such a mess of you and he just started. 

“Fuck toji-! You’re so deep!” You threw your head back in pure ecstasy, god he fucked you so good, hitting the best spots inside you. You glanced at his phone that was catching all of this on camera, seeing how you were taking his cock. 

“Yeah baby, watch yourself take this dick hm? See how you just- fuck- how you just fucking take it…?” He asks between groans and pants, if Toji wasn’t so egotistical he would be moaning at how good you felt around him. 

“Yeah that’s it, take it, fuck. You love getting fucked huh?” He laughed breathlessly as he thrusted harder into your poor cunt. You just moaned in response as his arm loosely wrapped around your neck, putting you in a loose headlock. 

He tsked as you pulled away from his cock slightly, “Quit runnin’ and take it. Since you wanted to get your shit ruined so badly.”He pulled you back with ease, you were almost sure he was hitting your cervix at this point, you would be sore later but that didn’t matter now. Your eyes rolled back into your head just a moaning, drooling, slutty mess for him. The noises your cunt was making were so filthy, loud squelching filled the room. 

Toji was quick to shush you, laughing breathlessly. “Nuh uh baby, I’m tryna hear this pussy talk right now. So slutty for me huh?” You gripped onto his arm with all the strength you could. At this point you were sure he was gonna fuck you unconscious. You braced yourself for the intense orgasm that was building up, Toji knew it too just from how your moans grew higher in pitch. He knew your body so well, all your tells gave you away in any circumstance.

“You gonna cum for me pretty?” He pants, fucking into you harder. He smiled as he just hear you moan in response. “Haven’t even finished round one and you’re already done for? Damn baby gotta build up your stamina huh?” 

Fuck, you thought to yourself, you were done for.

[icequeenbae]

Initiation (m) | HHJ, YJI

Pairing: Hyunjin x Reader x Jeongin

Werewolf AU, mates, PWP, fluff, smut

Warnings: explicit content, unprotected sex, threesome (duh), oral, mating, knotting, marking, some possessiveness if you squint (softdom!Hyunjin?)

Word Count: ~5k

Summary: You joined Chan’s pack a few months ago and it’s been great so far. But there’s been some frustration accumulating in you for a while that you couldn’t battle on your own. Thankfully, there are young wolves around ready to help you. And they might be even more willing to take care of you than you realize.

© Please do not copy/ post on other platforms without permission.

Author’s note: Okay, I’m finally back with a new story!! I know I’ve been a bit absent lately, but that’s cz I’m writing a whole HHJ novel lmao Not even kidding, that one is gonna be sooo looonggg… But in the meantime, I decided yesterday that I needed to write something short and fun that I can share with you asap, and this happened! I was up till 7 or 8AM writing this, so huge thanks to @tusswrites for helping me edit this so quickly!! Anyways, this is my first Stray Kids story, so I really hope you enjoy it and give me some feedback~ Thank you, sweethearts <3

Network Tags: @kvanity-main  @ksmutsociety

You’d been feeling weird lately.

It was a feeling that washed over you from time to time, causing you discomfort, yet you still couldn’t place it. You tried to analyze the situation you were in when it appeared and figure out where it was coming from or what it was in general, but all your efforts were in vain. Something made you feel strange, and you didn’t know what or why.

It was definitely not the life with your new pack. You joined it 6 months ago after Chan’s vehement coaxing. You’d known him even before he became the alpha of his own pack, but after wandering around the world for several years and coming back to settle down, you found the citylife to be quite dangerous for a lone she-wolf. You didn’t want to admit that you needed protection as you were more than capable of fighting your own fights, but after being constantly harassed on the daily by cocky members of various local packs, you didn’t take much convincing. Chan was a good guy and a great laid-back leader, so you knew he didn’t offer this with any ulterior motive in mind. You’d have probably joined his pack even faster if not for one thing – it was full of men. And although you had no issues with young wolves with manners, being the only female wolf in the pack sounded questionable.

This made your mind blow up with questions and assumptions. What if they start harassing you as well? Chan would probably not allow that. What if they get overly possessive over you? You would probably not allow that either. What if you cannot handle living in the same space as them without any privacy? Well, you could always move back out… With the alpha’s permission.

Regardless of your reservations, Chan seemed relentless in his attempts to lure you in. You weren’t too surprised by that. There was a bond that alphas shared with their pack members. Whenever you meet your alpha, you feel like you are on the same wavelength. Some alphas are so in-tune with their current or potential packmates that they can even sense it when they meet their future mate. They do not know whose mate it is necessarily, but they can sense that it might be one. Not every alpha is capable of that though, although most of them can at least tell whether you are a good fit for their pack or not. Chan was quick to pass his judgement and inform you with all sincerity that you definitely belonged with his pack and had to trust his gut on this.

So, you did.

And you were completely stunned with the way it had turned out. You were guarded and cautious when you first joined. But the guys were actually so friendly and so welcoming that you felt at home mere days later. It was like they were your little brothers, whom you’d been living with your entire life. Sure, they were a bit awkward with you at first, but after the adaptation period was over, you were all set with your new family.

They took care of you, and you cared for them as well. You helped Minho and Yongbok cook dinner, bought art supplies for Hyunjin, scolded Changbin whenever he was too harsh on Han and helped them make up, looked after the maknaes and made sure they were not getting into trouble. You were also giving Chan a piece of your mind whenever he pulled all-nighters, too busy with his work, and then snapped at his poor pack members for interacting with him at the wrong time. At some point you managed to have him come back to his senses and remember to get at least 5 hours of sleep every night to prevent himself from turning into a wild beast.

Everything was going great until last week, when you finally noticed that the mood swings that bothered you for a few months now, were actually getting worse. You blamed it on the insomnia that you’d been suffering from lately. After all, you’d seen Chan becoming overly sensitive to everything after being sleep-deprived, but you had no idea what was making you so stressed. You had no issues within the pack, and your life outside was also pretty solid too. Now that you had your brothers around, no one was brave enough to walk up to you and challenge your bodily integrity unless they wanted to compromise their own. Despite you being older, your brothers took your protection seriously. When you joining the pack was not that widely known, there had been a few incidents that lead to physical altercations. And despite thinking that being told to sit down and let the boys handle this shit would make you angry, you actually felt giddy instead. They didn’t belittle your abilities in any way, but each and every one of them was the first in line to protect your honor. You appreciated their brotherly love towards you more than you’d care to admit. So much so, that you didn’t say anything to them, when their extensive protection made most wolves steer clear of you whenever they met you out and about.

And even as your behavior started to shift lately, they quickly picked up on that too. Yongbok and Changbin kept asking you if anything had happened. Minho made your favorite spicy pasta, which almost no one could handle apart from you two, and maybe Jeongin as well. Seungmin and Han tried to make you laugh with their silly antics. And yet, your bad mood did not lift for long.

Today you stayed home with Hyunjin, and he asked if you wanted to get some fresh air and join him on his way to a new art exhibition at the gallery downtown. You latched onto this opportunity to shake the dust off of yourself and maybe alter your mood with the help of this public outing, hoping that it might bring you some welcomed attention. With that in mind, you’d put a little too much effort into dressing up, which you realized only when your companion gave you a puzzled onceover. But when you asked if you looked inappropriate, he shook his head. Hyunjin wasn’t a man of many words most of the time, he only became talkative whenever he was drunk or simply in the mood for long chats. After a short ‘you look beautiful’ that made you feel a ping of this confusing emotional response inside you, he motioned for you to follow him outside.

However, after a few hours strutting from one installation to another in your incredibly unreasonable high heels, you became tired and capricious. To the point when you almost cried when Hyunjin sat you down on the bench outside one of the exhibition halls and disappeared for a few minutes, only to return with a pair of flat slippers. You whined that there was no way you would be seen next to him looking this ugly, and he hummed, crouching down in front of you and removing your shoes at once. He rummaged through his Versace bag and got a band-aid out, plastering it over an aching spot on your foot. While you were watching him, barely containing a shiver from the tickle of his breathing over your knee, he carefully inserted your feet into the slippers and grabbed your shoes in one hand, offering you to hold onto his arm. When you stood up, he couldn’t help but crack a dimpled smile, patting your head affectionately. After walking around in your insane high heels for hours, you now acutely felt how small you were next to him. It was a thought that made you flustered for no reason, so you frowned and made your way to the elevator, trying to seem like you were in a hurry to get back home.

A car ride home was unbearable. Your feelings were all over the place again. One moment you were grateful to Hyunjin for his attentiveness, the other you were mad at him for acting like your partner when he clearly wasn’t, and a second later you would be on the verge of crying for having no prospects of finding one either. Having no mate at your age was bothering you so much more than it should’ve, and at some point you managed to convince yourself that you didn’t care if you missed him earlier in life. Shit happens, you thought. Not everyone spent their lives with their mates, and even if you didn’t want to settle for less, at some point you might have to. And while considering this dreadful future, you had even decided that you would start going out with humans later. Dating a wolf who could very well meet their mate months or years down the line and becoming tossed to the side would be a traumatizing experience, so you vowed to avoid it at all costs. Even if your love life would be frowned upon by most other wolves, who did not consider humans to be valid partners.

These thoughts did not add positivity to your attitude, and by the time you came home, your mood was so sour that you barely acknowledged Jeongin in the living room, heading straight to the bathroom on your floor. You threw your clothes around as you got them off and removed your jewelry. Even wiping your makeup off was a chore that made you angry, so you stepped into the water almost boiling with frustration.

Taking an entire hour to finish your routine, you relocated to your room, throwing your pajamas on before crawling under the blanket. It was way too early to go to bed, but you hated the idea of being outside of your room when you had no grip on your emotions whatsoever. Snapping at your brothers, who were innocent in the matter, was not an option you were willing to explore. And it was not their fault that these thoughts and feelings suddenly came over you at random. So you stayed in, huffing and puffing for at least another half an hour, until you were interrupted by a knock on your door.

‘Can I come in?’ You heard Hyunjin ask from the other side of the door.

You didn’t want him to, but you also didn’t want to turn him away.

‘Come in.’

He slowly opened it, peeking inside before seeping fully into your room. His head cocked to the side as he took in your state.

‘Are you feeling well?’ He asked, approaching you carefully.

You shrugged, mumbling that you were fine. His nose twitched as he clearly checked if anything would be given away by your scent.

‘Are you sure?’ He asked, taking a seat on your bed.

It wasn’t unusual, the closeness he allowed himself, yet it made you even more unstable than you were before.

‘I don’t know, Jinnie.’ You whined, kicking the blanket up with one foot. ‘I’m a mess.’

He furrowed his thick dark eyebrows.

‘What do you mean?’

You pouted, feeling the frustration rise again.

‘I don’t know…’ You repeated, sounding like you were about to cry now.

On a whim, you scooted closer to him and threw yourself forward to hug him. Overcoming the initial shock, Hyunjin reciprocated with a tight embrace. His hands were gently patting your back, and it seemed like he had nothing against the physical contact.

‘I’m sorry,’ you muttered into his collarbone and tried to pry yourself away from him. ‘I know you don’t like skinship that much-’

‘Don’t worry about that, noona.’ He cut you off, dragging you back into himself.

You sat like that for a few minutes, and you calmed down a little, too focused on his heartbeat under your ear. There was also something else that you’d noticed.

‘Jinnie,’ you inhaled deeply. ‘You smell… nice.’

He froze, still holding you in his arms, and his Adam’s apple bobbing indicated that he was in a state of utter disarray.

‘What do you-’

The door into your room flew open, and Jeongin invited himself in.

‘Why are you making a cuddle nest without me? You know I am the best candidate to make you feel better, noona!’

He jumped on the bed, making you huff in amusement.

‘See? You’re already smiling.’ He wrapped his arms around your bicep and continued. ‘Let go of this hyung, I am all you need.’

Hyunjin raised his eyebrow, likely feeling competitive after this comment.

And for the next ten minutes, they were busy fighting for your attention.

‘It must’ve been you,’ Jeongin nagged at the older wolf. ‘She spent the whole day with you and came back angry. I am pretty sure…’

‘It’s not. I’ve been in a weird mood lately, that’s all.’

‘Oh?’ He perked up from your thigh, where he’d been resting his head. ‘Weird how? Don’t tell me-’

‘What?’ You and Hyunjin asked in unison.

‘Are you like… frustrated?’

‘I am,’ you nodded, misunderstanding his question.

‘You know what I mean? Like… sexually?’

At this, you opened your mouth, completely offended by the suggestion.

‘What the hell?’ You shoved him in the shoulder, trying to get him off of your thigh.

‘No, but that would be so great,’ he told you despite the commotion. ‘Because it’s not that hard to solve.’

‘Yeah right.’ You grumbled, making both wolves look at you. ‘What? I am not admitting to anything!’

‘You don’t have to, my face is inches away from the only thing about you that is truthful right now,’ the youngest noted without a care.

Hissing, you shoved him off, pulling the blanket over your knees again.

‘What? It’s only the truth.’ He rolled his eyes at your reaction. ‘Just get someone to fuck you and you’ll be alright.’

You sighed.

‘Yeah, ‘cause that’s so easy.’

Jeongin sat up.

‘What do you mean? If it’s not easy for you, who’s it easy for?’

‘Someone who doesn’t have a few wolf brothers to rip into anyone looking their way?’

‘We only rip into assholes who bother you,’ Hyunjin interjected.

‘Right. And the non-assholes watch that and think, ‘oh great, I’d love to hit that after they’re done with the other guy’. Sure.’

‘If they think like that they don’t need to be hitting that anyway.’ He replied curtly, and you pouted again.

‘Remind me again why you were surprised I cannot get laid?’

‘You shouldn’t give yourself over to guys like that, noona.’ Hyunjin pressed.

‘Agreed. You could always ask someone else for help. Like, I’d definitely help the hell out of you right now,’ Jeongin said, reaching your thigh with his hand and squeezing it.

‘Then you better do that, because I am already planning to get a tinder account and grab me some human!’ You suddenly confessed, startling both of the wolves.

‘You’re- what??’ Hyunjin gasped in your ear.

‘I didn’t think you were actually that desperate, noona…’ Jeongin muttered, licking his lips. ‘But I can deliver on my offer, if you really mean it.’

You swallowed under the scrutiny of the two pairs of eyes, and leaned back into Hyunjin, suddenly feeling weak from the stress of it. In any other state you might’ve been able to think it through and decline. But right now you suddenly had no care for the consequences of your actions.

‘Do it.’ You exhaled, watching the youngest wolf purse his lips to contain his excitement.

Before you allowed yourself to think about the current chain of events, you grabbed Hyunjin’s arms and wrapped them tighter around your frame. For some reason, you didn’t want him to go either.

‘Are you sure about this?’ He asked in your ear, and you shivered from his hot breath.

You turned to give him a reassuring nod.

‘It’s easy to give into temptation when you’re vulnerable. We can’t take advantage of that,’ he continued, brushing a strand of your hair to the side.

You felt overwhelmed by his comment, but then the youngest inserted himself into this exchange.

‘Are you that scared of Chan?’ He chuckled.

‘Chan? What does he have to do with anything?’ You asked in confusion, while they were throwing daggers at each other with their eyes.

‘Because hyung told us in graphic terms that he’d rip our faces off if we tried to coerce you into something like that.’

‘What the hell??’

‘My thoughts exactly. I think you’re the one coercing me into getting down for you, noona,’ he smiled, playing with the hem of your pajama shorts.

‘Why would he say that though?’ You asked Hyunjin this time.

‘I don’t know. I guess he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable around us?’

That made sense, sort of. But you weren’t sure if that was simply due to your reluctance about joining an all-male pack, or if there was something else going on. Jeongin’s hand dipping between your thighs disrupted your already flailing thought process.

Hyunjin growled lowly, warning him, and he looked at you for approval.

‘Take them off,’ you told him, and he smiled, tugging your shorts off immediately.

‘Noona…’ Hyunjin protested hoarsely, but you squeezed his forearm.

‘I am the one initiating this. Forget whatever Chan told you.’

‘It’s not about what-’

‘I want you here. Do you want to stay?’ You asked him, and his grip on you tightened, as if you could kick him out for real.

‘Yes.’

‘Then stop nagging. And kiss me.’

He looked down at your mouth and swallowed, leaning in.

‘Shit noona, you are soaked…’ The youngest distracted both of you with his eagerness. ‘Do you always wear such skimpy underwear at home? I could fuck you without taking it off.’

Before you answered, he pulled the item of clothing to the side and ran two fingers between your wet folds. Without wasting anymore time for chitchat, he leaned in, attaching his lips to your pussy.

‘Ah fuck!’ You jolted, steadied by the arms around you.

In fact, Hyunjin’s iron hold made it even more egregious.

Jeongin made it known that he was enjoying himself, humming into you as he licked and sucked your sensitive flesh. You could feel his spit drip down to your hole, and clenched around nothing, clawing at Hyunjin’s forearm.

‘Innie, shit…’ You cursed, looking down at his fluffy head between your legs.

He seemed pleased by the feedback he was receiving, so he started alternating between various techniques. When he switched to quick sharp licks up your slit, you started shaking.

You threw your head back, bumping into Hyunjin’s shoulder. He was still tense, and you turned your head to inhale his familiar scent that calmed you down before.

‘Jinnie, please touch me,’ you begged, trying to move one of his hands onto your breast.

His nose brushed against yours, and you felt his plush lips connect with the corner of your mouth. Grabbing him by the hair on the back of his head, you pushed him closer. He growled, mouth crashing on yours, and slipped his tongue inside it aggressively. When you felt his hand sneak under your pajama top to grab your boob, you whimpered loudly. His other hand pressed down on your belly, and Jeongin suddenly flicked your clit with his tongue, sucking it into his mouth harshly.

You cried out, trembling in Hyunjin’s grasp. You were too sensitive to withstand such an attack.

‘Innie, don’t stop- I’m-’ You sobbed, grabbing onto Hyunjin’s hand over your breast. ‘I’m cumming-’

The older one bit onto your ear gently before giving it a short lick, and your eyes rolled back into your head. Jeongin was still assaulting your nub, and your long animalistic wail was probably heard outside.

You were still breathless when you felt someone lift your hips, removing your underwear.

‘Give her a break,’ you heard Hyunjin say sternly.

You squeezed his bicep, causing him to divert his attention.

‘Don’t,’ you shook your head weakly. ‘I want to.’

Just a moment later, you felt Jeongin prod at your entrance. You whined as he inserted himself into you, barely having enough time to adjust before he began rutting into you.

‘Fuck, noona… You have a- a perfect pussy,’ he noted, sounding strained. ‘Ah shit-’

Despite being just a year apart with Hyunjin, Innie was still quite young and impressionable. You could tell how overly excited and aroused he got from going down on you, and you felt it in his abrupt thrusts that he was not going to last at all. But you didn’t mind.

You panted, the aftershocks of your previous release rekindling by the continuous slapping of skin against your pussy, and Jeongin began fucking you even harder.

But at this point you got too distracted by the heavy breathing in your ear. Hyunjin wasn’t even the one inside you, and yet, he was still the one making you go insane. You wanted to cry from his proximity, because he was close but still not close enough.

You squeezed his thigh and moved your palm to the side, finding his long, hard cock.

‘Jinnie…’ You mumbled, frantically shoving your hand down his pants.

His hips jerked forward as you grabbed his thick flesh.

You desperately, desperately wanted him inside. And he knew.

‘Don’t cum inside her,’ he told the younger one, who was definitely close to his orgasm, and shoved him with his foot.

You felt him slip out, cursing his hyung, who quickly flipped you around. Jeongin tugged your hips up to put you on all fours, and shoved himself inside you again. Your face was pressed to Hyunjin’s flexing abs while he fucked you from behind feverishly. With all the thoughts vanishing from your dazed brain, you resorted to kissing and licking the skin over his taut stomach and using your nails to leave shallow marks as he stroked your head slowly. The maknae’s fingers dug deeper into the supple flesh of your thighs as he came to the verge of his release.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Hyunjin suddenly growled, loud and clear this time. ‘Get your ass over there and watch.’

Your skin was all covered in goosebumps from the commanding tone of his voice. You wanted him to use it on you as well, just so that you could defy him. Fuck around and find out.

But Jeongin was a good boy, so he did as he was told. As soon as he slipped out, you got pulled up the bed again. Hyunjin put almost his entire weight onto your back, making your elbows and knees give out. That seemed to be exactly what he wanted, and his dick slipped into your tight hole easily while you were lying flat on the bed. You moaned as his body moved in a wave-like motion, merging with yours completely. It wasn’t clear whether Hyunjin was that much bigger than Jeongin, or it was the position adding to it, but you felt so full that it made your pussy quiver helplessly.

‘Please, Jinnie…’ You whined, as his hips continued to snap forward. ‘Make me cum…’

He quickly pulled out, rolling you over like a ragdoll, and folded you in half, continuing to pound you into the mattress. You heard Jeongin moan from his spot on the chair, where he was watching you from. But you were too engaged to even try and pay attention to him, although you were sure that he was jerking himself off right now.

Hyunjin was destroying your pussy with methodical slaps, and you felt your big orgasm build again. You were going to cum so hard, you just knew it.

‘Mhm, deeper…’ You pleaded, your vision blurring as he hit so deep that your pleasure was beginning to hurt.

‘Do you want- want me to- want my cum?’ He asked, not slowing down at all.

‘Fuck, Jinnie…’

You thrashed underneath him, causing him to let go of your legs, unfolding you, and lie on top of you. His pelvis snapped back-and-forth fluidly, and you made eye contact, catching his feral gaze that likely mirrored your own.

‘Fill me…’ You choked on your words. ‘Fuck, I want it- inside me-’

As your orgasm washed over your body, you completely lost it. All control over your actions slipped away from you, and you bit into his flesh that was closest to you, piercing his bicep with your teeth. You pulled back almost immediately, but before you could say anything, Hyunjin reciprocated, grabbing your arm and sinking his own teeth into your wrist.

With the added tinge of pain, you were still shaking violently when his cum flooded your insides. You wailed and screamed every time he thrusted, with his skin slapping against yours, until his cum started gushing out of you. When he stilled, you were on the verge of losing consciousness. The tightness in your hole kept you there, and you swallowed the salty taste of his blood, slowly realizing what just happened.

‘Dammit, hyung! You knotted her?’ You heard Jeongin come to his senses before you two.

‘Fuck off.’

Hyunjin didn’t sound like he’d let anyone mess with him right now, and it sent a tight pulse through your core. He watched Jeongin flee the room as he ran his tongue over his teeth, obviously aware of your body’s reactions to him. Licking his bloody red lips, he sobered himself up.

‘You fucking marked me,’ he told you, as if you didn’t already know.

‘I didn’t- didn’t mean to-’ You tried to justify breathlessly, fidgeting slightly. ‘It just felt so good that I…’

‘Stop talking. I can’t move, and you make me want to rip into you all over again.’

You pursed your lips as your pussy quivered around his rock hard knot once more, making your eyes tear up. Everything about him was sending you into overdrive, and you had no idea what to do with yourself. It suddenly dawned on you that this was exactly what you wanted this entire time, and you had no idea that it was making you frustrated. Not even realizing that your mate was right next door, quite literally. You could’ve had him months ago, but you were too preoccupied by other things in life like trying to build a family bond with your new pack to see what fell right into your lap, quite literally. The only wolf you needed.

‘J-Jinnie…’

His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration as he held his hips steady.

‘Baby. If you move even an inch-’ He sighed, pressing his forehead to yours. ‘If you cum again, it will only prolong this…’

‘But I- I want to!’ You whined, wiggling your hips. ‘Please, it’s so big…’

‘No.’

‘Hyunjin!’

‘I said no.’

The authority in his voice made your toes curl.

‘Fuck,’ he growled, jerking forward involuntarily as he felt you fall apart again. ‘You’re not gonna stop until you get yourself pregnant, are you?’

You sobbed, unable to snatch yourself out of the excruciatingly long orgasm.

Hyunjin pressed as deep into you as he could, trying to hold you completely still, and the tip of his cock brushed against your cervix. At this point you simply blacked out from the intensity of the pleasure, regaining your perception of reality only when your partner’s girth finally began deflating in your overstimulated pussy.

‘Are you back?’ He asked, voice a bit gruff but not low and menacing anymore.

It made warmth spread out in your chest as you nodded.

‘Does anything hurt?’

You shook your head first, and then nodded after noticing his expression.

‘It must hurt. I told you not to move, baby.’ Although he was admonishing you, it didn’t stop him from pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. ‘Give me a couple more minutes and it’ll be done.’

‘Okay,’ you mumbled, not that eager to let him go – he was your newly found mate, after all.

But your fragile intimacy was crushed by the loud voices in the hallway.

‘What the fuck did I tell you all about doing shit like that to her? I don’t care who-’

Chan burst through the door, stopping in his tracks.

‘Are you still going at it?!’ He asked, not fazed by the fact that Hyunjin was naked and on top of you.

After he tugged the blanket up to cover your bodies fully and turned to face his alpha, Chan gasped.

‘Don’t tell me- it’s you, isn’t it?? She’s your mate, right?’ He sounded more excited than angry now. ‘I knew it! I told you that you absolutely had to join-’

‘Hyung,’ Hyunjin cleared his throat, not even trying to sound apologetic. ‘We’re otherwise preoccupied, as you might see.’

Thankfully, he couldn’t see under the covers, and your mate’s body also shielded yours from the other wolf’s eyes, but you were still dying of embarrassment.

‘Oh- right. Wait, are you locked- You know what, nevermind. Keep going. I mean, finish up. I mean-’

‘Oh gosh, Chanie hyung!’ Yongbok groaned, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging him into the hallway before shutting the door. ‘Let them be.’

As their voices became less and less distinguishable, Hyunjin looked into your eyes, seemingly reading your thoughts.

‘No, he’s never going to shut up about it,’ he replied before you asked. ‘But I’m still grateful that he convinced you to join the pack. Thank you for taking him up on his offer.’

His last words made him tense, thinking back to someone else you took up on his offer.

‘You’re going to snap Innie’s neck, aren’t you?’

‘You’re fucking right.’

‘Jinnie…’

Masterlist

A/N: Ahhh, this hot mess of a trio... I hope you enjoyed this little fun ride! Please comment and reblog, I really appreciate your feedback💜 And as usual, my asks are open~

[scarletcomalies]

Imagine Natasha, your mom's best friend, who accepted the task of teaching you self-defense classes. However, in just a few sessions, she was also able to tame your arrogant attitude.

Word count: 1,483

Warnings: Theft, mention of knives and guns, brat reader. 18+ content, degrading, restraint, slight bit of dub-con, Nat has a penis, daddy kink, unprotected sex, breeding.

A/N: Not sure how drabbles work, but I was bored at a birthday party, and I felt like writing a little something hehe.

It all started when a thief had taken your handpurse from you and ran away quickly.

You barely felt it being snatched from you, and as you turned around, you realized that the thief was already at a considerable distance, so you opted to simply mutter a curse under your breath and continue on your way.

The thief was going to be disappointed when he sees its contents anyway, and you weren't going to run in heels for lipstick, a crumpled five dollar bill and your student ID.

Although it wasn't a particularly shocking event, your mother, with her tendency toward overprotectiveness, was convinced that this event had irreversibly scarred you. As a result, she decided to ask her best friend, Natasha Romanoff, to teach you self-defense classes.

From the beginning, you made clear your disinterest in attending. You arrived intentionally late for every session, and at the redhead's scoldings, you would simply roll your eyes and dismiss her words with disdain. During training, you often interrupted her instructions with snide remarks, and refused to follow her directions, preferring to improvise moves that lacked technique. There was something magnetic in her determination and in the way her green eyes flashed with frustration that made you purposefully act even more insufferable than usual. You loved to see it.

During lessons, there were times when she would restrain you from behind so that you would repeat the technique she had taught you, and you could feel a bulge in her pants rubbing against your ass. It was such a yearning feeling, that you would pretend to do it all wrong, so that she would make you repeat it, and in that way, prolong the contact.

"Your mom just wants to protect you, you know?" Natasha remarked, once another not-so-successful session was over.

You were so exhausted, you preferred to sit on the floor with your legs crossed rather than even get up to help Natasha put the equipment away.

"Come on," you scoffed from your spot. "The thief barely touched me. He just took my handpurse and left."

"Fortunately," Natasha replied. "Imagine if he'd had a knife, or worse, a gun. Imagine if you had been alone, at night."

She took your silence as if you didn't really care to understand your mother's point of view, but in reality, you were reflecting. She just wanted you to know how to take care of yourself, in case something worse than that happened. And Natasha had been so nice and patient to you.

But before you could respond, she spoke up, "What am I bothering to convince you for? You probably are so selfish, that you'd let someone stab you just to worry your poor mother."

You weren't sure if her words had hurt or offended you, as perhaps you had taken your attitude to such an extreme that you had actually caused her to have a twisted perception of you. It was true that you possessed certain difficult qualities, but you were not evil. Sometimes you simply felt that your mother's overprotection was excessive, and that made you more irritable than usual.

What you said next was the result of not having slept at all the night before, for you had been studying intensely for an exam. Despite all the sleeplessness, you didn't manage to answer it as you expected, leaving many questions blank. All that you had accumulated, added to her hurtful words, led you to say the following...

"And you probably have a tiny dick," you snapped. "And maybe that's why you're bitter and miserable, because no one wants you."

Natasha was silent for a moment, too peacefully that it was scary, but her intense, darkened eyes were the only thing that allowed you to realize that she was indeed impacted by your words.

"Dare to say that again?" She challenged you, the tension in the atmosphere becoming more palpable every second.

"No one wants a woman with a small dick," you crossed your arms over your chest, arching your eyebrow in that defiant manner she was already more than sick of.

Natasha began to laugh, but it wasn't the sarcastic kind of laugh, no, it was one that was beginning to terrify you and hindering your ability to maintain your composure.

Natasha approached you with firm steps, her commanding presence filling the space between you both. She was so close that you could watch her green orbes, deep and piercing, burning with such intensity that you felt that at any moment, she was going to set the whole room on fire.

She simply pulled down her pants and boxers at the same time, at the level of her thighs, and seeing the massive size of her member, made you swallow your words.

"Is this a small dick for you?" She asked, seemingly satisfied at your shocked expression.

And as if the situation wasn't humiliating enough, Natasha used a quick and precise maneuver, where she grabbed your shoulders and, in an instant, had you face down on the floor. She proceeded to restrain your wrists against the small of your back, and by straddling the back of your legs, she prevented any movement from them as well.

"Come on, defend yourself like I taught you," she groaned, pressing you harder against the cold floor.

You tried to free yourself from her grip, but every move you made only brought you more pain, because Natasha, with her keen perception, detected every attempt to escape and prevented it with ease, adjusting her grip to make you feel even more trapped.

The whimpers you emanated were so delightful to her ears, making her cock grow more erect. She didn't know who was suffering the most, whether she for not filling your bratty hole right there, or you, who were being physically and verbally degraded.

"That's what I thought," she chuckled, grabbing the shaft of her cock and smacking it softly against your covered ass.

With one hand, albeit clumsily, she managed to pull down your pants and panties just like she did a few moments ago, and released your wrists so that, with her two hands, she held your waist and positioned you on all fours so firmly that you felt as if you had no control over your own body.

"Don't think I haven't noticed how you pretend to be dumber than you are, just to feel my cock against you," she remarked. Obviously, she was able to understand the workings of incredibly complex, criminal and dangerous minds, how could she not detect yours? A clueless, spoiled, college student. "You probably said that just so you could see it, hm? So desperate for Daddy's cock."

But it was very double standards on her part, calling you desperate when she always ended up in the training facility bathrooms after you left, grunting your name between longing gasps as she pleasured herself.

She ran the tip over your awaiting hole, but as she noticed how it contracted in anticipation, almost imploring to be filled, the last ounce of reason left her body, letting her full length inside you. And better than she had imagined, your warm, wet pussy welcomed her deliciously.

In unison, you let out a prolongued moan of pleasure, both of you mitigating that unspoken desire that had become so unbearable.

Her movements began slow and safe, intending to feel for as long as possible how tight you felt around her, and to hear those low moans you vocalized every time she entered and exited you, complemented by the sloshing sound your hole made in consequence.

But that same action was what provoked her breath to quicken, and along with it, her rythm. Her hips were working overtime to match her cock's desperate needs, but it was impossible when said needs increased every passing second with the way you were whimpering, now high pitched and more frequent.

"Can a small dick fill your hole this good, hm?" She groaned, tilting her head back as she felt her climax approaching.

"No! No!" You cried out, and just like her, you could feel it coming. Your head was growing fuzzy for the pleasure altering every fiber of your being, like the most powerful drug ever made. "I'm sorry, Daddy! I lied! I love your big, fat cock! Please!"

She swore to herself that she was going to be strong and proud enough to stop when you admitted it, having already achieved her goal, but your words made her cum involuntarily erupt inside of you.

That sensation of being completely filled with her seed made your orgasm follow hers a little later, yours and her release leaving her cock shiny and dripping with your mixed juices.

Natasha was aware that even the most intense masturbation would not match how wonderfully your pussy embraced her cock, and how mesmerizing was the sight of your ass bouncing whenever your bodies clashed together.

Imagination was not going to overcome reality, in this case.

So she preferred, just this once, not to be frustrated by her loss of control.

[lucyandthepen]

sweet cream, cold brew | lmh ( m )

something about mark lee keeps you up at night, and you’re pretty sure that it isn’t the lingering smell of espresso on his shirt.

alternatively: mark is shy until he isn’t.

read the second part here!

pairing: nerd!barista!mark x reader verse: college au rating: r ( minors, do not interact! ) warnings&tags: unprotected sex, oral (f!receiving), fingering, slightly possessive/jealous dialogue, mark has a thing for tummy bulges because why not, implicitly that also means he has a big dick, a slight???? exhibitionism kink (not actually something that happens, only talked about), johnny exists in this simply to trigger something vaguely feral in mark, reader is a little bit assertive and schemes to get mark's attention, jaehyun is a nosy lil eavesdropper, i think that should be it?? word count: 26.4k

a/n: hello so this was a mess and honestly not a fic i would say showcases my best plot-wise but… what can I say apart from booty wurk mark has me in a chokehold and I needed to release some thoughts and feelings !!! please do not expect too much from the development of the story; i fear it’s quite long and choppy because my ideas were all over the place and i was wringing my hands and brain constantly and i was eager to get to the spicy parts !! this is also not beta’d/proofread, it’s currently almost 1am, and i’ve been writing this on and off for a full week with very few breaks so it honestly felt like a fever dream for me LMAO please forgive any oversights and mistakes; i’ll try to go back on them another day and fix them little by little! finally and …most importantly belated happy birthday, my beloved morkly!

p.s. this will probably be flagged as ‘mature’ by tumblr, which means there’s a high likelihood it won’t appear in tags or searches. please consider reblogging to boost the fic, if you feel so inclined!

You’ve heard tell of how caffeine has inherently addictive properties. 

The more of it you have in your lifetime, the more likely you are to experience symptoms of withdrawal whenever you try to have orange juice for breakfast in its stead. It sounds bad, actually, considering most addictive substances are, but you suppose that its benefits somehow outweigh its milder drawbacks. You’re not much of a coffee connoisseur the way some people — see: your best friends, Yeji and Jisu — are, trying one cafe after the other in pursuit of being able to nominate the winning beans of 2023 (an annual heated debate they participate in for no better reason than their own slow and useless entertainment during their six-hour long breaks), but you do know you’ve only ever experienced good things from having a cup every so often: better energy, a more focused approach to mental activities, and the ability to drive through fifty percent of a road trip without needing pop punk music blasting out of your speakers to keep yourself alert. 

The three of you are generally particular about the coffee you drink, only in different ways. While your friends have a tendency to demand only the best from any establishment — lest the staff hear fiery commentary about the flatness of the brew or the evident coarseness of the grind — you, on the other hand, are a singular individual of rather simple tastes. All you need to survive long days is a glass of vanilla sweet cream cold brew. No modifications to the sugar level or fancy new milk types are necessary; you’ll drink it as it’s served in a grande cup (or a venti, when things prove particularly grueling). 

Of course, you’re strict about other things in the experience of consumption —  like where it’s served and, more importantly, who serves it to you. 

While Yeji and Jisu have rated the Liberal Arts building’s on-campus Starbucks branch as a five with the strict label of POEO — ‘passable on emergencies only’ — branding the menu as “nothing revolutionary” and criticizing most baristas for subpar brewery, you happen to be extremely drawn to the place. Initially, you may have argued that this has to do with the fact that it’s walking distance from most of your classes, confined to the same general compound on campus, so you can always grab a quick recharger whenever needed, no matter how short the timeframe to do so is. Sometime later on, you may have found yourself asserting that the layout of the cafe, albeit small, is very convenient, considering that every table is situated next to an electrical outlet, so you’re never out of battery (important to other students for their laptops and powerpoint presentations, important to you because you have an unhealthy obsession with passing time on TikTok, scrolling past video after video of ASMR girls clicking their twenty-inch long acrylics with their crazy candyland designs), and this makes you feel at ease. 

A month ago, you finally came clean to yourself and, soon after, to your friends, and they came to understand, albeit begrudgingly and with no small amount of amusement, what made this Starbucks unbeatable in your eyes; it had one thing no other coffee shop could lay claim to.

What you know of Mark Lee is accrued from two major sources: long, surreptitious glances in the Modern World History class you share, and irritatingly brief interactions when you place your order from the other side of the counter behind which he stands, long fingers always poised to punch in your order at the speed of light. Sometimes, those encounters get cut even shorter when irate upperclassmen start prattling their orders out before you can even say anything past your own, except even this has its own consolation prize — an apologetic smile at you that seems only for you, although you’re not sure how much of this assumption is true. You’ll just believe it as you feel it. 

