#I honestly just want the Overwatch team to at least see this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

m-yg93 · 3 years ago

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Have Mercy (on me)

Pairing: JJK x Reader

WC: 9.3k

Genre: Smut, PWP

Rating: M (minors dni)

Warnings: Toxic gamer boy JK, Mean OC, sexism, Subby JK, D/s dynamics, excessive use of petnames, tattoos, piercings (nipples and genital), spit, edging, self asphyxiation, overstimulation, degradation, humiliation, praise, NO AFTERCARE

Banner by @introlxv

Beta’d by @amourtae

Part of: Bangtan DLC: A Streamer BTS Collab hosted by @joonscypher, @kookskingdom, & @lavienjin

Summary: Jungkook is finally popular enough to quit his job and make a living off his streaming and he’s very proud of his Master rank. His cockiness takes a turn when an unknown player joins his team and starts talking shit but what’s worse is they’re not just talking the talk but walking the walk. Jungkook ends up humiliated in multiple ways but there’s only one of which he ends up liking.

Authors note: It’s finally here! A special thank you to @audreonne for using her esports knowledge and correcting everything I had wrong with the Overwatch gameplay (because I’m a filthy casual and don’t play) and letting me use her username. Also to my lovely writing net @thebtswritersclub and everyone who supported me with hype and writing alongside me in sprints.

Read the sequel: Rematch

VICTORY

“Let’s get it!” Jungkook whoops as the rest of the boys echo the sentiment in the voice chat. His eyes fall to his Twitch chat, messages zooming by nearly too fast to keep up.

That was a close one!

Honestly thought you were going to lose that round

“Thanks so much for hanging out with us tonight, Goldens. That’ll be all for today’s stream but make sure to tune in tomorrow, it’s our Sub Sunday where we play some more chill games with you guys. We’ll be running some Among Us so keep an eye out on my Twitter for the code drop, 1pm on the dot. We’re going to end this by sending out a raid to my friend BamBam, he’s streaming a blind run of Mario Odyssey right now. He’s a good buddy of mine so send him all the love that I receive here. Good night!”

His face cam closes and his screen is replaced with his usual end stream background that he’ll keep up for another 5 minutes or so as people filter out.

His attention shifts to his dashboard which holds his account statistics. A few people had subscribed during his stream and he can see his new number now nearing 5,000. It had been a grueling few years to get to this point and the exhaustion from working his regular job on top keeping a steady streaming schedule can still be felt in his bones.

He liked his cinematography internship, don’t get him wrong but the freedom of choosing his own work schedule and content was much less of a burden on him creatively. Plus the attention he got from the community he created was good for his ego. Admittedly, half the comments in stream were more about his looks than his gameplay but what’s there to complain about. He gets to play videogames every day and makes enough money to pay his bills and spend frivolously on ridiculous things for a serotonin boost when he needs it.

The voices echoing in his headset brings him back to reality as he watches his viewer count decrease and eventually disappear.

“Hobi’s out since he has to join Yoongi at the studio for a project they’re working on but is everyone else down to stay on and get some practice in? The next season of competitive is starting soon and I want to make sure I’m keeping on top of it.” Jin whines in the background.

The rest of the group all give off varying excitement levels of agreement. They pile into the waiting room but since their team is now missing a player a random added player comes in. Audreonne, master rank. At least they should keep up with them. Their icon flips to Mercy. Strategic teamwork at least, they needed a healer to balance out since Hoseok’s Lucio was now out of the ranks.

The countdown starts and they’re thrown into the game, it’s a familiar map and the guys easily split to their usual procedure. The Mercy player veers away with Namjoon and Tae.

Jungkook’s Widowmaker turns a corner and is instantly double teamed by the opposing Genji and Doomfist.

“Motherfucker,” he mumbles under his breath as the screen indicates eliminated. He respawns and quickly heads back the same way. “Yo, Audreonne, can you stick by me so I can deal with these assholes?”

He’s not waiting for a reply before dropping down into the area he was just eliminated from only to immediately repeat the process and go down again. “Where’s the fucking res, dude?”

The action replay of his death shows no trace of the Mercy player around him. He scoffs, of course, guess that master rank came with more luck than skills.

“Hey, healer, if you’re going to pick support the least you could do is actually fucking support. Get your shit together.”

The rest of the guys don’t seem to be doing too hot on their own. There’s more grunts of defeat than there are whoops of victory and it’s not long before the screen comes up with the final judgment.

DEFEAT

Jungkook releases a loud groan and throws himself back in his chair, the force sending him wheeling away causing his headset to fly off and clatter onto the ground. He shoves it back on with muttered curses and checks the team, all having gone down by a few SP.

“How about you pay more attention to the team health, Audreonne,” he snarls.

The player remains quiet. A new chat comes up on the side screen.

I’m rusty with Mercy. I usually main Widowmaker but you seem attached so I’m letting you keep hold of her.

A short laugh comes out as he reads the comment in disbelief. No fucking way was he going to let someone else take his character. He knows he can play it better than anyone else on the team.

“Catch up quick then. And put your mic on, we can’t team properly if we can’t communicate.” That’s all he gets to put in before the countdown ends and a new game begins. They’re on defense this time.

A notification comes up.

Audreonne has joined the voice chat

Fucking finally.

The countdown ends and Jungkook goes out to the east side of the map.

“Where the fuck are you going? You saw we’re on defense right?” The unknown player makes their appearance and Jungkook groans.

“Ugh, a chick? No wonder we lost the last game. Don’t bring your uwu bullshit in here. We take this game seriously so move on to the next team of losers if you expect us to carry you.”

“Nerf this!” is heard away from him and there’s no time to react as D.Va’s mech slams into him and explodes. Fuck. He spawns back at base.

“Looks like your little hero expedition didn’t pay off so much. Why don’t you try sticking around the team this time?” The voice taunts him.

“She’s not wrong, JK. We could use Widow’s Venom Mines around the border and Infrasight will come in handy to see where they’re coming from.” Damn, even Namjoon was turning against him.

“Didn’t take you for a simp, Joon,” he rebukes. He can hear Namjoon scoff but there’s no response as the enemy team starts converging on their base.

Jungkook is losing HP at an alarming rate and calls for a resurrect as his character falls. He sees Mercy’s wings at the edge of his screen but Widowmaker doesn’t come back up.

“Are you not paying attention? If you were going to play support can’t you do your job and heal when you’re supposed to? How did you even make it to master rank? Is this your boyfriend’s account? He’s going to be pissed when you end up demoting him to diamond,” he rebukes.

“If you were paying attention you’d have noticed that I was already using my res on Hanzo. We needed his Dragonstrike more than your abilities or is your head so far up your ass you can’t notice your teammates also going down around you?” The rebuff is laced with aggression. “If you’re so insecure knowing you’re skills are subpar to a woman who’s only been only been playing 3 months just fucking say so.”

“3 months? No way. You managed to rope in some dude who knows the game to rank you up and now you’re just reaping in the benefits. This is my job and it took me nearly a year to get to the same title.” Disbelief taints the edges of his declaration.

“Wow, you’d think a professional esports player would do better.”

“I’m not dedicating myself to one game and letting management decide my gameplay. I’m a Twitch streamer. I’m independent, I control myself,” he boasts.

“Ah, I know the type. Got a few hundred followers and think you’re hot shit, huh?” The voice jeers at him.

“Look little miss, I get that you might not be properly into games but I’ve got nearly 100k so I think I’m doing alright for myself.” It’s a shame his smirk can’t be seen.

He doesn’t expect the laugh that echoes on the other end and the taunting, “Cute” that follows.

There’s no time to continue the argument as their focus is brought back to the game.

Jungkook isn’t entirely selfish. When mentioned that his teammates were also going down he kept an eye out for more pressing cases but when his HP is dropping too close for comfort he calls for help.

“I’m really low. I need a heal!”

“Hmm, ask nicely.”

“The fuck? We don’t have time for your games, we’re going to lose the match, just heal!”

“Not with that attitude, we can win without you. If you want my help then beg for it.”

No way. He can make it through the fight without having to stoop so low. He just needs to get away from the fire and get a medpack.