And what you’ve learned about Mark Lee has funneled down into two key points for you: first, he is single, a fact you were clued into when a group of his friends came to the coffee shop and sat around the table next to you. You hadn’t been eavesdropping; they’d just been pretty loud, but you’d also perked your ears the moment the one everyone seemed to call “Hyuck” — you aren’t sure if it’s his full name or a nickname, and you don’t particularly care — had leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper about having a vague master plan to set Mark up with an old high school friend’s younger sister that he was just waiting to spring on said Mark, busy slaving away on their six impossible orders near the espresso machine. 

You don’t really know what became of that plan, nor if anyone had telepathically been on your side to outright call it crazy (someone should have had a better reason than you, anyway) since the next moment, Hyuck’s voice becomes significantly louder when it orders the one named Jisung to collect the completed coffee and snacks waiting for them on the counter. However, you feel safe in the assumption that even if it had happened, no repercussions had followed, seeing as Mark still presently comes and goes from his shifts alone and in no clear hurry to meet any cute girls that are sisters of high school friends of his friends. Or, maybe you’re just ignoring what could be truth, but that’s whatever. 

Second, you’ve learned that Mark Lee should not actually be your type — at least, in theory. 

Saying you’re out of his league would be a bit juvenile, but if you had only so many words to describe the situation, you’d say so under duress. It isn’t so much that he’s beneath you in any way, but your interests and general social circles run different routes. Yours tend to be more classically patterned after constantly changing trends, and the people you interact with all seem to have similar goals; you like to call it ‘vibe networking,’ which, from experience, involves connecting with both groups and individuals that are equally aware that they will benefit in some way from any resulting acquaintanceship — whether it be by climbing the social ladder a couple of rungs or being able to call in a quick, off-the-charts favor for something very important and/or very exclusive down the road. You and your friends spend a significant amount of time in a year watching your style and image, something quite a lot of kids in the first couple of years of college tend to do, which means that while you don’t particularly like to spend your time following your grade trajectory, you do have quite a lot of pseudo-friends that all seem to offer something entertaining or helpful to you. 

Mark, on the contrast, prefers to keep his circle very close to his heart, it seems — that which acts as a receptacle for all his interests. You can tell that he likes to be up to date less with trending movies and more with comic books, a separate beast of a world that’s rather unknown to you. More than once, you’ve overheard him chat with his friends about Spider-man Issue Number Whatever-It-Is or engage in somewhat lively (sometimes rowdy, thanks to the Hyuck fellow) discussions about some webtoon you’ve come to understand is called Solo Leveling, which seems to have to do with monsters and hunters — two things you know next to nothing about. You’ve also never seen Mark holding anything remotely close to a magazine; his hands are always filled with either a freshly opened comic or a beat-up textbook. Maybe once or twice, you’ve seen him on his phone, but when you peeked over (surreptitiously, of course) on those occasions, you were met only with brightly colored panels and a singular word: BAM. 

In conclusion — you and Mark Lee live very different lives, likely never truly meant to intersect. 

And yet, you want him — not even in a way that speaks only to your curiosity, but in a manner that feels slightly delusional. More than once, you’ve found yourself having to shut your jaw close after realizing you’ve been watching him steam milk with your mouth slightly agape. Maybe it’s his side profile, which gives you a great view of the way his jaw tenses every time he puts whipped cream on someone’s frappuccino. Maybe it’s his eyes, which always seem to twinkle like he’s harboring some special secret every time someone in line asks for his recommendation on how to spice their order up. Maybe it’s his hands, steady and agile, with just the right showing of veins through the skin to tell you they’ve probably got significant strength to them too. Or maybe it’s just his mind — that thing he always manages to show off in class, working faster than lightning even when the rest of you are in your natural eight-in-the-morning stupor.

Whatever the reason for your interest, Mark Lee makes sure the Liberal Arts building’s Starbucks has you as a regular customer. 

You’re fully aware that this is the twenty-first century, which is why you could, as Yeji and Jisu have so kindly made known, simply ask him out. Under normal circumstances, you would have.

Unfortunately, in this particular area of your life, separate from all others, you’re something of a traditionalist. 

Actually, you just want to know what Mark asking you out would look like. Curiosity has fully gotten the better of you — how can it not, with how he breaks eye contact with you the moment it happens by accident in class, or with how pleasantly and shyly he smiles when you say ‘hey’ to him once you’re about to order? You’d like to see, first-hand, as a recipient of the experience itself, what he would look like taking control of a particular situation like that — something someone like him, so mild-mannered and laid-back, never really seemed to do upfront. 

You’d like to think you’ve given him clear signs. There’s a reason you always come in during his shift times, and it’s the same reason for why you have the same damn drink from the menu over and over again despite not even caring too much about coffee in the first place (something he admittedly doesn’t know and probably wouldn’t puzzle out, given how often you’re in that Starbucks, anyway). It’s that you want him to remember you.

Selfishly, it’s that you want him to think just a little bit more about you every single day. 

But if he does, Mark has never made it very clearly known; apart from taking your order in his genial customer service demeanor or letting a look of brief recognition pass his face over when you cross paths in the hallways, he’s never really shown heightened inquisitiveness about you. For all your differences, only you seem to actually care.

Frankly, that frustrates you, because if you have to think about him unhealthily, it would only be right for him to do that for your sake too. Still, you’ll shrug that hit on your pride off for as long as you can get his attention one way or another.

All you really need is for your plan to pan out as well as you think — and hope — it will. 

The thing is, you’re not even that bad at math. You’ve never really excelled at it, of course, but you wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re in dire need of help from anyone — the kind of help that feels like babysitting, at least.

However, Mark Lee doesn’t know that, and you’re not compelled to make that fact known to him when you notice that he’s leaning on the counter with his elbows, shoulders rolled forward and head bent down. He’s twirling his ballpoint in hand, wrist hovering over a worksheet, and you’re briefly distracted by the rapidly moving shadow underneath it.

His head snaps up when you gently knock on the counter, and the rest of his body follows suit, straightening as he shoves the paper away, one edge crumpling in on itself as it meets resistance in the form of the pastry display glass.

“Hey — hi, _________.” He knows your name, says it easily, and while you’d like to believe it’s because of his unprecedented interest in you, you know that it’s just because you’re always here and always having him write your name on the side of your cup. “Can I get you the usual?”

There’s no particular reason you order what you do; maybe it’s just rooted in the fact that when you first asked Mark for a recommendation, he said that the Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew was pretty good, and you were inclined to believe him (while pointedly ignoring the fact that it was, at the time, a new item all of the baristas were required to push to indecisive, slightly moony-eyed customers such as yourself). Whatever the case, you found the drink generally palatable, and you were also able to score the first of many smiles that fed into your two-semester-long infatuation with him, so it was basically a win-win scenario for all. He even got to do his job by getting some rube (see: you) into trying a new product.

“Hey, Mark.” You’ve long since given up pretending that you don’t know his name and have to check the tag on his cute green apron (why is it cute? You don’t know. It’s the same, standard, Starbucks green, but Mark makes it look homely and natural, somehow). You’ve been here way too many times over the last academic year for a nonchalant, were you talking to me? approach to work, anyway. “That, plus a lemon loaf, if you don’t mind. What’ve you got there?”

His eyes follow the trail of yours over to his wrinkled worksheet. “Oh — no, sorry. It’s nothing.”

“Is it secret?” Your bottom lip juts out, and you see his Adam’s apple bob dangerously, a small telltale sign of minute nervousness before he lets out a short laugh. “Didn’t know we kept stuff from each other.”

You don’t know what makes you say that so naturally. The both of you don’t do much beyond exchanging pleasantries.

“We — uh, well, it’s just a worksheet. For Park Hyosung’s class. College algebra?”

“I’m in Kim Junghwa’s. Can I have a look? I want to know if you’re suffering just as much as I am.”

He pauses, considering your request for a moment, likely wondering if there’s any harm in it before he smooths the paper out and turns it towards you. His handwriting’s a little messy, but his solutions are extremely neat. You see, like, one erasure, max. You also don’t see anything that interests you — except the name written at the top. Still, you can see at a general glance that more than half of his answers are correct; the logic of his organization is way too elegant and his writing’s too sure to be anything else. You whistle low, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Something wrong?”

“Pretty much the opposite. How is it that you’re doing this without breaking a sweat?”

“Oh, well — it’s not…” He doesn’t even know how to brag. Yet another item in the perpetually growing list of things you find cute about Mark Lee. “I mean, anyone… can?”

“I must not be anyone then.” You meet his quizzical look with a wry smile. “Either you guys are leaps and bounds ahead, or I’m really not going to make it through this semester.”

Another silence passes, just for a fraction of a second — short enough to be passable to others, but long enough for you to wonder if your humor code isn’t up to par with the rest of the world’s — before Mark’s chuckling lowly. His large palm comes down, covering a majority of his answers in the process.

“You’re kidding. I’m sure you’re doing just fine.”

“Mark, look at this face.” You gesture to your evidently dumbfounded, blank expression. “Does this look like the face of someone that’s doing just fine?”

You’re pleased to hear another laugh from him; you don’t know if he really finds you funny or if he’s just the type to be easily amused. You don’t want to know, anyway; assuming is better than actually finding out.

“That bad, huh?” He slides the worksheet away again, like he’s afraid his correct answers are going to offend you into leaving the cafe. Instead, his hands start working on your order, grabbing a cup and scrawling the shorthand of the drink on one of the little boxes. “Ever think about getting a tutor, maybe? If you really feel like you’re drowning, that is.”

“A tutor? I guess that depends. Are you free on weeknights?”

The marker makes a soft screeching sound as he drags it down with too much force, ruining the penmanship of your name. Mark takes a moment to stare at the mistake on the plastic before he looks at you, pointing the rim of the cup towards himself. “Sorry — am I free—?”

“You said I should get a tutor, right?”

“I thought — no, sorry, I was thinking more like one of those department-assigned tutors you can ask the faculty for, or something.”

“Oh. Are you not one of them?” You sigh, albeit a little over dramatically. Thankfully, he doesn’t really cotton onto your acting, too caught up in befuddlement at the turn of the conversation. “That’s a bummer. I was kinda hoping that if I was going to ask for help, I’d get an actual genius. You know — someone like you?”

You can tell by Mark’s expression that he’s torn between denying your compliment again and responding to your actual question; he looks both relieved and miffed when the student behind you clears her throat.

“Sorry, but— you know that there’s a line, right?”

You both apologize, Mark’s much more sincere than your own, and you step aside. His gaze follows you for a moment before it snaps back to the next customer, his voice abandoning that bemused uncertainty it had taken up with you. You don’t really mind; as far as you’re concerned, any dent in his barista persona when he talks to you is a step in the right direction.

You hang around the pick-up area, receipt in hand, watching Mark clear the line before moving to the actual stations near the kitchen area. There’s a concentration on his face that you find all the more attractive; he has a habit of chewing on his bottom lip when he’s trying to focus on getting the drizzle just right inside the cup’s cylinder.

He tends to try his best at everything, you figure. Not an unattractive quality — not by a long shot.

Mark finishes your drink first; the milk’s still only seeping, cloudy, into the coffee when he brings it over. He doesn’t even have to call your queue number, opting to meet your eye — albeit slightly nervously — instead. You reach out to hold the cup, a calculated move that allows you to brush hands against his without him being able to pull back on instinct. He doesn’t, nor does he really seem to want to, but his jaw tightens as a flush creeps along the curve of his ears.

“You really won’t help me?”

Your question’s abrupt, almost a little demanding, even if your voice is sweet. You’re not above asking this much, anyway, even if you technically want him to make the first move. The redness sinks down to his earlobes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t really say anything,” you tease. The cup’s on the counter now, so he can easily relinquish it to you at this point, but he still hesitates, only one hand slipping out from under the heat of your palm. He uses it to rub the back of his neck, chuckling softly, and you take this as a green light. “What time does your shift end?”

“Five-thirty. You sure you wouldn’t want someone better?”

You pull your cup slowly to yourself, and his hand, still lightly trapped by your own, follows for a few inches before he’s withdrawing, the counter between the two of you forcing the distance. A smile follows the shaking of your head, and you take a small sip of the drink before you respond simply.

“There’s no one better than you.”

Mark is a prompt kind of person; you learn this when, at five-thirty, he comes over to your table, tugging his apron off over his head. Of course, you might attribute that to his overall personality, but the fact that you spend the remaining two hours of his shift casting him glances from the left side of the coffee shop might have also been a contributing factor. The looks you give him aren’t even furtive; they’re deliberately long, so you never miss whenever he looks over to you from time to time.

He doesn’t hold eye contact for very long (he does it well enough when he’s talking to customers, but it’s not like you’re ordering another cold brew from across the room at that point), but you can read snippets of his thoughts through the fleeting gaze exchanges. He’s curious as to why you’re asking for help, now, of all times, when the semester’s more than halfway over. He’s surprised that you asked him, of all people, because he just can’t conceive of a world that isn’t within a television show where this kind of abrupt, overt request makes sense. He’s flattered that you even asked him out of the blue. He’s equal parts anxious and eager to know what’s meant to happen after his shift, once he starts fulfilling your request.

Most of all, he’s unsure if he’s reading you right — if what it feels like you’re doing is something he’s attaching too deep a meaning to. If he’s right in reading your signs.

You don’t really mind it; you like knowing that Mark somehow wears his heart on his sleeve, even if he tries to remain neutral for the sake of appearances. You also bask quietly in the fact that he’s looking at you twice as much as he ever has in the time you’ve loosely known each other. Still, his bubbling confusion and inquisitiveness seem to be interfering with the rest of his work, especially when you notice that he’s been wiping down the surface of a table two down from where you are for more than seven minutes.

In the hopes of easing whatever tension might be in his heart, you offer him a small smile, but that’s only met with his eyes immediately glazing over and inching a couple of centimeters above your forehead, where the story of Starbucks’ origins is drawn out in a faux-manga style. He pretends to find it interesting, as if he hasn’t seen it a million times from coming into this establishment day after day — you know it well enough, and you don’t even have to, considering you don’t work here — and you can’t do anything but hold back your laughter.

A small part of you says you should just give him the affirmative answer to his biggest question, but every other cell in your body says that it’s no fun if he doesn’t ascertain it for himself.

He has his school bag and textbook in tow when he approaches, taking the seat across from you. There’s a steely resolution on his face, like he’s been emotionally preparing himself for such a daunting task, but it eases up the moment you laugh lightly.

“You don’t have to act like I’m going to eat you.”

“I’m still not sure why you’re suddenly asking me to help you,” he admits. He’s also very honest, you note. Again, not an unattractive trait. “I’m not complaining. I just didn’t think you even had an opinion of me.”

“Why’s that?” You’re genuinely surprised. Mark drums his fingers on the front of his textbook, thoughtful — less for the sake of thinking what to say and more for the sake of considering how to say it. It’s clear he wants to avoid calling attention to the fact that before now, you two have had no reason to run the same track, let alone sit together and talk at a coffee shop, as if you’ve always been the best of friends.

“Genuinely just thought I was the guy who gave you your afternoon coffee every day,” he finally settles. Your eyes widen, and another laugh escapes you — a little louder this time, enough to call the attention of a couple of jumpy freshmen nearby.

“Well — let me put it this way.” You lean over slightly, cupping your chin in your palm. “Was I just the girl you made coffee for every day until now?”

There are clear cogs turning in his head; his eyes unfocus slightly as he thinks of the possibilities. His silence suddenly makes you somewhat nervous; your tone had been confident, and you’d only said that to prove a point, to push him in the right direction, but you realize that you hadn’t previously factored in the possibility that he might simply say yes — or, worse, say no just to avoid hurting your feelings.

You watch his lower lip curl in; he uses his tongue to smooth out the skin that’s slightly dried from work fatigue. You would much rather it peeked out, so you could imagine it against your own. His response is mumbled in a lower register, but you catch some key syllables — didn’t… not … stranger — pretty … you?

“Sorry?” You ask patiently, but the fact that he turns red and laughs again — something you realize is not only a trademark of his personality but also downright delicious of him to be doing — is all the answer you need to let the apprehension seep from your shoulders. “I didn’t catch that.”

Mark clears his throat. “No, I… didn’t think of you that way. I mean… you’re my classmate.”

“Sure,” your tone’s breezy, but the somewhat sloppy confirmation of interest in you makes your heart soar. He just needs more of a push. “And we’re basically friends, right?”

“Yeah.” His voice is unsure at first, like he can’t seem to wrap his head around the concept. You can tell that Mark’s notion of friendship is likely based on shared interests, of which you admittedly have none. Technically, if you were his friend, you’d spend less time just telling him the exact same order every single day and more time sitting around a table trying to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering with him. Still, he takes one long look at your grin and suddenly gains confidence in his next words, as if it somehow convinces him that the briefness of your old conversations had been a mutually agreed-upon thing and not the product of social distance between the two of you. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

“Right. Friends help friends, don’t they? I’d definitely feel more comfortable having a friend teach me than some stuffy upperclassman I don’t know.”

You see Mark’s lips move slightly, in such small movements you could have imagined it as breathing if you didn’t care too much (which you do). He mouths, to himself — friends help friends. For some reason, that boosts his conviction even further, and he nods.

“Makes sense. Well — for as long as you don’t mind me, then.”

“Mind? I asked you, so I should be saying that.”

“I’d never mind — I mean, of course I don’t mind.” He’s quick to correct himself, and you have to stop your own hand from reaching out to try to satisfy your curiosity, the desire to know just how hot his cheeks get when he blushes. “More than happy to help, actually.”

“And I’m more than happy to be here.” You beam at him, and he mirrors your smile. You don’t know what it is about the look on his face — the brightness in his eyes, or the slight lift of his eyebrows, maybe — but it gives you the impression that he might be feeling at least a fraction of what you are: the feeling of your heart lifting off a few inches from your rib cage. “Since we’re on the same page, I hope — should we get to it?”

From the moment that Mark opens his textbook to a chapter on inverted parabolas, he assumes a personality you feel you haven’t seen from him before. You realize that you really do know him in only two limited capacities — his classroom persona that seems to really only view himself and the material, focused on the board and the professor’s words (even up until the useless anecdotes) to absorb as much information as possible, and his more genial customer service form, always happy to assist in the trained, easygoing way you’ve come to meet so often.

Right now, he’s a blend of both, yet somehow neither all at once. He’s quick to catch the parabolas you draw, either wrongly or downright poorly. Despite initial hesitation, he always manages to say something; there’s already a pattern to how he does it, from his slightly awkward, “Ah, sorry, actually —” to the way his finger traces over what you’ve written, outlining the right curve. You find his interruptions so endearing that you start drawing them wrong purposefully — not enough for him to realize your schemes in their entirety, but enough to cast you a few amused glances, like he can’t imagine why you’d map out such an absurd graph. You get the feeling he wants to actually laugh at how ridiculous you’re acting, but he can’t tell if you’re seriously struggling or not, so he settles for a smile he thinks he does well in keeping to himself, but that you catch anyway. He’s patient, even when you have to rip out pages from the back of his notebook because of your ‘mistakes,’ like he’s still catering to your request for an extra pump of syrup for your coffee on sleepy days.

But there’s also that side to him that comes out when he suddenly remembers the distance between you that, before today, had felt unlikely to be closed. It peaks at odd moments, like when you’re borrowing his pen because yours is currently holding your slowly unraveling bun up, and your fingers brush against his. It surfaces abruptly when you lean in to watch what he’s drawing until he realizes how close you are, arm lightly grazing his, and his pen freezes, ink blotting on the paper for a second. It’s in those times that you can almost hear his brain churning out questions — like he’s wondering if you’re just oblivious or if you’re doing something on purpose that he can’t quite believe. Like he wants to ask you what’s on your mind, but he just doesn’t know how.

If he asked, you would reply without missing a beat. The answer, after all, is simple (him). But Mark never raises the question, only does something without fully acknowledging what he’s doing — the adjustment of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, the ruffling of his hair as though to shake off his thoughts, the clearing of his throat to normalize his tone before he explains something you’ve just asked about. There’s always that light tinge of pink to his face that makes him look even more endearing, and it fades and returns every so often for the better part of two hours.

By the time he rubs oncoming fatigue out of his eyes, the sun has already set; there are far fewer people around you at this time, and for as much as you like spending time with him and breathing in the scent of his shirt — always a tinge of Downy, barely cutting through the much more overpowering scent of espresso and sugar — your back has begun hurting from your front-heavy posture and determination to have your face as close as rationally possible to Mark’s. Still, you don’t miss out on the fact that the act of him cracking his neck to relieve tension makes your lips curl inward, trying to stifle an inappropriate noise in reaction to the view.

“I feel like I talked your ear off,” he pipes up, sounding a bit sheepish. “Sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop once you’ve gotten started. I’m just hoping I didn’t bore you to death.”

“Meanwhile, I’m here hoping you aren’t sick of my questions already.” You smile, closing your notebook and hanging the clip of your pen on the spiral. Your arms stretch up first, followed by your back, a light twist to relax your posture into normalcy again. Mark’s breathing falls quiet, like he’d been preparing to say something in response but had let it die in the back of his throat instead. You let your eyes drop, expecting to see him looking at you, as he mostly has been — on and off — since his shift ended, but his eyes are far lower than yours, the telltale redness now growing in evident splotches across his cheeks.

The hem of your shirt has ridden up; while there’s nothing outrageous about it, there’s a short expanse of skin that it reveals, for a brief moment. His eyes are slightly glossy, brow furrowed like he’s trying to find a solution to something he can’t fully understand. You’re not even sure about what he could really be looking at, or if there’s something he’s just thinking of that caught his attention while his eyes focused on a rather unfortunate spot. To test your theory, you suck in your stomach slightly alongside an inhale.

It should be objectively funny to watch Mark blink unevenly, left eye going first before his right tries to catch up, but you manage to stifle your laughter — poorly, though, because you end up coughing a little and breaking him out of his strange trance. You avert your eyes quickly enough for him to look vaguely relieved that you hadn’t caught him looking. So he thinks, at least.

“Anyway.” You feel bad that you have to tear his mind away from whatever faraway land it must be trying to burrow a hole in; the dazed expression on his face dims into hastily hidden embarrassment. You don’t want him to feel awkward, so you just busy yourself with packing up, making an unnecessary show of stuffing your notebook back into your bag as if it isn’t half-empty at this point. “I really appreciate you taking the time to help me.”

“Any time.” His first attempt is a little raspy, maybe from overuse of his voice today, so he clears his throat and tries again. A slow smile builds on your lips. “Any time, really. I’m glad that this is actually helping you; you pick things up surprisingly fast.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll probably be ready to tackle it on your own again, I’m sure.”

He smiles reassuringly, but all you can think about is how that’s not good. You should pretend to be a little dumber next time, or this will end much too prematurely.

The next five minutes pass in silence; you don’t expect to be knee-deep in conversation anyway since, as much as you try to convince him, you aren’t actually anywhere close to being those kinds of friends yet. There’s an unspoken rule to the give and take of things, where he pauses for you to get an item off the table and push it into your bag before he does the same with his own belongings. Neither of you really intersect paths, save for the moment you both grab your phones and stand at the same time.

His jaw falls open like he’s preparing to say something, then shuts as if he’s better decided against it. You decide to take the initiative to say what you’re assuming he wants to. “Same time, same table?”

“Oh — uh, yeah, for sure.”

You want to ask him to walk out with you. You want to lace your fingers with his, tug him out, and kiss him under the green and white glow of the sign outside. You want to know if kissing his collarbone means you’ll taste a hint of coffee. You think about doing it all somehow, especially since he’s fighting back a slight smile at the promise of tomorrow.

But it just isn’t the right time.

Instead, you place a hand on his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. The slow movement of his throat — yet another hard swallow — isn’t lost on you, and his eyes land on where the two of you connect. With a grateful smile, you bid him a soft goodbye, taking your leave first.

You don’t look back — at least, not until you’re fully in the cover of the darkness outside. On the gravel path, just out of reach of the lamplight, you chance one last glance back into the store. Mark is still rooted to the same spot, his backpack slung over one shoulder, staring at the table like he’s dissociating from what just happened — like he can’t believe the last couple of hours.

Your smile grows when you see his own, and his hand comes around to the back of his neck, rubbing it lightly like it gives him small comfort to let him know that it was real.

Baby steps, you remind yourself. You’ve already got one foot in the door, after all.

As the days trickle by, you fall into a more comfortable standing with Mark; there’s a routine to your meetings that seems to eliminate the initial and abrupt awkwardness of that first day. You come into that Starbucks at four, greet Mark, who doesn’t ever have to ask for your order, and spend the next hour and a half slowly sipping on it until the ice has thinned and watered down your drink substantially. In that time, you allow yourself to do whatever you want (as if you’ve ever done otherwise anyway), and what you usually want the most is a good view of him. You therefore use most of the minutes you have on hand to regard him from different angles — from the side when he’s frothing milk, upfront when he turns to leave cups on the pick-up counter, from the back when he’s clearing tables — interspersed with moments of checking your TikTok feed, clearing group chat messages, and sometimes re-curling your bangs with a portable iron from the school’s co-op center, a relatively new purchase you tote around these days. You do essentially anything in between to avoid acting too suspicious while he works.

Sometimes, you catch Mark’s eye too; the more your meetings increase in number over the course of a few weeks, the more deliberately he looks over at you, and the longer it lasts. You feel like you’ve made significant progress when your gazes lock and he smiles slightly, albeit a bit unsurely, instead of turning away like he used to. The other day, he’d even passed by while apologizing for how long you always waited for him — not that you ever minded, something you made a point to clarify with him before he walked away, carrying a couple of chairs from the back room with him to replace rickety ones.

That he’s able to transport them easily, as if he’s lugging a bag of apples from the grocery, does not escape your watchful eye.

What you like the most is that you start to learn more about him in a way that isn’t fueled only by your expectations and, therefore, limited by your imagination. You find out that he’s from a close-knit family with a rather cushy background, and this barista job is just for interest funding and experience, in that exact order. Most of his earnings are funneled into the things he collects, which apparently isn’t limited to comic books and special edition blu-rays with director’s cut but also a rather stupendous amount of PopMart blind box figurines. Apparently, he particularly likes the Skullpanda series even if he hasn’t completed it yet; your last session together had adjourned thirty minutes earlier than usual so that he could catch a pre-rush hour inner circle train to Hongdae, where the flagship store was set to open on that day. He’d promised to show you his pulls (as long as they weren’t embarrassing dupes). You learn that he likes to listen to loud music when he studies to stimulate his mind, and he has a playlist that’s just a jumble of songs from Punk Goes Pop volumes that makes him feel empowered for some absurd reason, like he’s going against the grain. You don’t really get it, but you do like that spiced-up rendition of Ariana Grande’s Problem that he let you listen to once.

Of course, there are things that you find out not through conversation but through continued, closer observation. You notice that he likes to put on chapstick even if his lips aren’t particularly dry, but he does worry on them often, most especially when he’s thinking hard about something. He has a habit of saying honestly… at the start of every other sentence, as if he’s concerned you won’t take his word on anything, even though he’s just talking about how unnaturally hot it was at noon despite it still being spring. He has long eyelashes that you’re equal parts attracted to and jealous of, and he bites the inside of his cheek whenever he wants to pep himself up after grueling shifts. He plays beats you’re not even sure he knows he’s creating against his knee with his fingers, so enthusiastic and consistent in this habit that you want to offer your thigh instead. His shoulders always go first before he laughs, and he does this thing where he raises his hand to cover his mouth at the start of it, which is a shame, because you’d do anything to keep seeing him smile like that — or, better yet, to be the reason for it.

Then there are those things you notice he tries to hide. He always turns his face halfway to the side when he blushes, something he seems to do without fail every time you smile at him. He has to temper the intensity of his grin when you take the time to compliment him on how cool his shirt is, or how nice his hair looks today, or how smart he is, like he doesn’t want you to know how good it makes him feel even if you want him to feel good about it, around you, because of you. Sometimes he denies it for the sake of responding, and his voice always lilts on the first syllable in his refusal to accept what you say, even though he knows you won’t take it for an answer.

And after a couple more careful experiments, you notice that Mark, out of the many things he’s interested in, seems to have a particular thing for your stomach.

You don’t know if it has anything to do with him not really seeing much of it in real life in his own time or if he just has his own kind of fixation on it, but you start to cotton on by the fourth time you meet. An hour of being hunched over a table that’s not at the greatest height in relation to your neck and torso has you stiff, and you’d leaned back in your chair, arms pulling to the air, hoping your spine might feel like realigning if you exerted enough tension pressure that way. Your shirt hadn’t ridden up this time, considering it had been tucked into your jeans, and it was because of this that you’d caught a flicker of something new in his face that you hadn’t seen before.

You could have sworn it looked like disappointment.

Of course, he hides it quickly, as he does with most of his emotional candor, but it’s enough to make you suspicious — enough to make you wonder if Mark is also just keeping something to himself. Or maybe you’re just projecting your own presently secretive nature onto him. Regardless, you think it’s odd that whenever you stand up or stretch, his eyes almost immediately fall to your midriff, like he wants to challenge your clothing into a staring contest before he thinks better of it.

You don’t mind, anyway. He can look as much as he likes. Maybe when the weather’s warmer, you’ll even cater to that interest and wear a crop top. Hopefully, that’ll be the push he needs to act on human instinct and ask you out or, like… bend you over. Maybe.

You’re often plagued with these kinds of thoughts in between the ones you try to keep as family-friendly as possible — now, more so than ever.

Sometimes, it’s easier, especially when you’re caught up in talks with him; despite the fact that he doesn’t seem like much of a conversationalist when it comes to generic matters, when either he or you are enthusiastic about a particular topic, he has a tendency to get carried away. There’s nothing impure about how his eyes light up when you remember to ask him about the movie he saw with his friends over the weekend or the way he hums old Nickelodeon cartoon theme songs under his breath whenever he’s looking for a page in the textbook. It’s more of a situation where you’ll observe something and immediately run with it despite it being an objectively normal action.

Like right now, as you’re watching him turn his pen between his fingers. Now, while he’s shaking his knee in mild impatience, as if he’s trying to will the answer to the worksheets you’ve both been trying to get through for the better part of the day faster. You’d made copies of the problems your professors had assigned and exchanged them under the premise of being able to practice more intensely.

However, whereas Mark is actually focused on solving, you’re just watching him out of the corner of your eye, wondering if he’s ever been told that his fingers are fuck-worthy on a singular, unique level or if it’d feel good for you to ride the thigh he’s currently moving, jeans and all. You consider the feeling of his warm palms on your bare waist as you do it, and you end up wondering if that’s what crosses his mind whenever he sneaks glances at you, too.

You’d know the answer to all those things if he’d fucking ask you out. Maybe you could do it after all. Maybe you should, instead of relying on slowly increasing the probability over such a long period of time. Maybe if you asked nicely, Mark might pull the shades down on the storefront windows and rail you against the glass.

You’re so lost in thought that it genuinely startles you when he plops his textbook over the worksheet, rattling your eraser dangerously close to the edge of the table. You’re still clutching your heart while he rubs his eyes a little too violently.

“Can’t,” he groans, and his neck gives into the weight of his head, allowing it to loll backward. “I feel like the numbers are just melting into each other. I swear, I thought I could read words out of them.”

“Maybe we were a little too ambitious with the double worksheet agenda,” you admit, even though you’ve barely gotten past half of yours and certainly haven’t touched a single item on his. “Should we call it a day for now?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, although he still takes the time to encircle his final answers before clapping his palms to his cheeks (an act that has your mind dangerously close to wandering off inappropriately again) to wake himself up. “Woah. I didn’t even notice how dark it is already. I’d say time flies when you’re having fun, but I’m not too sure about the ‘fun’ part of it…”

You trace his gaze towards the glass; the moon’s already out, surrounded by a smattering of low-light stars. You hadn’t realized how late it had gotten, probably because your mind had been on R-18 mode for most of the afternoon. Also, the days are getting generally shorter, but that fact doesn’t make you feel as embarrassed, at least.

“You got a ride?”

The question once again shocks you out of your small trance, and you turn back to him with wide eyes. “Well — no. Wait, I didn’t know you had a car. Why’d you take the subway, then?”

“Oh — no, sorry, I… don’t.” He looks suddenly sheepish, eyes dropping to the shiny surface of the table for a moment before they snap back up, as if he’s actually actively reminding himself to look at you. “I was wondering if you wanted me to — actually, more than that, are you going home already? Not that you need to stay; it’s not that important, but…”

You try to gloss over the fact that he had just been about to initiate another huge step in the right direction (i.e. offering to walk you home) by beaming at him, maybe a little too widely, if only to mask your disappointment at the sudden shift in conversation. “I have nothing waiting at home for me but a sandwich dinner and Singles Inferno, so hit me with whatever it is.”

“Oh, cool.” His lips turn up, and the corners shake, this show of happiness once again tamped down by his own inexplicable desire to maintain a safe distance. How are you supposed to tell him you’re desperate to bridge that gap without using those exact words? “I came from the flagship store yesterday — the one in Hongdae that I told you about?” He allows the smile to widen slightly when you nod in genuine understanding. “Got the last six boxes of the collection I’ve been trying to finish.”

You whistle appreciatively. “Can I ask you for a loan on my next phone bill? You know, once I’ve upgraded to something pricier.”

“Nah — just itching to complete the set,” he laughs. You wonder if he’s been doing that more often because he knows its crippling effect on you, though you doubt he’s that sly. Again, maybe you’re just projecting too much of your own motivations onto him. “This was probably about two months of saving up combined.”

“No new Iron Man issues to look out for, then?” Your voice is warm even though it takes on a teasing tone; Mark’s hand rubs the back of his neck, and his expression is a little sheepish, but you’re happy that the times he used to go completely quiet, opting only to blush at your attempts to act more familiar with him are pretty much gone now.

“Maybe next month.” You also like that he doesn’t really treat his hobbies as secrets, neither out of shame nor snobbishness. He explains these things to you the same way he does the topics you study — with an air of contentedness, like he’s happy someone listens to him without interrupting. On your end, you have no qualms with listening to his voice for hours, wondering when he’ll stop using it to greet you when you come through the door and when he’ll start saying your name in a way that makes you feel like you’re the only one he sees whenever you’re near. It’s a win-win situation (sort of). “I was actually debating between this collection and a really rare copy of Spi— well, never mind that. I just thought — since you were asking me a bit about blind boxes last time. You know, if you wanted to. With… me.”

As much as he’s become comfortable talking to you about things that don’t involve coffee orders and school, you can’t say that you aren’t doing your fair share of the work in connecting the dots; the demand for your efforts is exponentially higher in moments like this, when you think he’s trying to ask you something but can’t seem to find less-than-eager words to avoid what he thinks might spook you.

Luckily, he augments his fragments with action; reaching into his backpack — which you notice seems to be bulkier than usual — he starts extracting small brown boxes, all with the same design; it seems, for lack of better words, aesthetically gothic, and you reach out to pick one up, turning it over and examining the print on each side with vague interest. Mark starts laying them out on top of each other until there’s a small, somewhat unstable pyramid in front of him, then shifts his attention fully to you, just as you’re putting the box in your hand atop all the rest.

“I’d love to.” You beam as he does, and there’s a wondrous relief in his eyes that tells you he’s glad you manage to catch onto his words — or lack, thereof — surprisingly well. “For as long as you don’t blame me for any bad draws.”

“The contents have already been decided by my own hand — sort of,” he chuckles. “Point is, I would never do that to you. But I won’t lie; I kind of want to rely on your luck a little more.”

“What makes you think I’d have any of that running through my system?”

“Not sure — beginner’s luck, maybe? You just kind of look like one of those kinds of people to me — like… you’re just made of good things.”

You don’t know how to take this compliment; on the one hand, it’s easily one of the sweetest things Mark has ever said to you that doesn’t involve anything with actual sugar content. On the other, you know you’re not as lucky as he makes it sound, considering you’re still striking out on getting past the borderline of friendship with him. All you can do is smile, nodding and making to move closer to him by sliding into the next seat.

It’s hard to ignore the sight of him stiffening; something like surprise mingled with both fear and interest flashes strong across his face, but you don’t do anything to acknowledge the slight change in atmosphere, choosing to settle down comfortably and clap your hands. “So. What are the rules? What can I do, and what can’t I?”

“Uh.” His throat constricts at the right moment, the syllable getting caught and causing him to clear his throat. You know that this is the nearest you’ve ever been to him, the sleeve of your shirt tickling his arm. Upon closer, albeit brief inspection, you note that he’s also rather veiny. That doesn’t do your impurity any favors. “Not… really rules, or anything like that. Just — these are the ones I’ve been looking for. Not that you can really control it, but in case you were curious about that.”

You squint intently at the scaled-down images he points out. There’s one that looks like a penguin caught in an oil spill; another that seems to be in a polar bear costume, dozing; and — “What’s… halo? Halo…bios?”

“It just means marine life,” he answers quickly, like the thought means close to nothing to him to know something that obscure. Whoever said that smart is the new sexy wasn’t joking. “Like… all things that live in the ocean, that kind of thing.”

“And you know this because?”

He pauses, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I guess I must have just learned it when I was curious about what it meant some time ago. Isn’t that how we all learn things?”

You shake your head incredulously, and he smiles a little apologetically. “You never cease to amaze me.” Your nail drums against the silhouette of one with a question mark on it. “What’s this supposed to be? Can you draw your own figurine, or something?”

“No.” He’s clearly amused, but his expression’s still patronizing enough for you to not feel too bad about saying something idiotic. “It’s a secret design — a money drainer, basically. You could buy a full set of this and still not get it. Some people will open hundreds without any luck, so it’s really rare.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I try not to get too caught up in the secret thing,” he admits. “Otherwise…”

“No rare print comic books for the rest of your life, basically?”

He taps his nose, and you both share another laugh. It’s nice, you think, to have come this far — to be someone Mark can share his interests and thoughts with. You may have been stretching the word to its limit when you first punched your way into his social life and called yourself his friend, but it feels more real now, more natural to think about and say. Even if he still sometimes seems to be hyperaware of the gap between the both of you, there’s no denying, at least, that it’s been significantly reduced, and this much is a testament to that.

“Well, leave it up to me. I’ll let all of this beginner’s luck rub off on you,” you announce with overflowing albeit unfounded confidence.

You both decide to open a box each at the same time; Mark suddenly panics and asks you not to unseal the foil bag right away without looking at the card inside first, earning him one slightly alarmed look followed by a burst of laughter at his pained expression when you pretend to rip open the packaging. Comparing pulls, you identify them using the set chart — your luck doesn’t seem to be operating at full capacity yet because you can only offer him the card of one that looks like a floppy pigeon, which he responds to with a slightly apologetic grimace before saying he’s already pulled that thrice in the past. He, on the other hand, is turning the card of the polar bear over in his palm, trying not to make you feel bad for your duplicate pull by slipping it under his textbook when your eyes land on it.

The second round isn’t much better; both of you manage to pull something he’s already added to his collection, and as you’re ripping the seal to your third box, he pauses and watches you. You think it’s because he’s concerned about the obvious shit luck you’ve had thus far and wants to snatch it from you before your negative energy transfigures whatever’s inside into something he doesn’t want, and you’re just about to offer the half-opened package to him before he pushes the one on his end to you.

“No way, Mark.” Your eyes are wide, a palm up to reject it. “If that turns out to be another dupe by my hand, I’m literally going to walk into oncoming traffic.”

He has to control his amusement at your words so that it doesn’t completely shake his voice into incoherence. “I picked all of these while I was there, so if anything, you’re only riding off my bad luck. Besides, this is your first time doing this. I want you to have fun.”

“But,” your voice is pained. “Your money.”

“It’s not a big deal. With how few I need to complete them, I was definitely bound to run into more repeats than new ones.” He taps the front of the textbook — or, at least, the part of it not buried under the figurines and sealing tapes yet. “Probability mathematics.”

“I thought we already ended the study part of the day,” you grumble but concede, putting aside the one you half-opened to tear the top of his. You’re careful when you shake out the foil packaging, making sure to place it upright on the table before extracting the card. Both of your faces fall — yours more than his — when you see it’s a repeat of the polar bear.

“Almost. It would’ve been a pretty lucky pull earlier, so it’s technically not bad,” he tries to reassure you, but you childishly feel like you’ve been the sole source of his disappointment thus far. “Try the last one.”

It’s irrational, but you’re suddenly anxious about it. For some reason, you’re worried that this will topple the carefully constructed ladder you’ve propped up against Mark’s tower of social defense. Even if he’s being genial about your rotten pulls, you don’t know how much of it is just resignation to dismay on his part.

You say a small prayer, then fully rip off the seal; you don’t even take out the packaged figuring anymore. You just shimmy the card out of the box, turning it over when you notice it’s upside down.

For a moment, your shoulders deflate. It’s closest to this pastel purple figurine in the middle of the line-up, its stupid puckered lips almost taunting you. He hadn’t even mentioned it as something he’s looking for, so you almost feel like this has come to a horrible full circle. But then he grabs the box, checks the list, and looks back at your card again. He looks shell-shocked, and you’re not sure if it’s the strong air conditioning directed towards the two of you or if it’s just his hands, but the image he’s holding is shivering slightly.

You look more closely at it, and something just doesn’t feel right. Color palette aside, there are notable differences — different colored lips, a more intricate ear design, and closed eyes. It’s…

“Dream eater,” Mark’s voice is hushed, almost reverent, and very, very close to your ear. “It’s the secret one. You’re… incredible.”

“What are you talking about,” your words are just as raspy; you’re not sure if you’re actually choked up with emotion or something — over a figurine, you have to remind yourself. “You picked all of this. I just ripped open the box.”

The hush that falls over the both of you feels very concrete, weighty on your shoulders. His fingers creep towards the foil packet — the only one he actually opens because there’s no way he’s not keeping it. The shiny purple head gleams under the fluorescent, the glitter around the star and moon designs catching the light as he turns it left to right, like he’s worried it’s a fake. You can tell why people want these things so much; there’s a thrill in you that lingers, makes you feel warm and alert. It’s anticipation, despair, excitement, and triumph all in one sitting.

You’re stroking the smooth curve of the design by the ears lightly when Mark speaks up again and says the most outrageous thing.

“I want you to have it.”

“What?” You actually have to pop your ear canal in front of him with your pinky to make sure he knows how ludicrous he sounds. “This is… you said it was crazy rare.”

“Yeah. And you pulled it, with your magic. That’s like… unimaginable luck. Even more than beginner’s luck.”

“Like I said, I literally just opened the box.”

“No — you have like… the golden touch.”

“Please,” you hiss, a genuine testiness to your voice. “Do not. I was just here for the ride — the experience, and all.”

“Seriously, take it.”

“Absolutely not—”

It’s a chaotic moment of him trying to hand you the figurine and you outright rejecting it, with both your palms working hard to push it back to him. Instead of nudging the plastic back, though, you end up placing the full force of your hands against his fingers.

There’s no actual spark when you touch, but your reactions make it feel like there might as well have been; you even lock eyes in startled unison, like you can’t believe that just happened, before you pull away quickly, Mark drawing the figuring back to his torso while looking away towards the counter, where a lowerclassman is wiping down the stains. You want to scream at your warped reflection in the window. You barely initiate contact with him, but you imagine that if you ever did, you would prefer to not be saying something as abjectly negative as absolutely not while doing so.

Your mind flails in an attempt to mitigate the issue and water down the embarrassment, and clearly he’s struggling to figure it out too, because he pipes up before you can piece your thoughts together.

“No, really.” His tone is a lot milder and, consequently, a lot more persuasive this way. “You should take it. I want you to.”

“It’s not mine. This is your thing — your hobby.”

“That’s why I’m giving it to you. I swear — I want you to keep it.”

“Why?”

He lapses into silence again, but his face is much redder than earlier. His mouth opens in an attempt to say something, but he just manages to uh his way back into a state of quiet, which gives you a chance to speak instead.

“We can… share it,” you suggest. “Shared custody…. ish.”

His eyebrow cocks involuntarily, and his jaw falls again, but all he does in actual response is nod — slowly at first, then with more sureness to the act.

“Yeah. We can share it. I’d… like that.”

You’re glad that the bulk of the awkwardness has fizzled out fairly easily, and when you think about it, this feels like a pretty good course of action; you like that it’s this little link between the two of you now — something you share that no one else can touch.

Mark, you notice, is smiling as well — more to himself than towards you, it seems. His thumb grazes across the face of the figurine, slow across the lips, and you’re once again falling into a pit of nonsense by wondering when he’d do that to you.

“Thanks for staying with me, _________,” he finally says, and your heart jolts and melts all at once. “And for… doing this. For chatting with me. And giving me your luck, and all that. Great way to end the day… with you.”

You say no problem, but you instantly regret it when you realize you could have just said it didn’t have to end just yet.

“__________? Hello? Come back down to Earth?”

“Shut up,” you sigh at the guy seated across you — Seo Youngho, an upperclassman, your Gender Studies classmate, and current project partner, waves in front of your face. You shoo his hand away, which only joins his other one as he throws them in defeat above his head. “Stop moving. Be quiet. Don’t talk.”

“That’s the same thing as shut up and be quiet. What’s up with you?” He demands. “Fifteen minutes ago, you were full of ideas. Now I feel like I’m talking to a wax figure.”

You’d been engrossed in your report for the last hour and a half, and the subject matter is admittedly something you enjoy — the role of gender in Twenty-First Century Korean marketing and advertisement, a title Youngho had taken more than ten minutes to type into the Google Docs header because he was pissed off at how the numbers looked like in the fonts he chose. He’s an enthusiastic classmate and someone you’ve come to be friendly with, not only because he’s genuinely approachable but also because he has fits of nosiness and talkativeness at the strangest moments, so a chunk of your relationship is mostly based on social terrorism on his part. You like him well enough most of the time — save for the last fifteen minutes of this hour.

Because Mark had just come in for his shift fifteen minutes ago, and suddenly Youngho is much too noisy for your taste, and his head is honestly way too big to the point that it gets in the way of your opportunities to see Mark behind the counter. You even resent him for choosing a booth instead of your usual table all of a sudden, because your view of the central barista’s area is much more limited from this angle, especially since the huge espresso machine is in the of your field of vision.

You’re also (currently and abruptly) mad at Youngho because you remember that he’s the reason you’ve had to skip out on a couple of sessions with Mark. Like, it technically isn’t his fault that you have a lot of research to do for the literature review section of the paper, nor is it his fault that this is your final requirement that comprises a whopping forty percent of your grade, but like… you’ll blame him anyway. So you’re much more irritable, and you’ve definitely been missing Mark’s presence. In fact, you kind of just want to shove Youngho’s balloon head away and call Mark over to sit with you, but you’re not that much of an animal to actually do that.

Probably.

There had been inquisitiveness across Mark’s face when he’d come in; his eyes had trailed to the table at which you usually sat, surprised to find two guys hunched over a single phone there instead of the usual you, waiting for him with your eyes bright and your smile wide. You’d like to think it’s because he’s gotten as used to seeing you as you’re used to waiting to see him — like he just expects you to be there.

You hadn’t really known how to call his attention to where you were, especially since Youngho was prattling very matter-of-factly about the academic journal he’d unearthed yesterday and how he thought it would be useful in reshaping the methodology of your paper (whatever). There was a moment in which you briefly considered ordering another cup of coffee just to get in line to talk to him, but your hands were already shaking from the venti you’d had to keep yourself from passing out in front of your partner.

So you’re more than relieved when, half an hour into his shift, Mark finally steps out from behind the huge machine, a mug of water for himself in hand, and turns away from the front of the store to drink it — only for your eyes to lock as he twists his torso in your general direction.

The mug stops just inches from his lips, but you could swear he smiles at you briefly when he recognizes you, so you return the favor. Youngho’s face contorts into abject befuddlement, turning around to see what you’re grinning at.

“Oh, you poor sap,” he snorts, finally letting the puzzle pieces fall into place.

“What?” You’re still distracted even if Mark has taken a gulp of water and is now attending to a gaggle of girls still in the throes of discussing what to order.

“What what? You gonna spend the rest of the day eyefucking Mark Lee from over here? At least let me get a different table.”

“Shut up,” you repeat sullenly, coming back down to his level and finally — albeit reluctantly — meeting his eye (just because Mark isn’t looking your way). “What were you saying about the sample size?”

“That it’s much too large to be feasible, a point we closed twenty fucking minutes ago,” he says pointedly. “Is it a thing for baristas or a thing for smart guys?”

“It’s a thing for Mark Lee,” you sigh, following Youngho’s suit and shutting your laptop close. You’re at least glad he’s not annoyed that you’re delaying work for a crush, or maybe he’s also just equally lazy at this point. “You ever look at someone and think you would give it all up for a chance to hit that?”

“No, because this isn’t a porn movie, and I’m clearly not the main character in whatever’s going on in there.” He jabs at your forehead; you swat his hand away again.

“Well, I would.”

He rolls his eyes. “So do it, dumbass.” He says this so simply, like he can’t imagine why you’d be holding yourself back, which is a valid thing to feel, except it’s not really any of his business.

“Can’t.”

“Because?”

“Because it doesn’t fit into my elegant master plan. Also because I want him to ask me out. I just want that victory.”

“Oh yeah, there it is.” Youngho leans over, wiggling his fingers at your ears like he’s greeting a next-door neighbor. “Hey, delusion. Good to see you. Do you even understand how crazy it is that you’re taking a Gender Studies class while waiting for your dick-in-shining-armor like a damsel in distress?”

“Asshole,” you grumble, violently opening your laptop monitor again. “Get back on Google Drive.”

Thankfully, Youngho complies, and the next two hours pass in relative silence and productivity, with you hammering out a vague references list that he promises to format in your stead so you can ‘spend more time dreaming about Mark Lee between your legs.’ You want to strangle him, but there are far too many people in the cafe for you to get away with it. Also, aforementioned Mark Lee would only be a witness to your criminal record, and while you think there’s something romantic in killing for love, or whatever, you’re not sure it’d make the best impression on him.

“Next week’s my birthday,” Youngho announces as he stands to tug on his jacket.

“Congratulations,” you say wryly, peeking over his bulletin board torso to see Mark tugging off his apron and picking up his school bag. Your heart hammers in your chest as he looks over at you briefly, and something like embarrassment passes over his face before he busies himself with neatly folding the fabric. “Go away.”

“Usually people look uncomfortable for not knowing and then start thinking about what gifts to get the celebrant, but I always felt you were kind of a revolutionary.” He snaps his fingers right in front of your eyes, and you look up at him, a little offended. “I’m having a get-together — and by get-together, I mean it’s gonna be a rager. You should come.”

“When?”

“Next Thursday.”

“Can’t,” you chew on your lip, wondering if Mark is leaving. His movements seem particularly slow, but you wonder if he’s just taking his sweet time because he has nothing better to do. Of course, he would have something better to do if Youngho stopped fucking obscuring you from him and vice versa. “Busy. School… whatever.” Not completely untrue. Most of what you do with Mark has to do with school.

“This moony-eyed thing is just not for you, I fear.”

“Are you going to be here all day?”

“Are you? Why don’t you just fucking ask him out, you lunatic?” You can’t imagine why he sounds so exasperated. It’s not like this is his problem — or his business, for that matter. “Maybe if you did, you could fuck him and move on with your life and be an actual contributor to society’s development.”

“Has anyone ever told you how nosy you are?”

“Constantly.” He brings his palms down on the table, the thud shaking you out of another oncoming stupor. “Think about it. Maybe it’ll make you stop making that stupid face.”

“You’ve got a stupid face,” you mumble, sulking as he pinches your cheek as a goodbye before heading out of the shop.

At least you finally get to see Mark in full, glorious view — and you get to watch him come closer, although his stride is somewhat cautious.

“Hey.” Even his voice sounds unsure — almost like the way he used to sound earlier in your friendship. “I didn’t want to interrupt you and… your friend?”

“Oh. Well, you wouldn’t have been interrupting,” you inform him, completely genuine. “He was spouting a lot of nonsense.”

“You guys seemed pretty close.”

“I guess it’s a proximity thing,” you sigh, and Mark raises his eyebrows slightly in question. “We’re partners.”

“Oh.” The way he draws out the syllable is slow. “That definitely makes sense.”

The silence stretches out between the two of you again, with Mark checking his shoelaces. You almost grab your head; it hadn’t occurred to you until now how damaging missing meetings with him would be to your friendship. You feel like you’re slowly being dragged back to square one, and you want to give him an explanation.

“He’s actually… I haven’t been able to see you because I’ve been working on something with him.” you offer, trying to answer a question he didn’t even ask. “Sorry about that. I swear I’ll be back on track tomorrow.”

“No, no — I completely understand.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Thank you… for telling me, though. I— uh, appreciate that.”

“I’d love to see you tomorrow, though.” You try injecting more pep into your voice. “I’ve really been behind on my algebra. I’ve definitely been drowning without you.”

“Oh, yeah.” A small smile graces his lips, but you can’t tell if the reluctance behind it is from fatigue or something that looks oddly like sadness. “I’m down for tomorrow. Same time, same table, right?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Cool. See you, _________.”

You watch him turn on his heel, walking to the front door, and something like fear mingled with desperation clutches your heart. Fuck the traditional route, you think. You don’t know what it is about how he’s acting now, but it’s making you feel like he’s slipping through your fingers. All that hard work — there’s no way you’re letting him go.

“Mark, wait.”

You’re at his side, fingers curled into the sleeve of his jacket before you can figure out exactly what you want to say. You feel as surprised as he looks at your sudden liveliness in action, and his gaze trails from your clenched fist to your face slowly, like he’s trying to memorize this whole position.

Your exhale’s shaky, but even still, you try not to sound overtly self-conscious when you ask, “Do you like Chinese food?”

Something in the furrowing of his brows tells you he can’t seem to see where this conversation is headed, and that slightly bothers him. “I like it well enough. Why?”

“There’s this really good dim sum buffet near my mom’s office. We tried it before — the Xiaolongbao is awesome.”

“Hey, that sounds pretty cool. I love Xiaolongbao. I’ll definitely have to check it out then.”

You want to tear your hair out. “How about — you know, checking it out with me? Tonight? You know… together. With me.” You already fucking said that.

You’ve never seen Mark blink this rapidly; he looks like he’s trying to crunch large numbers in his head. A small part of you actually worries that he’s malfunctioning, but just when you think he’s going to glitch out completely, he clears his throat. It bothers you how uncomfortable he looks. “Tonight? Oh man… it’s my cousin’s birthday tonight. I can’t… reschedule. Well, obviously. Maybe some other… time?”

Your ‘oh, yeah’ is small, and so is the ghost of Mark’s smile. You can’t help but feel like he’s pitying you a little, although he doesn’t seem like the type, but the thought of it alone makes you want to puke. He makes no motion to move, and you think he’s extending this awkward moment out on purpose until you realize you’re still hanging onto him and he has no way of telling you to let go nicely.

Fingers unfurling from his sleeve, you take a careful step back, but when he walks away, it feels like you’ve gone much, much further away.

The worst part is that you can’t even figure out why.

Luckily, the next few times you see Mark, you manage to rebuild a rather shaky bridge back to where you had been. You even manage to strong-arm him into sharing an apple fritter one afternoon, and you know it’s a bit sad to think about it a particular, untrue way, but you can’t help but pattern what you’re doing into some kind of pseudo-date. Pathetic isn’t a word you normally associate yourself with, but you’ve been borderline desperate for progress where there seems to be none, so you take small victories where you can get them.

Unfortunately, you haven’t been able to revisit your stupid dim sum plan; sometimes, he says he has somewhere important to be, but most of the time, it’s actually your fault. No — it’s Youngho’s fault, because he keeps bothering you to finish the project. You’re aware that he can’t do it himself, but since he’s informed of your current plight, he could at least stand to be more sympathetic.

And you hate the way Mark looks every time you splutter out that you have to take a rain check for that reason; it’s not even disappointment, or something, which would be much more understandable. It’s this mysterious kind of faraway look, where his eyes glaze over a bit and he seems suddenly very lost in thought — or completely dissociated. He never strays away from his normal response of “next time, then,” but that ‘next time’ fades into the weekend and into the start of next week, and you have to spend every other evening with an annoying Seo fucking Youngho on a Google Meets call instead of eating soup dumplings loveshot style with Mark Lee.

Thursday night rolls around, and the former performs the most irritating stunt yet: blowing up your phone with so many KakaoTalk messages that it almost buzzes off the table during your session with Mark. Luckily, he seems to have learned a thing or two from his comic books, catching it before it hits the floor.

“You sure you don’t want to answer it?” He asks, gingerly handing the phone to you like he’s afraid it’s going to explode from all the pinging.

“Without the shadow of a doubt,” you sigh, flipping the screen downwards. Buzz.

“It kind of seems important. Or, like… urgent.”

“He’ll live. Unfortunately.”

Mark falls silent, fiddling with the page he’s on. He’s neatly highlighted the formulas on the page with blue ink, and his finger keeps scratching at the slightly wet paper. Buzz.

“Didn’t you say you two were partners?”

“Yes. Also unfortunately.” Youngho is actually a great person, but you kind of hate how Mark’s paying more attention to his texts than to you right now. “What did you get for number ten?” Buzz.

“A hundred and twe— are you really just going to let it keep ringing like that? What if he’s… I don’t know. In trouble? Like, he needs you?”

You smack your phone on its back, hoping that the punishment reaches Youngho because he absolutely is in trouble — only with you. “He’s just making a racket because it’s his birthday and he probably wants a bunch of people to trash his parents’ house, or something.”

“Sounds like fun.” The dubious tone in Mark’s voice indicates that his idea of fun definitely isn’t that. Buzz.

“Not really, but I assume he’ll only pipe down if he manages to get his way.”

“He must really want you there.”

There it is again — that weird, distant expression that makes you feel like he’s trying to free himself from the tethers of the earth. You close your textbook in defeat; it wasn’t even like you got the answer to number ten correct anyway. Buzz.

“He just wants everyone there, I bet. But I probably should show up so he shuts up.”

“Oh — yeah, okay. We’ll call it a day, then?” He’s avoiding your eye as he starts packing his things, which is actually impressive because you have practically nothing but your book to keep in comparison to his pencils and protractor, so you just stare, willing him to look at you.

You want to know what’s going on in his head. You want to know what’s going on in his heart — what he thinks of you, why he seems warm one second then almost like a stranger the next. You want to know if he knows you like him and if him not doing anything even if he knows is a sign that he doesn’t like you back. You want to know if he’d let you kiss him, if he’d kiss you first, if you can meet not because of sweet cream cold brews or algebra but because you just want to be together.

You just don’t know how to ask. For as much as you like him, for as much as you want him, you haven’t figured out the most basic part of this — if you mean anything more than a two hour talk to him at all.

“Mark.” This feels awfully like the dim sum conversation, only somehow ten times more disastrous. “Come with me.”

“Sorry?” The appalled look on his face makes you squirm in your seat.

“I don’t really want to go, but maybe if we go together… we can just hang out a bit and leave once it’s boring… I think it’d be fun,” you explain lamely, deciding at the last second to drop the with you that had originally come with your sentiment.

“I don’t think your… partner will like someone uninvited showing up.”

“I’m inviting you.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“You’d be, like, my saving grace or something — my excuse to scram. We’ll say we came right from a study session; we only popped in halfway through for the sake of greeting him a happy birthday. Then we can just go. We can say — uh, we’ve got more work to do.” You’re practically begging him at this point, and you don’t even get why. You just don’t want him to leave looking the way he does — confused and a little detached. You want the Mark that had smiled at you while giving you your coffee — the one that had kindly pointed out an arithmetic mistake in the most gentle way possible. You want to open blind boxes with him, whine about your rotten luck, and part ways with his warmth still against your coat sleeve.

You don’t know what comes over you then, but you pluck up the courage and initiative to slip your hand in his. He stiffens a little, but you don’t care; your fingers squeeze his in urging.

Something in his expression breaks — cracks first, then falls away, before he’s nodding, still looking vaguely thoughtful.

“If you think it’ll help you, then… okay.”

The bus ride to Youngho’s neighborhood is uneventful because it’s quiet. You stand close to Mark at all times, but you barely touch, save for the times your knuckles accidentally brush his when you lurch forward slightly as the vehicle comes to a dangerously abrupt stop. He doesn’t ask anything about the party or the company that’ll populate it, which is just as well, because you don’t have a clue.

You know it’s the right house because the door’s wide open and there’s music coming from inside; you can’t make out much more than the deep bass pumping through the concrete, but you’re pretty sure it’s making your heart jump in your chest even more than it already is. There are quite a few people you vaguely recognize on the lawn, and even more that you absolutely don’t; a good number of them glance at you and Mark as you step through the threshold then look away, probably deciding you’re of no real consequence or harm to their moods.

Youngho’s easily spottable because of his massive height; he towers over the rest of his guests, and the red plastic cup in his hand calls even more attention because he’s lifted it over everyone else’s heads. You throw Mark an apologetic glance that he responds to with a short nod before you dive into the crowd alone, trying to weave your way to where you’d last seen Youngho.

“Bro, finally!” Youngho greets you, pretty much shouting over the music. “Where’s the gift? Did you leave it on the table?”

“Happy birthday, Youngho. Do you know how close you were to being blocked?”

“I see you brought mister espresso with you,” he ignores your comment completely, nodding to Mark. When you turn back to see him, you notice he’s squishing his arms closer to his sides, trying to minimize the space he takes up. “So what? Y’all get to hook up already?”

“No. I brought him here because we were in the middle of something and someone,” you stop, offering him a pointed look that’s also ignored. “Wouldn’t stop texting.”

“Cockblock,” the guy next to Youngho, who you now realize has been eavesdropping, singsongs. “Oh, sorry. You looked angry when you stomped through the crowd, so I wanted the juicy details. Name’s Jaehyun.”

You take the hand he offers you briefly, introducing yourself. When you say your name, realization dawns on his face, and he jabs his forefinger at you.

“Oh, dude. You’re that girl — the Starbucks Showstopper.”

“The what?”

“That’s what his friends call you.” He scratches his ear, seemingly racking his brain for more information. “I’m with Mark and a couple of his friends — Lee Donghyuck and Na Jaemin — in College Algebra.”

You completely gloss over the fact that you’ve finally found out the real government identity of the mysterious figure named ‘Hyuck.’ “They… talk about me?”

“From time to time. Not really. Once or twice. Donghyuck only calls you that because Mark apparently keeps blowing them off to hang out with you.”

“How do you know this?”

“I have ears. It’s not hard when they talk like no one’s around.”

You shush Youngho’s exclamation of and you’re saying I’m nosy?, your heart hammering hard in your ears, practically drowning out the music. “What… what else did they talk about?”

“Not sure. Something about not seeing you that often these days. Jaemin teasing Mark about getting dropped now that you don’t need his help anymore. Donghyuck piling on and saying you’ve got a boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Don’t shoot the messenger.” Jaehyun still inches away from you when your voice rises in pitch and decibel. Some people around you start, then move away as well, as if scared you’re going to incinerate them. “They were just teasing him that you probably ditched him after you started dating someone. Your partner in some project, or what.”

“Oh gross.” The realization hits you like a speeding truck. Youngho’s expression is affronted.

“First of all, you bitch. Second of all, as if I would date someone who didn’t even buy me a gift. Or want to come. Or yelled at me after coming. Wow — now that I think about it, you’re terrible, _________.”

“Oh, shit; that someone was you?” The only person that isn’t tense in this conversation is Jaehyun, who laughs point blank at Youngho’s sour face. “I think they were offering to put you into one of their Death Note notebooks. Sucks for you, hotshot.”

“What a smudge on my good name,” Youngho sighs mournfully. “On my special day, too.”

“I desperately need you two to be quiet for one second. I have to — where’s Mark?”

Even when you stand on your tiptoes, you’re not nearly as tall as the two of them; it’s Youngho, with his freakish height, who manages to spot Mark by the bowl of nachos, looking as though he’s trying to decide if they’re safe for consumption. You hardly excuse yourself; actually, all you say is a distracted “later” that dismisses Jaehyun’s cooing that something’s going down and you should clue him into all the mess later as a thank you. Your appreciation of his sudden and somewhat short-lived presence in your life is still up in the air.

Mark’s busy making a sour face at the sip of punch he’d just taken; he only straightens up when you’re right in front of him, putting his cup down next to the nachos. “Hey. Did you get to find… um…”

“That’s not important.” Your hand bunches the fabric of his jacket in a death grip, something he barely has time to register, let alone question, before you’re tugging him through the throng of people. You want somewhere quiet, somewhere private, and you initially consider the lawn, except you know it’s strewn with cups and has stragglers debating whether to go home or not. You can’t risk any of them being expert eavesdroppers like Jaehyun, so you make a beeline for the stairs instead.

“We’re not leaving yet?” He has to shout over the music, but there’s no resistance in his stride; he follows you up and waits patiently, although a little perplexed, as you check the doors on the second floor. Two are locked, one is a bathroom, and the other is a messy, musk aftershave-scented place you can only presume is Youngho’s room. Talking in front of a sink and a toilet doesn’t feel like it’ll be very productive, so you just drag Mark into the bedroom, kicking aside the crumpled shirt on the floor — which you could’ve sworn you’d seen Youngho wear for class yesterday. “_________, what’s going on?”

“Mark Lee,” you burst out, ignoring the fact that his eyes widen slightly at your tone. “What’s your fucking deal?”

You don’t think you’ve ever sworn in front of him before; that much is evident when he continues to gawk silently, unable to find words to respond to your question. Or maybe it’s just the volume and force with which you demand an answer. The problem is that you don’t even know what kind of reply you want. A small part of you nags that this is uncalled for, especially at this level, with you practically caging him into an unknown room. In fact, even now, you’re still embarrassed at your behavior, wondering if you’ve gone too far and stepped over a line between you.

But the source of all your frustrations is, in fact, that line — one so strangely drawn, clear at some points and almost invisible at others. Sometimes, he seems simply content with the barest minimum of friendship: talking to you, helping you, politely laughing at your (terrible) jokes. But there are also times he blushes too hard for it to not mean anything, times that he makes you feel like you could mean a little something more to him too.

Yet, from there, he wavers, stepping back so as not to get entangled in something you don’t understand — like when he grows distant every time you mention Youngho to him. You don’t understand why he would unless he echoed, even just a little, the longing in you. But you also don’t get why he stays and builds more walls around himself, like he’s determined to ignore all the other signs — like he doesn’t want to know if it’s really true and will just accept the assumption that it is. You hate not knowing where you stand with him, and while you could easily ask, you know you don’t want to.

And for a long time, you’ve convinced yourself that it’s because you want to see Mark step out of his comfort zone and initiate something, but the ugly truth is staring at you: it’s simply just that you can’t stand the idea of seeing him come to the conclusion that you can’t be anything more to him than someone he makes a sweet cream cold brew for every so often.

There’s a moment of tense silence between you two, where you’re just staring at each other — him, perplexed, and you, agitated — and the only sound that passes is the faint but unmistakable voice of Youngho going who has the cake cutting knife? from somewhere down below. You try not to get caught up in the fact that Mark still looks cute when he’s dumbfounded.

“Sorry?”

“What,” you repeat pointedly. “Is your deal? Why have you been acting so weirdly around me these days? I thought — I thought we were… getting closer. I thought… we…”

You’ve confirmed it now; you’re the epitome of cowardliness. You can’t even say I thought we liked each other — because you know that you do, but you still can’t honestly, assuredly tell if he does. Maybe you just read too deeply into the smallest things — smiles before he asks for your order, glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking, sharing the dream eater figurine — to fuel your own emotions without really checking the depth of his.

“I thought we were cool,” you reroute your words, and they come out flat and lame. “But just when I think you’re warming up to me, you suddenly pull away. Like… you’re afraid of me. Or you don’t like me. I don’t know.”

“It’s not — I don’t — I’m not afraid of you,” he stumbles over his words, and even in the darkness of this space, you see his face turn bright red, very quickly. His feet shuffle, not because he’s lost his balance but because he seems to want to get rid of a sudden restlessness. “I do like you. We are — we were getting — we’re close. We — we’re friends. You said that, and we are.”

“Is it only because I say we are that you agree?”

“What? No, I—” His hand passes over his face, slowing at the curve of his chin. “I really like being friends with you. I like being around you.”

“Then why do you act so weird these days? Like — you’ll be fine one moment, then you’ll back off, like you suddenly remembered you don’t want to be around me.”

“It’s not like that. I’m — I don’t get…” He takes a deep inhale, recalibrating himself for a moment before his voice comes out again, less strained this time. “I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me.”

“How could I?” There’s something more than confusion coloring your voice; there’s hurt, too, and he looks as surprised as you feel at hearing it. “I wanted to be your friend. I was the one that asked you to hang out. I was the one who wanted you to talk to me, to help me, to go to a goddamn dim sum place with me. Why would I feel uncomfortable? Or are you just using this as some roundabout way to say you feel uncomfortable?”

Mark falls silent, and you don’t know why this speaks volumes all of a sudden. His eyes are trained to the tips of his sneakers, which are rising in soft bumps every few seconds; he’s curling his toes inside them. You feel like you’ve gotten the worst answer possible, and something grows cold in your chest.

“You feel uncomfortable around me.” You rehash, but it’s no longer a question. “You don’t know how to get rid of me.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“You think I’m only using you.”

“No.”

“Then what?” Your voice breaks, no longer out of anger, but a desperate sadness. The moment your eyes feel hot and prickly, you decide you want to end the conversation. It’s embarrassing, you think, for someone like Mark Lee — whom you like, who only ever sees you as a friend — to see you get choked up at a fucking birthday party at someone else’s house.

A beat later, you’re mumbling a half-hearted forget it, and you detest overdramatics, but you hate the idea of being in a room with someone who’ll never return your feelings even more right now; you push past him, already on the thought of calling a cab home instead of taking the bus so that no half-drunk businessmen coming from their company dinners see you crying.

But something warm wraps around your wrist, then closes over your hand, and you’re unable to move, Mark’s palm pressed against the back of yours. When you look back, you notice he’s still not looking at you, but his ears are practically on fire with how red they are, and you feel his fingers tighten slightly, tremble slightly against yours.

“It’s not that. I didn’t ever want you to think — I heard about you two. That you were dating someone. Seo Youngho.”

“What does that matter?” Your words come out a little more bitterly than you expect, and you have to remind yourself to reel it in. “That doesn’t explain your discomfort.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he repeats, still evidently careful in choosing his words. “Because you wanted to be friends.”

“I don’t understand,” you state bluntly. In the back of your mind, you note that Mark’s grip keeps tightening and loosening, unsure of whether to keep holding on or let go. But there’s something else, too — the soft graze of skin against yours, his thumb gliding over your knuckles.

“That was all you said you wanted to be, right?” He waits for a response, but when you don’t give him one, he lets out a shaky breath and continues. “You kept saying — we were friends. You wanted us to be close like that. I just wanted to respect it, even if…”

“Respect what?”

“That you didn’t want… anything else.”

The music downstairs is a bit tamer now; you hear the door opening and closing every so often, signaling guests leaving here and there, but there are still enough footsteps downstairs for you to know that there’s a crowd Youngho hasn’t gotten rid of and therefore has to attend to. That much is good; you’d get slapped with a homicide charge if he came up here all of a sudden.

“You were jealous.”

Mark’s fingers pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment. “I tried to stop. I don’t have a lot of practice with — well, I didn’t know how to approach the situation. I thought I was still acting normally; I didn’t think… I didn’t want you to feel weird and stop hanging out with me just because… I couldn’t fix it.”

“Your friends are assholes,” you mumble, and he finally meets your eye, equal parts startled and amused. “We aren’t. Weren’t. We never were dating.”

“Even without that, I thought… it was a bit embarrassing. Liking someone like you — someone as pretty as you, as nice as you — I thought it would make you feel weird. Then you’d start avoiding me too. Or, worse, you’d keep doing it just because… you… felt bad for me.”

You don’t know what you find more ridiculous — that you hadn’t seen figured it out or that you could have avoided all of this if you’d just been a little more honest with him too. Mark’s hand starts loosening around yours, a little too much, and you turn your palm and grip his hand before he can escape. He stiffens again, just like earlier, but you now understand better why he does.

“I just wanted to keep hanging out with you as much as I could. I thought… It’d be fine, just spending time with you, and I’d be able to like you for a while, on my own, then…” He looks a little pained. “Then just let you go. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you couldn’t let go?” You sigh softly, your palm guiding his until they connect, face to face, and you can finally lace your fingers into his. There’s no resistance, but his hand trembles slightly in yours still. “If there’s anything you should be apologizing for, it’s that you ever thought of doing it.”

Something clears in the air, lightens in his expression, and he chuckles, albeit a little shyly still. “It’s because I never thought someone like you would like someone like me.”

“I like you.” And it feels right to say it now, not at all out of the blue, never in fear of an answer he’s already given. “I like you when you smile at me every time you ask for my order. I like that you never get impatient when I’m getting my answers wrong. I like seeing you excited when you talk about a new series you’re looking forward to — something new you really want to collect. When you blush, when you laugh loudly, when you spin your pen in your hand — I like you in all those times.”

“Even when I’m jealous?”

“Especially when you are.” Your free hand comes up to cup his jaw, and you’re reminded of the fact that you’ve wanted to feel the strength of the angle under your palm for ages now. It’s not at all a disappointment, and your heart flutters irregularly in knowing you could’ve done this a long time ago, but it doesn’t matter because you’re doing it now, and fuck if Mark Lee doesn’t look good this close to you. “So be jealous — because now, you know you can be.”

Kissing him is better than you imagined, and you’ve imagined a little too much to be embarrassed at this point; there’s a heat to his lips that matches the one across his face, an upturn to them that makes you smile too. The setting’s not at all an expected one, but you’ll take it, not because it’s dark or because it’s private but because Mark’s in here with you, and you would have kissed him in a brightly lit football field full of people for as long as he’d let you.

You’d like to think he’s flushed for a reason other than shyness when you pull away, even if his laugh is quiet and breathy. In fact, when you murmur not enough, he’s the one that closes the gap this time, offering freely what you ask for with such little eloquence. The natural trepidation in his mouth relaxes, gives way to a curiosity that keeps you locked for so long that you forget you need to breathe, much more intent on finding out if Mark’s tongue tastes as good as you’ve imagined for so long.

It doesn’t; it tastes even better.

It’s still not enough, not by a long shot, but you have to resurface before you pass out like this, and even he looks a little dazed when you pull away — not in a bad way, with a grin on his face that you can only classify as endearingly goofy: slightly lopsided and a little shy, but with an unmistakable air of satisfaction.

“Months,” he mumbles, his lips still dangerously close to yours. Your eyebrows rise in questioning, and he laughs in that infectious way that makes you want to join in without even knowing what the punchline is. “I’ve been thinking of kissing you for months.”

And you do share the laughter this time, not out of amusement but of a happiness that spills without restraint. “But you’re suddenly holding back now?”

“Just letting myself bask in the moment, I guess. Letting it sink in so I remember everything.”

The two of you stand there quietly, still trying to fully parse the progression of events, and a small part of your mind registers that Mark’s thumb is still drawing circles on your skin. It’s also not enough — this touch, this closeness. You know now that he’s been thinking of you for months, and it reminds you that you spent that time dreaming of him too. And you remember you’ve always wanted to be even more familiar with him, and suddenly the desire is overwhelming; he’s right here, and you don’t ever want him out of your grasp again.