At least he tries to but he’s surrounded on too many sides and there’s no clean way out.

“Can I have a heal, please?” he grunts through clenched teeth.

“Aw, see, you can be a good boy.” His HP comes back up nearly instantly.

There’s a few close calls before the screen lights up.

VICTORY

A sigh of relief escapes him as the group congratulates each other on the win but his patience has worn thin.

“Can we kick the chick so we can get someone decent on support?” he asks.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, did my game glitch? I don’t think it was your character I saw in the play of the game footage? Open your eyes for a second and try to understand how I got more kills than you as support than you managed to get as damage? Do you want to give Mercy a shot, maybe she’ll be more your speed?” There’s an evil lilt to the voice that answers him. “I guess we know which one of us is boosted after all, huh?”

“You know what, bitch? I’ve had enough of your shit. 1v1 me and we can see who has the skills without having to rely on the team,” he demands.

The voice acquiesces, nonchalant and unbothered. A Discord username pops up in the chat and the account disconnects from the game. His friends try to get him to just forget about it and keep playing now that they’ll just have someone new to join the team but Jungkook’s reputation is at stake and he won’t let some girl think she’s got something over him. He assures his friends it’d only take a minute and he’d be right back as soon as it’s dealt with.

He sets up a custom game, elimination, and picks his favorite map, Castillo. He picks his character and sends the game invite after adding the player to his friend list, begrudgingly.

It only takes a minute for the user to join the game. Frustration courses through him when the other player’s icon also changes to Widowmaker. A message pops up: Since we both main Widowmaker this is the fairest way to measure up, don’t you think? Fine. If that’s how they want to play this.

The set up is ready and the game starts. He easily makes it to the center statue and takes a second to assess where his opponent might be coming from. Venom Mines set at the most obvious chokepoint where the opposite side would come in from, but it stays silent. He activates his Infra-Sight to see where they might be hiding behind a structure but no outlines make themselves known. The enemy is simply not here.

His eyes get drawn to the chat on the side of the screen.

Behind you

ROUND LOST

He’s back at spawn.

What the fuck. Where had they even come from? There was no way they would have passed by him. He would have seen it.

Forget it. Push to the next round. He’s barely out of spawn before he gets hit again.

ROUND LOST

It doesn’t stop.

ROUND LOST

It’s entirely too quick for the screen to boast GoldenJK 0 VS 11 Audreonne. Absolutely no way. Discord is pulled up on the other screen and he doesn’t hesitate to press the call button. It doesn’t take long for the dial tone to disappear indicating the call being picked up on the other end.

“I expected you to rage quit honestly. I’ve seen it happen often enough before. Think having me whisper sweet nothings in your ear is going to make you focus better?” The voice is mocking which just makes his teeth bite down harder.

“It’s impossible that you’re not hacking somehow. Or someone else is playing for you. There’s never been some girl able to counter me this easily. Open cams so I can see that you’re really playing properly. Mouse and keyboard in frame, you’re not pulling anything sneaky on me.”

His answer comes in the form of a hum. Low and thoughtful. “I wouldn’t usually let you or anyone else direct orders at me but I’ve got nothing to hide and if you think trying to pay attention to how I play while simultaneously trying to get a shot in on your skill level is going to help then who am I to deny.”

The call screen changes as he finally sets his eyes upon his opponent, upon you. His preconceived notions of a pink room with a background full of stuffed animals is quickly quashed as he takes in that your setup is surprisingly similar to his.

It’s hard to see the color of your walls at all through the amount of posters covering them. Jungkook recognizes characters from different franchises: Link from Legend of Zelda, Masterchief from Halo, GLaDOS from Half Life, Elizabeth from Bioshock, and centered right behind you looks like a massive custom print of Widowmaker. The room is dark and eerily illuminated by the purple LED lights that border the ceiling. More lights are coming from in front of you which he can assume are from your tower and keyboard. Your Secret Lab gaming chair seems to be an even newer model than his, one which had only just come out. Had you not been sitting in the middle of the frame he would have assumed the room belonged to a top rated esports gamer.

But you were in frame and his eyes finally settle upon his rival. Your webcam is set right next to your monitor so the angle captures your face as you can stare dead into it. A shiver runs down his spine, was it intimidation or something else? Your headset is large enough to drown your head. At this point he wasn’t surprised to realize they were Razer Krakens but he somehow still expected the kitten ears to sprout from the band and he’s slightly disappointed to see they’re missing.

“Well? Aren’t you going to open your webcam too then? Only fair that I get to monitor the way you play too. I need to make sure I’m not playing the same way you do if I expect to keep my rank.” Did your voice always sound so sultry or is the image of putting face to voice messing with him?

He doesn’t bother sending any fighting words back at the jab. He simply opens his webcam to show off his own stream setup. The walls behind him aren’t as crowded as yours. Shelves filled with various figurines are more his vibe than posters but it’s oddly mirrored to your own. His LED lights filter through the color spectrum slowly, a trick to keep his viewers engaged as they anticipate the next color to come if their attention slips from the game.

He looks up and to his right to look into the camera hoping to send the same jolt down your spine that he received earlier. His friends often make fun of him for setting up his angle as ‘Myspace circa 2005’ but it serves its purpose of capturing more of his body into frame. He knows showing as much of himself as possible racks in a lot of his viewership.

He takes advantage of having your eyes focused on him to stretch his arms up and behind him, exposing a thin sliver of skin where his shirt meets his hips. He doesn’t try to hide the grin that spreads as he notices your eyebrow tick. Gotcha.

“Are you ready to finish this or do you need to go do your yoga routine?” Your voice is laced with annoyance now. Jungkook is a master at testing someone’s patience, as his hyungs would confirm, and yours is getting thin, exactly what he’s looking for to have you distracted.

“Let’s get it.” He pulls the sleeves of his hoodie up, exposing his forearms and the tattoos that paint his right arm, rivers of veins swimming between them. It’s nearly impossible to hear the little catch in your breath but he’s sure it was there. He bends back into his position, back curved too much for comfort and fingers heavy on his keyboard as he shifts his focus back to the monitor with the game waiting to restart.

Jungkook maneuvers his character back to the central statue as he had earlier, this time focusing more on taking the side paths rather than go straight for the choke point via the tunnel. He keeps cover behind the buildings, eyes trained on the other side of the plaza waiting for you to slip through but you’re nowhere to be seen.

His eyes veer to your webcam and your body is poised entirely too comfortably for the amount of stress he feels. Your back is set on your chair, head rested on the built in pillow. Your arms are relaxed as they wrap around one of your legs which has been hiked up onto the seat of your chair. Your fingers dance around the keys almost languidly. Honestly, you look nearly bored. He barely registers a smirk grace your lips before he hears the shot.

ROUND LOST

You stare into the camera, smile both sweet and rage inducing. “Maybe if you kept your eyes on the game you would have seen that coming.”

He doesn’t bother to deign you with a response before the next round starts. Fine, the plaza is clearly too distracting. He’ll stick to his end, make you come to him and he’ll be ready when you get there. He doesn’t go past the choke point, waits for you to show up. You’ll either come by the tunnel or around the side and through the arches. He can’t possibly miss you.

He just needs to wait. You have to be close by now. You’re not as aggressive in your strategy as he is but you’re bound to come looking for him when he isn’t at the statue.

He chances a quick glance to your camera. Your fingers are quick so you’re on the move. Any second.

“Where are you…” he mutters under his breath, forgetting that you can hear the annoyance in his tone. He’s staring the screen down hard, not letting you distract him this time. He triggers his Infrasight and scans the scene but comes up empty. Just buildings and no trace of your silhouette behind any of them.

He’ll never admit that he jumped halfway out of his chair when your Widowmaker suddenly drops right in front of him from above and you shriek, “BOO!”

The strings of expletives that flow out of him are cut off as he rips his headset off. It smashes onto the ground with an alarming crack but he doesn’t care. He’s out of his chair and pacing into a circle around the room as he tries to catch his breath. He can hear your howling laughter from the forgotten equipment on his floor.