“Where are you going?” He’s only curious for the sake of it; there’s no alarm in the question because you keep your fingers tightly woven in his, tugging him along as you walk past him to the door. He’s still staring in wonder after the lock clicks shut. “What’s… happening now?”

“You waited months to kiss me, right?” He nods in response at your question. “I’ve been waiting just as long to have you too.”

His mouth falls open, but he doesn’t manage to say anything; his jaw tightens just as quickly when he feels your free hand trail down his chest, feather-light and asking for a green light. Your index finger stops just above his navel and draws back slowly, but not before you feel the shiver that runs down his torso.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you murmur, giving his hand a little squeeze. “But I just want you to know — I want to. I want you.”

A thoughtfulness settles on his face, and his eyes graze over yours, trying to read your seriousness. You don’t know how honest you look, but your words hold enough truth in them. A silence stretches over the next minute, but to you, it feels like an eternity, and you lose the test of patience somewhat, smiling softly at him.

“You don’t want to?”

“I—” His tongue peeks out, running over his bottom lip. “I do. It’s not that I don’t want to, but…”

“You seem worried.”

A hesitant nod. “I’ve never — well, no, I have, but not — with someone like you.”

“What’s someone like me?” You laugh airily.

“Someone pretty like you — I don’t know. Someone who seems to know exactly what they want. Someone who seems like… they could do better than me.”

“Mark.” You can’t keep the incredulity out of your voice. “I do know exactly what I want. I want you. The rest — I don’t care about. As long as it’s you, I want it.”

He cracks a smile, half of relief, half of disbelief. You don’t miss his hand coming up to press, warm, against your waist. “For real?”

Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt — an anchor to bring you closer, until the tips of your noses are brushing. “For real.”

The third time you kiss is slow, almost careful; there’s lingering worry in the line of his mouth that your lips try to ease until his slightly part under the movements of yours. You feel the tension leave his form in waves — first in his shoulders, then in his arms, until you’re able to press yourself closer and feel the slight give of his frame against your smaller one. He’s radiating an immense amount of body heat that’s pricking your skin and keeping you alert, and you’re hyperaware of the smallest things — the weak tremble in his mouth, the slight roughness of his teeth under your tongue, the ridges of his palate above it.

He tastes nothing like what he smells, you learn. Instead of the air of earthy coffee stuck to clean linen, you inhale a combination of spearmint and mild saltiness that’s made slightly sharper by the lingering splash of alcohol from his accidental sip of punch earlier. You decide then and there that this disparity is important to you; it makes you feel like you’re the only one who can have this experience — that everyone else can know his scent, but now, only you can know what Mark Lee tastes like.

You have to keep your wits about you to avoid this addictive stimulation of your senses; you let go of his hand only to lock your fingers around his neck, and there’s a show of trust in how he lets you lead him backwards, until his knees are hitting the edge of the unmade bed. The kiss breaks as he’s forced to settle on the mattress, and he looks up at you in what can only be described as a quiet kind of awe. He doesn’t complain when you place your hands, heavy, on his shoulders, using his sturdy form to keep you stable as you move to straddle his lap.

“I feel like,” his voice is hoarse as he speaks up. “We should have picked a different location. Someone… could walk in.”

“I locked the door,” you remind him, a light reassurance in your voice. He doesn’t say anything immediately, but it’s clear there are cogs turning in his head, and you think it’s unfair that he’s thinking way too hard about something else that isn’t you, right now, in this position. In a bid to rectify this, your face presses into the side of his neck, breathing in that familiar scent and leaving a light kiss on his skin right after. Your lips mark the moment he swallows hard at the contact. “Besides, would you really be that unhappy if someone did?”

His hands tighten against your waist, prompting you to leave another kiss against his collarbone. “What — what do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t like it if someone — say, Youngho — walked in to see me on your lap like this?”

The silence that follows your words is tense, and you can tell that Mark’s breathing has become shallower. Again, you can feel his throat constricting slightly, and you can’t help but laugh breathily as you nip at his skin, just under his Adam’s apple. He’s surprisingly easy to tease, you realize — quick to turn speechless and prone to hanging onto your words.

To say that you wouldn’t want to use that to your advantage would be a downright lie.

“Tell me,” you urge, your tone deceptively gentle. “You wouldn’t want him to see you kissing me like this? To see me wrapped around you, begging for more, saying your name over and over? You don’t want him to watch you take me — so he knows you’re the only one that can?”

A strangled groan punctuates your words, but it comes from him; his fingers dig hard into your side with barely constructed restraint. “What do you want from me, _________?”

“I want to know if kissing me was the only thing you wanted for months.”

You pull your head away, nudging his chin with the tip of your nose. Another groan escapes him, and his head tilts back slightly, almost like he’s praying. But when his gaze comes down to meet yours at your level again, you see a firm resolution in his eyes that stirs your heart — which takes off the moment he shakes his head, slowly but surely.

“Then,” you whisper. “What do you want from me?”

He doesn’t say so much as shows; he takes from you your breath, steals another kiss that’s now firmer and more openly demanding. Suddenly, his mouth can’t seem to stay still, trapping your lower lip in between his, drawing out your taste until it mixes with his against his teeth. You feel your head growing light again, and you’re pleasantly surprised that it’s suddenly become difficult to keep up with his lips, asking more from you without restraint. A hum of need sounds in the back of his throat, vaguely dissatisfied, and he’s telling you wordlessly that it isn’t enough right before he attaches his lips to the base of your neck, just above your collar. You think he’s just about to return the favor, but a laugh leaves you when you realize he’s taken it a step further, his teeth grazing your skin lightly, soft nips signaling how eager he is to sink his teeth in with only his slowly weakening self-control stopping him from doing it. Mark’s breathing is slightly labored when he pulls his lips away, warm breath fanning over your chest.

“It’s crazy — and stupid,” he croaks out, voice slightly raspy. “But I want it, and I don’t.”

“What do you mean?” Your fingers drag into his hair, combing it upward messily from his nape. He leans in for a quick kiss that’s somewhat misplaced, landing on the corner of your mouth instead of squarely atop it.

“I want them — him to see us. To see me with you, kissing you — fucking you, too. I want everyone to know we’re like this.”

You’ve never heard Mark say anything so forwardly before; a sweet, warm flush builds in your face, pleased at how comfortably he manages to say it — pleased that he’s saying it to you. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t want him to see you.” There’s a bluntness to his words, but hiding behind them is an undertone of pleading — a serious request. “I don’t want him to see how pretty you look. I don’t want him to see you when you’re bare, or how you look when I’m inside you. I don’t want him to see—”

His voice wavers and dies, and you wonder if he’s embarrassed, but when you read his expression, you see an unyielding longing. A smile tugs at your lips, and your hand comes around to cup his chin, thumb extending upwards to drag his lower lip down.

“You don’t want him to see what’s only yours.”

He swallows hard again, but he doesn’t wait long to nod. Understanding passes between the both of you, silently but completely, and Mark presses his face to your throat, feeling the hum resonate as he places another long, firm kiss there.

“You’re mine,” he whispers, in a way that almost feels like he wants to convince himself of something impossible to believe. He doesn’t even wait for your affirmation, prefers to read it in the way you shiver lightly once his lips travel further down. His kisses trail past the collar of your shirt, and his hands are unabashed in how they seek skin, pushing the fabric upward so he can settle the palms of his hands, warm against your waist. Oddly, they don’t travel upwards; they only brush against the dip, down slightly over the upward rise of your hips, then upwards again, almost soothingly. It’s almost like he wants his mouth to meet them, but he stops halfway, sidetracked by the curve of your breasts.

He barely pulls away, only does for a moment, enough to meet your eyes.

“You’re only mine,” he repeats, his voice softer now. You realize he’s still waiting for some confirmation, and when you do, you’re quick to give it to him — quick to erase any doubt.

“I’m yours,” you affirm in the same tone, in the same careful volume. “Only yours, Mark.”

Whatever else he wanted to ask for, he knows you’ve given assent; that much is clear when he buries his face between your tits, inhaling your scent. You briefly wonder if he might feel just as intoxicated around you as you do around him, if your pleasant dizziness in being this close to him, in tasting and smelling him is something he experiences too, but you don’t get much time to dwell on it the moment you feel his lips part, a slight wetness seeping through the fabric. He’s kissing your chest, teeth grazing just above the cup of your bra, nipping without any real objective other than to feel the pad’s slight resistance to his mouth.

You almost miss what he says as he shifts his head, lips brushing over the curve of your breast — another breathless ‘mine’ that isn’t ever punctuated; his lips still stay parted, mouthing at the cloth, like he’s desperate to feel what’s underneath through it. There’s pressure where his tongue presses flush against the shape of your tit, tightness whenever he chooses to nip, attempting to take the flesh and all that’s between you and him between his teeth.

Not enough, you think, even when a whimper of need bubbles out of you; you want to be closer, your thighs pressing against the sides of his. You’re close in almost every way, but you still inch yourself further forward, enough to feel the taut hardness in his jeans. Your hips settle right there, letting fabric ride against fabric as you center yourself.

No sooner do you press yourself flush against him do you gasp; the light sting sends a jolt up your spine when his teeth close around your nipple through your bra, and when you look down at him, you see the corners of his mouth pulled up in evident satisfaction. He’s quick to atone, his tongue dragging your shirt slightly upwards in his attempt to soothe, and for some reason, the push of fabric and the barely-there feeling of motion leaves you tingling.

“Mark.” Your voice comes out in a whine, but in the haze you’re in, you don’t really have a clear idea of what you’re asking for. All you know is that you want more of him, and for as much as he’s already given you in kisses and words, you aren’t even halfway down the list of everything else you wish you could demand from him. You say the only thing that comes to mind — the only thing that really encompasses what you feel. “Mark, I want you. I want more of you.”

His hands on your waist are replaced by the significant tightness of his arms, locked around your torso; you don’t even have the time to take in your awe at the fact that he can easily carry you, turn you over until you’re on your back, until he’s already eased one knee between your legs.

The way he looks down at you is a mixture of hesitation and desire, but the former’s erased when you reach out for him, murmuring another ‘more’ so you can pull him in. With one palm pressed against the mattress, he lets his free hand graze against your side again, bolder in its movements, and his fingers trace a path up to your breast, squeezing the soft flesh through layers. Your back arches upwards in response, eager for more contact, for touch that’s almost there but not quite, and he smiles when you make a noise of frustration from his fingers tweaking the soft nub of your nipple.

“Mark, please—”

“Would you really let him see you like this?” His thumb’s still idly grazing over your breast, following the rise and fall of its curve. You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice level despite the growing want that threatens to break through it. “Would you really let him watch you… get fucked?”

You shake your head, and his brow furrows.

“I’d let him watch you fuck me,” you correct him, and the confusion in his face gives way to pure satisfaction the moment you make this nuance clear. “It has to be only you.”

His grip tightens briefly against your breast again, and he leans down, pressing a surprisingly chaste and brief kiss to your lips.

“Then I’ll unlock the door next time and give him a show.”

You don’t know if it’s what he says or what he does after — his hands bunching your shirt upward until the hem’s just below your neckline — that makes your breath hitch, but you decide it doesn’t matter when you realize you’d much rather be focusing on the journey his lips take, slick against your stomach as he presses languid kisses down to your navel. His fingers hook into the waistband of your jeans, the weight naturally pulling them down, and you see his muscles tighten for a moment as he stops himself from tugging them off completely.

Mark’s mouth is unparalleled in its attentiveness, seemingly intent on making sure he’s covered every inch of your stomach in warm kisses, but you only realize he’s somehow stalling when he starts the cycle again, his nails digging into the taut elastic of your jeans as though to remind himself to curb his desire.

You take the initiative instead, raising your hips slightly to signal your want, acutely aware of the fact that you brush lightly against his thigh when you do so. His eyes lift first, followed by the rest of his face, and he’s watching you quietly. You might have thought he was unsure of what to do all of a sudden again, but his knee pressing closer, an unmistakable pressure against you, is enough to tell you that he’s only curious to know what else you’ll do.

The second time you grind against his thigh, his hands catch your hips, keeping them aloft just long enough for him to tug the band of your jeans downward; he peels them off you with surprising ease, returning to the same position between your legs, hands still firm on your waist. With that done, he only has the thin garter of your panties left to curl his fingers into, bunching it into his fists when you roll your hips up one more time. You manage a shaky noise when you feel the stark difference — the roughness of the denim against you, the stick and drag of flimsy cloth. Mark lets out a low but unmistakable hiss.

“I can’t believe—” his idea is cut short by the movement of your hips again, and his grip tightens, knuckles pressing into your skin. “Can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“What am I supposed to do,” you breathe out, the sound momentarily getting stuck in your throat. “So that you know it’s real?”

His fingers relax their hold, palms now pressed against your thighs; they travel between your hips and your knees, a soothing and thoughtful motion. “God — I don’t know. I just want — I just want you so badly. Like… I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have you now.”

You lean up, your weight resting on your elbow, and your other hand reaches out; Mark meets you halfway, bending just a little lower to press his cheek against your palm. There’s something intimate, something so giving about the way he turns his face to your fingers, pressing a fluttering kiss just under your thumb. The tips of your fingers trace the shape of his lips, even when they pucker again under your digits.

“Take me,” you murmur quietly. “Right now — from now on, every part of me is all for you.”

His exhale is shaky, but his fingers have a sureness to them; they slip under your thighs, cradling the backs of your knees, and lifting until they’re folded over your chest. You don’t even have the time to wonder if you should feel exposed all of a sudden; his breath warms the inside of your thigh as he presses his lips there — not a kiss, just a touch as he speaks.

“I want to taste you,” he mumbles, partly distracted with the act of inhaling the mild scent off of your skin. “Every inch of you — I want to know just how sweet you are.”

He lets his hold on your thighs relax, letting them fall apart; he busies his hands with your panties instead, hooking a finger into the strip of cloth just covering you. It’s clear you’re both aware that the fabric sticks light to your skin, poorly masking your wetness, and interest mingled with hunger flashes across his face as he pulls it aside.

“You’re so pretty,” he says, sounding like it’s a comment more for himself than anything else. His gaze flickers to you for a moment before it moves back to your pussy. “The prettiest fucking girl in the world.”

The pressure of his thumb between your folds causes you to forget what you wanted to say, and you know Mark had been nervous, but you realize that it doesn’t mean he’s supremely inexperienced by any means; there’s a quiet, understated confidence in the way he rubs slow, thorough circles, moving upward towards your clit. Your face, your neck, your whole torso feels flushed, but you power through the instinct to tilt your head back so that you can keep watching him — the minute changes in his expression, the slowly building strength in his touch.

“I want to taste you,” he repeats, looking up at you. “I want to know what you taste like when you cum against my mouth.”

You’re not sure if you’re gawking because you can hardly believe Mark Lee — your eternally blushing, mild mannered campus crush — had said all those words strung together into such a lewd sentence, but you’re sure as hell not going to deny him. Your hand travels down your torso, and he watches, curious at first, then awestruck when your index and forefinger settle against either side of your folds, pulling them apart in offering.

His eyes end up transfixed on your pussy again, observing how your fingers ease your folds further apart the more he massages his thumb against your slit. His mouth is slightly agape, intent on drinking in the sight, unaware that you’re trying to memorize this view of him too — Mark Lee, touching you, wanting you, eager to take you fully.

“I’ve always wanted to see what it’d look like with your face between my legs,” you say in a hushed tone, but he catches it anyway, briefly looking up at you again. “I’ve always wanted to know what your tongue would feel like against my pussy.”

Your index finger bumps against the tip of his thumb, and he stops its motions, allowing you to move his digit down until the pad of it hovers just in front of your tiny hole. You can see one cheek tucked between his teeth, bitten to muffle the groan you wish you’d heard louder.

“Won’t you show me?”

You think you hear him rasp out a ‘fuck yes’ before he bends down, pressing his half-open mouth against your pussy. The squeal of delight that leaves you is half-strangled as his thumb curls, hooking into your entrance. It starts a shallow, distracted motion, with his attention funneled much more clearly into keeping his tongue working. Flush against your slit, it drags up, and he releases a guttural noise at your taste, lips pursing slightly on the way back down — like he can’t stand not trapping every drop of wetness with his mouth.

The intensity of his tongue, the idle thrusting of his thumb — you’re not sure what you want to focus on more, and the result is you whimpering incoherently at the starkly contrasting combination of the two. Mark moves his mouth like he’s never tasted anything as good in his life; the sounds between your thighs are wet, sloppy — almost embarrassingly so — but you don’t have the presence of mind to dwell on that because Mark Lee is eating you out and that’s really all that you can think of.

The tip of his tongue suddenly flicks upwards; you keen, long and low, when it starts to circle your clit in that same intense, circular movement his thumb had gotten you used to. Your sensitivity skyrockets, and you’re completely unable to control the upward bucking of your hips, but Mark stays supremely unperturbed, his free arm winding under your thigh to keep the both of you steady. Your noises are growing embarrassingly loud, and you realize just how needy you’ve become when you vaguely notice that there’s a pattern in what you’re saying — his name, over and over again.

“Did you do that too?” He asks softly, his words slightly muffled against you. “Say my name, I mean — when you thought of me.”

“God, yes.” Your voice comes out strained, teetering on the edge of slurring. “So many times — every single fucking time.”

“Promise me something.” He lifts his head, and you see a fieriness in his gaze.

You nod — at this rate, whatever he’d ask you to do, you would without question. “Anything.”

His thumb presses in deeper, up to his knuckle and you reflexively tighten around his digit, but he keeps it anchored there, pushing down against your walls. He drinks in your gasp, the widening of your eyes, the way you chew on your lip with a singular kind of contentment on his face.

“Promise me — from now on, you’ll make sure I’m always there to hear it.”

The only kind of assent you’re able to make is a moan as he dives down again, mouth buried in your warmth, his nose pressed tight against your clit. His tongue moves in strong strokes, broad swipes that push your folds apart further, and his thumb, while not moving, increases in pressure to the point that you feel a heaviness adding to the growing pleasure. Your hands fly down, seeking some kind of sense and reason, and you thread your fingers into his hair, grip tightening as your climax builds in stride.

“Mark, I’m—” close, you want to say, embarrassingly so, but the moment he hears his name, his lips attach to your clit, and there’s suddenly so much more pressure as he sucks, almost like he’s desperate to draw out your orgasm. He chooses this of all time to start moving his thumb again, and this time, his movements are anything but slow and idle; they’re filled with the intent to drive you over the edge. “Fuck me, oh my god—”

“I want to,” he murmurs, pausing for just a moment to drag the tip of his tongue around the nub. “God, I want to. Let me see you cum first; let me taste how sweet you are.”

His thumb stops, buries deep into your pussy, and you’re not sure why this, of all things, is what pushes you beyond control; you’re only half-sure you say his name when your orgasm hits, the rest of your consciousness much too clouded by pleasure. He doesn’t stop, revels in the way you squirm under him as he hums low and keeps his tongue working against your clit. His licks become longer, more thorough as you come down from your high, your cries softening into whimpers as his tongue both attempts to clean you up and makes you messier in the process. His arm is still curled around your thigh, keeping you from inching away from him, even if instinct and stimulation are telling you to.

You’re barely lucid when you sit up, and Mark inches back, somewhat startled; you grab the front of his shirt, and the sight of his mouth, slick and glistening from your wetness, only makes you more curious to know what you taste like on him. You find out how tangy it is, how rich the two of you are together on his lips, and you’re able to fully appreciate the skill of the mouth that kisses you deeply, leaving traces of you against your tongue and teeth.

“Please — fuck me.” It’s the only thing you can say at this rate, only half-coherent and still trembling with desire, but Mark doesn’t seem to care that you’re stuttering over such a simple request. His thumb wipes traces of saliva off the corner of your mouth, kisses it clean for good measure, then straightens up, his hands working at his belt. You almost miss the fact that his hands are shaking slightly as he undoes the buckle and tugs it out from the loops.

You want to help — it’s the least you can do, after all, and your fingers push the button of his jeans out through the hole, his hands working in tandem to tug the zipper down. However, your movements falter when you hear a noise from just outside the room — the sound of the doorknob being jangled, the thud of a body gently hitting the door, as though worried it’s stuck. You glance up at Mark, ready to reassure him, but he either hadn’t heard or doesn’t care because he’s too busy stepping out from the pool of denim at his ankles, and you get completely sidetracked by the bulge straining against his boxers.

You almost ignore Youngho’s voice grumbling ‘Jesus Christ, now of all times? from behind the door, but you leverage it instead.

“Should we let him in?” You ask, tone innocent despite the evident deviousness in your words. It pays off, though; Mark’s cock twitches unmistakably under thin fabric, and he actually looks like he’s considering it. “You’re just about to fuck me, after all. Weren’t we going to — what did you say? Put on a show?”

He worries on his bottom lip, like he’s unsure if you’re serious, but in the end, he shakes his head, reaching out to smooth your hair away from your face and ushering you to lay back down. The lips that meet your forehead are gentle, almost apologetic.

“Not now,” he murmurs against your skin. “Right now, you’re all mine.”

You laugh lightly, nodding, and he chuckles too, but the sound of it slowly dies down when your finger hooks into the garter of his boxers. You can feel his breathing hitch as you tug it down, the elastic catching when it meets the shape of his cock, but you don’t make any move to free it just yet — for some reason, you want to see him do it.

“Show me.”

He complies without hesitation, one hand dragging the elastic down over his thighs, the other curling around the base of his length, and your face flushes as satisfaction works through your system at the bare sight of him.

Mark Lee is big — not monstrously so, but enough for you to make a pleased noise as your hand joins his, fingers barely wrapping around his girth. You give his shaft a gentle squeeze, and his exhale stutters, watching you stroke him, long and thorough in your movements. Your palm swipes over the tip, leaking precum, allowing it to slick up your hand enough to keep your movements smooth. You’re fixated on the tension in his lips, the throb of his cock against your palm, and the way his gaze never leaves your face, like a small, amazed part of him still can’t believe what you’re doing, even if you’re both half-naked already.

“I want to suck you off,” you plead, grip tightening slightly. He grits his teeth, stifling another groan, but he shakes his head clearly enough for you to slow your movements in mild surprise.

“Can’t — not now. I need to be in you so badly.” His breathing’s sharp and heavy, like he’s trying to keep himself in check. “You don’t even know — how long I’ve wanted to feel you.”

Your hold relaxes, and you let him maneuver you, his renewed hold on your hips dragging you closer to the edge of the bed. In this position, he can spread your thighs further, and you angle yourself optimally — enough for him to get a full view of your pussy, wet and still aching from your last orgasm.

“You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted to know how tight you are,” he continues, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes that makes you think he might be entrenched in fantasy. “How much I would have killed to see you — have you like this. I’m not gonna be able to wait anymore.”

His fingers dig into your sides, thumbs stroking your stomach in a weak pattern. The underside of his shaft presses against your folds, still half obscured by your panties, in a way that’s heavy enough to make you mewl, your hips reacting before your mind can, and he hisses softly as he feels his length glide along your slit before you relax your stance again.

“I can’t wait,” he reiterates, a breaking in his voice that sounds almost tortured. You don’t want him to either, want to see him buried to the hilt inside you, and you raise your hips again in need. “I want you so much it’s driving me crazy.”

“Then take me.”

And you’re not sure if it’s a demand or a plea, but he no longer stops himself; his hand fists his cock a few times, coating the slick of precum along his length before he lines the tip up with your entrance. His other hand’s flush against the inside of your thigh, a light pressure ensuring he always has enough space to fit himself between your legs — enough space to bottom out completely.

Mark’s considerate in his pace — maybe he knows he’s big, or maybe he’s just naturally careful, but he allows you the time to adjust to the stretch. Your nails almost puncture holes into the sheets, your grip so tight you wonder if it’s just to brace yourself or to hang onto the last threads of your sanity. He’s only halfway in, but you’re pushing fullness already, and he stops when his cock meets slight resistance, looking up at you in concern.

“You’re not—?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” you reassure him softly, and it’s true; the adjustment brings about slight discomfort, but it’s almost nothing to you — not compared to how much more you want. “Give me everything; I want all of you inside me.”

He pauses still, trying to read your expression for any lies, but when he can’t find any, he nods, his jaw tensing as he presses both palms against your thighs, keeping you open as much as possible to accommodate him. He doesn’t even stop when you whimper, feeling a tightening twitch in your pussy that also causes him to groan, until inch by inch, you’ve taken him, his hips flush against yours.

He doesn’t move — not yet, his eyes trained to where you’re connected like he’s once again unable to believe what he’s doing. You hear him mumble something to himself that you want to hear too; you squirm slightly, and he hisses through his teeth, looking up at you and finding the questioning in your face. He offers you a small smile, albeit somewhat strained.

“You’re tighter than I thought.”

“You’re bigger than I thought,” you hum, and neither of you is really to blame; the tight fit, the slight breathlessness it leaves you with, is perfect, you think — just what the both of you need. “Did you often think about fucking me?”

“Probably just as often as you’re making it sound like you thought about having me fuck you, I think.”

“Don’t get cocky,” you warn, but there’s no real heat in your voice.

“I won’t. But it makes me feel good — knowing you wanted me just as bad.”

“I still do.” Your gaze is lazy, a little hazy, even if you’re anticipating so much. Even just the feeling of Mark, throbbing inside you, is already slowly building the pleasure in your stomach again; you wonder if you could cum like this, given enough time, given enough patience. “I’m still waiting for you to fuck me. God, Mark— please.”

He chuckles good-naturedly, but even that’s drowned out by the long moan that leaves you once he draws his hips back; your body’s mildly shocked into a new adjustment, feeling a sudden emptiness that’s quickly mitigated by him filling you back up again. The pace is slow, almost torturous, although you know he isn’t doing it to get a rise out of you. He wants to ease you into speed, careful to help you adjust fully; his restraint in his movements is all the more evident on his face, in the furrowing of his brow and the determination in his gaze. Even with that, he can’t help what he says, so intent on controlling everything else he does that he lets his words spill out over your noises.

“Pretty,” he grunts out, and when your walls twitch around him, he accidentally thrusts sharper — just enough for you to whimper a little more loudly, and he has to reel his strength back again. “God, you’re beautiful. I should’ve told you sooner how much I wanted you. All those times I had to imagine you wrapped around me like this, wondering how much tighter you’d get once you came on my cock. All those times you drove me crazy while I was alone, when I could have been in you— I could have found out how good you felt. How pretty you’d look under me. And you’re still even prettier, even better than I ever dreamed.”

There’s an erratic melody of moans under his words, spilling from your mouth, and the fact that he riles himself up enough to increase his speed slightly doesn’t escape you. He’s a little less careful now, seemingly entranced by the view he gets, watching his shaft disappear into you only to come out glistening, and a part of you hates the idea of snapping out of his reverie, but the majority of your thoughts now lean towards wondering how much more you can get him to break free of his own self-imposed restrictions.

“I wanted to ask you so many times.” His eyes snap up, coming back into focus as he takes in the sight of you, flushed, hair tousled, gaze darkened. “Almost every day — I sat there, thinking about how all I could do was go home and fuck myself, frustrated you weren’t doing it for me. I should have taken you home with me right then and there — should have let you watch me touch myself thinking of you, should have let you touch me into cumming on your fingers.”

His breathing staggers as he leans in, eager to see you clearer, to hear your words, slowly becoming airier as they come out. For a moment, his gaze falls, torn between watching him move into you and meeting your eyes, but he ultimately chooses the latter once you speak up again, your tone even more hushed than before — like it’s meant to be a secret between just you and him.

“But there were times I wanted you even more than that, to the point that I almost felt like I couldn’t wait.” His eyes widen slightly, a few precious seconds of wondering if he understands what you mean, right before you confirm what he thinks. “I thought about making a move right then — I should have kissed you. I should have asked you.”

“Asked me what?” His voice is gruff with the effort to keep himself in check despite the fact that it’s clear to the both of you that it won’t last.

Your lazy smile’s illusionary; it hides the triumph swelling in your chest at knowing that he asked exactly what you hoped him to.

“I should have asked you to fuck me in front of everyone there.”

“God,” his eyes squeeze shut, his grip tightening. “Please. I can’t—”

“I should have bent over for you there, begged you to stretch me out right after our session,” you continue, bordering on merciless. “Mark, you don’t know — how badly I wanted to be on your lap, your cock in me, with everyone watching. How much I wanted you to fold me over that table, have people watch you pound me, have them listen to how good you make me feel. No one would ever even wonder; everyone would know I’m yours.”

You pause, allowing his eyes to fly open once again, and there’s a pleading in them that’s begging for release. Your eyes soften along with your voice, but you’re this far gone; you should at least see it through.

“And everyone would know you’re mine too.”

“Fuck,” he growls, and his hips stutter before new resolve fills him, his hips driving into you with the force of a strength you didn’t even know he had in him; your thighs tremble at the intensity, at the renewed impact, and feeling him drive his cock deeper into you has you crying out somewhere between a moan and a sob. “Fuck, _________. If I had known you’d thought about me like that — God.”

It’s your turn to shut your eyes for a while, allowing yourself to focus on his movements, breaching your tightness even faster now. You feel his hands skim up your sides again, fingers digging into the fabric of your bra and pulling them down until your bare tits are cupped in his hands. You shiver as his thumbs pass over your nipples, toying them into firm nubs.

“One day,” he hums out, his voice giving way to a slight hoarseness again. “I’ll do it. I’ll fuck you in front of him — in front of Youngho, in front of everyone. I’ll let them wonder how tight you are, how fucking warm you are, and I’ll let them leave knowing no one can know but me.”

It’ll never happen, you both know, but something about agreeing to something so absurd is what has your body almost shaking in longing, and it’s what causes him to press in deeper, folding your legs closer to your torso. Your hands do what little they can to help, keeping your thighs apart so as not to obstruct his view. You can tell it’s somehow not enough, not really all of what he wants when his brow furrows, and he shifts his weight, pushing into you at a new angle.

The stark difference has you gasping before you can control it. Immediately, Mark stops, and you’re already shaking your head before you even hear him say anything, presuming he’s paused out of concern. But before you can say you’re fine, his hushed voice cuts through the silence.

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“Do it again,” he mumbles, sounding distant. “Breathe in. Suck in your stomach.”

You’re not one to complain at such a simple request, albeit a little odd, so you comply, inhaling enough to tighten your torso. You’re surprised when you feel his cock twitch inside you, and you blow out the air alongside your question. “Mark, what are you—”

“I can see it,” he says in utter disbelief. “When you’re like this, I can — I can see my cock inside you. Just a bit.”

Your eyes follow his gaze, fixed just below your navel. From this angle, without any movement, you can’t see a thing, but you assume he’s not one to abandon fucking you so intently without good reason, so you press your palm against your stomach, just above your pelvis. Nothing really feels significantly out of place — up until the point when Mark draws his hips back again, and you feel the backward slide of his cock.

Your throat tightens, and you don’t really understand the feeling that spreads in you — a unique kind of arousal, knowing how deep he is inside you and how you’re taking all of him in despite the fit, because of the fit. Your hand falls away, allowing Mark’s to take its place, and he exerts just a little more pressure against your stomach in an attempt to get the most out of the experience when he thrusts back in. He groans, feeling the bulge push back up, and he quickly picks up the same pace, renewed in intensity so he can experience the rapid rise and fall he creates under his palm.

The faster he goes, the harder he presses, and you’re not sure if he knows it, but the onslaught of friction is what’s making you whine and squirm even more; you’re trapped, in the best way possible, in his hold, your hands back to clinging to the backs of your knees like a lifeline. Pressure from the outside builds on the slowly growing pressure inside, a knot in your pelvis that’s coiling so tightly you feel like you can’t breathe. If Mark notices how close you are, he doesn’t make it known; he’s busy feeling the outline of his cock against your stomach, and when he looks up at you again, his eyes are hazy.

“I would fuck you every single day, every single hour if I could feel this every time,” he whispers in a way that’s almost reverent. “Let me — I want to keep seeing you like this. I want to feel how deep I am inside you, too. Let me fuck you all the time.”

You nod, and your first attempt to say something is just another choked sob. When you do manage to get something out, it’s broken in tearful stutters. “M-Mark, I’m s— I’m so close… I’m — fuck—”

“Do it.” It’s not a harsh command but an urging made on short breath; through your misty vision, you see tension in Mark’s face and shoulders, like he’s bracing himself for something too. You barely register the ping in the back of your mind, too focused on the way he’s pressing his palm harder on your stomach, the way his hips quicken their pace — he’s close too. “Let me feel you — want to feel you cum all over my cock.”

You inhale, not to speak but to let out a loud whimper; your teeth dig into your lower lip as you try to stifle the moans that threaten to follow, but in the end, you whine out his name. Your thighs threaten to close, trembling as you finally reach your climax, an impossible explosion of pleasure, and you have to squeeze your eyes shut so that you don’t get dizzy from the stars that burst around your vision.

“Fuck.” Mark’s voice is strained, his one hand still firm against your stomach, the other sliding against the inside of your thigh. “You get even tighter — you feel even better when you cum.”

“Mark,” you hiccup, unable to do anything but flutter around him as he pistons harder into you. You don’t even know what you’re asking for when you say ‘please,’ but he somehow seems to, and you trust that your body’s saying something you can’t fully detect in this state, with your mind floating in the aftermath of ecstasy.

“I know,” his tone is soothing in contrast to the intensity of his thrusts. “I’ve got you. Just a little more — where do you want—?”

You blink slowly, his words sinking in at too leisurely a pace; his hips stutter dangerously before you’re able to respond. You barely even do that, your hand gently brushing over the one against your stomach, but he catches onto the meaning quickly enough.

You’ve never heard your name said in such a beautiful way; hearing him moaning it lowly is enough to make you whine again, and that noise is drawn out when he shifts and slips out of you fully. Your brain’s fuzzy, but your senses are at least sharp enough to drink in the perfect sight of him cumming — the way he leans his head back, jaw taut and eyes shut, as he pumps his cock and the heat of his release against your skin, pooling against your stomach once he finally cums. You see a shiver run through him, and then he’s still for a while in this position, the both of you basking in the afterglow of your highs.

You’re still weak and sensitive when Mark finally comes back down, a lucidity you don’t have right now coming back into his gaze. All you can do is smile when he leans in, catching your lips in another kiss — one that’s surprisingly soft and slow in comparison to everything else, but still leaves you breathless when he pulls away.

“Let me clean you up,” he murmurs, and you hum in agreement, your body limp as you watch him move off the bed and pull a handful of tissues from a box on the desk on the opposite wall. Even his hands are gentle when he scoops you up, shifting you until your head can lean against the pillows. They carry a scent you’re not used to, and your nose scrunches, rejecting the change, but that’s quickly overpowered by Mark’s familiar coffee-and-linen one when he presses next to you, careful as he wipes his cum off your stomach and thoroughly cleans between your thighs. From somewhere down below, you still hear hushed voices, and the front door slams shut again. People are still in the middle of leaving, but you know Youngho will likely run out of guests soon, and this makes you feel like the timing’s suddenly become urgent.

“I want to date you properly,” you start, slightly slurred but unmistakably blunt. Mark’s gaze snaps to yours, slightly amused, as he balls the tissues up in his fist. “You never asked me, so I’m asking you.”

He looks perplexed. “I just never thought you wanted me to, so I didn’t try.”

You reach up, locking your fingers into his hair and using your grip to pull him down. Your kiss is a little demanding, with a tinge of excess frustration, and he pulls away laughing lightly.

“Do you still think I don’t want you to?”

Mark hums thoughtfully. “I think you made a lot of things clear tonight. On my end, I was happy enough to be near you.” He smiles down at you, and in the faint light, you can see the flush slowly return to his cheeks. “Having you like this — dating you… there’s no way I’d say no.”

Your shoulders relax, satisfied with his answer, and you beam up at him — an act he easily returns, breathtaking and endearing all at once.

Moments later, you feel his arm wind around your waist; he allows you to lean into his side, his other hand crossing over his lap to stroke your thigh. His face turns, pressing a kiss to your hair, and you feel his lips move, hear the quick rush of a whisper. You tilt your head, eyes slightly wide in questioning. “What was that?”

He shakes his head at first, trying to pass it off as nothing. But when it’s clear your curiosity won’t abate, he chuckles softly, his hand gently cupping your chin so that you can only look at him. His thumb strokes your bottom lip gently, as if trying to coax the same words out of your mouth before he murmurs them to you one more time — and this time, he sounds fully convinced of them.

“You’re all mine.”

[cherryxbooo]

You’re my ideal type

Summary: A video from a year ago of Oscar talking about his ideal type went viral, making his fans wonder why he chose his girlfriend. This leaves y/n with a lot of questions herself.

Note: First time writing for Oscar! I kinda went with the flow. Let me know what you think! 😌

Reader x Oscar Piastri

Genre: fluff/angst

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Monaco. I was out with two of my friends, enjoying brunch together and soaking up the good vibes.

We spent hours talking, laughing, and joking around—overall, it was a fantastic time.

Afterward, we decided to go for a stroll. That’s when we stumbled upon a gorgeous spot with an incredible view. For girls, that can only mean one thing: a photo session. And, of course, we took full advantage.

We snapped countless pictures of each other—exactly what I needed. I’d been wanting to update my Instagram feed, and I knew Oscar would appreciate a few of these too. A win-win situation if you ask me.

Hours later, we decided to head home. Parting ways was bittersweet, but we all had things to do.

When I finally arrived at the place Oscar and I shared, I immediately went inside, feeling my social battery completely drained.

I glanced at the clock and sighed. There were still a few hours to go before Oscar would be home. Feeling a little bored, I decided to tackle some household chores to pass the time.

Eventually, I finished everything and switched to full-on "bed rotting" mode. As I scrolled mindlessly on my phone, I remembered the stunning photos we’d taken earlier.

Sitting up, I started going through them, carefully picking out the best ones to upload to Instagram.

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oscarpiastri Pretties girl ❤️ by author

alexandrasaintmleux Gorgeous ❣️

yourusername Says you 💋

f1_dailylvr81 She's so girly coded love it 💅

fashionistaformula I can't be the only one thinking about that one interview of Oscar?

paistryln481 You're not alone, every time I see her I keep thinking about it

foryoutt16 Wait what? I'm lost, what happened?

cocosainzyy55 @foryoutt16 An old interview of Oscar when he was still in F2 resurfaced and he was talking about his ideal type and the description he gave matches nothing to his current girlfriend. People are suddenly bringing this up again, wondering why he didn't choose his ideal type.

foryoutt16 Oh damn that's rough...

The comments and likes flooded in, as they always did. Sometimes, I forgot that I was dating an F1 driver—it came with its own kind of spotlight.

But as I scrolled through the comments under my post, a few things caught my attention.

One comment in particular stood out: something about an old interview of Oscar.

Confused and curious, I decided to look it up. Little did I know, I was about to regret it...

My stomach twisted into knots as I watched the video, realization sinking in. Oscar described his ideal woman, and her characteristics were unlike ones I possessed. I felt a wave of insecurities and doubts wash over me, each word a reminder of how I didn't fit the bill for his ideal partner.

My heart sank with every word he spoke, describing his ideal woman's qualities - and every one felt like another reminder of how far off the mark I was.

I couldn't help but wonder, "Why did he choose me?" His words stung, and I questioned whether he settled for less than his ideal because he didn't have better options.

On cue, as if the universe was playing a cruel joke, Oscar returned home and called out my name. His voice echoed through the hallway, a stark contrast to the turmoil churning inside me. I hesitated, a mix of fear and confusion gripping me, as I debated whether to face him with this newfound knowledge.

He entered the room with a warm smile, oblivious to the storm brewing inside me. He greeted me with a gentle kiss on the forehead before starting to speak in sweet words.

"Hey babe, how was your day?" he asked, completely unaware of the recent discovery I made.

I forced a smile, trying to hide the turmoil inside as I replied, "It was fine," my voice trying to mask the disappointment and insecurity that bubbled up.

The words left my lips, sounding hollow compared to the usual warmth in my tone.

Oscar sensed the hint of falsity in my fake smile. His observant nature picked up on the subtle cues of my distress, and he recognized that something was off. Yet, instead of immediately asking about it, he chose to hold off, observing to see if I would bring it up.

Oscar wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me closer. He kissed my temple gently, his touch providing a temporary sense of comfort.

He knew something was bothering me and chose not to press, offering a moment of respite instead. "Do you want takeout?" he asked, his voice filled with tenderness.

I replied softly, trying to match his tenderness, "Sounds good." Despite my conflicting emotions, I didn't want to dampen the mood by revealing my insecurities.

"Takeout sounds great," I said, attempting to sound cheerful.

Oscar reluctantly let go of me, reaching for the phone to place the takeout order. In his absence, I seized the opportunity to sneak a look in the mirror, as well as to search for pictures of Oscar's ideal type.

I scoured the internet, comparing every aspect of my appearance to the images of his ideal woman. The comparison fueled my insecurities, amplifying the feeling of not measuring up.

My tears threatened to spill as I stood there, comparing myself to Oscar's ideal, but before they could, I heard Oscar's voice calling out.

"Y/n baby, the food will be here in twenty minutes," he informed me. I swiftly wiped away the tears before responding, attempting to hide the vulnerability in my voice, "Okay, thanks for letting me know."

Splashing my face with water to compose myself, hoping to hide any traces of my tears and distress. With determination, I dried my face and returned to the room where Oscar was, trying to mask my vulnerability.

After the food came, we ate together. I was quiet, it was mainly Oscar talking which was odd because normally it was always me talking and he would listen. We were currently cuddled up together after eating

Despite our cozy cuddle on the couch, my mind was preoccupied with worries. Thoughts like "What if he leaves me?" and "What if I'm not good enough?" consumed me.

Oscar noticed my distraction and asked if I was alright, concern in his voice. I replied, "Just tired," and although he didn't fully believe it, he decided not to push further.

Oscar spoke up once more, his voice soft and reassuring. "Y/n?" he began, his eyes searching mine.

"You know I love you, right? If there's anything bothering you, you know you can tell me," he emphasized, his tone filled with patience and support.

I nodded, attempting to hide the depth of my worries and insecurities. "Yeah, I know. I love you too," I responded, trying to sound reassuring.

The words felt heavy, knowing the weight of my unspoken fears.

A few weeks had passed since that moment of insecurity, and I had been avoiding Oscar, even though we lived together. I had made excuses to skip every Grand Prix , claiming I was too busy with work.

Yet, here I was, facing the mirror on the morning of a home race, feeling utterly unprepared. The interview weighed heavily on my mind, and I wasn't in the right state to face it.

Standing in front of my reflection, I looked at myself, thoughts of my inadequacy resurfacing.

Oscar entered the room, his gaze settling on me. He positioned himself behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my head.

His presence brought both comfort and nerves as I stood in front of the mirror, still grappling with my insecurities.

He spoke softly, his compliment genuine and sweet. "I didn't know it was possible to be this pretty. You look amazing love," he murmured, his voice filled with affection.

I stepped away from him, the compliment not offering the comfort it usually would. My actions were distant, as if I was subconsciously putting up a barrier.

"Thanks," I responded distantly, my tone devoid of the warmth that usually accompanied my words.

The fear of his departure and my sense of inadequacy still lingered in my heart, casting a shadow over the moment.

Oscar seemed puzzled by my distant behavior, his confusion evident. Seeing right through my attempt to avoid him, he asked gently,

"Baby, did I do something wrong? Why are you avoiding me?"

His voice was tinged with concern, his eyes filled with hurt at my distance.

I quickly responded, trying to change the subject. "No, you did nothing wrong. Uhm, shouldn't you leave for the race?"

Oscar looked at me, his gaze lingering on me before reluctantly letting it go.

"Wait, weren't you coming with me?" he questioned, his tone hinting at his confusion.

I responded with a slightly busted attitude, "Oh, uhm, I'm not done getting ready yet. I'll come later, though."

It was a lie, and Oscar seemed to sense that something was off.

Despite the passing time, he decided to focus on his own preparations while stealing a moment to kiss my forehead before leaving.

I took a moment to muster my courage, realizing that Oscar didn't deserve being pushed away because of my insecurities.

With a deep breath, I prepared myself to face the day and attend the race, pushing through the weight of my doubts.

As the hours flew by, I found myself standing in the garage, watching from afar, torn between my worries and the desire to support him.

After awhile I decided to go to the restroom since I still had some time before the race started.

As I was walking, I heard voices behind me, and my name being mentioned caught my attention.

I stopped to listen—not that I meant to eavesdrop, but hearing my name made it impossible not to.

From what I could tell, these girls were likely McLaren fangirls. Well duh after all, they were dressed in papaya colors.

Girl 1: "It's crazy that Oscar is still dating y/n. She doesn't even fit his ideal type."

Girl 2: "I know, right? Like, she's not even close."

Girl 3: "Yeah, he must be leading her on or something."

Girl 4: "Or maybe she's in it for the fame and money."

Girl 5: "Oh, definitely. There's no other reason she would be with him."

The girls' laughter echoed in my ears, each comment like a punch to my heart.

Girl 2: "Seriously, you'd think he could do better than her."

Girl 1: "Yeah, she's not even that attractive compared to the other girls he's dated before."

Girl 3: "I bet he'll realize soon that he could get someone way better."

Girl 4: "Well, if the fame and money aren't enough, then he's definitely settling."

I couldn't bear to listen any longer, my tears streaming as I fled to the restroom, seeking solace to hide my distress.

Time slipped away as I stayed there, isolated, wrestling with my tormenting thoughts and self-doubts.

Meanwhile, the McLaren garage buzzed with pre-race energy, but Oscar couldn’t focus. His eyes darted around the paddock, scanning for any sign of you.

Anxiety churned in his gut as he spotted his teammate leaning casually against a workbench.

“Lando!” Oscar called, walking over briskly.

Lando glanced up, eyebrows raised. “What’s up, mate?”

Oscar hesitated before blurting out, “Have you seen Y/N anywhere?”

Lando frowned, clearly puzzled. “No, mate, haven’t seen her. Matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve seen her around for the last few races. Is everything okay?”

Oscar sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, mate. She’s been so distant lately, and I have no idea what I’ve done to upset her.”

Lando’s expression softened, a mix of pity and thoughtfulness. “Could it maybe have to do with that video that went viral again?”

Oscar blinked, confused. “What video? That old F2 interview of mine? That was years ago! I was just joking in most of it anyway.”

Lando shrugged, giving him a pointed look. “Mate, you might want to check the comments under her recent Instagram post. I think that’s your answer.”

With a sympathetic pat on the back, Lando turned and walked off, leaving Oscar alone with his thoughts.

He pulled out his phone, his fingers quickly navigating to your profile. The comments under your latest post hit him like a brick.

“Oh no,” Oscar muttered, his stomach sinking. “No wonder she’s been distant…”

He mentally kicked himself, remembering that dumb interview where he’d been too cocky for his own good.

“I didn’t even mean half the stuff I said,” he whispered to himself, cringing at the memory.

Before he could search for you and explain himself, a crew member called his name, dragging him toward the car for pre-race preparations.

“Great timing,” he muttered under his breath. But he made a promise to himself: as soon as this race was over, he’d find you and make things right.

Meanwhile, back to you, the restroom break had taken longer than expected. The initial plan to kill time before the race started had backfired; now, a dull ache was forming in my head, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease creeping up on me.

I leaned against the sink for a moment, taking a deep breath. “This is ridiculous,” I muttered to myself, but the discomfort wasn’t going away.

Deciding it was best not to push myself, I pulled out my phone and quickly typed a message to Oscar:

Not feeling great. Heading back home. Don’t worry about me.

I hesitated before hitting send. He’d probably be confused or even concerned, but the last thing I wanted was to worry him.

With a sigh, I hit send and slipped my phone back into my bag.

As I stepped out of the restroom and headed for the exit, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt.

On the way, I also let Oscar's manager know I left, just in case he didn't check his phone.

I knew Oscar would notice my absence, but today, it felt easier to retreat than to stay and face everything swirling in my mind.

Little did I know, Oscar was already worrying.

The race had ended, with Oscar clinching a solid P4, just behind Lando. Though pleased with his result, his mind was elsewhere.

He wanted nothing more than to see you, to feel your arms around him, and hear you tell him how proud you were—just like old times.

But as he scanned the crowd, his hope began to waver. You weren’t there.

His manager noticed Oscar’s distracted gaze and approached him. “Looking for Y/N?” the manager asked gently.

“She left you a message. Said she wasn’t feeling well and headed home.”

Oscar’s jaw tightened, his heart sinking. You hadn’t told him the truth.

A mix of frustration and hurt bubbled to the surface. Without a word, he decided to skip the team celebrations and headed straight home.

When Oscar arrived, he didn’t waste a second. Dropping his bag by the door, he called out loudly—his voice sharper than usual.

“Y/N!”

You were downstairs in no time, a soft smile on your face.

“Oh, hey, Osc! You’re back early. How was the race?” I asked sweetly, trying to act normal.

But Oscar wasn’t having it. His expression was hard as he stared at you.

“You would’ve known if you didn’t leave,” he said, his voice laced with frustration.

Guilt washed over me, and you stammered, “I’m sorry, Osc. I wasn’t feeling well—”

“Cut the crap, Y/N!” he interrupted, startling you. His voice was raised, something he rarely did.

“When are you going to finally admit the real reason you’ve been like this? Tell me! I’m sick of it!”

I flinched but couldn’t blame him. He deserved an explanation. At the same time, I’d had enough, too. My emotions spilled out, my voice breaking.

“How would you feel if people kept telling you that your partner is too good for you? That you’re not good enough, that you’re too ugly, not their type, only with them for the money?!”

Tears streamed down my face as you continued.

“And yes, it’s about that stupid interview of yours! I can’t help it, okay? Call me dumb, call me a crybaby, but this is too much!”

By now, I was full-on sobbing, unable to meet his gaze. But before I could crumble further, I felt his arms wrap around me, pulling me close.

His voice was soft now, gentle. “Why didn’t you tell me, baby? I could’ve helped. We’re a team, remember?”

I sniffled, my voice trembling as I replied, “Those were your words, Oscar. I can’t take them back or change them.”

He sighed, his hand running soothingly up and down your back. “Babe, that interview was years ago. I was joking around the entire time. If you’d watched the whole thing, you’d see that.”

I shook my head, unsure, but he leaned back just enough to look at me.

“Since when is my favorite color pink?” he teased, a small laugh escaping him.

Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh, too.

“That's better,” he said, smiling.

“Listen to me. Everything I said in that interview wasn’t true. I was 18, tired, and didn’t even want to be there. I was just trolling to get it over with.”

I laughed again at his confession, finally meeting his eyes.

“There’s that pretty smile,” he said, his tone softer now. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that, but next time, talk to me, okay?”

I nodded, wiping your tears. “I will. I’m sorry for doubting you… for pushing you away.”

He smiled warmly, leaning in to peck your lips a few times.

“It’s okay, love. I get why you did it. But don’t you ever doubt yourself again, yeah? You’re the most beautiful girl in the world. If anyone doesn’t deserve someone, it’s me. How did I get so lucky, huh?”

He cupped your face, his thumb gently caressing your cheek before pulling you into a long, passionate kiss. When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“Don’t you ever doubt yourself,” he whispered. “You’re my ideal type. Always.”

I laughed softly. “Alright, alright, I get it.”

Suddenly, Oscar scooped me up into his arms, bridal style, making me squeal.

“Osc! What the hell are you doing? Put me down!”

He grinned, shaking his head as he headed toward the bedroom.

“Nope. Let me show my gorgeous girl how much I love her.”

And let’s just say, the night ended perfectly. From that moment on, I never doubted his love for me ever again.

oscarpiastri posted on Instagram!

Liked by landonorris, yourusername and others

oscarpiastri An amazing race to finish off the week. A big thank you to the entire team and the fans. Also a big thank you to my beautiful girlfriend for being the best support.

View all comments

yourusername So so proud of you Osc!!! Love you! 🩷

oscarpiastri Love you too pretty!

landonorris Well done mate 🙌 extra support is always great!

oscarpiastri Thanks man! You're right especially if she's just my type 😉

yourusername 🤭 ❤️ by author

lalalandnorris4you Oscar really gagged all of you haters purr 💅

frvrformulaonestan1 This is the cutest thing ever brb I'm going to cry 🥹

notyourfan481 Bro Oscar you don't have to lie we all know this ain't you

osclvy/n Girl stfu he isn't going to notice you ffs 🙄

lovelypeachlan4 You thought you did sum? Get out 👉🚪

yourusername posted on Instagram!

Liked by oscarpiastri, yourbffuser, alexandrasaintmleux and others

yourusername A little recap of last week 🤍

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yourbffuser Looking like a snack 😋😍🥵

yourusername Love ya 💋🫦

oscarpiastri Gorgeous 😍

yourusername Love youu Osc 🥰

alexandrasaintmleux So so so pretty 😘

yourusername Says you beautiful 😉💕

lv4motorsports81 She's so pretty omd

manyyynorriz She's gorgeous, don't know what people were on about 🤨

banananorrispiastry81 🤢

nothingthelessnorris4 And you did this for what ☠️

piastrybakerlvr Move on he isn't going to notice you 🥱

lvlynorrisss4 Yet your comment didn't make any change to this world... Grow up 🤦‍♀️

The end

[brainmuncher]

A mis-text-derstanding

After a long night of patrolling around Amity, Danny damn near collapsed onto his bed. His back ached from a stray ectoblast and his eyes felt heavier than a mountain. Technus had done something to the technology around the town. At random a piece of technology would suddenly go rogue with a virus the ghost implemented. The virus would make the item try to capture anyone in the vicinity using any means necessary. So Danny had been doing regular patrols around town to catch anyone who needed help.

That also means that his sleeping time had been radically reduced. Without even the energy to lift his head, Danny patted around for his phone. Once he finally found the device he hefted himself on his side with a groan. It was a new phone since he was the first casualty in Technus’ plan. Thankfully, Sam had given him another so his parents wouldn’t try to make him one. (Who knows what kind of ‘anti-ghost’ protection they would’ve put on it.)

Tucker had promised that he was working on fixing the virus going around. Hopefully, he had some kind of good news to share. As soon as Danny went to message him he realized he hadn’t downloaded their chat app to the new phone. With a sigh he knew that he would just have to use normal texting but with careful codewords.

Putting in Tucker's number with a yawn, Danny sent the first message.

‘It’s your undead bro. The night out tonight was killer. Any news on the techie progress?’

Danny smashed his face into his bed with a sigh after hitting send. Knowing Tucker he was probably face first in his laptop and won’t notice the message for a bit. He could probably just close his eyes and…

Before he could even consider taking a nap there was a generic jingle from the phone. He should really get to fixing that. Tuck deserves a much better ringtone than some bells.

‘Nothing noteworthy yet. It's harder to crack than normal but nothing I can't handle. Do you need me to take over for tomorrow?’

‘Also why aren't you using our chat?’

Danny squinted at the screen with a slight frown. It had been a while since Sam or Tucker tried to go out in his place. They learned pretty quickly that it made Danny way too anxious to have them out there without him. Something about not being there to protect them if they got over their heads made Danny’s chest ache. 

And of course, Tucker noticed that he wasn’t using the app he made. It was a bit glitchy at times, but what tech wasn’t when it came to Danny? Not only was it secure, but it became an easier way for them to establish a timeline for filing. Jazz had been the one who realized that they didn’t have steady information on not just the rouges but the events of the fights. It became a staple to write out what happened and what went wrong after hearing her lecture about it.

‘Don’t have it on this phone yet. And you know how I feel about you being out there.’

Danny watched the screen for a bit, waiting to see if Tucker would reply immediately again. His mom probably caught him on his computer all day and was forcing him to separate himself from it for a while. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for Ms. Foley to do.

‘Yeah yeah, Mr. Possessive. Do you need me to walk you through how to get it again?’

Snorting at the pun, Danny easily replied. If Tucker was feeling sassy enough to joke about that, then he would push some buttons back. It was a simple banter that they sometimes fell into.

‘You know how I get with technology. I’m more likely to break something. Especially since this phone is so new. Whatever happened to flip phones?’

Danny snickered to himself at the message. Tucker had an ongoing war between new and old technology. While he loved his PDA he also admired some of the top-of-the-line devices. It was like the past and the future mixed in his friend's room. He would gush about the new devices but also gush about the older ones that still had functions that the newer ones lost. But flip phones? That was the only technology he knew that Tucker hated. It was the worst of both worlds for him. He’d been so excited when Danny’s flip phone was bricked by Technus’ virus.

‘I’m going to ignore that you said that.’

‘Also there’s going to be trouble in the park near you tomorrow. I’m already planning on going. Do you want in?’

Scooting up from his lounged position, Danny started to write back his reply.

‘Of course, I’ll be there. Don’t need you to go in alone and join the dead. Unusual for him to leave his plans there though. That’ll be fun to write in the report.’

The image of Jazz reading about that brought a smile to Danny’s face. She always found it interesting when one of the ghosts would change a long-time behavior. The fact that Technus was able to keep this rather on the down low would guarantee her interest. He was always one to blatantly announce his plans to the world to hear. Even though it’s a bit of a pain that he’s learning to keep things to himself it would peak Jazz’s curiosity, which made it bearable.

‘It is weird. And don’t remind me about the report. I still have the one from last week to write and I don’t want to do it.’

That made Danny laugh to himself a little. Last week the lunch lady tried to embrace the Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian life. In the overflow of food, Tucker had gotten trapped in veggies. He was visibly green from having to eat some to escape. Sam had been excited about it at first before she saw how much food was being wasted. She ended up getting attacked for trying to explain the damage overconsumption and food waste could bring.

‘You looked like you wanted to vomit afterward. Well, at least we are prepared this time. We don’t always get that chance.’

Danny stretched out his stubborn limbs, feeling himself try to sink into the darkness. He’d have to end the conversation sooner rather than later. At this rate, he wouldn’t have a choice on whether he was taking a nap or not. At the familiar sound of bells, he looked back down at the conversation.

‘Unfortunately. Well, I’ll be finished by the time we meet at the park. I know you usually like to sleep after a long night.’

The reply made Danny’s core feel fuzzy with happiness. Tucker always knows him so well. He doesn’t know what he did to get such a fantastic best friend. It was at times like these that Danny knew he was so glad that they were in this together. With two of his best friends at his side, it made being a vigilante so much easier to bear. 

‘Thanks. Remember that not just the dead get to sleep. Don’t push yourself. Goodnight.’

With that, Danny felt comfortable with setting his phone down to get changed into pajamas. It ached on his back to take off his shirt, but Jazz would be disappointed in the morning if he didn’t. She always got that pinched look on her face when he didn’t take care of himself to her standards. Her standards weren’t exactly high up either so it made him feel extra upset when he missed the mark.

Being careful to not lie on his back, Danny got back into his bed. He curled himself into the blankets with a small smile. One last chime of bells rang out in the room, probably from Tucker saying goodnight back. Picking up his phone, he opened up the lock screen and looked at his messages.

Instead of a goodnight, his stomach dropped as he realized a different number messaged him. A very familiar number.

‘Hey dude! I know you had to get a new phone so this is me. Not only did I figure out how it’s spreading, I think I finally found a way to get rid of the virus.’

Practically throwing himself off the bed, Danny got to his feet. Both his back and his mind screamed at him as he looked over the message. He tapped back to the one he’d just been replying to, finding his heart stopping at the string of numbers. One of the area code numbers was a six instead of a nine. He’d been messaging a stranger this entire time.

Looking back at the messages he convinced himself that it was fine. He was vague enough to not be recognized. It wasn’t like this person was from Amity. They won’t recognize the correlation between him and Phantom. Surely the other person wouldn’t take his words at face value. 

Worst comes to worst he can have Tucker take over his phone for a bit and make sure the other person can’t find out who he is. He hadn’t bought the phone or had it under his name in any way, so they could only find out from the conversation alone.

Breathing out a breath of air he kissed his night of sleep goodbye.

‘I’ll be over in a sec Tuck. I think I just made a mistake.’

[lovelivision]

SLEEP OVER PT.1

pairing: fushiguro toji/reader

wc: 2.3k

summary: staying the night at your boyfriends place for the first time is nervewracking, especially when he seems to feel a certain way about you wearing his clothes

a/n; dilf dilf dilf dilf dilf dilf...uhm anyways...i lurv toji a lot and i needed to write something for him, i thought it would fix me but it may have made me worse :D also, i would like to write a part 2 for this maybe :3

warnings: 18+ only, smut, established relationship, tiny bit of possessiveness, (minor) size difference kink, heavy petting, dry humping, afab!reader, no use of pronouns or y/n, nicknames used; doll, ma'am (once in a joking way)

MDNI | SMUT UNDER CUT

Hovering in Toji’s kitchen, you try to make yourself seem more relaxed, you’ve been in his house plenty of times now but this time is different. This is the first time you’re staying the night, alone, in his house, with him.

Besides heavy petting, nothing more has ever happened between the two of you, to say you have expectations is an understatement. It doesn’t have to happen but you’ve been together for a little bit now and there’s only so long you can hold out, you mean, have you seen Toji?

He’s been patient, you were initially the one who said you didn’t want to rush things, you were scared of just being a lay and asked him to wait until you felt ready, which he has respected. He’s respected it…too well, barely making out before he’s parting from you. The sexual frustration you’ve been feeling has you wound so tight that you might literally implode as soon as he touches you.

From across the counter separating you, he teases, “You gonna help me over here? Or did you propose baking together just to watch me do it for you?”

“Well… I am enjoying the view,” you flirt back, playing off the stiffness in your joints.

He raises a brow at you, “How about you flirt with me while whisking that bowl right there,” he nods down to the bowl just off to his side.

“Yessir,” you stand at attention and throw a little salute his way.

When you round the bench to stand next to him, he bumps into your shoulder with his own, “You feeling okay, doll?”

You hum and look up at him, “Yeah, I’m good.”

It’s mostly quiet after that, aside from small talk and teasing remarks made while you finish prepping the ingredients. You told him that sleepovers needed brownies and he went out and bought stuff to make them, it was incredibly sweet and made you almost swoon on the spot when you showed up and he told you what he’d done.

Unluckily for you and your clumsy nature, his sink sprays a bunch of water down your front as you’re washing a dish. You let out an unceremonious squeaking sound at the sudden rush of cold running all the way down your pyjama shirt, to your pants.

The bowl Toji was holding clatters a bit as he drops it to be at your side, “What happened?” He asks before seeing your drenched clothes, an amused smile taking place where his concern was sitting, “You’re not much help in the kitchen, huh?”

“Hey!” you frown at him, “I am perfectly helpful, thank you very much. It’s not my fault your sink hates me.” You feel like a wet cat under his gaze, “What am I meant to do now? These are the only pyjamas I bought with me,” you pout slightly, looking down at your ruined clothes.

“Just wear something of mine,” he shrugs easily.

The idea of wearing his comfortable clothes makes your skin buzz, “Okay… thank you,” you mumble at him.

He scoffs at your sudden coyness, “You want me to pick something out for you or do you got it?”

“No, I got it,” you smile at him before turning to wander through the house to his room.

Shuffling through his drawers, you find a shirt and some sweatpants to wear. They’re large on you, the whole look incredibly baggy, having to pull the drawstrings on his sweats a bit tighter to make sure they stay up. You feel better though, warm, you hope he won’t mind but you had to borrow a pair of his boxers as well…

When you walk back into the kitchen, Toji does a double take on you, his eyes widening slightly, “You comfy?”

“Very,” you walk up to him, “You finish with the brownie mix?”

He stares at you for a moment before replying, “…Yeah, they’re in the oven.”

“Nice, putting the mix in the tray is my least favourite part, it’s always so sticky and messy and I end up getting frustrated because it won’t all go in and then I need another spoon to get the mix off the spatula and then I have to go back and forth…” You trail off, noticing he’s not really paying attention to what you’re saying, he is looking at you though, “Toji, Something wrong?”

He considers you for a moment, “You look cute,” is all he says.

You feel shy under his gaze now, not expecting him to compliment you so sincerely, “So do you?”

He barks a laugh at your clumsy compliment, “Alright, wanna watch something while we wait?” He changes the topic.

“Sure!”

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

He’s not as subtle as he thinks he is, his hand rests on your thigh, rubbing his thumb in circles but just because he’s not subtle doesn’t mean it’s not working. The tv plays some movie in front of the pair of you but you can’t pay attention, you’ve not retained a single plot point, his warm hand on your thigh is all you can feel, all you can register.

You have a feeling you’re going to have to be the one to break this, the weird limbo you’re both in. Turning your head to the side and looking up, you aren’t ready for how he’s already looking down at you, his hand on your thigh reaches for the side of your face, cradling you gently. He moves in slowly, giving you the chance to pull back in protest if you don’t want him to kiss you.

You want it though and lean up the rest of the way, kissing him deeply, wanting to put your lips on him for nearly the whole time you’ve been here. He meets your eagerness, his hand holding you more firmly, his tongue licking into your mouth, wanting to taste you. His body moves into yours more, his other hand grabbing at your hip.

His kisses grow rushed and he ends up trailing them to your neck, kissing and licking along the exposed skin there. The hand on your face angles you to his will, manoeuvring you every which way so he can get his lips on whatever part of you he desires.

Huffed out whine leave you at the way he nips at your skin, he has enough of the odd angle and pulls you onto his lap completely, sitting back as his hands roam your body over his clothes.

“Toji,” you whine out his name.

His eyes look into yours, “Do you need me to stop?”

Shaking your head at him, you say, “No, I need more…”

“You really do look cute in my clothes,” he murmurs, leaning in again and pressing a full kiss to your lips, “You look comfortable… all wrapped up in my clothes.” He reiterates that they are in fact his clothes you’re wearing.

His hands move under the large shirt, groping at your bare skin, delighting in the warmth and plushness of you. Your body breaks out in goose bumps as a noticeable shiver runs down your spine, his touch electrifying to you.

“My, how sensitive you are,” he teases you, a self-satisfied grin making its way onto his face.

“Shut up,” you snark back, “Just… kiss me again?”

His smile grows, “Yes ma’am,” he jokes before kissing you again.

You’re getting lost in it, in the feel of his lips on yours, it’s making you dizzy and needy. Your hips grind down into his on their own accord and Toji moans against you, surprised by the sudden friction. Recovering quickly, his hands grab your hips and encourage you to keep going, your clothed cunt dragging up and down his covered cock has spots in your vision.

Your hands grip the fabric of his shirt tight, your lips disconnecting from his every time you moan, only for him to press them back together. His dick twitches in his pants, painfully erect and sensitive, he has a feeling he could cum like this.

This is the furthest the two of you have gone so far and he’s not wasting this opportunity, he needs to see you cum, he needs to hear it. The grip he has on you is harsh, his hips rut up into yours which results in the most pathetic sound he’s ever heard coming from you… he needs more.  

Pulling back, you whinge, “Toji~ I wan– t more… I want more.”

“Well… I want you to cum while wearing my clothes,” he counters.

You gasp at his blunt words, “I–”

You don’t get the chance to finish your thought, his hips thrusting up, the shock delicious. His dick is leaking profusely in his pants, he’s way too sensitive right now, for his grown age. You’d asked to go slow and he complied but that didn’t mean he didn’t have to furiously jerk himself off after your visits.

Toji’s boxers are uncomfortably wet against your core, slick and stuck to your pussy with how worked up he’s gotten you. All the layers are upsetting you; you just want one less layer, his pants, your pants, you don’t care, you just need more.

“Toji, lemme take off the sweats, please, please, please,” you all but beg at him.

“No. Told you,” he scolds, “I want you cumming in my clothes.”

“Mmm but…” You hesitate.

You’ve caught his interest, quirking a brow at you, he asks, “But what?”

You decide to tell him even though you’re a little embarrassed, “I’m also wearing your boxers.”

He holds you still against him, a sound of objection coming from you at the lack of friction, “You’re wearing my boxers?”

You nod quickly, hoping for this line of questioning to be done soon, “I am.”

“Why?”

You look down, to where you’re sat on top of him, his large cock strained against his pants, you falter slightly in your answer, distracted. Toji’s hand tapping against your thigh brings you back, “Mine were wet from the sink…”

He tugs at the sweats, “Take these off, right now.”

Standing on wobbly legs, you undo the drawstring on his pants and slip them down.

Toji groans at the sight of your bare legs, “Lift up my shirt,” he directs.

Which you do, biting your lip, trying to fight off the urge to run away in embarrassment. Your hands hold his shirt up slightly, exposing to him how you’re wearing his boxers.

His eyes scan your lower half carefully, his heart stuttering in is chest. His light grey boxers dark where your arousal has pooled, “Fuck, come here,” he pats his lap, grabbing you when you’re close enough. “You’re so fucking wet, doll, shit.”

When you’re back on his lap, he wastes no time, his cock rubs between your folds, parting them from under his boxers, the friction different and consuming. This feels so much better than before, it feels almost intense after getting minimal sensation.

“Toji~ I don’t think I’ll last long like this,” you admit, feeling shame from how pathetic you must seem.

“Good,” he groans, his hips thrusting up into yours while his hands drag you back and forth on his cock, “I won’t either.”

To hear he’s just as effected by this as you are makes your cunt pulse around nothing, a whimper leaving you from how pathetically empty you feel, “I still want more,” you pout.

“Later,” he promises.

Your skin buzzes and your stomach clenches, your fingers dig into his shoulders, feeling impossibly close to finishing. Your eyes grow dazed, hot, huffed breaths leaving your parted lips. The sight has Toji’s cock twitching profusely, barely fighting off his orgasm, wanting to see you cum first.

“Come on, doll, I need to see it,” he tugs you quicker, your slick cunt sliding easily against his pants, the wetness seeping through the boxers onto them, “I need to see you cum for me.”

You shudder at his words, “I’m gonna–”

One of his hands leave your hip and slides to your face, his thumb pressing past your lips, you take it and suck on it, tongue licking the pad of it gently. A moan from deep in his chest rumbles under your hands, it’s all too much. Your cunt flutters against him and your eyes roll back, moans muffled around his thumb as your cum gushes from your pussy, coating his boxers even more.

Toji can’t help but watch, he’s watching you so closely, his cock cumming very suddenly. Your orgasm, the dumb look in your eyes, the flutter of your lashes, the shake in your body as you cum in his clothes undoes him. His own cum seeps into his pants, a large, wet stain growing on his sweats as his dick jerks with his orgasm.

He pulls his thumb from your mouth, dragging your lower lip down with it, “Fuck,” he bites out.

He rides out both your highs, lightly grinding his hips up into you as you both come down. Your form collapses into him, curling yourself around him. His arms wrap around you, holding you close as you jolt every now and again, it’s cute, he thinks.

You lay peacefully like this for a moment before you remember, “The brownies,” you try to pull yourself away from him.

“They’re fine, oven went off only a moment ago,” he hums.

“I’ll go grab them then,” you say.

“Alright, shaky, off you go,” he mocks you and your jelly legs.

Pulling back, you frown at him, “I will.”

He just smiles knowingly at you.

Crawling off him carefully, you stand on your shaky legs momentarily before sitting back down on the couch next to him, “Maybe you should go get them.”

“Mhm,” he answers, leaning over he presses a kiss to your cheek, “That’s what I thought.”

You cross your arms over your chest and scowl at him, pretending to be more upset than you actually are.

Toji goes into the kitchen and pulls the brownies out, he calls over to you, “So… I hope you like the corners of your brownies a little crispy.”

You can’t help but laugh at that.

PLAGIARISM NOT CONDONED | REPOSTS NOT AUTHORISED

[bratbarzal]

Let It Happen (LH43) 1/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

If you're ready, all I mean is we could go, I've never craved someone's attention as much as yours.

General Warnings: an almost unbearable amount of sarcasm and snark, even more idiotic shenanigans, many affectionate empty threats of murder/violence, fluff, mentions of golf 🤢, cursing and I'm pretty sure that's it for this half

A/N: in line with the general consensus lmao this has been split, part two will be posted as soon as it's finished (lol) but it's best read as one whole fic, it isn't a multi-part situation really!! it was originally supposed to be my submission for the eras tour fic challenge (hence the graphic I'm too attached to to change) but took a different direction to the song I was given, and I missed the deadline, and I pretty much listened to the secret of us exclusively while writing this whole thing. also dropping an overwhelmingly summery fic in december might actually be my brand. keep your eyes peeled for a christmas fic in july.

very special shoutout to shea @sleepretreat I made a random comment one day that luke gives seth cohen energy, and she fanned that flame like a full time job. ily shea!! I hope this lives up to any expectations and I owe a lot to your instigating!!

AS ALWAYS!!! never proofread!! I'll probably get around to it when the thought of a spelling mistake keeps me awake at night. and also!! please let me know what you think I am like a teeny tiny little plant that can only thrive under the constant shower of validation and you don't want me to wither and die do you? (I’m kidding) (I’m not)

You kind of, sort of, think you might hate summer.

You haven’t always felt this way, though. Growing up, it had always been your favourite time of the year. 

No school? Check.

Going on vacation, sometimes multiple, all expenses covered by your parents? Double check.

Getting to do all the cool things you don’t have time for in the school year with all your friends? Concerts, festivals, beach days, bonfires on the evenings. Check, check and check again.

But 4 years ago, your whole world as you knew it was torn apart, and summers have never been the same, since.

A season that was once filled with light and companionship, never ending plans and joviality, became darker - isolated, getting yourself out of the house even if everyone else was busy, driving just to drive and making the best of your own company. 

School ended up becoming your escape, especially since you had started college - your studies and the chaos of Greek life distracting you from the calamitous state of your home life, making new friends that became like family and sticking to them like glue, where possible, clingy and possessive to the point of ruin, almost - and so the lack of it in the summers now actually sends you into some sort of warped spiral.

It’s manageable in the winter and spring, the breaks no longer than a few weeks at a time, but going home for summer is somewhat of a nightmare.

It’s hard to go back, hard to ignore the mess your mind has become when it’s just you and your mother - or, you, your mother and whatever bottle of pinot she’s 3 glasses deep into at any given time of the day - and you’re sat in a house that’s a cold reminder of the warmth that once filled it. 

But when Ellie - your best friend since moving to college, the girl who took the sister part of sorority sister to the next level at all possible opportunities over the years - found out you’d put your name down to be the caretaker for your sorority house instead of going home, she had put her foot down on your summertime sadness session.

Which is how you end up moving into her family home - spending the first few weeks integrating yourself into their routine while trying to grip desperately onto some form of your own - trying not to get too used to the feeling of such a big family when you know it won’t be forever.

You braid her little sister’s hair everyday, kick a soccer ball around with her little brother when he needs someone to stand in goal, wash the dishes with her mom, talk sports with her dad, and before long, you blend like a chameleon into their dynamic.

You pick up a summer job at the country club to cling back onto your independence. Your commute provides the solitude and quiet you‘ve grown accustomed to in the years before, a bus journey through town with headphones on, watching the scenery and admiring the greenery until you get to work, donning your navy blue polo and tucking your little notepad into your hip apron as you serve tables at the clubhouse restaurant and bar. 

It’s a much needed escape from Ellie, if you’re honest.

You love that girl with all your heart, appreciate her housing you more than you’ll ever be able to say, but if you have to hear her sit and mope about how hopelessly in love she is with Jack Hughes for even a second longer, you’re going to vomit. Or scream. Or both.