It takes a minute but he sits back down and sets up again to see you’re still bent over, giggles coming out of you through your attempts to breathe.

“How the actual fuck did you even get there?” he demands. He’s angry. At you for continuously one upping him or at himself that someone, a girl, can so easily thwart him.

“For someone who mains Widowmaker you do forget about the grappling hook a lot. It’s surprisingly easy to get to the rooves and sashay my murderous little ass right above you and BAM, it’s over, Anakin. I have the high ground.”

It takes some self control not to smile at the reference. Jungkook may be fighting for his ego but he’s a geek first of all and always enjoys a good Star Wars joke.

“You gave up your secrets easily. You won’t catch me off guard next time.” He’s smug in his answer. He’s got you figured out now and he won’t be so simple to take out this round.

It might be the time to add another advantage to his side. He requests your patience just for a minute, it’s hot in the room. That’s a blatant lie. He keeps his streaming room nearly uncomfortably cold so none of his equipment overheats since he runs so many things at once.

He removes his headset, carefully placing them down on his desk this time. He gets up and makes sure he’s still in frame. His face is cut off by the angle but that’s fine, it’s not the most important portion of his plan.

His movements are slow as he takes his hoodie off. Reaches behind him to grasp at the material between his shoulder blades and pulls it over his head. He’s sure to drag it along his body so that the shirt under it pulls up along with it exposing the tight expanse of skin across his abdomen. He purposefully pulls the material nearly up to his clavicles in semblance of trying to find the hem, exposing a shiny glint, and throws the hoodie off to the side.

He finds his seat again with a cocky smirk painted on his lips. His little show only continues with his current state. He had been broke for so long that he didn’t update his wardrobe despite his continued presence at the gym resulting in most of his t-shirts now being more second skin than they are fabric.

He doesn’t miss how your eyes seem to have gotten a shade darker than they were a minute ago. The flex in his bicep as he gets comfortable over his keyboard is subconscious but effective nonetheless.

“Like what you see, princess?” He’s not hiding the smile this time. He knows the effect he has on people and uses his charms like a weapon.

His attacks are usually not so easily countered which he should have seen coming from you by now.

“Nothing that impressive. I just think that if you spent half as much time actually playing the game as you do in the gym you might be better at it.” You’re casual as you shrug him off before sending your own attack his way. “I think you’re right, it is getting a little warm on my end too.”

The regret that fills Jungkook is instant as you pull the zipper of your own hoodie down, eyes hard into the camera. You don’t bother getting up, opting for bending over obscenely as you pull on the ends of your sleeves behind you to free your arms, sending the view of your webcam straight down the top of your shirt. You weren’t wearing an ostentatiously low cut shirt like other women streamers Jungkook has encountered but there’s only so much decency the angle can afford which you knew very well.

The warmth going through Jungkook isn’t fake anymore. He can feel the heat radiating off the tops of his cheeks and the weight of the blood rushing south to settle into his crotch. His choice to wear his grey sweatpants will surely bite him in the ass.

“Problem, baby boy?” He’s completely blue screened, vision only registering at your taunt. You’re back in your previous position only more smug than ever.

He coughs out a, “no” before urging for the game to start again.

He’s out of the spawn point in a flash. He’s back up near the choke point and slips through the arch. He’s heading for the balcony to have some leverage to check the rooves around the plaza to take you down before you even reach his side of the map.

He’s panning the field of view from left to right, as much as he can from his hiding spot behind a wall but there’s no movement. It’s possible that you circumvented the other way and are waiting to fall on his head again so he rushes to the other side of the path to check above him but he never makes it. His character falls as soon as it gets out of cover.

The scream you let out is inhuman, the Joker on crack. It’s high pitched and unrestrained as it devolves into more laughter.

“Omg, you’re so fucking easy to read. Of course you were going to keep your eyes up when I told you that’s how I kept getting you. I pranced my ass straight into the plaza in plain sight and you didn’t bother to look down for a second. You’d make a great pet, you’re so simple to train.”

That last jab sent a bolt of electricity down his spine. It definitely hit him but instead of running through him and stopping behind his eyes as the usual insults tend to make home this one runs down and settles into his lap, the energy still buzzing.

He shifts in his seat and the movement immediately draws your attention.

“Aw, are you squirming? Getting nervous you might be shown up and realize you’re not God’s gift to gaming after all? Or are you nervous you’re being put in your place by a woman? Is that scary for you? Poor little big man ego bruised? Baby needs to go cry to mama?” Your tone is high pitched now, mocking.

This doesn’t help his situation and he can’t possibly hide the growing tent in his pants without being even more obvious. Maybe you won’t pick up that the bulge which very apparently is, in fact, not a banana in his pocket.

But of course the universe exists to bring him pain.

“Oh my god, you’re getting off on this, aren’t you? What is it that’s triggering you, the humiliation or the degradation? Probably both, you sick little freak.” Your words may sound disgusted but the gleeful smile you wear paired with the glint in your eyes shows otherwise.

The look on your face makes it so much worse and he bows his head to get away from it, eyes scrunched tightly so he isn’t faced with the product of your taunts but the soft whimper that escapes him cannot be stopped in time.

The chuckle that leaves you is much more sinister than your earlier ones. It’s filled with something that Jungkook can’t quite identify but courses through him like wildfire. His hands fly from the keyboard to his chair, fingers digging into the leather of his armrests.

“Look up, baby. It’s not nice to ignore someone.” His head snaps up at the command, seemingly out of his control. His eyes are wide and glassy, as if vacant from any thought of his own volition. “That’s funny. You’re so good at taking orders all of a sudden. You act like a big tough man online but you’re just a pathetic little boy that needs to be told what to do, aren’t you?”

Lips tight, teeth biting over them so as to not let anymore treacherous sounds out, he nods. You’d seen right through him since you entered their game. Online persona versus true hidden feelings revealed to you as easily as reading a children’s book.

“That’s what I thought.” He sees your eyes dip down, knows you’re taking in how hard he is, length straining against the fabric. He’s rethinking his choice of going commando. He didn’t expect his regular Overwatch stream to land him in this position. “You look uncomfortable all bent over like that. Tilt your chair back and get cozy, you’re going to need it.” One side of your lips pull up into a vicious smirk. He can’t tell what could possibly be going through your mind but he’s sure he’s about to find out.

The breath he attempts to rush in comes staggered, taking time to settle in his lungs before he blindly grasps at the lever on the side of the chair. He’s careful to push himself down on the backrest to angle himself enough to have a wide range of motion in front of him without impacting the view of your camera.

“You’re doing so well. Breathe, sweetling.” Your voice sounds so comforting, so different from its earlier bite. His eyes close as he takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. It takes a couple tries but he finally seems to melt into the cushion of his chair.

The tension in his muscles ebb away and his eyes reopen to find you in his monitor. Your own gaze seems to have a glassy look as you take in his new position.

“I knew you could be a good boy,” you praise, which makes his breath hitch into his throat. He’s put himself in a vulnerable position with you at the helm and he’s still unsure whether that was a good idea.

He can see your eyes dip to his lap and he’s reminded of the compromising view he’s showing off, sweats tight over his crotch. The reminder prompts him to bring his hands down to cover the area, suddenly shy with the dynamic this situation has created.

The rush sends his palms flying downwards with more force than intended. The pressure suddenly pressed onto his shaft rips a moan that reverbs from deep within his chest. He can feel his face heating in embarrassment. Whatever he does just sends him further into distress.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, baby. We haven’t even started. Keep your hands where I tell you. Keep them to yourself for now. Go on, bring them back to the arm rests.”

It’s such an easy request but it takes some effort not to simply ignore your command and instead squeeze and relieve some of the pressure building in his pelvis. His grip is tighter around the arm rests of his chair than it should be but so is the knot inside him just begging to unravel.

“Great job, darling.” There’s a warm feeling in his chest at your words. Not the same heat from the embarrassment you put him through, something more comforting, akin to pride. “Pull your shirt up, you were so keen to show off what was under it earlier.”

Jungkook doesn’t think about the speed at which he brings his body back up into a sitting position to reach behind him and tug at the fabric but he’s quickly stopped by your voice again.