Jack and Ellie grew up together - their families close, Ellie’s dad best friends with Jack’s uncle, or something - and she’s been into him since he had teeth missing - a point she loves to hammer home when it comes to you always listing that as one of his (many, if it’s up to you) cons. Considering his job, and the fact he already lost one, not too long ago, a toothless boyfriend seems like a massive ick, if you’re honest. 

But Ellie is beyond reason when it comes to him. She worships the ground he walks on - talks about him non-stop, messages him every day, regales you with stories you, awfully, but realistically, couldn’t care less about - and it’s the only real problem about living with her.

Even beyond the summer, you two had shared a room your first two years in college, still live in the same house - and it’s a year round problem.

But being unable to escape, having your days tied to close to hers, and knowing that it’s bound to be worse with proximity, Jack back in Michigan for the summer, himself, she’s starting to drive you up the wall.

It wouldn’t bother you if you had never met Jack, but the two of you don’t exactly get along. He’s rude, and self-absorbed, and had looked down on you the first time he ever laid eyes on you, and you really shouldn’t let it get to you, but you do - the thought that your best friend is in love with an asshole, and that she won’t let you hear the end of it. 

Won’t stop whining about how he’ll never feel the same, or that she can’t handle another summer of biting her tongue, of being around him, feeling the way she does, and not being able to do anything about it.

She deserves better. 

Ellie has a heart of gold, and she deserves someone who handles it with care. If Jack Hughes doesn’t like her back, that’s his loss - but you’re kind of getting sick of telling her that.

Getting through a whole summer of it is going to be hard, you think, but it’s better than the alternative. Better than being entirely alone. So you put on a brave face, use work as your escape in the same way you usually do with school, and avoid blowing your top for as long as you can, suffering through the late nights and heart to hearts where Jack is the sole topic of discussion, and bask in the good stuff.

In the chaos of her siblings, in the closeness of her family, and the way they’ve welcomed you with open arms.

This summer could be okay, you’ve just got to give it a chance. 

Luke Hughes loves summer.

He loves being back home in Michigan, spending his days out on the lake, or making the trip out to parade around Ann Arbor, catching up with all his college buddies, making the rounds at all the UMich sporting events he now gets a VIP pass to thanks to his last name.

The routine of it all is familiar, and warming, and it restores a sense of normality that playing in the NHL for the past year has so brutally ripped from him, already. 

He had enjoyed starting his summer overseas - making the team for the world championships and competing beyond the abysmal end to his rookie season - had enjoyed the time away from his brothers, if he’s honest. Quinn and the Canucks making it a few rounds into the playoffs, and Jack back home recovering from getting surgery on his shoulder - and it’s the latter he needed the reprieve from.

He does love living with his brother.

Jack looks after him in ways he’ll never really be able to make it up to him for. He always has, Quinn has too, but ever since Luke got drafted to the Devils, Jack has helped him adjust to the chaos of his career without much fuss or hardship.

And he really is grateful for that.

But, God, can he be annoying.

Especially when it comes to his infatuation with his best friend, Ellie.

Jack and Ellie have always been close - despite the fact she’s Luke’s age - and grew up thick as thieves, spending summers together, especially when the family moved to Michigan, and Ellie’s family were just on the other side of town. 

He’s always been obsessed with her, even if it hasn’t always been love - but these last few years have been different. Like a switch flipped in his head when Jack saw what Ellie was like when he came to visit Luke in his freshman year of college.

A version of Ellie that was no longer just his - no longer exclusive to their summer bubble, and lived in a world beyond lounging by the lake and hanging out with the Hughes family.

A version of Ellie who liked partying, liked schmoozing and charming everybody she came into contact with, liked being the centre of everyone else’s attention, not just Jack’s.

And it’s that version of Ellie that has driven Luke’s brother crazy, which has, in turn, started to drive Luke crazy. He talks about her non-stop, and it was those much needed weeks away in Czechia that almost had Luke forgetting just how stupid his brother has gotten about the whole thing.

Until he came home to Michigan, and Jack, in all the commotion with his shoulder, with ending his season early and starting his summer off alone, has worked himself into such a stupor about the whole thing that merely a week into his return, he has driven Luke up the wall. 

He’s grumpy, all the time - which leads to him being snarky, all the time. He huffs and puffs around the house so much Luke is starting to think he might need an inhaler, and he really can’t take any more.

Not when he’s making such a show of his irritation, stomping around with heavy feet and slamming doors that don’t need to be shut in the first place. 

“What crawled up your ass and died there?” Luke frowns as he follows Jack into the kitchen upon his return from therapy, holding out for the doors he swings open with a little too much vigour so that they don’t swing back into his brother’s slinged-shoulder. “I thought the physio is going alright?”

“It is,” Jack huffs, storming over to the fridge and yanking it open, the jars and bottles in the door clanking together in a way that makes Luke cringe. “I’m fine.”

“Tell that to all the hinges you’re testing the limits of.” 

“Don’t start with me, Luke, I’m not in the mood.”

“You just said you’re fine.” Luke rolls his eyes as he starts to scroll through his group chat with his friends from college, trying to check who said they might be free today to get him out of this vicious circle.

“It’s nothing.”

“Clearly not.” It’s interactions like this that confirm to Luke just how annoying Jack has become - because what reason does he have to be so evasive? Luke is handing him the opportunity to air out his grievances on a silver platter, and he’s rather slam cupboards and create creases in his forehead from frowning 24/7.

“Fine, it’s Ellie.”

Luke wishes he never bothered asking, although he has been wondering why he’s been seeing way less of her already this summer. He had figured Ellie was away with family until he saw her at the gas station the other night - had watched from the car as Jack had what seemed like a heated conversation by the entrance. 

“She’s refusing to hang out with me.”

“Has she said why?” Luke asks, although he doesn’t really care. He’s just asking to get it out of the way in the hopes that Jack talking about it might lighten the load, might make his own life a little easier. 

It’s the bitter muttering of your name that captures Luke’s full attention, his neck audibly cracking at the speed in which his head shoots up, no longer caring what could possibly be going on with the boys in the group chat. 

“She isn’t going back to whatever fiery hell pit it is that she comes from for the summer, and she’s staying with Ellie’s family, therefore Ellie isn’t staying with us.”

Luke hasn’t heard your name in a while. Not since he left college last year, not since he got caught up in the whirlwind life in the NHL, when a schoolboy crush on a girl he interacted with once in his entire college career became the least of his worries.

But one utterance of it has his spine straightening, just like it would have done just over a year ago.

You’re in Michigan. You’re at Ellie’s, on the other side of town. You’re barely two degrees of separation from him.

“Why can’t Ellie bring her here?” Luke asks, throat dry and voice breaking so subtly that he hopes Jack doesn’t notice. That could be fun. Would make up for the hell his brother has been putting him through since he got here. 

Maybe a little glorious sunshine might finally get you to notice his existence. He wouldn’t mind third wheeling Jack and Ellie if you were there, too. It would give him the perfect opportunity to prove he’s worthy of your attention - too shy and too scared to do so, back in college, but he’s different, now. Confident, almost. More sure of himself.

“She hates me.” Jack huffs, “Last time we met she was giving me the stink eye all night.”

And of course it would be his brother to ruin his plans, yet again. You’ll probably hate him, too - a hatred so strong for Jack that it seeps through his entire bloodline, because Luke of all people knows he can be annoying like that. 

“Trust me, she probably doesn’t care enough to hate you,” Luke scoffs, not realising the spool of information he’s just given Jack to unravel. 

“You know her?”

“We had a class together. I know of her.”

Not the truth, but not exactly a lie.

Luke knows a lot about you. It’s borderline creepy, the observations he can still remember, even after so long.

He knows you like only like coffee if it’s iced, had seen you with too many clear plastic cups to count, had watched plump lips chewing at straws by the time you had finished the drink. He had even, one time, tried to zoom in on a picture of your order printed on the side in one of his many states of delusion where he had been trying to build himself up to ask you out. 

He knows you can hold your own in an argument, had watched you debate with the best of them in your business comms class, has watched you shoot down most guys that approach you with a sharp tongue and even sharper wit, and has watched you take down a frat guy or two, usually in defence of your sorority sisters - who Luke noticed you’re the most protective of. 

He knows you match your perfume to the colour of your outfit, had notice you smelled citrusy like lemons in yellow, floral like roses in pink, sweet like candy in purple, and clean like fresh cotton in blue. 

He knows the pieces of hair that frame your face curl when wet from the rain. Knows you used to volunteer at the pool on the weekends it was open to the kids of the community, would teach them how to swim. He knows you listen to Taylor Swift and has heard you humming just about every song of hers he knows.

But he doesn’t really know you - not on the level Jack is assuming, when his eyes widen and hope flashes across his crystal irises.

“You know how I’m your favourite brother?”

“No,”

“And I let you live with me all year?”

“My name’s on the lease.”

“Maybe you could talk to her for me?”

Luke sighs, shoulders heavy and eyes rolling practically to the back of his head. “I already told you, I don’t really know her like that.” 

“C’mon, you could at least try! I’m dying here, Luke! She’s hogging all of Ellie’s time, and she won’t give me the time of day if I try!”

If only Jack knew how much time you’d ever given Luke, he wouldn’t be asking him such an absurd request.

You’re so out of his league, it isn’t even funny. He probably couldn’t convince you to light a candle in a power cut, much less to give his annoying brother a shot to prove himself.

“You’re wasting your time, Jack,” Luke responds, “I’m gonna meet Dylan at the club. No, you can’t come.”

And by the time Luke makes it out to his car, he’s relieved to have ditched that conversation, entirely. He knows what’s waiting when he gets home, what his brother is going to be like for the next few months to come, but a temporary relief is all he needs.

He had already been planning on getting a few late morning holes in at the club, and meeting up with Dylan had been a white lie, needing some alone time away from Jack’s incessant whining to think about how he was going to survive the summer - and seeing you on your break, perched on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard by the clubhouse bar, basking in the sun and talking with your co-worker, he feels like he might have just struck gold.

Since when do you work here?

He supposes since you decided to spend your summer with Ellie’s family - it only makes sense. Ellie doesn’t live too far from the club - not as close as the lake house, but closer than Ann Arbor, at least. She’d worked in the club shop last summer, even when Jack insisted he’d pay for whatever she needed while she was staying with them - had said it was nice to pass the time with something else while they all went off doing whatever - and he assumes you’re doing the same. 

It’s the first time he’s seen you in a while, outside of coming across your pictures on his Instagram feed occasionally, or the flash of your figure in Ellie’s stories. 

He had thought that, after the year he’s had, he’d be over schoolboy crushes like this - would be over the way his breath catches just at the sight of you, over the way the hairs on the back of his neck prick up and stand to attention, over the way his throat goes dry as he watches your eyes crinkle from afar, watches your lips curve up into a heart-stopping grin.

But it’s like he’s picked up straight from where he left off at the end of his college career, pining after you from afar with hearts in his eyes and feet that start to shuffle at just the thought of approaching you.

If he’s going to do this, though, he needs to be clever about it, he thinks.

Approaching you on your break, limited to the amount of time he can use to put his point across, wasting yours, doesn’t seem like something that will work.

Which is how he finds himself bypassing you completely and walking straight into the bar, offering a friendly nod to the guy stood at the front of house, and letting him point him toward the right section to be served in. 

It isn’t long before you’re in front of him, sidling up to his booth, and he had almost forgotten how pretty you are up close. Hair clipped up with loose strands framing your face, chewing at your plump bottom lip as you scribble on your notepad to get your pen to work. And your honeyed voice settling deep in the pit of his stomach, warmth spreading throughout as you introduce yourself, like he has no clue who you are, and tell him you’ll be his server, “What can I get for you?”

“Five minutes of your time?”

The Luke that spent his college years obsessing over you might have stuttered - his voice might have broke, squeaked or choked in your presence - but while his throat does feel a little dry, he’s able to maintain his cool now, even when you look up from your scribblings to meet his eye. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he has matured.

His heart might jump in his chest, his mouth might tingle, his spine might stiffen, but he holds your gaze, hoping if you see a reflection of confidence that you might give him the time of day.

He’s seen you interact with guys before, has familiarised himself with the ten-foot walls you have in place, has seen others fold and try find a long way around, but he thinks that maybe matching your energy is the way to break through. 

Who doesn’t love a shortcut?

Your eyes narrow back at him as pouted lips form around a response, looking him up and down before tilting your head, and coming back with, “I all of a sudden feel the need to inform you we do have security here,” you point the tip of your pen to the entrance, where he was greeted on the way in. “I meant a drink.”

“Water’s fine,” his gaze flickers to the movement of your wrist as you click the other side of your pen, not even writing it down. “Maybe with a side of conversation?”

“I’ll go get your water,” you offer a smile, and the insincerity of it does little to cool his bravado, even if you head off with mutterings of why do I always get the creeps?

He watches you as you make your way over to the bar, not creep-like whatsoever, and he channels the nerves that sneak up on him, now that you’re distanced, through fiddling with his fingers on the table, pinching at the tips of them when you glance back over your shoulder, probably telling the girl behind the bar just how lucky you were to once again get the weirdo in your section.

It surprises him how little he cares, possessing more of your attention now than he ever has before, and if he could tell the Luke from two years ago, who spent every shared Principles of Marketing class ritualistically watching you chew on the end of your pen, that he’d be able to make eye contact without dribbling and breaking out into full body sweats, he’d have lost his mind.

He embodies a strange level of dislocated arrogance that manifests itself in his body language, sinking into the booth with arms outstretched across the back, a dangerous smirk teasing the corner of his mouth when you return, placing a pitcher of water down on the table and a glass with ice. 

“I’m Luke,” he tells you, placing a hand on his chest and doing his best to ignore the thudding he feels beneath it. “Hughes. Jack’s brother,” and when you look back over to him with a raised brow, he adds, “Ellie’s Jack.”

“And who’s Ellie?” You ask with a tilt of your head, your voice dripping in teasing sarcasm. 

“Funny,” he quips, biting back the urge to call you what he actually means. He can hardly call you cute, you’d probably pour that water straight over him. “I went to UMich, we had a couple classes together.”

Your eyes narrow again, and he knows it’s an intimidation tactic, a way to make him feel smaller than he’s acting, shrinking him down to a version of himself you can stamp your authority on, but he finds himself being resilient for once, carrying on like he isn’t affected.

He is. Massively, in fact. Just not in the way you probably want. Your indifference drives him in a way that presses into his spine, an inner voice pleading, notice me, I’m breaking through!

“Bauman’s class, Business Comms, you sat in the second row, I sat in the third, you dropped your pencil one time and I-,”

“I know who you are.”

So he’s been yapping on at you for no reason? Fantastic.

He can’t let his momentum slip, though, so he forces the corners of his lips into a victorious smile, and counters, “So you know I’m not a creep.”

“You literally memorised my seat in a class from 2 years ago, so…” 

“I have a good memory,” he’s quick to defend, fighting the urge to let his eyes linger on your pouted lips.

“Right,” you roll your eyes, “What is it you want, again?”

“I came to talk about Jack and Ellie.” He nods to the other side of the booth, and has to roll his shoulders so that his chest doesn’t inflate with misplaced hubris when you shuffle into the seat with a huff, discarding your notepad to the side as you level him with another raised brow.

“What about ‘em?”

“About how they’re hopelessly in love with each other and doing nothing about it.”

“You got hopeless right. What’s that got to do with us?”

Us. Oh, he likes that.

“I’m thinking they need a little shove in the right direction. And maybe we could be the shovers.”

You presses your lips together in faux-apology, a lopsided, patronising, adorable frown taking over your expression. “No can do, I don’t shove, I’m a pacifist.”

“A nudge, then?”

He isn’t giving up easy, no matter how much sarcasm you try to throw his way. You wouldn’t have sat down if there wasn’t something about this situation that irks you, too.

If Ellie is being only half as annoying as Jack is, he knows that you’re having a bad time of it. And you’re supposed to spending her summer with her - it can’t be easy, having your friend constantly pining over someone and refusing to do anything about it, if anything, making it your problem.

“Are you here to eat or annoy me?”

“Both,” he smiles, “I just figured a problem shared is a problem solved, and all.”

“How profound.” 

“C’mon, you sat down, you at least agree they’re into each other, and I know you’re staying with her this year, so I know you’ve been getting the same grief I have.”

“I’ve been on my feet 4 hours, I wouldn’t look too deep into me sitting down.” 

“Jack’s been moping around about her for years, I can’t listen to it anymore, he’s all, she’ll never like me back, this, and, I’ll never find a girl like her, that,” he whines, imitating his brother’s voice in the most annoying, high pitched tone he can muster, “I can’t take one more breakdown of her snap stories, especially not if it’s all summer if she’s not gonna be staying over, I’m gonna lose my mind.”

“How supportive,” the sarcasm in your bite does little to hide the beginnings of your smile, your glare softening into what he hopes is the start of some sort of bond, a shared feeling of exasperation. Finding your footfall in common grounds.

“It’s relentless, we can’t go a single conversation anymore without him bringing her up,” he sighs, slumping into his seat, finally giving in to all the ways this is starting to grate on him. “I don’t get why neither of them do anything.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, too, relenting a little. “She talks about him so much it kind of makes me nauseous.”

“How supportive,” he mimics, nerve endings set alight when your eyes meet his over the table, and narrow in a different way, almost appreciative, almost respectable.

“Can it, Hughes,” you scoff, “Me even entertaining this conversation right now is support enough, I’ve had it in my ear for months about how she doesn’t know how she’ll make it through another summer.”

“That’s what I’m saying. If we can get them together this summer, then we’re both better off. No more whining or crying or earaches for either of us.”

“I’d hope you didn’t make your way out here with the mere promise of no more earaches, Luke.” He tries not to preen at the way you say his name. “What’s in it for me?”

“You and Ellie can stay at our lake house.” He suggests, straightening up before he leans onto the table, elbows extending so that he can rest on them, “It’s closer to the club than her family’s place, it’s gotta be better than having her siblings running around you all the time, I can even drive you to work when I’m free, if you want?”

You blink at him slowly, as if to say, and? “So I can stay at your glorified frat house, and you can be my chauffeur?” You ask with an unimpressed raise of your brow, before letting out a humourless scoff of, “What more could a girl want to do with her summer?

“What do you want?” He asks, leaning further forward.

“To go back to work and not worry about strange guys propositioning me, funnily enough.”

Luke laughs, a deep, breathy laugh that rises from the depths of his chest and comes alive in an almost-bark, and he doesn’t miss the way your eyes flicker to his mouth when it comes out.

This is fun. 

There’s no way he’s letting you leave this table without agreeing - just the thought of one more singular interaction keeping him on his toes.

“Why don’t we make it interesting, then?”

“It’s about time you tried.” The quiver of your lip tells him everything he needs to know - and that’s without the entertained glint in your eye that accompanies it. You’re enjoying this, just as much.

“We could make a competition out of it.”

“A competition?” You ask, with a curious tilt of your head.

There it is, he thinks. Interest: piqued. He practically has you in the palm of his hand. Who would ever have thought, the way to a sorority girl’s heart would be a friendly little wager?

“Whoever actually gets them together, wins.”

It’s all he can think of in the moment - petulant and part-planned, but it seems to be enough.

“Wins what?” You lean onto your elbows, your gaze levelling his as he mirrors your positioning, having to slouch a little further forward in his seat to meet your pretty eyes. 

“Whatever you want.” He doesn’t intend it to come out as low as it does, doesn’t realise how close the two of you have gotten over the table, but he sees the flicker of something cross your features as your head tilts again, eyes still locked on his as yours begin to narrow, still just as pretty even when they’re glaring at him.

“It’s what you want that concerns me.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” he jibes, watching the way your lips part in preparation of another witty comeback. “What do you say?” He asks, not giving you the chance, seeing the way it makes your skin crawl that you weren’t quick enough, for once. “Are you in?”

You heave out a sigh, shoulders slumping - a tell-tale sign that you’re about to acquiesce - and Luke starts to feel his chest puff out in victory. This feels like a shut-out. It feels like the best performance of his life. 

“You’re gonna make me regret this, aren’t you?”

“Oh definitely,” he smirks, eyes tracking you as you lean back into the booth, retreating from him in defeat, a hand running through your hair as he promises, “You’ll warm up to me soon enough, though.”

“I can’t see that happening.”

“I can,” he shrugs, leaning back too. “I’ve been told I’m inevitable.”

Luke can remember, like it was yesterday, the first time he ever saw you.

Freshman year, the week he moved into his dorm at Michigan, Jack had sent him across campus to check in on how Ellie was getting on. He had arrived with some extravagant gift basket in tow, plastic wrapped, a giant blue bow tied around the top and an assortment of snacks inside, and was left knocking for at least five minutes before you showed up.

“Please tell me you’re not another stripper-gram.”

If his throat hadn’t gone so dry all of a sudden, he thinks he would have had more wits about him to have questioned the use of another - a concept that had stuck in his head for weeks until he caught wind of a story of pledges for Pike being sent around campus and forced to lure girls to their house through way of humiliating song. 

But God, you were pretty. 

Siren eyes narrowed toward him, glossy lips pouted pensively, long lashes blinking impatiently as you awaited some kind of response that didn’t come in the form of an open, drooling mouth.

“I’m Luke.”

“Right.” You had sighed, pretty eyes rolling at him. “You’re blocking my door."

“Oh, I’m-,” he stuttered, immediately stepping to the side for you to come forward and insert your key into the lock. “Does Ellie live here?” He asked, confusion etched into his features as he watched you swing the door open, turning in your place to look him over again.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“I’m Luke.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I know her.”

“Clearly.”

“This is her basket.”

“Does she need to sign for it?”

“No, I-,”

“I’ll make sure she gets it, thanks, Lu!”

And when you had taken the basket from his hands, he had been too distracted by the way your skin brushed against his to properly respond, or worry if you had called him that as a nickname or had already forgotten his name, entirely.

He then spent days thinking about you, looking for you - at parties, in the campus coffee shop, online, despite not knowing your name - trying to commit to memory the way your eyes had sparkled when looking his way, until his first Business Communications class.

He had been a little early, first week nerves playing out and his constant craving for positive validation coming to the forefront, and was watching the door waiting for the professor to arrive. He had been slouched in his seat, chin in the palm of his hand, foot tapping rhythmically against the floor, and he had almost given himself whiplash when you walked in. 

He learned your name from there, learned a lot just from watching you in that class, but never really captured your attention.

And if the Luke that has been driving you to work every few days, who has been living with you for the past two weeks - who sits around the same dining table, laughs at the same jokes cracked when you’re all lounging around the house, sits out under the same sun, drinks from the same carton of orange juice in the morning - could tell the Luke that sat pining after you all that time, all the little ways in which he’s captured your attention lately, he’d probably have an aneurysm. 

When you and Ellie moved in, Luke had been the only one allowed to touch your stuff - and there’s a part of him that knows it was mainly because you enjoyed watching him work like a packhorse, hauling your cases up the stairs and dropping them in front of you with a huff, but there’s a larger, more delusional part that thinks you preferred him to the others, maybe even trusted him.

He’s taking credit for how quick you’ve adapted to the dynamic of the house, too. Of all the different faces coming in and out - Quinn’s friends, Jack’s friends, his friends, sometimes even his parents. If you’re around, you’re pleasant. You abide by house rules, some of them stupid, but set by the brothers so long ago that they just work now - like no phones outside of your rooms so that you can be more present. You insert yourself comfortably into conversations, you form your own relationships with everyone - you and Quinn trade book recommendations, you and Jack bicker while Ellie mediates. You do your fare share of chores - laundry, dishes, cooking, even. 

And he’s so caught up in just sharing space, just being around you, even, that for those first couple weeks, he forgets why you even agreed to be there in the first place.

At least, he forgets the incentive part - because he watches mindlessly as you interfere in Jack and Ellie’s dynamic, without a care in the world for the fact that it means he’s losing.

He watches you push one of them out of the way to claim whatever seat at the table or in the car forces them to sit beside each other. He watches you taunt Jack to just the right point where Ellie interferes, coos at him protectively and he melts into her affections. He watches you agree to plans he knows you wouldn’t in a million years follow along with, just to get them together - and all he can do is admire how easy you make it seem. 

He admires when you come out wakeboarding with the group, when you let him fasten you into a vest and don’t flinch when his fingertips brush against bare skin. Watches you bite your tongue over the fact you just got your hair blow dried - a fact you have no problems relaying back to him when he drives you to work the next day, and you’re muttering in his passenger seat about lake water giving you frizz - just so you’re not dampening the mood.

And when you agree to tag along to the golf course on your day off, despite the fact it’s so close to work if could be considered triggering, and you stick by Luke’s side so that Ellie can feign some sort of incompetence until Jack takes it upon himself to correct her form.

You stand by Luke’s side, the two of you watching with mirrored expressions of almost-disgust as Jack wraps his arms around Ellie’s body, and send a shiver down his spine when you lean in for only him to hear as you say, “I’d ask if you’ve put any more thought into what you want out of our bet, but I so have this in the bag.”

The bet.

Luke hasn’t thought about it since that day in the restaurant, if he’s honest, but he had known what he wanted then.

He’s hardly going to tell you, now, though. 

If he’s ever going to take you out on a date, he doesn’t really want to force your hand - not that he has a chance, he’s fallen so behind with this Jack and Ellie thing that it isn’t even funny.

He needs to up his game, if only for the fact that you’ll no doubt catch on to his lack of efforts, soon.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he taunts, because it’s what he does best, “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“And how long do you plan on keeping them up there?” You call him out so easily, tilting your head when his eyes meet yours, mischief highlighted by the sunshine that speckles in your irises. 

“Maybe I’m luring you into a false sense of security,” he shrugs, “Maybe I’m letting you do all the heavy lifting so I can swoop in when those weak arms get tired.” He pokes at your side, basking in the way you scowl like you pertain any sort of threat to him.

He has you figured out, by now. 

“I didn’t have you pegged as being lazy, Hughes.”

“You spend a lot of time thinking about me, huh?”

“You wish,” you scoff, shoving when he dares to get too close, and it’s when Luke is biting back a full-blown grin that Ellie comes back over. 

“This sun is crazy, I think I left the sunscreen in the locker room and Jack’s nose is going all red, would you come back with me?”

You smile sweetly at your best friend and agree, only glaring at Luke over Ellie’s shoulder when she’s distracted with saying her brief, temporary goodbyes to Jack, and once you’ve turned and made your way over to the cart, he lets his eyes linger on your figure as you retreat.

The soft sway of your ponytail, the expanse of smooth skin along your legs, he’s completely hypnotised, and he needs to pull himself together, he thinks.

He tries to regain focus as he and Jack work their way through the next couple of holes, caddying their clubs around without the cart, and chatting mindlessly until Jack sighs heavily, like he’s been waiting to bring something up.

“I want to take Ellie out on the boat tomorrow,” He states as Luke tees up, resting on his club as he squints against the sun to watch his little brother, “Just the two of us, so we can talk about stuff.”

“Sounds riveting,” the disinterest in Luke’s tone is amplified by the lack of attention he’s giving overall, looking out across the green and trying to measure his swing before he takes it. “Have fun.”

“I was thinking I’d need your help for it to work.”

“I’m not being your boat-butler again,” Luke scoffs, mind immediately going to all the times their parents would make Jack take Luke out with him and his friends, and all the times he was made to wait on his older brother hand and foot to make up for crashing his hang-outs.

“I’m not asking you to tag along,” Jack scoffs, “You third-wheeling would be the ultimate buzz-kill. I thought you could be of use elsewhere.”

“You’re making whatever it is sound so fun.” 

Luke takes his swing, driving the ball and watching it soar to his desired point with a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. Jack watches too, stepping to Luke’s side to measure how far from his own ball it lands.

“Nice,” he mutters appreciatively as the two of them load their clubs into their stand bags. “I need you to keep Regina George busy, distract her or something, she’s stuck to Ellie like glue, it’s beyond annoying.”

If only he knew, Luke thinks, a worry in the back of his mind about how his brother owes more to you than he even realises. 

“You worried she’s gonna make her see sense?”

Jack swats at his arm and rolls his eyes.

“I’m worried she’s gonna ruin the good vibes like she usually does and I won’t be able to bite my tongue from saying something and looking like the asshole.”

Distracting you isn’t the worst thing he could be doing with his time, Luke thinks. It’s not like he has to go all out, you’ll no doubt be hanging out around the house and the two of you can hang together. All he has to do is keep you off your phone. Shouldn’t be too hard. You’ve adapted pretty well to mimicking the guys when it comes to staying off theirs.

It ticks off the box of trying to fight for a scrap of your attention. With no one else around, you’ll have no choice but to entertain his company.

And it puts him in front of your little race - lending a helping hand to Jack’s plans to talk to Ellie is surely the same as getting them together. It’s all falling so perfectly into his lap. He isn’t being lazy.

But he can’t let Jack know that, so he heaves out a sigh and offers a slow shake of his head for dramatic effect. “Fine,” he groans, “But you owe me. Big time.”

You’re starting to find it harder and harder to pretend like you don’t want to be at the Lake House.

If you’re being honest, you don’t entirely know why you’re even trying to keep up pretences, but using your disinterest as armour has become like second nature over the years, and you’re hardly going to stop now.

Even if there are already so many little things about being there that are starting to wear you down.

Quiet, early mornings, for one - birds chirping just outside your open window, sun rays pouring in through sheer curtains that flow in the slight breeze, that light feeling that blows through your chest when you’re sat out on the deck behind the house with a fresh cup of coffee, looking out over the still lake and basking in the peace of it all.

And even when it’s not so peaceful, when the kitchen is full of bodies swerving around each other to try and throw together some sort of breakfast spread - pastries and fruit, bacon and eggs, various boxes of cereal on the counter. Quinn had even made a whole batch of pancakes one morning, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t come down every day since hoping to see him donning that same frilly apron that Cole had draped around his waist and working his magic with a pan. 

You’ve never really been a part of such a full house. You had been an only child for so long - and by the time your parents split, and it was just you and your mom, on the days she wasn’t already at work when you got up - and were so ingrained in your own routine in the morning that you think you might actually need the chaos to function better. The rush of bodies, the arguments over who drank the last of the juice, the bickering over who’s turn it is to do the next grocery run - it’s a kind of entertainment you haven’t been privy to in a long time. 

Being kind of disconnected from everything else isn’t as bad as you thought it would be, either. You’re not attached to your phone, checking socials to see what everyone else is doing, to see if your dad has sent any messages yet this summer, and you find yourself connecting a little more with the people around you and leaving your family stress on the back burner. You’re more focused on what’s in front of you, and your relationships with other people. With Ellie, with some of the guys in the house, with your friends at work, even.

And it’s nice to be closer to work too. You don’t have to rush around trying to make the bus - Luke has been keeping his word and driving you to the club most days, and where he can’t, either somebody else has offered, or you’ve just ridden one of the bikes in the garage that the boys said were free to use - the helmet hair is an easy fix when you have access to the locker rooms.

It’s an adjustment, for sure, getting used to being in a full house. Especially this one - with a constant revolving door of faces, friends of the brothers switching out week by week to come and stay, departing just as you’ve started getting to know them with a promise of dropping by again soon.

So far, you’re almost at double-digits for the names you’ve had to memorise. Some of them you were already familiar with, guys from Michigan who you already knew or knew of, but others were more Jack or Quinn’s friends that you’d never had the pleasure of meeting before now.

Cole Caufield being one of them. 

He had arrived a couple of days after you and Ellie moved yourselves in, closer to Jack than the other two brothers, you had noticed, and was going to be staying longer than any of the other visitors - having his own designated room in the house, similar to you girls.

You like Cole - he’s good fun, can take a joke unlike his supposed best friend, and has the kind of smile that almost gives you a buzz whenever it’s flashed your way. Your first few interactions with him were seemingly pleasant, despite Jack constantly in his ear with a hardened glare pointed your way and no doubt unsavoury words uttered. Cole would just shrug him off, laugh, meet your eyes and drop a wink your way - a gesture you’d usually squirm and cringe at, but Cole kind of pulls it off. 

He joins in when you chirp Luke, too - which, if your honest, is your main source of entertainment since arriving, so your interactions with him grow day by day.

You haven’t really spent any one-on-one time with Cole yet, though. You were hoping to, before he left to visit home for the weekend - for no other reason than to get the scoop on something you’d happened upon at work last week - and had planned on asking him to hang out on your day off. But with Cole now gone for a few days, Jack and Ellie off doing god knows what, Quinn and Luke working out wherever, you have no choice but to spend your free Sunday lounging around the house, trying to find something to suppress your growing boredom.

You start with your nails, painting them a summery orangey-red and doing your toes to match, then do your laundry, abiding by house rules that you rotate the loads between the machines, and fold out whoever’s clothes were last in the dryer and place them in the hamper on the side. 

You’re hoping you haven’t had to fold Jack’s underwear but you decide to live in blissful ignorance - trying to identify the load based on the rest of the clothing in there is impossible when they all share, so it kind of works in your favour. 

You FaceTime your mom for almost an hour, getting an update on what she’s been up to with work, and giving her updates on how your summer is going, trying to focus on your time at the club and Ellie so she doesn’t worry too much again that you’re spending your summer in a house filled with boys. 

And by the time Luke and Quinn come back from their workout, you’re in the lounge, 50 pages deep into a book you really couldn’t care less about, but there’s something in you that refuses to beg one of them for company, so you suffer in silence.

Even when Luke does join you, throwing himself down onto the opposite side of the couch you’re occupying and pushing your feet off his side like it’s his sole purpose just to annoy you.

“I was comfortable there, asshat,” you frown, lifting your feet back into their previous position and using one to give him a light kick to his thigh.

“Yeah, well, I hardly want your feet all up in my business while I’m trying to relax,” he sighs, sinking into the cushions with hands clasped behind his head, biceps flexing and tightening the arms of his t-shirt in a way that momentarily catches your eye. You’re thankful for his closed eyes, chewing at the inside of your cheek as you divert your attention back to the mundane words on the pages in front of you.

“And yet here you are when there are 2 other couches.”

“Yeah, well, I know how much you like to be near me.”

You try to ignore him, pulling your feet a little closer to your body and focusing back on the book, but it’s hard when Luke has such a presence. You feel the little looks he keeps sending your way like a physical touch, and the couch shifts with every slight movement he makes, so when he constantly shuffles, you start to think he wants your attention.

Of course he wants your attention. This is Luke Hughes.

“Are you just sitting down here to annoy me?”

He lights up, like he’s just been waiting for you to ask, and shuffles in his seat to face you, fully, bouncing in place like a puppy being teased with a tennis ball. 

“I’m actually trying to distract you, if you must know.”

“Bold of you to assume you have enough of my attention to be distracting in the first place,” you scoff, trying not to react to the way he smirks in your peripheral, the words in front of you all blurring together. If you were actually focused on them, you’d have lost your place, already.

“I think you pay more attention to me than you’d like to admit.”

“That’s some ego you’ve got on you, Hughes,” you narrow your eyes as you look above the edge of your book, “Is that what you spend that big NHL paycheque on, charisma classes? How to flirt for dummies?”

“Oh, is that what we’re doing? Flirting?”

Damn. You walked yourself right into that one. 

Sometimes biting back at Luke comes like second nature, words first, thoughts after - and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t like it that way. It’s easy, the back and forth, and you can’t really think of an instance with him where you’ve sat in a lingering, awkward silence. You’ve really grown to hate silence, lately.

“You wish.”

“You think I’m charismatic,” he teases in a sing-song voice, knocking at your knee and wiggling his eyebrows when you glare at him. 

“I think you’re an idiot.”

“You’re not gonna ask what I’m distracting you from?”

“I don’t really care,” you lie, eyes darting back down and diverting the attention he so desperately craves away from him.

“Jack wanted to take Ellie out on the boat.” He says, ignoring your attempts to ignore him - pushing your buttons like a full time job. Like an operator for your last nerve.

“Good for her.”

“Alone.”

“No shit.”

“To ask her out.”

“Whoop-de-doo.”

“Whoop-de-,” Luke straightens up, like a whack-a-mole with his head positioning itself over the top of your book, and you kind of wish you had one of those soft mallets right about now. It would be so satisfying to bonk at his head, you think. “What do you mean, whoop-de-doo, is this not what you agreed to be here for? To get them together?”

You scoff, flicking to the next page of the book in feigned disinterest. “He isn’t asking her out today.”

This is the exact something you had wanted to talk to Cole about - whispers in the staff lounge at work earlier in the week doing the rounds would imply otherwise, but your main source is kind of a gossip, and you’re not entirely sure of their reliability, despite the few degrees of separation to the subject at hand. 

Mutterings of Jack and Cole and their little country club connections. 

You can hardly ask Luke of all people if his brother is as much of a man-whore as everyone is making out. Cole was a safe bet - he’d probably just tell you straight up what they’re up to, wear his pride like a shining gold medal. He’s upfront about his promiscuity, at least. Luke is more protective. Of himself, of his family, you’re not entirely sure. There haven’t been as many whispers about him. 

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he’s a spineless idiot,” you retort, eyes flicking up momentarily to take in his furrowed brow. “No offence,” comes out of nowhere, and you surprise yourself with the instinct to lessen the blow of your words for the first time in forever.

“None taken, he’s only my flesh and blood,” Luke huffs, “You’re just jealous I’m winning our bet.”

“Sure,” you drawl, eyes widening to emphasise the sarcasm as you make a point of angling your head to the next page, like you’ve taken a single word in for the past five minutes. “He’s been talking to one of the girls from work. There’s no way he’s doing that and asking Ellie out, unless he’s completely brain dead.”

And when you look back at Luke, that furrowed brow has shifted into a full blown frown, pouted lips and eyes cast down as if he’s trying to figure everything out in his head. 

It’s probably the pout that has you cushioning your words, once more.

“Again, no offence, I doubt it’s in your DNA.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m no bio student but I don’t think there’s a genetic marker for being a fuckboy.”

“No, about him talking to one of the girls at the club. He didn’t tell me that.”

Why does he have to sound like that? Let down and unsure, quieter than you think you’ve ever heard him. It’s like the tone he carries goes straight to your fingers, clasping the book closed without marking your page - because what business do you have carrying on that charade?

“Do you guys tell each other everything?” You ask as you throw the book until it lands on the coffee table with a gentle thud, shuffling until you’re sat against the arm of the couch with knees bent in front of you, giving him your undivided attention and feeling guilty that it might not be enough.

“I thought we did,” he scratches at the back of his head, nervously, “He literally told me yesterday he was taking her out to talk about stuff, why would he make a point of asking me to keep you busy if he’s not serious about asking her out?”

“You don’t want to hear my answer to a question about your brother not being serious.” 

“Who’s the girl?” He asks, ignoring your comment despite the slight ghost of a smile you see flash into the corner of his mouth. 

“Jessica, she works at the pro shop, apparently they’ve been texting all summer.”

You know for a fact that since you’ve started paying attention, you’ve seen Jack on his phone a lot for a guy who chirps you for your own screen-time, and who has enforced the house rule of no phones outside your room like a prison guard yells out no touching at visitation. So it sort of checks out. You’ve tried to sneak a peak, but he’s protective of his stuff like a yappy little dog with attachment issues at the best of times, so you haven’t really put too much effort into it.

“There were a few people talking about it in the lounge at work the other day,” you shrug, “One of the girls talking about it is Jess’ best friend, so not exactly from the horse’s mouth, but I don’t think she’d be spreading lies about her friend around like that.”

“Can you find out?”

“You ask that like I haven’t been trying.” That gets a full smile, a small chuckle that lifts his shoulder, even, “I was gonna grill Caufield about it but he’s gone. But I know you guys have plans when he gets back tomorrow, so if you want to take Cole I’ll hack away at the grape vine at the club?”

“Does this mean we’re teammates?” 

“No. It absolutely does not.”

Hacking away at the grapevine is really a lot more like plucking absentmindedly at an overgrown patch of grass when it comes to workplace gossip. 

By the end of your shift, you’re leaving the club with a fist clutched full of loose blades, fingers stained green from the amount of information people were willing to ‘fess up.

Liam who works behind the bar had overheard a conversation where Jack had mentioned Jessica, but could only give you useless tidbits, like how he had to stop by the shop for a new putter, and Jess had been the one to ring him up.

Hardly incriminating, but you had a feeling it would be a small piece of a way larger puzzle. That, and guys are notoriously useless at gossiping, there’s definitely more to that story than Liam could even comprehend in his tiny man brain.

Cassidy who works at the front desk had seen Jack and Jess talking in the main lobby last week, definitely flirting, she had said - with hair flips and giggles galore - and way too familiar to be new. 

Much better.

Paola who has the alternative shifts in the pro shop was more than willing to take up ten minutes of your time ranting how Jess’ work is never fully done when it comes to a handover, and she spends half her time on her phone. Kiran, who works the bev cart every Monday, said Jack is always one of the most charming in their golfing group, so it’s no surprise if he is exchanging texts with girls from the club. 

You get dirt from most corners of the place, and it leads you all the way back to your station, to reservations set for the restaurant, where tonight’s list - unfortunately a shift you’re not set to work, although you very much question the serendipity of that - has Jack’s name down at 7pm. A table for 2 in the back corner, shielded from prying eyes and intimate.

And if it weren’t for the fact you’ve already worked a full shift, you would consider staying just to get the full scoop. 

You know Ellie isn’t going to be the one sat across from him, she’s been sending you pictures all day of her various hauls for her quiet night in. New paints and pencils, a sketchpad, some candles - she has all intentions of working on her watercolour technique.

So it has to be for him and Jessica.

Imagine his face, you think, picturing wide, panicked eyes as you roam up to his table to take his order. He’d actually crap his pants. 

But, it’s another set of eyes that you picture when you start to enjoy the scheming a little too much. The sad, teary eyes of your best friend, when she finds out the guy she’s been hung up on for half her life, who she has all but convinced herself isn’t interested, and is - absurdly - ‘far too good’ for her - yeah, right - is dating other girls while taking her out on not-so-platonic boat dates only the day before. A boat date that she had come back to your room, flung herself onto her belly on the bed, and kicked her feet as she gushed all about it. 

So you make your way back to the house after a long day, and resign yourself to the fact that you’re going to have to, yet again, get all your information on Jack’s date second hand.

You primed Cara, your colleague in the restaurant, to keep an eye out, and she promised to send updates on her breaks, and you have been holed up in yours and Ellie’s shared bedroom trying to keep her busy when there is a persistent knock at the door, and a mop of soft, curly brown hair pokes in before his eyes meet yours.

“Hey, Luke!” Ellie chimes, cheery and all too blissfully unaware of the potentially horrific circumstances you’ve stumbled upon. “You need to borrow my conditioner again?”

You scoff from your position on the bed, watching a slight pink hue flush up Luke’s neck.

“What? No,” he denies, running a hand through his hair and seemingly frowning a little at the way it feels. “I’m going to the store, wondered if either of you needed anything?”

“Nah, thanks, we’re good,” Ellie smiles, attention diverting straight back to where she’s drawing in her sketchbook, missing the way Luke widens his eyes and tilts his head as if to encourage you to take him up on his offer.

“Can I come with?” You shuffle from your position on the bed, swinging your legs out from beneath you and over the side as Ellie looks back at you.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise you wanted something.”

“Someone’s got to show the poor guy what’s what on the haircare aisle, El.”

And you’re thankful that Ellie has settled herself in for the evening already by 6:45, showered, pyjamas on, otherwise she might have tried to tag along, too, just for something to do.

You swipe her phone before she can notice and hide it under your pillow before you leave, thinking it might reduce the risk of her getting bored and texting Jack, or, worse, checking his location.

A trip out gives you the chance for you and Luke to debrief each other on your findings of the day - or, as it turns out, just you, because Luke Hughes might be the worst information-gatherer on planet Earth.

Finding his life’s niche in hockey is fortunate, because he definitely wouldn’t cut it as an investigator.

“He just said he didn’t know anything,” Luke shrugs of his earlier encounter with Cole, and you try not to gape at him in disbelief as he fiddles with the screen in his BMW, scrolling through the interface in search of the nearest store. 

You swat his hand away with a scoff, typing in a destination, “And you believed him?”

“Was I not supposed to?”

“You’re about as useless as a chocolate teapot, Hughes. What is it with guys and gossip, are you all really that dumb?”

“That’s the address for the club,” he points out, ignoring your jibe as he starts driving.

“Well done, you can read.”

“Why?”

“Because, thankfully, one of us is a good detective.” You snark, “Jack’s there.”

“So?”

“He’s on a date.”

“No he isn’t,” Luke frowns, attention momentarily taken from the road as he looks over at you. “I’ve been with him all afternoon, he would have told me if he had a date, tonight.”

“Oh yeah? Where’d he say he was going when he left, earlier?”

He hadn’t been home when you got back from work, but that had been around an hour ago. You figured if he was sneaky enough to book into the restaurant when you’re not working, he’d have his wits about him to avoid you, entirely. Whenever the two of you cross paths, you can’t help but try get on his last nerve, and he’s hardly going to want to start his evening in a foul mood.

“To get his hair cut.”

Jesus Christ, you think, he’s so lucky he’s cute.

“You’re so clueless. He’s at the lounge with Jessica, the girl I told you about yesterday.”

“And what are we supposed to do about that?”

“We’re gonna supervise. And maybe interfere, if necessary.” 

You don’t really have a plan, but it seems like the right thing to at least get a look in as to what the hell Jack thinks he’s doing, especially if you’re going to carry on with this whole plan of getting him and Ellie together. If he’s seriously entertaining other girls while making out to Luke that he only has eyes for Ellie, your plans might have to change. You’re not sure if Luke will be on board with the new path you’re willing to take, but you’ll be happy to kill his brother on your own.

“Interfere?” Luke’s eyes are wide, but he keeps them on the road, fingers flexing against the wheel. “I just came out for chips to make nachos, not play spies!”

“Cara’s working tonight, she said she’d keep an eye on them for me. I bet if I cover her hosting shift on Friday she’d sabotage their date. We’d just have to sit back and watch.”

“Oh,” Luke’s brows furrow, as if it’s taking any consideration at all to mess with his brother. “You really are an evil genius.”

You try not to think too hard about who’s been spewing that rhetoric already in his ear, and instead you smile when he casts his eyes your way, proud and pleased. 

“Thank you.”

It takes another 15 minutes to get to the club, considering Luke’s best Driving Miss Daisy impression, so their date is already underway by the time Cara is ushering you to a booth in the far corner, where you can see Jack’s table, but he shouldn’t be able to see yours, and agreeing to play along.

“Can I get you guys any drinks?” She asks as she hands over two menus, and you’re too interested in trying to gauge the vibe at the other table while Luke looks over his.

“Two diet cokes, shaved ice, no lemon,” he says, and you can’t help but frown at the way the specificity of that order rolls so easily off his tongue. That’s your order.

“Any food?”

“Could we just get some nachos, please?” You ask, sliding your menu across the table without even looking, not wanting to give Luke too much of a chance to peruse his own out of fear you’ll be here all night. “And extra picante on the side.”

“Extra guac, too,” Luke adds as Cara scribbles the instructions on her notepad, “And some of those chicken tenders, and extra ranch. And maybe some fries. Yeah, chilli fries. And breadsticks.”

You level him with a glare, already proven right in your decision not to give him too much time to think about what he wanted. He’ll order every appetiser on the menu, if given half the chance. 

“Thanks, Cara, that’s everything.”

“Sure thing, should be around fifteen minutes. They only just ordered,” she points her pen back to Jack’s table, where Jess is leaning onto the table and Jack is leaning back in his seat - heavy on the distance but even heavier on the eye contact. That little shit.

“Does he have any allergies?” You lean onto your own table to ask Luke, quirking a brow up when his eyes darken in response, mischief swirling in his emerald irises.

“Absolutely not,” Cara interjects, “I’m doing this so you cover my job, not make me lose it.”

“Let me guess, he ordered the steak, medium-rare?” Luke asks, and she nods, hesitantly. “Char it.”

“Won’t he complain?”

“He’ll just grumble to himself about how tough it is. It’ll put him in a bad mood. That’s what we want, right?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, nodding your head to ease Cara’s worries despite what you really want is for Chef Michael to poison the cut, entirely. If Jack Hughes wants to play with your best friend’s heart, you’ll play with his gut. But you can settle for burnt meat. Luke can work some sort of magic with that, you think, convincing Jack of all people that any first date that resulted in him coming home all sour-puss and sulky should never result in a second. “Bad mood. Bingo.”

“Fine,” Cara grumbles, “But if he even thinks about asking for a manager, you’re covering my next 3 Fridays.”

She storms off to the kitchen, and you and Luke simultaneously sink into your seats, attention immediately diverted back to the table in the opposite corner of the room.

“We should have kept the menus,” Luke mutters from across the booth, “Could have hidden behind them.”

“What are we, children?” You snark, “You can’t think of any more creative ways to stay hidden?”

“I heard PDA makes people pretty uncomfortable,” he leans onto the table, dropping you a wink when you glance over out of the side of your eye, “We should make out to throw everyone off the scent.”

“In your dreams, Hughes.”

Luke sort of envies the charm you hold over people.

The way you can convince people to do your bidding with a mere flutter of your eyelashes or a flash of pearly teeth and a glimmer in your irises.

He has trouble, sometimes, skirting around his honesty or hiding his intentions - and he knows that’s not a bad thing, knows that being clear and truthful is an admirable trait, if anything - but the way you persuade others to bend to your whim with intricate white lies based on observations you’ve made or intel you’ve gathered is a praiseworthy level of genius. 

It had taken such minimal effort for you to get Cara on side, to convince her that being a little clumsy is hardly grounds for her termination, and spilling a little of Jack’s drink close to the edge of the table - close enough that it drips onto his pants and Luke can see the steams of frustration exuding from his brother’s skin from all the way on the other side of the restaurant - or bumping her hip on the edge of their table every time she passes are really just harmless irritations, not likely to cause actual complaint. 

You had used the mere tone of your voice to convince Liam from behind the bar to squeeze a little lime in Jack’s water, knowing just from observing him back at the house that he hates the taste, face curling in disgust at even the slightest hint of it, and Luke had watched your eyes gleam in delight every time Jack took a sip of his drink and tried not to spit it back out, seeking much needed reprieve to swallow down the world’s toughest steak cut. 

You’d even worked your magic on him, pouting your lips when the food had arrived at the table, and he had initially declined to share his chicken tenders with you - your grumblings at him ordering enough to feed the five thousand fresh in his memory, but so easily wiped away by the soft, sad look in your eyes, and your whining of, “But I didn’t realise how hungry I’d get. Plotting and scheming is hard work, Luke.”

You ended up eating half, but he could hardly complain - you were doing the heavy lifting out of the two of you.

He was sitting back and enjoying the show - enjoying your company, if he’s honest. Enjoying the way his gangly limbs would sometimes knock into yours under the table, enjoying the way he kept getting little nuggets of information out of you while you were distracted, sipping at your coke and making little comments about yourself, about your life, without even realising you’re doing it. 

And an unplanned, pseudo date ends up being the first time he thinks he’s had a glimpse at the real you.

The you who knows more about hockey than you’ve ever let on before, who comes back to his stories with contextual questions about the game, even has references to a few games of his back at Michigan, and keeps the conversation flowing despite your feigned disinterest, and a constant gaze cast his brother’s way.

That would usually drive him crazy.

He’s experienced it so often that he has come to expect it, people only entertaining his company to acquire the attention of his brothers, but that’s not what you’re doing. Not really.

You pay more attention to Luke than you’d ever let on.

You ask him about his time in Ostrava at the beginning of summer, even though he’s only mentioned being overseas once while you’ve been staying with him - an offhanded comment from Quinn at breakfast that you must have taken on. Ask him about all the food he tried while out there, when he mentions he doesn’t like picante, and you use it as a springboard to talk about what sort of spices he does like, or if he’s the type to try things or stick to what he knows. 

You ask him about being the youngest sibling, and it stems from an offhanded comment Luke had grumbled about always being the last to be clued in on stuff, about how Jack had probably confided in Quinn about his extracurricular activities at the club, and didn’t trust him enough to let him in on the fact he’s going out on dates. You ask if he usually figures things out himself before he’s told them, if that’s what makes him so good at observing and analysing stuff, and he hadn’t ever realised he was particularly good at those things before you brought it up. But then you reference a day in class one time, where he had picked up on something in a textbook that you never would have figured out in a million years, and his heart leaps at the praise you don’t even realise you’re giving him.

You sandwich your perceptions in your usual snark, but he doesn’t miss the slight curve of your lips anymore when he bites straight back, knowing now that there is some part of you that feels the nip of his teeth, that acknowledges his existence beyond him being a speck of inconvenience in your peripheral.

And he gets a little carried away in that acknowledgement - stops paying attention himself to what is happening on the other side of the room and tries to focus on what’s in front of him; the girl he pined after his entire college career, sat sharing nachos and pretending not to know him at a level you so clearly do.

You must get carried away, too, because neither of you notice Jack’s date wrapping up until Luke catches him hand his card over to Cara.

He’s lost count of how long the two of you have been at the club, now - way longer than it takes to get chips from the store, that’s for sure - and all he does know is that if Jack catches either of you two here, after a night of mishaps, bad food, spilled drinks and Cara’s incessant clumsiness, he’ll know who’s to blame. 

“We better get out of here before he sees us,” Luke sighs, not entirely wanting to wrap up his time with you but knowing he doesn’t really have a choice.

“I’ve just got to pick something up before we head back,” you reply, edging out of the booth at the same time Luke does, “I’ll meet you out front just give me two minutes?”

“Be quick,” he tells you before you scurry off, and he flags down Cara, who tells him you already put your bill on your worker tab. He tells her to switch it to his, and that he’ll drop by tomorrow to pay it off, promising to leave her a good tip for her stellar services for the evening. 

He waits where you asked him to, making sure to stick to the side of the entryway where he can duck for cover if his brother makes an appearance - but you show up first, skipping out from the staff lounge with a bag of tortilla chips in hand.

“Let’s go, Lukey boy!” He follows you out like a puppy on a leash, all the way to where his car is parked, almost bumping into you when you stop and turn without warning, stretching your hand out to him. “Give me your keys.”

“Are you crazy?” He snorts, “You’re not driving my car!”

“I know a shortcut!” You reason, stepping forward and making a grabby motion with your fingers, “We gotta beat Jack home, I just paid another server $20 to spill a whole drink on him before he leaves and he’s gonna be pissed. I want to see the meltdown back at the house and you drive like a nun!”

Luke doesn’t know why he gives in so easy - it could be the proximity, the way you’re so close you have to look up at him, eyes twinkling softly under the moonlight, voice carrying over to him like a siren song, or it could just be because he’s weak - but he hands his keys over with a roll of his eyes and climbs into the passenger side, sliding the seat back with a huff to accommodate his long legs and watching as you adjust the driver’s side, cringing at the way he’s gonna have to figure out exactly how he had it before.

You drive like a maniac, to the point where Luke has to screw his eyes shut as you use some back road, can hear the squelch of mud beneath his tires and squirms at the thought of having to take it to the car wash, tomorrow. 

But you make it back to the lake house much quicker than if he were driving, he’ll give you that. So quick that you feel comfortable enough to turn to him once you’ve pulled up, in no rush to unbuckle and get out to get inside before Jack gets home.

“Just so we’re clear, this is a point under my name. You’re not claiming tonight as a win.”

Luke chuckles, turning in his seat to face you, features illuminated by the dim overhead light that turns on when the engine switches off and a slight flush of exhilaration to your cheeks. There’s no pretending you haven’t enjoyed yourself, not tonight. “But the steak thing was my idea?”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be sat watching baseball and thinking he was getting a 3 hour haircut, you can’t seriously be trying to steal this from me, I thought you athletes had integrity!”

“You’re really keeping score?”

“You’re not?”

If Luke’s honest, he hasn’t really thought about your whole wager all night. He’s been too wrapped up in the idea that his brother had lied to him. Twice. And now his whole plan for the two of you all summer has potentially been messed up. But hearing you mention it, hearing you talk about it like it hasn’t been flushed down the toilet by his brother’s idiocy sparks something in him - excitement, anticipation. He doesn’t want to let this go.

“I actually think we made a good team back there,” he shrugs, eyes meeting yours to gauge your reaction to the thought of doing this together.

“You’re only saying that ‘cause you’re gonna lose,” you retort, eyes sparkling with those same sentiments he had just felt. 

“Probably,” he acquiesces, “Also ‘cause you kind of scare me a little after tonight, last thing I wanna do is go up against you when you have the power to turn half the country club against me.”

You smirk, and his eyes are drawn to the plush curve of your lips, watching them as they form around the softly spoken words, “God forbid you can’t go a round of golf without your caddy breaking down.”

“Exactly.” He mutters back, glad to see your gaze is still zeroed in on him when he meets it again. He can feel the thump thump thump of his pulse in his ears, and takes a deep breath before proposing, “Partners?”

He cocks a brow and holds his pinky out over the centre console, and you eye the digit, sceptically, narrowing your eyes into a glare before raising them to meet his. “Fine,” you grumble, then hook your little finger through his and tighten it to shake, a slight yelp of surprise filling the car when he tugs, your lax arm giving way until your knuckle touches his lips and he kisses it.

“Ew,” you whine, snatching your finger back as he fills the space himself with a hearty chuckle, wiping it on his hoody in disgust. “That’s gross!”

“No take backs,” he smiles, victorious, with his chest puffed out, primed for you to swat at with the flex of your hand, and the two of you are only pulled out of the moment by the sound of tyres pulling up on the gravel behind you, both of you stumbling to unbuckle yourselves and climb out of the car. 

Jack is exiting his own vehicle behind, and stomps down the driveway, shouldering past you until he realises who he has passed, turning back and looking at you with suspicion cast across his features. 

“Where have you twobeen?” Jack asks, glancing a curious eye between the two of you before meeting Luke’s gaze, levelling him with an inquisitive glare.

“We went to the store for chips,” Luke holds the bag up, the crinkle loud enough for Jack to hear, and he feels an insurgence rising within him, spurred on by the way his brother is looking at him like he’s the one who should be ashamed of his actions. “Nice haircut.”

Jack runs a hand through his hair, surprise crossing his features in a brief flash at the call out, like he had never even expected Luke to notice his hair looks no different to the last time he saw him mere hours ago, like he would never even need to question his alibi.

“Oh, yeah, I got the day wrong. Went out for dinner instead.”

“On your own?” You ask from beside him, your presence giving Luke the kind of back up he very much needs right now, a new target for Jack’s narrowed eyes that takes the heat off of him a little, lessens the burden of lying to his brother - despite Jack being the one who started it, it doesn’t make Luke feel any less bad, doesn’t quell the need to word vomit and admit to all the ludicrous things he had done to ruin Jack’s night. “You end up having a little accident there, bud?”

Luke tries not to outwardly laugh as his attention is diverted to the wet patch that still soaks up the front of Jack’s pants, lips quivering as he presses them together, oblivious to the steam pouring out of his brother’s ears as he immediately gets riled up. 

“One of your esteemed colleagues at the club apparently lacks hand eye co-ordination. Plus, some of us like our own company,” Jack scoffs, “Some of us can go an evening without the need to annoy anybody else.”

“It’s not news to me that you’re in love with yourself, dude,” you retort back, entirely unbothered by his jibes. “Bet you’ve got all sorts of riveting thoughts swirling around that ginormous head of yours, must keep you busy for hours on end.”

“At least I have thoughts, at least I’m not some airheaded-,”

“Hey,” Luke’s tone is authoritative when he calls out, stern and demanding, “Cut it out, Jack.”

“She started it!”

“She asked you a question,” Luke frowns, disappointed with how quick his brother had taken to escalating the situation, all in an attempt to deflect the attention from his own deception. He knows you don’t need him to protect you from Jack’s sharp tongue, knows you can very much defend yourself, but he needs to vent his frustrations, somehow, without causing a bust up on the driveway. “You could have just give her a straight answer without biting her head off.”

He feels like you’re a little closer, all of a sudden, and he doesn’t know it’s the slight brush of your arm against his or if it’s something else, something less tangible - but it warms him, all the same. Steadies the static thump of his heart in his chest at the thought of starting an argument with his brother out of nowhere. 

“Whatever,” Jack rolls his eyes, “I’m going to bed.”

And as Jack turns, Luke sees your lips part, ready to send him off with the last word until a large hand clamps itself over your mouth, and your wide eyes meet his over the sides of his fingers.

He’s not sure why he did it, why he all of a sudden feels comfortable enough to cross the boundaries of purposeful touch, but he doesn’t entirely regret it.

Plush lips press mid-word against his palm, and your skin is soft, cheeks warming ever so slightly beneath his hand.

“You gotta let him go, there’s no use fighting with him tonight, it’s better to drag it out. Didn’t think I’d have to teach you about the beauty of the long game,” he says, voice low as he watches his brother retreat to the house, waiting until he’s safe inside to retract his hand. “Not like this, anyway.”

“Your brother’s an asshole,” you grumble, “Full offence.”

“No arguments from me,” Luke concedes, holding his hands as if surrendering to the fact, himself. “What are you gonna tell Ellie?”

“Nothing.” You sigh, stepping a little down the drive and toward the house before turning back to him. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, partner.”

There have only been a handful of times in your life you’ve ever been thankful for work coinciding with huge plans, but when the group had decided that they wanted to go see Zach Bryan play Ford Field, you had thanked your lucky stars you had been put down to work a full shift at the restaurant and wouldn’t be able to go.

Not only for the fact that he isn’t really your thing, but for the fact that you’re finally getting a full evening to yourself.

So far, in your time at the house, most evenings have been spent with everyone else - group dinners, game nights, movie nights, even a couple of girls nights with just you and Ellie scattered in there, but nothing on your own, yet. 

You can’t wait. And with an empty house, you have a full pamper night planned. You’ve been stocking up odd bits on your trips to the store over the past couple of weeks - sheet masks, aromatherapy candles, you’ve even picked up some flower petals from the spa at the club, in the hopes that you might even treat yourself to a relaxing soak in the bathtub. You can play whatever music you want, make whatever food you want, sit wherever you want in the house, out on the deck, overlooking the lake with a book in hand and no chirpy voices in your ear all night.

You can’t wait.

The only downside is not having a ride home, but you haven’t finished too late. The sun will still be up for a couple of hours, and a walk in the simmering heat back to the house doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.

Your feet carry you with ease down the back roads, and you even make the journey without your headphones on, taking in the scenery, the blissful peace of your surroundings, so lost in the tranquility of it all that the sight of Luke washing his car on the drive when you get home dampens your mood as quick as a torrential downpour of rain, flash floods coursing through your evening and wrecking your plans entirely. 

“What the hell are you doing?” You can’t help the bite in your tone as you approach, sneakers crunching against the gravel as Luke pauses the hose, looks over at you with the sun in his eyes, and you have to remind yourself he’s just ruined the one night you have for yourself before you get distracted by the fact that he’s shirtless.

“Washing my car?” he calls back, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Detroit right now?”

Luke shrugs, and you have to will your eyeballs not to move any lower than his neck to watch his shoulders lift and drop, lest you get too caught up in the broad expanse of his chest and do something ridiculous like drool.

“Wasn’t feeling it.”

“You weren’t feeling a concert you guys haven’t shut up about for weeks, but you were feeling washing your car?”

He’s dead. When he’s finished with his car and he retreats to his room, you’re gonna smother him with a pillow and discard of his body in the lake. You’re not even gonna let him shower, first. That’s what the lake’s for.

He’s crapping all over your plans because he wasn’t feeling it?

“It needs cleaning,” he shrugs again, and you swear you’re gonna jump in and run him over with the damn thing, “In fact, you really should be helping me.”

There’s a small part of you that feels like the thoughts of violence are worryingly aggressive, but then a larger part of you realises he must have a death wish.

“How’d you get to that conclusion?”

“You’re the one who drove us through a swamp,” he scoffs, a pointed hand flung toward the body of his car, where the sides are lined with a thick layer of dried dirt from the other night, “You get it dirty, you clean it up.”

“As much as I would absolutely love to fulfil your pervy car wash fantasy, I have much better things I could be doing with my time.”

Or you did, until Luke rained all over your parade of solitude.

“Like what?”

“Literally anything but this.” You gesture at the show he’s putting on. The suds dripping from the roof of the car, the hose in his hand, the buckets scattered around the perimeter. “I need to shower, I just walked from the club and I-,”

A death wish might actually be an understatement.

Luke wants you to murder him in the most gruesome, horrific way you could possibly muster - he has to, because there’s no other explanation for why he’d turn the hose on, point it straight at you, and drench the front of you, entirely. 

You can feel the fabric of your t-shirt dampening and sticking to your chest, and you scrunch your eyes shut to stop droplets of water slipping into them, thankful that when they open again, his own are looking back at you, and not any lower.

You’d really have a reason to kill him, then. 

“You did not just do that.” You growl, glaring back at him with a clenched jaw as the fucker beams back at you, pressing the trigger once more in a short burst that fires straight at your chest, again.

“What, that?”

“You’re so dead.”

You drop your bag and launch for him, aiming to take the hose from his grip, but he fires it again out of sheer panic, the water spouting out from between your splayed fingers, cold and pressured, and it soaks the both of you, raining down as you grapple for the head and Luke remains unrelenting.

There are squeals and yelps called out into the misty air between the two of you, and you get to a point you can’t tell what sounds are coming from who, but you manage to wrestle the hose from his grip and point it straight at him as he jets away with a laugh that rumbles straight from his belly.

It’s the kind of laugh that elicits another, and you don’t realise until he’s circling back to you that the laughter is coming from you - giggling, even, as the two of you engage in a water fight like misbehaving children - and it isn’t long until all aggressive thoughts wash away with the suds that slip to the gravel, forgetting why you were even annoyed in the first place.

It shouldn’t be as fun as it is, but after the long day at work, and the tiring walk back, letting your guard down and engaging it a little mindless chaos seems to wake you up a little.

Your childish game gets Luke what he wanted, anyway, the two of you working together to clean his car when you realise he’s only running in front of all the parts that actually need hosing off and relying on you having bad aim to get the job done, and you figure getting your hands a little dirty is harmless when you’re already soaked through and in dire need of a shower.

And your pamper-plans of a bubble bath and self-care don’t entirely come to fruition, but Luke promises to make up for his petulance by ordering pizza and sticking a movie on, so you bite your tongue to refrain from voicing your initial complaints, and decide to just go with the flow, for once - he hasn’t exactly led you astray, yet.  

You take a little longer in the shower than normal, with no one around to complain about hogging the bathroom or worry about them barging in unannounced, and you suppose that’s a small victory - one little luxury you get to cling to as you bask in the steam, letting all the tension slip from your aching muscles after being on your feet all day.

And once you’re out, hair dried just enough with a towel that it isn’t going to drip or soak your t-shirt, and you’re dressed in your pyjamas, you make your way downstairs, where Luke has already set up a plethora of snacks in the living room.

Nachos, popcorn, candy and drinks scattered across the coffee table as he relaxes on the couch, hair extra curly after his shower and an old Michigan t-shirt stretched tight across his now much-broader chest. 

“Thought I’d wait for you to pick a movie,” he chimes up from where he’s sat, gesturing with a lazy point to the wall of blu-rays beside the TV. 

“Did Netflix never make it to the Hughes household?” You scoff in disbelief as you take them all in properly for the first time. You’d seen them in your peripheral when you’d been hanging out down here, before, but actually looking at them up close, reading all the titles, seeing the sheer volume of how many there are, it kind of surprises you.

“We can look on Netflix if you want. They always take stuff off, though.”

You know. All your favourite movies get taken off of streaming, and you only ever find out about it when you’re really in the mood to watch them. As soon as you realise the wall is alphabetised, you know exactly where to look.

“That’s alright,” you shrug, stepping to the side as you track backwards, through M, L, K and J. “You guys are pretty analogue, I’ve noticed.”

“What do you mean?”

“The board games, the DVDs, the whole no phones around the house thing.”

“No phones around the house is common courtesy,” he chuckles, “But I guess we’re a little weird about the other stuff.”

“It’s pretty cool,” you shrug, spotting the DVD you want and sliding it out to assess the case. “It’s old school. Probably better for the brain. My little brothers can’t really function without an iPad and they’re 5, it’s freaky, like they’re haunted by the capitalist ghost of Steve Jobs or something.”

“I didn’t know you had brothers,” Luke frowns where you almost expect him to laugh, and you spin on your heel to face him. He has this look about him like he should have known that - like the two of you have ever conversed in anything other than sarcastic quips and scrunched up faces, or whatever attempts at flirting have been on his part. 

“Technically they’re half brothers,” you shrug, “They live out in Philly with my dad and step mom, I don’t really get to see them much.”

“Didn’t know you were from Philly, either.”

“I’m not, my dad moved out there when him and my mom got divorced.”

It’s not something you really love talking about. 

The few times you’ve tried, you’ve been shot down, patronising tones scoffing at how your biggest trauma is the separation of your parents, as if your whole world didn’t crumble down with the demise of their relationship, the demise of life as you knew and very dearly loved it.

“You don’t see him even in the summer?”

“Him and his family are on vacation in Europe for 6 weeks. England, France, Spain, Germany, the boys are into soccer so they’ll be out there until the Euros.”

You don’t miss the way Luke’s face scrunches at how you call them his family, and you’re not sure you’re ready for him to start pitying you, so you throw the DVD case toward him before you can second guess your choice.

Interstellar. 

You hope he doesn’t pick up on why it might be one of your favourites. Especially not considering the topic of the conversation at hand. Something about the crippling regret Cooper has for leaving Murph behind plucks harmoniously at some unidentifiable strings deep within you, but you’re hardly about to admit that to Luke, of all people.

“I love this movie,” he smiles, almost surprised, as if he expected you to throw The Notebook his way. Maybe next time - he’d probably love that movie, too, if he gave it a chance. 

“Me too. I love space movies.”

“Like Space Jam?” He asks as he pushes himself up, going toward the TV to set up the movie with the DVD in one hand and the remote control in the other. 

“No, like movies about Space,” you say, throwing yourself down onto the same couch he just vacated and tucking your feet beneath you to get comfortable. “Although I guess Space Jam would technically fit into that bracket.”

“I didn’t realise that was a genre,” he chuckles.

“Not the scary ones, though, I don’t wanna be freaked out by space.”

“Is that like a thing? You just like any movie set in space?”

“I like anything about space, period. Movies, documentaries, books. Thinking about it makes me feel really insignificant.”

“Insignificant? Is that not a bad thing?” He asks as he makes his way back, settling into his side and angling his body toward yours.

“Do you ever think about how big the universe is, Hughes? It’s humongous! If I ever feel anxious or panicky I think about just how big it is and how I’m not even a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. If I’m so tiny, how big can my problems actually be?”

“I guess that makes sense,” he seems to mull it over in his head, the thought of him even considering it and not making you feel stupid warms your chest - makes you forget just how much of yourself you’ve shared with him in the last couple of minutes alone, makes you worry less that you’re sharing too much. “I think I might be the opposite, though. Probably the youngest brother in me, I only feel better if I feel bigger.”

You think that might be why he’s always trying to one up you - sassy comments and inappropriate jokes galore. Not that you mind any of it, not really.

“What about you? What movies do you like?”

“You’re gonna be so shocked.”

“Sports movies?”

“Look at you, knowing me like the back of your hand.” He coos, nudging at your knee with his hand. “I’ll watch anything, though. We should take it in turns, whenever it’s just us,” he says like the thought of spending time alone with you has only just crossed his mind. “Picking a movie to show each other.”

You think there’s a lot of yourself in the media you consume. The movies you watch, the music you listen to, and sharing those things with Luke feels like giving him the only other key to a high security vault. It’s something you’ve avoided so far - letting him play his songs in the car, avoiding making any sort of pick in the group movie nights. It’s daunting, and it’s a lot of pressure, and so you don’t know why you agree with so much ease - a shrug, and a casual muttering of, “Sure, why not?”

The pieces of your dynamic slowly start to slot together, and you start to realise why you’ve been entertaining his company so often, lately. Why your mood so quickly de-escalated itself, earlier. Why you’ve found yourself curled up on the same couch as him, instead of literally anywhere else in the house, doing anything other than this. Why you’re so quick to agree to letting him access all these unseen parts of you.

And why you think he might be able to read your mind, after he asks, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Only if I get to ask one back.”

“What were you gonna do tonight, if you were on your own?”

Thank God, you think, your heart jumping at the thought of anything else he could have asked.

“I was gonna do a sheet mask and steal the bottle of wine Quinn stashed behind the laundry detergent.” You admit with a nonchalant shrug, the plans you had been looking forward to all day seeming mundane in comparison to this. “Why’d you stay behind? You love Zach Bryan.”

“I love sheet masks and stolen wine, too.”

Your lips curve up before you get the chance to huff at his non-answer, and you feel your throat go a little dry at the way his curve, too - the way his green eyes darken when they meet yours, and you feel like he’s looking straight through you.

It’s around half way through the movie that you realise how much you’re enjoying yourself - when you look over at Luke, and the light from the screen is still bouncing off the sticky white sheet plastered to his face, only just able to make out his round eyes through the little slit in the fabric. 

You sip at your wine to hide your smile, and turn your attention back to the TV until Luke nudges at your feet with his, and your eyes meet over the tops of your bent knees. 

“You tell anyone I did this, I’ll never speak to you again.”

Your laugh ripples through every inch of your upper body, rumbling up from your belly and manifesting itself in shaking shoulders, your smile wide and your sheet mask slipping out of place. “You can’t threaten me with a good time, Hughes.”

You spend the rest of the night trying not to think about how there might just be a tiny door in your heart, eking it’s way open for him to squeeze his gangly limbs into.

>PART TWO<

another a/n: I don't want to put a timeframe on when the next part will be posted bc as soon as I do that, my brain will revolt and it won't happen, but I'd love to know your thoughts in the meantime!!! I have a lot of the rest actually written, and what I don't have written, I have drafted, so it shouldn't be too long but!!! like I said no timeframe!! I've had a lot of fun with this dynamic, and hearing any opinions would mean a lot to me!!

this was my first time writing reader insert if you saw any instances of she/her where they shouldn't be, no you didn’t. I tried as best as I could to avoid using Y/N because it takes me out of it I don’t even remember if I put it anywhere but sometimes it's hard to get around I did my best ok!!!

[muletia]

Starscream would particularly be a pathetic mess when he experiences human pussy/dick for the first time. He sits on his high horse claiming that humans are nothing more than inferior beings who don’t deserve to be acknowledged, then poof, you show up and put him in his place by making him cry and beg for relief as you use him for your own pleasure.

By the end, Starscream is panting like a dog, his legs shaking uncontrollably while you sit beside him smoking a cigarette (picturing that certain meme lol) and praises him for being such a good mech for them. Starscream is obsessed and whipped for reader from then on.

DON’T TELL MEGATRON FOR HIS AND YOUR SAKE‼️

𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥

[tfp] obsessed!starscream x human!reader 18+ content / valveplug

summary: behind megatron's back, many things are happening, all of which share one common trait: starscream is the source. this time, the decepticon SIC decided to strike his master's most vulnerable point: you.

cw: valveplug, dom!top!reader, sub!bottom!starscream, starscream rides you, multiple orgasms, praise kink, overstimulation, cheating? (is it really cheating if you are not in an established relationship?) yandere themes, obsession, possessiveness, toxic relationship, emotional manipulation

word count: 1130

'angel' by massive attack was played on repeat while writing. i thought the title kind of fit the content

It was supposed to be just another ploy. A move to get under Megatron’s skin. To finally prove who was better, more cunning; who deserved to rule.