“Ah, ah! I said up not off. You’re not going to start disobeying so soon, are you? We’re going to have to work on your listening skills, brat.”

Jungkook hopes the soft whimper that escapes from the back of his throat isn’t picked up but he knows the quality of his microphone definitely registered it. He tries not to think too hard about that.

He brings himself back onto his chair, back leaning down, chest high and forward. His hand is tempting as he brings the hem of his shirt up slowly to expose the taught skin of his abdomen, fingers rising and falling between the dips of his abs up to the curve of the bottom of his pectoral.

“Go on, I didn’t tell you to stop,” you encourage. He continues the movement until the fabric of his shirt is bunched under his neck, the edges still draped to cover most of his pecs. “Come on now, you were so eager to show off your pretty tits earlier.”

The heat increases with a vengeance, spreading through the entirety of his exposed skin. His hips jerk involuntarily as his t-shirt scrapes over his nipples to finally expose what he knows you’re after. Across each dusken areola is a straight barbell pierced through his nipples keeping them hard and perky.

“So sensitive, aren’t you? Is that why you got those? So that every time your too tight shirts make contact you’re secretly getting turned on? Do your friends know you’re just a little whore behind that tough boy exterior?”

Your words sound far away and his breath feels harder to catch. The room feels hazy.

“You’ll show me how sensitive it makes you, right? You’ll be good and give me a demonstration? Do it, baby, use your pretty fingers.”

Jungkook hooks the bottom of his shirt over his head to give himself the space and ability to use both hands to roam over the tight planes of his chest. Each palm comes up to cover over a pec, just feeling the warmth radiating from his skin under his touch. He’s taking his time and you don’t push as he squeezes and pinches at the muscle around where he’s desperately craving the stimulation.

He can’t handle teasing himself too long, his body screaming in anticipation. A sharp cry melts into the soundproof foam mounted on his walls when his fingers finally take hold and tweak at his nipples. The stark contrast of the cold metal that pierces through him and the heat of his skin sends him reeling. His mouth easily falls open when he finally makes contact.

“Aww,” you coo at him, “such a responsive little slut, aren’t you? Bet your fingers aren’t enough, huh? Wish it was my hands on you instead?” You bring your hand up in front of you to examine it, to make him imagine how it’d feel on him instead of his own. “My nails are a little sharp but that’s the best part isn’t it? Want me to leave marks in your soft skin? Scratched up so everyone knows you belong to me? Is that even enough or do you need teeth? Bet you'd look so pretty, all littered in bite marks.”

The electricity blossoms from each nipple and blooms across his chest moving down to take root in his pelvis, the jolt ending at his balls which ache with the weight of his want. The roughness of the fabric of his sweats rubs at the head of his cock from the force at which his shaft strains against the fabric. The torture is too much and not enough all at once. He can feel the wetness spread from where his slit pushes against the cotton as his precome starts to leak out of him.

Your eyes darken along with the spot, both incentives pushing his desire further. His right hand abandons its post on his nipple and slowly drags itself down to the hem of his pants. It stops to grab onto the waistband. He understands the rules of this game.

Jungkook’s eyes dig into yours and awaits your response. A smirk spans across your lips as you take in his position, hand still and grasping to avoid breaking and dipping lower than it’s allowed.

“You want to play with your little cock, darling?” His breath sticks in his throat, a nod being the only answer he can muster. “Tsk, that won’t do. I’ll give you what you want but you need to ask for it properly. Use your words.”

His knuckles turn white as his fist tightens and a shiver runs through him. He can feel the wave start at his scalp and move agonizingly slowly down his spine, body thrusting as it follows the sensation. “Please,” he implores.

“Good boy. Go on then.”

His fist dives into his pants at an embarrassing speed but the sigh of relief that escapes him is worth it. There are noises filling the room but he ignores the fact they’re all coming from him, soft whimpers and sweet whines as his grip around his shaft moves slowly up and down.

“Are you going to keep all the best parts to yourself? Such a greedy baby. Pull it out for me. Don’t you want to show off your pretty little pierced cock?”

All movement stops. Jungkook’s head flies up to look at his monitor. You look as calm and collective as ever. Your smile seems sweet but he knows the vicious words those lips can form. His eyes fall to his lap and although his dick is clearly imprinted across the fabric there’s no way you could have noticed those details, especially not with his fingers wrapped around his shaft.

“Did you think you were sneaky? Take a look at yourself right now,” you instruct. He brings his gaze over to the corner of the monitor where his own webcam is reflecting the show he’s been putting on. “All those tattoos?” His eyes follow the span of his right arm, ink decorating every inch from shoulder down to where his forearm disappears into his pants knowing it goes to the tip of his fingers. “The piercings? Your eyebrow, your ears, your lip, you pretty little nipples. They’re everywhere. Are you going to try to make me believe a little painslut like you hasn’t brought it down to the most sensitive part?”

There are no words to defend himself. There’s no defense at all, you’re right. He’d started with his ears as a teenager and only getting more daring as the years went on. The burn of each new piercing only good enough to last for him the healing time before going to chase the sensation again.

He chooses to ignore the taunt and follow your earlier request of pulling himself out. He lifts his ass off his chair enough to pull his pants down to his knees, exposing thick thighs and sending his dick smacking against his abdomen.

He’s not exactly small, the head resting comfortably just under his navel. He can easily touch his thumb to his fingers once they’re wrapped around the shaft but he also knows his own hand is much bigger than the feminine ones that otherwise try their grip. His thoughts wander to the size of your own hands and how they would look wrapped around him.

He keeps his hand off himself for now to give you time to form your next order. You don’t give him any insight to your thoughts as you just take him in. You’d never admit that you were slightly off in your guess. You expected a barbell to peek out of the slit and curve down just under the edge of his defined mushroom head. A Prince Albert is the most standard you’ve seen in your own experiences. Instead you can see the bottom of his shaft lined with 4 straight barbells going down in a line. A Jacob’s Ladder is much more aesthetic and you’re not entirely surprised with his choice. It’s clear Jungkook puts a lot of thought into his appearance and getting four times the pain fits with what you’ve been discovering about him.

Despite all this all you tell him is, “pretty.” It all works just as well for what you’re aiming for. It’s clear that Jungkook gets plenty of female attention if his ego was anything to go by. You’re sure he’s gotten compliments about his sexy body and handsome face but you love seeing a man get flustered when receiving a stereotypically feminine compliment. Jungkook’s mouth opens and closes a few times to try to fish for a response but he comes up empty. You can’t help the giggle that slips out seeing him all exposed and under your control but get shy over such a simple comment.

“You’re doing so well, baby. Will you show me how you make yourself feel good?” The instruction brings him back to the situation at hand, as if suddenly remembering he’s sitting naked in front of this stranger, humiliation having taken a turn.

The grip he had on himself had loosened in surprise at your call out but tightens with renewed vigor. A choked gasp slips from between his lips, mouth still open from the shock.

“Always in a rush. Do you need instructions for everything? Can’t calm down enough to pace yourself? Are you doing it on purpose? You just want my help?”

He shakes his head in response to the taunt. He’s not being bad on purpose. He’s just trying to follow your direction. You asked him to do what feels good and this does.

There’s a low hum buzzing in his headset as you contemplate his answer. “I don’t think I believe you. You’ve been such a brat. I think you just want to see me angry.”

His eyes widen a little wider at your words. You could get worse? His dick pulses at the thought and his hand clenches around it to stop it from jumping too obviously.

“Guess we’ll just have to take it one step at a time then. Listen well, I don’t want to have to repeat myself. Hands off,” you order.

His hand flies away as if burnt. His palms lay tense but still on his thighs as he waits for the first command. There’s a tremble in his extremities. Is it attributed to the anticipation or the degradation? He doesn’t have time to think and determine the answer before your next words come floating at him.

“Good. Now, slowly, bring your right hand to your cute little dick. Just your fingertips. A light touch. I bet your skin is so soft, isn’t it?”

His hand follows your voice. The pads of his fingers are ghosting over his thigh, up towards his pelvis, over his balls and agonizingly slowly up his shaft. He can feel the protrusions of each of the metal barbells under his skin. Bump, bump, bump, bump until he reaches the head. It’s silky and wet from the precum that leaks from the tip.

The low groan he lets out is the indication you’re waiting for to give him his next praise. It’s clear from the visible throbbing of his cock that he’s desperate to move faster but he keeps the same soft touch you asked for.

“You’re doing so well, darling. Such a good boy. Do you want more? You know how to ask for it. Go on.” The noise that escapes him is tortuous, part moan and part whine, lament on his tongue but he pleads so prettily for you to let him feel more.

“Please, please, please.”

You allow him a strong grip, a long sigh of relief but don’t let him quicken the pace. It’s still the sluggish up and down motion that teases the piercings that line under his shaft. His breath is shaky and the noises escape him involuntarily. Although you have all the control his body is losing the little it had left.

“So noisy. Good little toys are quiet.” You weren’t going to admit that seeing a man of his stature be rendered to a whining mess by a few little remarks is your favorite music but you know forcing them down only makes them sing so much sweeter later. “Do I need to shut you up? Baby needs a gag, hmm?”

Jungkook doesn’t need to peek at his monitor to see that his pupils have blown at the suggestion. His mouth waters and the swallowing motion is obvious as he tries not to drool which only sparks your tormenting ideas.

“You can put your mouth to use if you can’t keep it shut. You’ve got a free hand, go ahead and put your fingers between those plump lips.” He’s no stranger to putting his fingers in other people’s mouths, tongue slipping between his digits so he can be at the helm of torture himself but he’s rarely at the receiving end.

The weight of two fingers rest unfamiliarly heavy on his tongue but the warm and wet feeling that surrounds them sends him spiraling. He’s trying his best not to disobey and be loud but the stimulation feels so good that he can’t stop the moan that reverberates around his fingers.

“Tsk, clearly not enough. You can fit more in there, can’t you?” You’re pushing at his comfort zone but he’s not the type to back down. A few more fingers won’t hurt. It’s not long until he has four fingers second knuckle deep in his mouth, jaw stretched and aching to accommodate the intrusion.

“You’re doing perfectly, darling. You can put them in further, can’t you? I bet you love shoving your cock in someone’s throat so you can handle some fingers in there, right? Some girls can’t possibly handle more than you, huh?” You’re pushing at his ego, knowing exactly which buttons to press to spark his competitive side.

His eyes narrow at the assumption. Whatever you think he can handle he’ll show that he exceeds those expectations. He’s a little too rough with his urge to prove himself and pushes his fingers further in with too much force which sets off his gag reflex. His hand pulls away from his mouth, to allow him cough and catch his breath. His face is heated and strings of spit connect his mouth to his fingers now held awkwardly in front of him.

Your dark chuckle echoes in his ears at the sight. You knew this would happen, exactly what you were aiming for. Always pushing just hard enough for him to embarrass himself slightly but he’s been putting himself in those positions voluntarily. You might be saying the right things to push his limits but never enough to truly manipulate him into positions he doesn’t want to be in.

“Aww, guess you’ll need to work on your breathing when your mouth is full, sweetling. But now that your fingers are nice and wet how about you take advantage of the situation? Your balls look so heavy and full. Don’t you need some relief?”

He jumps at the opportunity, bringing his hand down, past where his right is still clinging to his cock to cup at his balls. He hadn’t gotten laid in a few weeks and the focus on the competitive season had taken too much of his free time to allow himself some self appointed release. Finally having his hand gently fondling reminds him of how achey they’d been since the start of this strange position.

“Squeeze harder. You love the pain, don’t you? Show me how much you can take.” The taunting has made him sensitive and the rough restraint surrounding both his balls and shaft sends jolts through him. Little pinches from his fingers shoot shocks to every part of his body, knot clenching in his abdomen. You’re so pleased at how well he’s following your instructions. The toxic gamer boy you met not even an hour ago is nowhere to be found, making way for a perfect little doll to play with.

“Have you had enough teasing, baby? You ready to get started?” Started?? As if all the torment you’ve put him through has just been child’s play. He’s not sure how much more he can take but he’ll easily continue to follow, preemptively drunk on the high he knows you’ll send him on. The long moan he lets out is enough of an answer for you.

“Good. Spit in your hand, sweetling, we don’t want you too dry and hurt yourself.” Between the jabs you do want him to actually enjoy himself. There’s no pause to do as he’s told, eager to finally reach the relief you keep nudging away from him.

He’s sufficiently slicked up for his hand to move easily in a jerking motion, whine high in his throat. You play nice and let him set his pace while still giving simple requests: squeeze, pinch, twist, harder, faster, tighter.

He becomes a wiggling mess near instantly. His chest heaves and hips thrust erratically into his fist. His slit leaks profusely and you’re enthralled at the sight, so much that you nearly miss the moment when he’s about to lose himself. You’ve still got a few more tricks up your sleeve.

“Stop.” The command is plain, straightforward and cannot be misinterpreted. His hand jumps from the rhythm it had set, excruciatingly quick and tight. He’s clearly heard you but practically too far gone to obey. “You’re not going to make me repeat myself, are you, doll?”

It’s enough to have him rip his hands off himself and grasp at the armrests of his chairs once more, nails practically ripping into the leather with the force necessary to control himself. The frustration is audible in the loud groan that’s ripped out of him, long and tormented, ending in a sob.

“Oh, god. Why? I was finally so close! You’re cruel.” His voice cracks with the force of trying to keep the tears that spring to his eyes from falling.

“Aw, honey, don’t cry. It’s your own fault. You were so close to cumming but you were forgetting your manners. I don’t recall you asking for permission, do you?”

His jaw is clenched, trying to avoid letting out his irritation at you. Annoying you now will only set his fate in stone and you’ll never let him cum at all. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“So polite, I knew you could do it. Ready to get back to it?”

No words are needed to answer, hands just jumping back to their earlier position, spit renewed and slick on his skin. He focuses to stay more in the moment, listening to your voice as it tells him little movements you want. The heavenly twist as the tightest part of his fist passes over his piercings right under the head. The swipe of his thumb over the slit every time he reaches the top, encircling the tip before it sinks back down to the base. The pull at his balls synchronized with the tug at the end of his cock.

His end is coming back quickly, the edging he’s been put under losing as his self control escapes him. He’s learned his earlier lesson. His eyes find yours in the monitor, both of you staring each other down. Your eyebrow ticks when you notice irregularity of his thrusts, cadence breaking.

“Please!” he begs. “Please, let me cum. I need to cum, please please,” he rambles on. He continues to implore you, unsure if his pleading is still making sense. His pride means nothing in the moment, reprieve the only thing he can focus on anymore.

“Of course, darling. Go ahead,” you allow him.

His head is thrown back with the force of the relief he is finally given. He tries so hard to keep his eyes on yours as he falls apart. He wants to see your reaction to achieving what you’ve been working on but the wave that sweeps through him is too strong and his eyes close briefly as he feels his balls emptying, jet spraying over his abdomen, a few stray drops going as far as to reach his cheek.

Everything feels too hot. The fire under his skin. The stuffiness of the room around him. The cum that marks him the entirety of his chest which will quickly become a sticky mess.

Jungkook expected a genuine smile to finally grace your features by this point. He’d followed all your commands, he’d been so good but the same sadistic smirk is all that he finds once he manages to look back at you.

“Keep going.”

Keep going? Keep what going? He’s empty, dick starting to slump back towards the ground.

“Don’t look so clueless. You asked to cum and I allowed it. You never said anything about asking to stop so take your pretty little dick back in your hand and keep going.”

Crazy. You’re devil incarnate, a demon in a pretty girl’s skin. Yet instead of closing the call and ignoring you he still reaches to grasp himself again.

There’s uncomfortable jolts of electricity going through him. He’s still too sensitive, the friction on his shaft sending his nervous system into overdrive. He reaches up to play at his nipples again. He knows how responsive his body is with the right stimulation. A few pinches and tweaks will have him hard again near instantly. He silently thanks the refractory period of being a horny dude in his twenties.