The plan was simple. Use you: make you fall in love, spark emotions, make you care for him more than any other bot on that ship. Spread rotten roots throughout your entire body to ignite a desire within you. Enter your primitive brain and leave a piece of himself there—a piece that, in theory, would take control of you. Make you dependent on him, abandon Megatron, humiliating him. And then seize the moment of shock, disposing of both you and him. Take the throne that belonged to him.

But somewhere along the way, he stumbled.

Starscream had to be cunning, and think two steps ahead if he wanted to survive another day as a Decepticon. Scheming was an art of survival, and he had become its master. Or so he thought. For there was someone even more calculating, someone who deceived even him. Someone who broke into his processor, conquered it mercilessly and claimed it entirely.

“Oh, how beautiful you are, how lovely,” he hears beneath him.

He feels soft, warm hands trailing across the armor on his chassis. Stroking, caressing—the action itself a form of praise. They are delicate, gentle, incomprehensible because no one had ever been gentle with him before. Subtlety was unattainable for someone like Starscream. Illusory. A luxury he had long stopped hoping for.

“You’re doing so well, darling.”

But you did it so easily, effortlessly. Without forcing, without intimidation. Praising him came naturally to you, as though you genuinely believed what you said. He knew he was magnificent, that he deserved more than he had. All the other bots, all the beings on that miserable planet couldn’t compare to him. But hearing it in real time made his ego feel real. He genuinely felt like he was the best.

Your hands wander higher. They leave his chassis, move to his shoulders, then to his neck. For a moment, he has the impression you’re about to choke him, the familiar, almost friendly sensation once again enveloping his neck. But you don’t hurt him. You don’t inflict pain. You just keep caressing him, sharing your warmth, even though he had long since begun to overheat.

His hips move quickly as he rises and falls over you, chasing pleasure. It’s lust. Hunger that only you can satisfy.

“More,” he moans. Half-lidded crimson optics look at you, and in their depths plays something far more dangerous than Megatron’s fury. “Say more. Compliment me, adore me. Love me.”

Finally, you reach his faceplate, forcing him to focus his gaze solely on you, and then you smile triumphantly. You’ve won, wrapping the very SIC of the Decepticons around your little finger. Now at your mercy, dependent on your whims and needs.

“You’re amazing, Star. So good, and just for me. You don’t even know what an honor this is for me.”

The pleasant tingling in his valve disrupts his focus. He wants to drink in your praise, to encode it deep into his processor and repeat it like a mantra when you are not at his disposal. But he’s so close to release… He feels his legs start to tremble, claws carving ravines into the berth.

He nuzzles his cheek deeper into your hand, seeking contact, reveling in the ecstasy you give him. Even while being passive, doing absolutely nothing but lying there and looking beautiful beneath him, you give him more than you could ever imagine. He does all the work, riding you, holding full control over when to stop and start, yet it’s you holding the leash. It’s your word that determines whether he’ll be granted the privilege of pleasure.

“You’re doing so wonderfully today, darling. Tell me, would you like to come? Would you like to be good for me?”

The tingling transforms into fire. His valve clamps around you, begging for release.

“Yes! Please!” he whines. “I want to be, hmm, the best… for you.”

“Then please, show me how much you adore me.”

He arches his back and sinks as deeply as he can. Pants heavily, legs still trembling. Optics remain open, locked onto you. Onto the human who managed to break him.

He leans low over you and kisses you, finalizing his overload. You can’t keep up with him as he ravages your mouth, constantly begging for more, for scraps of passion that temporarily soothe his frantic processor. One kiss lasts longer, almost romantic, but Starscream breaks it quickly, leaving five more hungry, greedy ones.

Finally, he leaves your lips and moves lower, to your neck. He hears you take a deep breath, and for a second, he feels guilty—until desire takes control again.

“Starscream,” you chide him gently. You saw right through him.

He wants to mark you, show everyone who you belong to, who you cheat on Megatron with. But he also wants to calm himself, to stop pretending in front of everyone that nothing connects you two, that you’re indifferent to him. To stop the madness tearing him apart after every separation, when both his body and spark craves you. Not just the feral interfacing but also the tenderness it carried.

Once more, he starts moving his hips, chasing another overload, though the remnants of the previous climax still cling to him. He’s already grown hungry again, longing for praise, which, as it turned out, was more satisfying than the desire to overthrow Megatron. His battered valve lazily takes you in, releases, and then swallows you whole again.

“Just a little mark,” he tries to bargain. He needs it. Needs to possess your body and soul the way you possessed his.

“No, I’m sorry,” you reply, stroking his cheek. “You know he’ll kill you if you do.”

He growls and pulls away because he knows you’re absolutely right. If your meetings were discovered, it wouldn’t just be him who’d pay. And he didn’t want to see you hurt. Not anymore.

He speeds up, forcing his processor to focus solely on you and the pleasure you provided him. He had to make the most of this meeting, to ravage himself until he had no strength left to move a digit. Not just so you’d care for him afterward and coo praise at him. The date of your next encounter was unknown, and he didn’t know if he would lose his sanity entirely and last scraps of self-control by then.

“What a good mech,” you murmur, drawing a moan from him. “Five overloads, and you still have the strength, huh?”

“There’ll be at least ten… ah! Or twe-twenty. But you—you’re not going anywhere.”

“As you wish, Star.”

He scratches with his claws so hard that sparks fly next to your head.

[mustangbby]

LOST POSSESSIONS - aventurine, boothill, x reader

- in which you lost your wedding band during a conflict with something/someone.

- novas comeback post guys I'm gonna be more fluent with writing I promise. hope you enjoy this though I was gonna add Sunday but my computer is literally at 1 percent sooooooo....

- a lot of crying, minor swearing, besides that all comfort... wc 912

When Aventurine walked into your shared home to the sight of you sobbing on the couch, he thought of the worst. Are you hurt? Did something happen while he was at work? He went up to you to seek for answers.

“What happened? What's wrong?” He internally panicked, not wanting to allow you to see his current emotions. He kept calm as you sat up, tear stained face poking a hole through his battered heart.

“You’re gonna be so pissed!” You sob, somehow starting to cry even harder. You dove back into the warm cushions of the couch when you felt the part near your shins dip, and a hand running through your hair and massaging the back of your scalp.

“You can tell me anything. I won’t be upset, I promise,” he gave you a sympathetic look before proceeding. “But if you’re not comfortable with it, I won’t push you.”

You hesitantly show him your bare hands, and he takes them in his. You roll over to face him and look at him with a pained expression, and that's when he seemed to realize. 

“Where's your wedding ring?” He said, his words quick. He looked at you slightly wide-eyed before you began bawling again. He began to swipe the tears out of your eyes, his thumb coming into contact with your lower lashes as he quietly attempts to hush you and calm you down.

“Was it stolen? Did you lose it?” 

You bring a hand up to your face before sniffling. “It got stolen. The diamond was too appealing to some bastard on the streets on Golden Hour, and it was swiped right off of my hand!” 

You curl back into yourself before Aventurine comes down to kiss your face. “I’m not mad at you, babe. I’m beyond pissed off with the person who did that. Nobody seems to have even a drop of human decency these days, do they?” 

You slightly shrugged before hugging him close. He returned the hug, and held you there until you quietly whispered a question into his ear. “What are we going to do about the ring?”

He slightly chuckled before bringing his head on top of yours. “I might as well get you a new one. The old one was rather… out of date, if I must say so myself. I could get you a bigger, brighter diamond.”You attempted to protest, attempting to say everything he knew you wanted to say- even something made out of paper would be good enough for me. But he thought you were worth the shiniest, biggest, rarest stone in the world. Worth much much more than that. And this incident wasn’t much of a setback for him, and really didn’t make his wallet cry very hard at all.

Boothill doesn’t play when his significant other is not doing very well. He’s immediately at your side, stroking your hair and trying to do or say anything he can to make you feel better. 

But in this instance, it didn’t really work. He realized after a few moments that he just had to be patient, and wait for you to come to him,

“You’re going to be so mad at me if I told you,” you hiccuped, before continuing to talk. “Please don’t yell at me.”

“Why would I ever yell at ya’?” He said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Whatever's got your pretty face all stained with tears can’t be that bad. I hate gettin’ mad at ya’, and ya’ know that.”

You nodded, but dug your face deeper into the pillows. Boothill simply put his metal hand on your back, and rubbed up and down. While the sensation felt cold, it seemed to work to help calm you down because you felt more at ease, and he could tell that too. 

“I lost my wedding ring. I don’t know where it went, but one moment it was there and then the next it wasn’t on my hand anymore,” you cut out, trying to hold back more tears. You could see his face change from scared to relaxed.

“Hey, don’t stress it. That’s just a lil’ setback, nothin’ to worry about. We’ll either find it or I’ll buy ya’ a new one,” he says as he picks up your now bare hand, a flash of sadness showing through his eyes. “What’ll make ya’ feel better? Cuddles? If we went out to try n’ find it?”

You shrugged, and he nodded. You buried yourself even deeper into the blankets, giving him the hint that you just wanted to stay inside for now. You felt too bad and your face was rose red from crying, your eyes puffy and your voice raspy. He climbed into the bed with you, wrapping his strong, metallic arm around your covered torso. 

“I’ll do a thorough investigation tomorrow. People don’t usually lie to Galaxy Rangers, but I doubt those adorable cutie pies would know somethin’ like that,” he immediately cringed, realizing how the sentence came out. His stupid synesthesia beacon. 

But he heard you laugh, and the cringe feeling dissipated into a warmth in his metal chest. His whole goal is to keep you happy, healthy, and safe. If he were to fail at one of those things, he’d fail at his own purpose. For now, his only thing is to cheer you up, and make sure you know that he would never be mad at you for a mistake that's not even your fault.

[blitzyn]

stop moving

re4r leon s. kennedy x m!reader

request: none

synopsis: After finding yourself stuck in a closet with Leon, you end up squirming just a little too much.

a/n -> i have fallen victim to the leon lover rabbit hole. ALSO. I FUCKING FRACTURED MY FINGER??? guys i almost cried when i had to write the word balls. </3 but thank you all for 1k followers! tbh i only started this acc because i liked the font when i wrote something in my drafts lmao. but still! it means a lot to me and im happy to have gotten this far!

wc -> 2.5k

cw -> thigh fucking, hiding in a closet, spit as lube, handjob (r receiving), pet names (baby x2, sweetheart x1), he's kinda possessive tbh, not beta read

This was supposed to be relatively simple: get in, figure out where the president's daughter was, save her, then get out. Sure, you've seen your fair share of weird shit — especially after the outbreak in Raccoon City, but finding out that there was a whole religion dedicated to spreading a plague for the sake of taking over the world definitely takes the cake. For now, at least.

But finding yourself cramped in a closet with Leon, surrounded by a horde of hostile cultists, also wasn't something you expected to happen throughout the entire mission.

"Stop moving so much," Leon quietly muttered from behind you just as you shifted.

"I'm not," you huffed, a bit annoyed that you had to hide in this stuffy closet, even if you knew that you'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for your partner's quick thinking. Against his words, you adjusted yourself again, trying to find a decently comfortable position. Suddenly, you felt his hands on your hips and the warmth of his chest pressed to your back as he pulled you flush against him.

"I said, stop moving," he repeated, whispering in your ear. You held back a shudder at the feeling of his breath ghosting over the shell of it, stilling completely in surprise. Just then, thunderous footsteps could be heard outside the closet; slowly, listening for any sound that might reveal where the two of you hid.

You tensed and instinctively backed up to further yourself from the perpetrator, even if there wasn't much room to move to begin with. You could faintly hear Leon grunt from behind you, but you were in no position to apologize at the moment. Your eyes were glued to a crack in the old, wooden door, watching as the light shifted when the person passed by.

You waited with bated breath, hoping that it wouldn't come near. But, like some cliche horror movie, you could see the light at the bottom of the door disappear, meaning it was far too close for comfort. With every second the person stood there, the tighter Leon's hold on your hips became. The two of you went so silent your ears rang, and you were briefly afraid that it'd hear the sound of your racing heartbeat.

But after what felt like an eternity, its heavy footsteps started up again and away from the closet. You heaved a sigh of relief when the front door slammed shut, rendering the building empty once more.

"Fucking hell, sorry," you mumbled, trying to shuffle forward and give Leon his space when you realized that he hadn't let go of you yet. "You okay?"

Using the dim light that filtered through the cracks in the door, you lifted your arms a bit and curiously peered at his hands. But that's when you noticed the black lines covering his arms. Upon closer inspection, you quickly realized that they were his veins.

"Christ, Leon, what—"

"Be quiet. Just—just for a second."

You found it hard to tear your eyes away from his arms, waiting in silence. You focused on the sound of his labored breaths, biting your tongue to keep yourself from questioning him even further. Your mind couldn't help the invasion of 'What happened?' and 'What is that?' that threatened to spill from your lips. How did you not notice this earlier?!

You were pulled from your thoughts when you felt him rest his forehead on your shoulder, muttering and grunting under his breath. And that's when you felt it — the reason why he was so reluctant to move just yet: he was hard.

"Oh." You couldn't help it, even if he had already told you to shut your mouth twice already. The silence from then on was painfully awkward as the two of you tried to figure out what to say. With a deep breath, you miraculously found the courage to speak up.

"Do you... Can I help you?" You offered, remaining still to keep yourself from accidentally pressing yourself up against him again. It was silent while you waited for his reply, embarrassment wriggling its way through your chest the longer the two of you kept quiet.

"I mean, you don't have to accept, you can just ignore me—" you began to ramble on, mortified that you even asked the question. "I just thought, cause, like, it'll be hard for you to—shit, I didn't mean it like that—"

"[Name]," Leon interrupted you, finding your instant silence charming in its own way. You could hear him take a deep breath in just as his hands slid further up to firmly caress your waist and abdomen. Electricity shot down your spine and pooled in your gut when he tugged you closer to him, grinding himself against your ass. "You can."

He reached for your hand and brought it behind you, placing it directly onto his cock. You gave it a tentative squeeze, savoring the quiet grunt that came from him, feeling your confidence grow by the second. You heard the gentle jingling of his belt as he undid it just enough for you to dip your hand underneath the waistband of his pants and boxers.

"Not wasting a second, huh?" Amusement and lust were laced in his voice as he spoke, a quiet moan spilling from his lips soon after.

He was hot and thick in your hand, throbbing rhythmically. You swiped a finger over the tip that beaded precum, savoring the shudder that came from his body. His hips trusted up into your fist, seeking more, and you were more than happy to oblige.

With a steady pace, you moved your hand up and down, tracing the prominent veins. You felt your own cock twitch at the sound of Leon's breathy groans and sighs, but you ignored it in favor of getting him off.

"Fuuckk," he drawled out, leaning forward to press his lips on the side of your neck. "You're good at this. Makes me think you've done this typa thing before."

"No," you responded, gently rubbing the spot on the underside of the tip. "You're the only one."

"I get the special treatment?" He muttered teasingly, his breath hot against your skin. "Must be my lucky day."

He could feel his body buzzing with adrenaline as he peppered open-mouthed kisses on the side of your neck, untucking your shirt to slide a hand up your torso to pinch and toy with a nipple. His free hand traveled lower, slipping his cold fingertips underneath the waistband of your pants, but refused to go further than that.

You could feel his lips curl in a subtle smirk, but even as you realized he was teasing you, testing your patience, you had no intention to retaliate. Christ. The hold this man had on you. It was downright pathetic.

"God," he started, pressing his palm flat on your chest to bring you closer to him—eager for more of your touch. He let his teeth gently scrape against your skin, threatening to bite—to mark you, but he forced himself not to. He couldn't. Not right now. "I want to fuck you so bad."

His words were breathless, borderline desperate, as they left his lips. He couldn't help but thrust his hips up into your fist, pushing and pushing until your hand was flush against your ass, keeping you from jerking him off as he rutted against your hand.

"We can't, Leon," you muttered, disappointment lacing your voice. As much as you'd love to have him inside you, fucking you deep, you knew you couldn't. Not when the Ganados were still outside, at least. "Just let me finish you off."

Leon let out a low growl, knowing that you were right. There were a lot of things the two of you couldn't do inside the confined space of the closet, forcing him to conjure up ideas of what he wanted to do when all of this was over.

But for now, he settled on the second best option: your thighs.

"I know," he murmured, breathing in deeply as he pulled your hand away from his throbbing cock. "Then let me fuck your thighs. I'll be quick, I promise."

You mulled over his words, unsure if it would be a good idea.

"Please, baby," he pleaded, his voice heavy with lust. "Just this once. Then, when we find Ashley and get the hell outta this place, I'll make sure to fuck you properly. Nice 'n hard 'n deep. Wouldn't you like that?"

Fuck it.

"Mhm, yeah, go ahead." You relented, knees weakening at the thought of having his thick cock inside you, stretching and filling you up perfectly.

"Atta boy," he buried his thumbs underneath your pants and boxers, pulling them down to let them drop to your ankles. "Knew you'd come around."

He groaned at the sight of your bare thighs and drooling cock, running his hands along the curve of your ass to lean back and spread it, focusing his gaze on your asshole. "Fuck," he hissed. "Can't wait to feel your tight little hole around me later. Gonna fill you up with my cum, make you mine."

Arousal sank in your stomach like a rock as your hole clenched around nothing. Whatever's coursing through his veins made him more impulsive, more desperate, but with the fog that clouded your thoughts, you hardly found it in you to mind.

He spat on his cock and moved a hand away from your body to briefly jerk himself off and smear the saliva around.

"Open up, baby," he instructed as soon as he was done, raising his hand to caress your hip. "Spread your legs a little."

Like a trained puppy, you obeyed, widening your thighs just enough to let him guide his hard cock in between them. Your breath hitched at the sight of the head peeking out, squeezing your legs around him just a bit tighter.

"Jesus fuck, [Name]," he groaned, leaning forward to press his chest against your back. He wrapped his arms around your waist, holding you close to him. Through the hazy mess that was in your mind, you found comfort in the warmth and firmness of them as you placed your hands on his forearms for some sort of stability. "That's it. Squeeze me just like that."

You could feel every twitch and throb, and you were sure he could feel yours, too. It felt like your senses were on overdrive as you listened to your labored breaths, his pleased sighs and grunts, and the slick sounds of his cock sliding in and out of your thighs. He set a leisurely pace, rocking his hips back and forth.

"Shit..." He hissed, speeding up his thrusts as his dick rubbed against your balls, smearing his makeshift lube across your skin.

His hips met yours with quiet slaps, making sure to keep the noise level at a minimum despite the overwhelming urge to just bury himself inside you right then and there. He mouthed at the nape of your neck, tasting the salt of your skin, gently pressing his teeth down hard enough to send sparks down your spine.

His fingertips pressed into your sides so firmly it hurt, but it only served to mix in with the desire that burned brightly in your belly. He fucked your thighs with a sense of urgency, as if trying to satiate a hunger deep within his subconscious—not that you minded.

He grunted and groaned with every thrust, tightening his arms around your waist to tug you back to him whenever your hips jolted forward. It was intoxicating; the way he so effortlessly turned your body into a sensitive mess left you wanting more.

But as soon as a strong hand wrapped around your aching cock, you nearly came on the spot. One of your hands left Leon's forearm to slap it over your mouth as you tried to keep yourself from moaning too loud.

He breathily chuckled beside your ear. "Is this what you wanted?" He rhetorically questioned, swiping a finger over the leaking head so perfectly it left your skin tingling. "Tell me, sweetheart."

"Ohh, fuck," you hissed. It was embarrassing how you so eagerly responded to his touch. "Yeah, th-that's it...!"

Your eyes fluttered shut, focusing on the feeling of his slick cock moving in and out from between your thighs. Your lips parted from behind your hand to let out quiet pants and moans, digging your nails into his forearm the closer you got to your orgasm.

"Oh god, Leon—!" You moaned, pressing yourself further against his back. You could feel your legs faltering, but he didn't seem to mind having you rely on him to stand up.

"I know, baby, I know," he muttered, his voice tight and strained as his thrusts gradually grew sloppy and weak. "Me too."

His cock pulsed and twitched, and he can't help himself from clamping his teeth over the side of your neck this time. It wasn't hard enough to draw blood, but it left a noticeable bite mark that dully ached.

"Come on, baby, cum for me," he instructed, and you had no choice but to comply.

With a muffled moan, you arched your back and finally came as ropes of your semen coated the dusty wooden floor and Leon's fingers. He stroked you until he was sure that you were spent before letting go to chase after his own release.

"Shit," he cursed, breathing heavily. "I'm gonna cum so... so fucking hard...!"

With a strained groan, his hips jerked erratically as he came, holding you tight enough to leave bruises. You gently rub your thighs together, helping him ride out his high. It wasn't until a few moments later did he finally stop, breathing hard against your neck as he calmed down. But that's also when the clarity kicked in.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered, moving his head from you. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened—I just—" he apologized, sighing in defeat a moment later.

"It's fine," you replied, patting his arm. You had to suppress a shudder when he pulled away from your thighs. The cum that ended up on the insides of them quickly cooled, leaving an uncomfortable sensation on your skin. You were just gonna have to suck it up.

"Let's just get outta here, already." You shuffled forward a bit to tug your pants back up your legs while Leon composed himself.

"Yeah," he said, pressing an arm against the dusty, wooden door. Through the dim light, you could see that his veins were no longer visible again, but that thought was going to have to hold off until later. "You ready?"

"Yup." You nodded after briefly making sure you still had everything in place.

Without further thought about what happened just a few seconds ago, Leon pushed the door open and quickly left the closet as you trailed close behind. Now, it was back to work.

[justwonder113]

Sharing a bed with Changbin

Chan; Lee Know ; Changbin; Hyunjin; Han; Felix; Seungmin; IN;

My Masterlist

Summary: What happens when Changbin comes to pick you up after a night out with your friends.

Warning: Chaos just pure Chaos. Cursing as always; Reader is a female; Both reader and Changbin are dummies. Literally idiots in love; Mentions of drinking, reader is a bit tipsy at the start. mentions of kissing. NOT PROOFREAD. Please tell me if I miss anything.

A/N- Heya babies I'm back! I really hope you'll like this, I really had fun writing this so I hope you will enjoy it. If you have any request of just thoughts to share please feel free to do so. Also if you want to be added to the taglist either comment or massage or even send an ask.

Word count- 3.5k

Sometimes drinking alcohol and getting drunk with your best friends was all that you needed to unwind after a hard week of working your ass off. However, as much as you loved feeling this light, carefree, relaxed and let’s just simply say euphoric, alcohol intake also had its cons. For example, this lightness and relaxation came with the price of being unable to stand straight on your legs and your crush looking way more yummy than usual.

You weren’t really planning to go out. After a day you had at work all you felt like was to go home, take a warm bath and snuggle in bed with some good movie playing on the background. Your best friend came up with the idea to go clubbing and getting some overpriced but tasty drinks. You were reluctant at first but after thinking things over you decided to go. And it was great! You had time of your life and it was just what you needed to fully relax and wash off the stress of your daily life. The only problem now was that you had a bit too much to drink and could barely stand on your legs and you felt really dizzy. Also watching Changbin help your friend (who was also wasted if not more than you) get to her door, and mind you he got every one of your friends to their houses because it was really late and he didn’t want them to go with cabs in the middle of the night while in this vulnerable state. You had to call mama Seo and thank her for raising such a gentleman!

Okay maybe you were a bit biased, It wasn’t a secret your feelings for Changbin had been more than platonic. You two had known each other for quite a while. You didn’t know when it started but you two had been flirting around with each other since forever but neither one of you made that final move to make things official. So here you were stuck in the middle ground, where you couldn’t really be called just friends but you weren’t dating each other either.

Of course you would be more than happy to get out of that situation. At least you would try and move on from him if he didn’t want to date and make things official. You just weren’t sure how you should make the first move, you always kind of expected he would be the first one to ask you out.

You were startled out of your thoughts when you heard Changbin return in the car, you couldn’t help but smile as you took in his disheveled hair and rosy cheeks from the cold.

“Are you sleepy baby?” – He asked as he noticed your dazed eyes.

“Yea, but I can’t sleep. I shouldn’t.” You sighed out as you watched him start the car.

“Why is that bubz?” He looked at you for a second before shifting his gaze to the road.

“If I close my eyes I can not look at your pretty face!” You made sure to whine as dramatically as possible. Changbin let out one of his notorious cackles.

“God that was so cheesy!”-He wheezed out after a few seconds of laughing like he had been possessed with a spirit of an ancient witch.

You grabbed your own cheeks making sure to smush them together just enough, blinked at him all cutely and continued to tease him like the sweetheart you were. “Shut up you love me.”

“I do.” Wow how the tables turn he just admitted it like it was the most common fact ever. Grass is green, sky is blue and apparently Seo Changbin is in love with you.

“Wait really?” You really couldn’t believe your own ears.

“Yeah of course.” Again, he was so incredibly casual about it! Oh no you couldn’t let it slide.

“Why aren’t you asking me out to date then?” There it was, there was no return now.

Changbin not only snapped his head so fast that there might have been a possibility that he could’ve broken his neck, but he also stopped his car so aburtly you had to thank god there was no one behind you.

“What do you mean ask you out?” Wow was it so horrible to even imagine it? You thought you two had a thing. Were you wrong?

“Oh my god have I been misreading the situation the whole time? This is so embarrassing. I am so sorry…”

It was his turn to panic now, which made you feel a bit relieved, because you felt like you were losing your shit! “No no it’s not that I promise!”

“When what is?” You couldn’t hide your desperation now. Maybe you could blame it on alcohol later and hope to move on?

“I thought we were dating?”

…

A blink.

Another blink.

“Changbin what the fuck? How the fuck did you believe we were dating?” You were full on yelling now because what the fuck did he mean he thought you two were dating! Since fucking when?

“I don’t know! I just did! We already act like a couple so what’s the big deal? Wait you don’t like me?” Forget all the sappy shit, you felt like strangling him.

“I do but…” God how did you manage to get yourself in this fucking situation? “God this is giving me such a headache.”

Changbin looked just as lost and even guilty. “I’m sorry. But I genuinely thought we were dating.”

“Since when?” You had to get in the bottom of this, or else your head was going to explode.

“I don’t know, like Han’s birthday party? You remember when you kissed me?” He tried to reason but the new knowledge almost made you choke on your own spit. God was really laughing at you.

“I fucking did WHAT?”

“YOU DON’T REMEMBER?” Changbin full on screamed in shock. Really what did you do to deserve this?

“NO!” You screamed back, and with it went last drops of alcohol remaining in your body and your sanity. Ain’t no way you could return to being normal after this.

“I mean I knew that you drank a little that day but damn! You don’t remember kissing me?” Changbin had his face in his hands, the car still ignited just casually standing in the middle of the road. Thank god there was no one around.

“Fuck me I gotta stop drinking. No I don’t remember kissing you.” Honestly nothing seemed more tempting right now than crying your eyes out at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“Unbelievable.” Your heart clenched at Changbin’s sulky and sad voice. You were furious at yourself for not remembering kissing this cinnamon roll.

“I’m sorry. What happened? Tell me a full story.” You pleaded as if hearing the full story would magically return your memories and make the situation any better.

“I don’t know, I walked you home, we were about to say goodbye and you kissed me. I thought that you were drunk but you confessed that you liked me and it seemed so sincere, and we’ve been flirting for ages! How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t remember anything?”

“This is so unfair! You are telling me I have been literally dreaming about how would kissing you be like and in reality I have already done it?” Talk about unfair!

A biggest smile broke on his face and his whole mood shifter 180. “Aww baby you’ve been dreaming about kissing me?”

You really felt like pulling your own hair out now.  How was he so calm all of a sudden? “Binnie, baby, respectfully shut the fuck up.”

“But you like me!” He looked so giddy now, what a precious dummy. You really felt like shutting him up with a fat smooch on his lips. You had to pull yourself together.

“Bin you had been convinced we had been dating I don’t know for how many months now. I had you THAT convinced. Of course I fucking like you.”

“Aww you said it again that you like me!”

“I swear to god Seo!” Changbin gasped like he had been slapped making you also flinch in shock.

“Not the last name! I liked it better when you called me Binnie and baby and love and all the sweet stuff.” Was he serious right now? A smile broke out on your face against your will, he was so cute.

You sighed in defeat. “Okay I won’t call you by your last name.”

“Also not the first name. I’m Binnie to you!” To make his point he even crossed his arms, his lips all pouty and cheeks all fluffy.

“Okay Binnie.” You held in your pinky as a promise, he immediately linked it with his feeling satisfied.

 You two sat in silence for a few seconds, thankfully he started to drive again. “So like what do we do now?” He broke the silence looking at you with confused eyes.

“I don’t know Bin, let me think for a sec?”

“But” - He tried to protest but you didn’t let him.

“Please baby?”  You gave him the best puppy eyes ever, knowing damn well he wouldn’t be able to resist. You just needed a second.

“That’s not fair, You know I can’t say no when you ask me like that!”

The ride to the home was quiet, with the only problem arising when you were in front of your house.

“Bin I Think we have a problem.” You sighed feeling way too drained to care about this new problem.

“Wait what? Why?” You cured yourself for making him feel anxious, you quickly leaned in and grabbed his hands.

“Calm down baby.” You tried to reassure.

“What is it?”

“I just can’t find my keys.” You admitted bashfully.

“Are you kidding? Did you lose them somewhere?”

“No. I gave it to my friend when we left the house, she just found it in her purse she just texted me.”

“Oh thank god I thought we had to change the locks. Do you want me to go back to her apartment?” Really who was this cute and adorable? This was so unfair for your heart.

“What? No, it would be such an inconvenience. I mean we can go at your house?” You already felt like a hassle you didn’t want to tire him more, It was really late too.

“My house?” Changbin sounded genuinely so surprised you thought you said something wrong for a second. Changbin returned to normal in a second. “I mean it’s not a problem but like our sofa broke, turns out you can’t just like wrestle for the better controller or something like that. Okay what am I even saying you can take my room, me and Hyunjin had shared a bed so many times anyways.”

“It’s fine tho.” Your voice was quiet almost like a whisper.

“What is?” You looked at his face, he looked genuinely confused. You rolled your eyes, he really couldn’t take a hint sometimes.

“I meant that we can share a bed.” You tried your best to sound as cool and as casual as possible even though your heart felt like bursting.

“We can do what now?” he really looked like he couldn’t believe his own ears.

“I mean apparently we had been dating for months now.”

“Hey don’t tease!”

“I gotta do something! My head feels like exploding! We managed to get ourselves in quite a situation right here!” You took a deep breath to calm yourself. “Anyway what I’m saying is that I’m completely fine sharing a bed with you. We’ve established that we like each other so I don’t see the problem here.”

“That’s what I thought the first time too! What if you forget again! What if you wake up in the morning not remembering anything and you’re just there in my bed with me in it! You’ll think I’m some sort of pervert and that I took advantage of you when you were drunk!” There he was being all dramatic and huffy all again.

“I’m not drunk!” Who would be drunk after this?

“You were a few minutes ago!” He had a a point but now you felt more sober than you were before you started drinking.

“Well not anymore! How can I be drunk after all that? And I was just tipsy! I was just fine! You were the one worried and insisting that you come and take me home! For which I love you and appreciate you but still!”

Changbin crossed his arms. “I’m still not sure.”

“What you want me to do a video proof that I fully consent to this?”

Changbin glared at you but then smirked suddenly looking smug. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea!”

“God you’re so petty sometimes.” Two could play the petty game, you took out your phone and pressed the record button. “Hello future me! It is exactly half past thee in the morning and I’m sitting in the car with Changbin who is driving me to his home. This is a reminder to you in case that I forget in the morning that I fully concent to sharing a same bed with Seo Changbin. And to avoid any further miscommunication I will say in this video that I like him like a lot and appartenly he does return the feelings. However if when we get there he doesn’t kiss me I will end this either month long or minute long relationship right then and there!”

It was his time to roll his eyes now, but he clearly looked amused by all this. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m warning you Seo!” Ain’t no way you wouldn’t get your kiss now that you two were aware of each other’s emotions. No way in hell would count the one you didn’t even remember as your first kiss with him.

“Whatever my love shall request my love shall get!”

***

The ride to his house was quick which was great you were dying to take off your shoes. Whoever invented high heels deserved to burn in hell. Thank god Binnie came to pick you up.

Speaking of which, being the perfect gentleman he is, he immediately got out of the car, ran to your side all cutely and opened your door for you, holding in his hand for you to take. You obviously took it, appreciating the kind gesture and also support because your legs really were hurting like a bitch.

Changbin helped you get out of the car, he even closed the door for you. You were about to thank him but something stopped you Something in his eyes.

You weren’t even able to question anything, before you even knew it, he wrapped his arm around your waist brought you close to his body and in mere second his lips were on yours.

The kiss was firm but also full of love, he kissed you as he was afraid to let you go. His lips were so soft and warm and his body… It was so firm and strong and warm. No wonder you felt so safe and loved whenever you were with him, You couldn’t help but cling to him as you tried to return the kiss with the same vigor. Both of your arms tightly wrapping around his broad shoulders.

Your whole body felt like it was melting, you were sure you wouldn’t even be able to stand straight if it wasn’t him holding you so firmly. How was he even so good at kissing? His kisses felt like a drug and you were getting addicted by the second.

After a while he leaned back and you couldn’t help but actually whine, god what was he doing to you? Seeing you chase his lips made the biggest smile break out on his face. God He looked so beautiful with his flushed cheeks and messy hair, his lips all pretty and pink. Changbin leaned in and gave you few short pecks.

After he felt satisfied with the amount of kisses he gave you he decided to just randomly sweep you off your feet, quite literaly. One second you were somewhat steady on the ground the next you were in the air desperately clinging onto Changbin confused out of your mind.

“What are you doing?” – You managed to huff out giggling at his cute antics.

“You’re feet are hurting.” He said it like a matter of fact.

“I mean yes, but are you going to carry me until we get to your house?”

“Why not?” Again so casual, like holding you and walking up to his house which wasn’t that near wasn’t a big deal.

“Binnie I’m heavy!” You tried to protest, even squirmed a little but to no avail.

“Not really, no.”

“Binnie it isn’t worth it, I’m really heavy.”

“What’s the point of working out if I can’t even carry my girl!” Wow your heart must have done a literal backflip because what the fuck was that movement in your chest?

“I’m your girl?” You didn’t even try to hide the lovesick expression that overtook your face.

Changbin glanced at you for a second, then leaned in and kissed the tip of your nose- “Of course you’re my girl.” So not mindful of your poor heart amusement clear on his face clearly enjoying your flustered state. He continued walking as it was nothing, like holding you was same as holding couple of grapes. He only stopped when you two were in front of his house.

“Can you ring the bell?” He asked with the cutest smile ever, how in your right mind could you say no? You rang the bell then it hit you, the situation you were in. You quickly covered your face as if Changbin wasn’t holding you like you were main dish on a platter. The cackle Changbin let out seeing your antics almost woke up the whole building.

Hyunjin opened up the door after a few seconds, clearly he just rolled out of bed. You felt bad for possibly waking him up. He looked at you two with unamused eyes, Changbin still proudly holding you refusing to let you down, and you looking through your fingers clearly shy.

“Huh so my wife is cheating on me with my friend.”

“Uh pretty much? You’re still number one in my heart you know that.” Changbin answered proudly.

“Hey hyun!” You greeted him shyly after you made sure to smack Changbin’s shoulder.

"Hey! Took you two long enough to get together tho.” Hyunjin deadpanned as he let you two in, Changbin finally letting you down on the armchair.

“Oh let me tell you a juicy story then!” You smiled mischievously completely ignoring Changbin’s protests.

After telling Hyunjin everything and him making fun of you two, mostly Changbin, you decided to get ready for bed. Honestly they would be lucky if the neighbors didn’t call the cops on them, they were so damn loud!

Anyway here you were now, laying on one side of the bed all snug in Changbin’s clothes as Changbin laid stiffly on the other. Honestly, he looked like he would fall of the bed any second now.

“Bin you’re about to fall off the bed!”

“I’m fine.” God even his voice was stiff.

“Bin you literally took my breath away the way you were kissing me earlier what happened now?”

“I don’t think I should get any more close.” He grumbled out after a few seconds of silence.

“Why is that?”

Changbin scoffed like he was baffled how you weren’t understanding what was wrong. “You’ll think badly of me!” Again grumbling inaudibly.

“I promise I won’t.” You tried to reassure him, even held in your pinky finger which he begrudgingly took.

“It’s just you’re here in my bed, in my clothes, looking absolutely beautiful and we were kissing and you look so kissable right now… How am I supposed to control myself?” This boy was going to be the death of you. Who the hell was this cute and adorable and so kissable on a random Tuesday night!

“Then don’t.”

“Baby I swear to god!” Changbin covered his face and almost fell out of the bed, thankfully you managed to drag him to the center of bed just in time. Also this gave you a perfect opportunity. You wrapped your hands around him and hugged him tight, Changbin immediately uncovered his face to wrap his arms around you and hug you back.

“I like you a lot bin.” You mused and leaned in to softly peck his lips, Changbin almost immediately melted into your arms.

“I like you a lot too.” He muttered before bringing you closer to seal your lips in a longer more passionate kiss.

“We’re really really dating now so don’t you start getting shy on me okay?” You couldn’t help but tease.

Changbin groaned at the teasing clearly not amused. “Brat!”

You couldn’t help but giggle as you got more comfortable getting ready to get one of the best sleeps of your life.

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