He’s back at full mast soon enough but the sensitivity is still too high, body jerking every time his fingers accidentally go too high and scrape against the head of his cock.

“You can do it properly, can’t you? Stroke your gorgeous cock like you mean it.” Only whimpers come as an answer. He can follow your directions. He wants to please you so badly. His eyes are squinted shut with the effort it takes to reach the tip and squeeze and twist around the head.

“Fuck! Hurts,” he complains, words barely being able to be formed between the pained wails. Breathing is becoming harder through the agony. His thighs are shaking, spasms wracking through his body as he tries to keep his pace.

“You love it when it hurts, don’t you? My perfect little painslut.” The agony he’s putting himself through is worth every second if it’s rewarded with your praises.

He desperately needs incentive to keep pushing towards his goal. His free hand is moving steadily upwards, over his chest, shiver rocking through him as he grazes his nipple again to settle at the base of his throat.

His head stretches back to expose as much of his neck as he can, muscles tensing as he wraps his hand around the column. He misses the hitch in your own breath at the view. He’s a beautiful mess and completely wrapped around your finger.

“Of course you’d like to be choked. Masochistic whore like you? Go on, squeeze, baby.”

The world turns dull around him. The darkness behind his closed eyes explodes in a world of color. There’s a cramp in his fingers as they dig into his skin. His throat is raw from the screams he’s letting out and the room is filled with the obscene slippery sounds of his hand jerking through the cum that’s now sticky against him but none of the sound registers in his ears. The only melody that enters through the fog in his brain in your voice as it calls to him one last time.

“Let go, baby. Be a good boy and cum for me.”

His hand releases his neck from its grasp and everything collapses around him. Air rushes back to his brain and lungs in a crashing wave. The pain previously holding onto each of his nerve endings lets go into euphoria as a new flow of cum spurts out of him, albeit not as impressive as the first. Most of it ends up being forcefully milked out of his slit as it settles pathetically over his tattooed knuckles.

His whole body quivers for far too long, floating in exhilaration. It takes time for Jungkook to come back to his senses. There’s a thin film of sweat covering him and a dopey smile on his face at the bliss he’s been hurled into.

When he thinks he’s finally strong enough to handle the weight of his body back into a sitting position he searches for your eyes, ready to see how you’ve been affected by the whole thing only to be met with a dark screen. Your webcam has been turned off, the call disconnected.

All he’s left with is the chat window where a new message can be seen, a link to a Twitch page. He’s following it to a user page where he can see a picture of you in the circular shape next to your gamertag.

Audreonne ✓

5M followers

His attention is ripped away by a new incoming Discord notification.

Taebae95: You beat her yet?

_______________

Masterlist || Rematch

#ficscafe #thebtswritersclub #jeon jungkook #jungkook #jk #jungkook x reader #jk x reader #jungkook smut #jk smut #bts smut #jungkook fic #jk fic #jungkook fanfic #jk fanfic #sub!jk #sub jk #jungkook x you #jk x you #jungkook one shot

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its-snicket-here · 3 years ago

Note

Instead of wynly elf, how about cosmic eldritch demon like hp lovecraft shit but they heal things but they also kill things like Zenyatta in Overwatch

OoooOooo. I think Demiurge would be highly interested in you if you were part of a demon breed too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cosmic Eldritch Demon who not only kills, but also heals?! That'll be a shocker honestly to the people who always think demons only focuses on damage than both damage and healing.

Due to your status as a Eldritch, I would see that you would have a some sort of undead status with a half human/half skull face.

Originally, you were (still) human as your starter race, because like what I said, still unfamiliar with the other races. The cosmic, eldritch, and demon part came in with events and a starter package deal that Ainz bought and carried you through.

With the cosmic powers, I would see that your powers would involve with space: Blackholes, Novas, Time warps, etc.

With the Elderich, basically you're like 25% Ainz.

With demon, you were blessed with accessories that each 7 sins are as: Cape of Pride, Sword of Wrath, Dress of Lust, Staff of Envy, Shoes of Sloth, Crown of Greed, and Chalice of Gluttony.

Being a cosmic eldritch demon would be a bazaar thing to see to the people outside of Nazarick. That some would say that you're the goddess of judgement, due to your ability to heal too.

You have now acquired a cult following

Demiurge will be thrilled to carry out your orders, or at least observe your doings. As being a demon and all, he will probably mentally crown you as a demon queen as well everyone else.

Personally, I would think you would self proclaim yourself as high court judge when the Sorcerer Kingdom takes over E-Rantel and Ainz would agree. At least now he doesn't have to entrust one of his guardians or servants to be judge with bias opinions. Sebas already so much on his plate already.

The children would adore you honestly, because of your cosmic side. Astronomy and Astrology will keep them up al night to listen on with the tales of what these signs are and the fascination of what you dubbed "space."

Those who comes from the Holy Order would question your identity. Although you ARE indeed part demon, you don't function as a ruthless one like a certain person. Demiurge. Though they would accept who you are. Brownie points of confusion if you are also in the religion that they are in.

If Ainz wants to take over the world. Then you already must have taken over "space." You must have been waiting for Ainz to have the power to conquer something right, my lady?! <- According to Demiurge.

I would say that Demiurge would actively study on your words when talking about space and astronomy. He thinks you're talking to him in riddles, and WANTS him to solve your riddles to understand your knowledge.

Now onto the confusion where people try to guess what you actually are.

Bitch. Get ready to be corpse bride 2.0

Like the section where your right or left eye and part of your jaw/lips is a skeleton, but you're rocking the look. Tis a shame that you hide it behind a white veil. Kinda like how that one chick in Resident Evil Village that controls the doll.

Oh yeah, the dominate arm is a cosmic arm. Good luck trying to pick up stuff, unless you want shit to be sucked in bwb

Though despite you being half corpse, some parts of your body shows the cosmic space you keep describe about.

Any magic casters would be honestly interested in your cosmic and eldritch powers to be blunt.

M I L F C O S M I C E L D I R I T C H D E M O N W H E N ?

Unlike your Wyld Elf version MILF. You're much taller and robust due to your demonic side. So the idea of the stretching you got from supposedly birthing Ainz is less thought about, but the idea still there as you're still shorter than Ainz by mere feet.

Big tiddies, small tiddies, or no tiddies. You're still a MILF. Shut the fuck up and accept that fact.

You do get deterred on seeing your cult just acting... disturbed when trying to summon you to bless them or something like that.

Though you do step on the line when they demand you to overthrow Ainz. There is no fucking way you'll hurt your skeleton baby boy. Demiurge go do something to them, please. :)

People would come to you for healing, especially healing that isn't curable. If you can cure those incurables, you'll be honestly worshiped as not only the goddess of judgment, but also the goddess of healing.

---------------------

'Cosmic Blessings' - Due to you completing the COSMOS EVENT during the time limit you have now received the COSMIC MAGE SKILL SET. You can now learned skills: Cosmic Blessing, Meteor Crush, Fallen Star, Star Rush, the Zodiac's Blessings, and Pluto's Revenge. You have now equip the costume COSMIC MAGE.

'Cosmic Blessing' - Blessed upon by the stars. Your attacks now deal fire damage, 120% crushing damage, 165% armor and magic penetration. Additionally, you have now gain the speed of 200% when activated. Status effect last for an hour.

'Meteor Crush' - You have now summoned falling meteors at your selected area. It deals 125+ damage on hit first then 60+ damage per second when inside the radius of the target. When inside the area, enemies' speed has been decreased by 110%. Lasts for 30 seconds. ONLY 3 CAN BE PUT UP AT THE SAME TIME.

'Fallen Star' - Like 'Meteor Crush,' accept 250% fire damage and a bigger radius area. Lasts longer depending how much MP is left. Only disappears after MP is drained to 1.

'Star Rush' - You can now bless your team or yourself. When blessed ATK speed has been increased by 185%, Agility has been increased by 200%, Speed has been increased by 45%, MP storage has been increased by +165. Lasts only for 3 days, then rest must occur to be used again.

'The Zodiacs' Blessing' - Blessed by the Zodiacs, your traits are now increased by 105%. (All traits are now increased permanently upon self. When used on another person, you have now gain the ability to take the blessing away. Only 3 can be blessed at a time, excluding blessing yourself.)

'Pluto's Revenge' - (THIS SKILL CAN BE ONLY OBTAINED BY APRIL'S FOOLS AFTER COMPLETING THE COSMOS EVENT) Due to Pluto being not considered a planet anymore, it nows comes in. Haunting the people to get's its revenge. 250% Area damage, guarantee critical hit. (Total damage: 130,000)

'Death's curse' - Due to your curse, you can not die. When HP reaches to 0, an item must be sacrificed to be revived. If an item isn't chosen to revive immediately, you can rather spawn back to your guild and be immobilized till HP slowly regain to full HP. (Can be bought on the Eldritch Starter Pack: $14.99)

#ainz ooal gown #lord ainz #overlord x reader #overlord #demiurge #mother reader #eldritch mother

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butteraway · 4 years ago

Text

when time runs out | ii

⋆ summary: A young girl has fallen deeply ill with an unknown disease in her, so with all her free time spent in an empty hospital room, she spends it online playing video games. That's until she meets her cousins friends, one spiking her interest with his extremely vulgare language.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x reader

word count: 2.1k

warnings: small mentions of suicide (I’ll put a star ‘⋆’ on top and below the paragraph so you can skip over it if your uncomfortable, you won’t miss anything too important so dont worry!)

"Bro, honestly I still can't believe that you of all people made it into the elite, number one hero school in the country."

"Waahh, I'm telling you! I'm the real deal Y/N!"

"So, how's your summer been? School's gonna be starting soon, are you excited?" Denki could only smile and sigh as his character was finally killed off.

Said girl chuckled as she heard Denki's voice rise through her headphones as they continued killing zombies in front of them. She grimaced as a zombie attacked her from behind her character. Geez, I never get a break in this game.

"Well, to be honest, nothing big really happened besides me getting my acceptance letter from U.A. Just me training and hanging with the fam." He laid back in the comfort of his bed, headphones still on in order to hear his cousin.

"Aah, already training, hero boy? That's why you haven't been visiting me lately." Y/N pouted and crossed her arms as her TV screen turned black, returning her to the main page of the game.

"Man, we suck at this game!" Denki laughed out loud as he saw how long they lasted in the last round. Y/N smiled and let out a small giggle of her own as she placed down her controller.

"Yeah, how long have we had this game for? It still feels like it's our first time playing this." Denki cracked a smile, even though Y/N couldn't see him.

"Hey, sorry for not being able to come to the hospital. Getting ready for U.A. is no joke, haha." Denki rubbed the nape of his neck, eyebrows scrunching up with regret.

"Nah nah, it's fine! I understand that you have things to do. You have big plans for the future." Y/N brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, looking down at the needles that were plunged into her arms. Her eyes were clouded with an emotion she often felt when talking with Denki. She always felt guilty whenever the feeling came around.

"Must be nice to be able to achieve your dreams." Jealousy. She hated the feeling she got every now and then, but you couldn't really blame her. She lost everything in only a couple of months. Silence passed between the two teenagers, Y/N finally realizing what she said.

"Uh s-sorry about that! I didn't mean to say that alou-" Y/N was cut off by Denki's soft voice.

"Y/N, it's... okay to feel like that. I don't understand what you have been going through, but I know that you shouldn't bring yourself down for something you can't control. You're such an amazing person and to be honest. . ." Denki paused as Y/N's eyes began to glaze over.

"I'm doing this for me and you. You always encouraged me to take any opportunity by, as you like to say, the neck. I-I wanna make you proud, y'know? I wanna make it feel like you're a part of this crazy world, even if you're not really here, walking with me through it all."

Y/N’s lips wobbled as she let out a watery laugh. She hunched over, small tears falling down her face. To someone else, this would've boosted their ego, but to Y/N, those words meant the world to her. No one had ever said that to her before. She felt like she had a purpose in this wretched life of hers. She sniffles were heard by Denki

"H-hey! It's okay, p-please don't cry!" Y/N heard shuffling coming from Denki as he reassured her to not cry.

"I mean it. I only wish you could be there though, it would be so much cooler!" Denki smiled, trying to lighten up the mood. Y/N's sniffles slowly quieted down as she let out a soft laugh that made his heart swell with joy. At least he can make her laugh.

"I'm s-sorry, but no one has ever told me t-that." Small hiccups came from the girl as she calmed down, taking deep breaths to slow her heart rate. Won't want doctors to come rushing in just to see her crying over something so small.

⋆

"I-I'm just really happy you said that." Denki's heart clenched at those words, his chin trembling every now and then. He knew that Y/N wasn't happy with where she was. She had even admitted that she had urges to rip out the needles and slowly lose her life from there. Denki spent the rest of that night talking to her after. To say he was concerned was an understatement. He was terrified when she told him.

⋆

"I think us being able to play games together is already enough!" They both laughed and talked for a couple of minutes before deciding to to hang up.

"Y/N, I mean it when I say I want you to be happy, okay? I hope you feel better tomorrow. Buh-bye!" Y/N said her goodbye to Denki, hanging up and closing the laptop that sat on a movable table.

Her smile slowly left her face, leaving her staring blankly at the pure white wall and mirror in front of her. When visitors were gone, her window would turn to a mirror so no one would disturb her. Y/N took a good look at herself and only sighed. Despite being as healthy as she could get, she looked a bit on the thin side, this complimenting her skin. Running a hand through her hair, she untangled the little knots that had formed there.

"Geez, what happened to you girl? You look like a zombie." Y/N looked at the zombie game and cringed.

"Literally." Just then the door to her room opened and shut quickly, the air filter turning on when a female doctor entered. Y/N watched her carefully as she checked the IV that connected to her arm. The protective suit never made Y/N feel better about her condition.

"Are you alright, Ms. L/N?" The light, stern voice rang through her ears as she looked at the woman in front of her. Y/N gave the doctor a grin.

"Never been better."

It had been an hour since the doctors had turned the lights off, but Y/N didn't feel the slightest bit of exhaustion. She had been sitting in the pitch black room for the time being and was really debating on turning on the TV.

"Ahh, fudge it." Instinctively reaching out for the remote, she turned on the TV and winced as the bright light hit her.

Looking back to the screen, she chose the option of going online and waited for other players to join. While waiting, a new character popped up next to her and she could only smirk at their username. Tapping on her mic, she decided to make conversation with them to see if they also had a mic.

"Now, what to play. What to play..." Y/N had settled for playing OverWatch since she didn't feel like playing any story type games. No cliffhangers tonight, Y/N thought. As the game loaded, she laid back and began thinking about cheesecake. When was the last I ate strawberry cheesecake? Great, now I want some. Thinking about eating cheesecake made her excited about the next day.

"Well hello, dear ol' 'King Explosion Murder_1.' Nice name you got there." Y/N chuckled as she said the name out loud, seeing another player enter.

"Hello 'Tape Dispenser?' What's with the wack name?" The girl’s eyes crinkled as she smiled at their name, hearing the user chuckle through her headphones. 'King Explosion Murder' still had yet to reply, but that didn't bother her. They're either using the bathroom or don't have a mic.

"The name was inspired by my quirk. But what's up with '_DeathGirl_', huh? You good?" Y/N could only laugh at what he said. She should really send him a friend request.

"I’m honestly great, a little tired, but great! I just gotta make up a name, y'know? But your quirk has to do with tape? I don't know if that's wicked or useless." The boy laughed while Y/N laughed as well, losing her grip on her controller. That was until a gruff voice interrupted their laughing session.

"Shut the fuck up, your annoying ass voices are giving me a damn headache." Finally, after being silent, 'King Explosion Murder_1' spoke up.

"Aah, so you do talk. I don't know why you didn't say anything sooner Mr. Explosion Murder." The other player could only sneer at what she said, hitting his desk with his fist. Another player had joined, Y/N only noticing.

"Ah, hello 'Sleep Deprived Controller!'" Said player made their character wave, making Y/N chuckle. While they had their interaction, 'King Explosion Murder' was shouting at her, now realizing that she wasn't paying attention to what he was saying.

"Hey! Listen to me when I'm fucking talking to you, emo bitch!" Y/N’s eyes widened, soon rolling her eyes, watching the game load as they were placed into a match. What's his damn problem?

"Hey man, no need to go calling people names now." 'Tape Dispenser' nervously chuckled as he heard the other player growl. Y/N sported a shocked face as she heard this. What is he, a dog???

"Outta this conversation, extra!" Tape dude could only deadpan at what he was just called. Who calls people extras?? I’m not an extra, in fact I think I’m- 'Sleep Deprived Controller' listened with an annoyed expression on their face, wishing they could shut their shouting teammate up. Damn, wish I actually had a mic.

The game began as all the players separated, going their own way to kill their enemies. Everyone was in the zone, getting items and yelping every now and then if they were attacked. The first to go down was 'Tape Dispenser', then 'Sleep Deprived Controller', leaving both Y/N and 'King Explosion Murder' left on their team. Y/N smirked at their winning team, only one player was left on the other team. Just as the game was going to end, the opposing player shot down 'Explosion Murder', killing him.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" His mic cut off, causing the two players with mics in a cackling mess. Y/N calmed down, remembering she was still playing, trying to hunt down the last player. Finally, after many curses by a certain player and cheering from another, she located her enemy.

"You better fucking win this or I'll kill you." Knowing he didn't mean that last part, she only focused on the first part. You better win this. Those words echoed through her head as she stopped aiming for the player. She hated being told what to do.

"Ah, so you're one of those people." Not knowing what she meant, they only watched with wide eyes at what she did. Y/N jumped down next to the enemy, shooting them twice with her weakest gun, signaling them that she was there. Quickly, the other player shot her character down, killing her. They lost the game.

"THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?! WE COULD'VE FUCKING WON!" Explosion Murder wasn't taking defeat easily like the other two were. Y/N could only give a grunt of disapproval towards the loud player.

"Ha, why did you just give up right there? You could've easily killed him." Tape Dispenser was just as confused as the other two players, slightly disappointed at the loss. Y/N sighed as she rubbed her forehead.

"Sorry not sorry, but this dude really thought he could get away with telling me what to do. I'll make my move when I'm ready, sorry to disappoint you guys." She sighed as she rubbed her neck, ready to hear the disapprovals of her teammate. But what she heard and saw made her smile.

"Nah, it's fine. It can get a tiny bit annoying with Murder yelling in your ear." Tape Dispenser reassured her, with Sleep Deprived's character giving her a thumbs up. Though, the annoyed sigh caught her attention back to him. Her eyebrow twitched. What is it now?

"I'm done with this fucking sappy shit scene. I'm out." Those were Murder's last words before he disconnected, leaving them in an awkward silence before Y/N stifled a giggle.

"I have a feeling that won't be the last time I'm seeing him." Tape Dispenser chuckled while Sleep Deprived's character shook their head, making Y/N softly laugh. After sending friend requests to both people, she bid them both fair well and left.

Y/N turned off her console and tv, putting the controllers on the table near her. She laid down in the comfort of her bed, thinking about her interactions with the people she met. She smiled, closing her eyes and drifting into a dreamless slumber with only one thought in mind.

King Explosion Murder is such a weird name.

#bakugou katsuki #bakugou #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #mha #bnha #mha angst #bnha fluff #fanfic

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dreamsmp-au-ideas · 4 years ago

Text

Oh, that bit about Karl’s powers and XD’s company at the beginning of the overwatch timeline made the karlnapity brain go brrrrrrr, bro!! Very long post ahead!!!! And I know the chatfic is coming soon, and I totally understand if you wanna reserve the blog’s attention for that once it comes out because I am also extremely excited for it, so publish this whenever you want!! Also good luck with the title and summary!!

So like, it’s a few years after Overwatch fell, and Sapnap, Quackity, and Karl are more or less content! They feel for Sam and the other original members, they do, but Overwatch and the omnics honestly weren’t a very big part of their world. They all made it through the omnic crisis just fine, and now they’re just going about their lives in the relative peacetime. They’re even engaged, vague plans of a marriage someday cobbling together bit by bit, but they’re in no rush. They’re happy!

And then Karl finds out about this interesting experiment that’s looking into real, live, actual time travel. Like!! Karl was psyched enough when space travel started getting big again; he knows just about everything there is to know about Horizon One for someone who’s never been there. If time travel turns out to be real? Karl wants in, and he wants in now.

Sapnap and Quackity are half-convinced it’s a scam or a gimmick or something. Sure, they personally knew what amounted to a superhero team a few years ago, but there’s a difference between a small group of skilled fighters and literal time travel. Especially since it’s an XD-sponsored endeavor, Quackity is certain there’s some catch. If nothing else, it’s probably a way to waste a lot of people’s time and money to get XD some good press again.

But Karl is so excited to check it out, neither of them want to try particularly hard to shut him down. They decide they’ll keep an eye on it, obviously, just in case, but they wish Karl good luck and a good time. So he heads out with high hopes and a little suitcase, promising to call every night and to see them soon.

And for the first few days, it goes great! Karl does call them every day and talks for at least an hour about everything he’s learning about this theoretical time travel and how it’ll work: a ship called the Slipstream, which is supposed to use teleportation technology to travel between places in negative time, thus creating functional time travel. Sapnap and Quackity reserve their doubts, but Karl’s having the time of his life either way, and they’re glad to hear him so happy. Especially when he tells them that he gets to get in the ship and take it on a test flight tomorrow - not to try out the time travel yet, but just to make sure he knows how to fly it. Karl gets to fly a ship!! He’s gonna be an actual pilot!! He’s so excited!!!

Karl hangs up that night, clearly over the moon, and Sapnap and Quackity resolve themselves happily to at least four hours on the phone tomorrow night, hearing all about the flight and how it went and what Karl is looking forward to.

And the next night, the hour comes, and Sapnap and Quackity settle on the couch with snacks and drinks, ready for a good long listening session. They wait for the phone to ring. And wait. And wait.

After an hour, they reason that maybe the test flight took longer than expected. Maybe Karl is tired out from flying it. Maybe Karl got distracted. Maybe he forgot to charge his phone. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Either way, it’s not like they had agreed that he’d call at this specific time. So there’s no need to worry. They’re not worried.

Another hour passes. And then another, and another, and soon midnight finds Sapnap and Quackity, sitting in the kitchen with mugs of tea long since cooled, watching a phone that won’t ring. Looking up the experiment or the Slipstream doesn’t bring up any bad news, which sets them both a bit at ease; no news is good news, right? At least for now?

Uneasily, they decide to go to bed. Karl will have to have called or at least texted by morning, surely. And if not, they’ll call him, and then they’ll call the number they were given for questions about the experiment. There’s no reason to worry.

Despite having no reason to worry, when morning comes without word from Karl, Sapnap and Quackity worry. When they call Karl, it goes straight to voicemail. When they call the number for the experiment, it’s disconnected. When they look up the experiment and the Slipstream and XD in general, they notice what they hadn’t last night: not only is there no news, there’s no mention of the experiment. The website Karl had learned about the experiment from is gone. XD’s website makes no mention of time travel. Even with all of Quackity’s investigative power, as far as the world wide web is concerned, there has never been a ship or shuttle with the name Slipstream.

It’s like the whole project never existed at all, and Karl Jacobs along with it.

Thus begins Sapnap and Quackity’s investigation. They call anyone who will listen, telling them that Karl is missing and it’s almost certainly the fault of XD and his company and please please please help them find out what happened. They become the most annoying thorn in XD’s side in months, calling every division in every company several times over, demanding answers. At one point, they’re discreetly contacted and offered hush money if they just drop it, and Sapnap has never screamed so loud in his life as when he told them exactly what they could do with that money. Quackity immediately tries to follow up, tracing the offer to gather proof that something must have happened if they’re trying to cover it up, and only runs into a brick wall. XD is infuriatingly good at covering his tracks.

What finally marks the turning point in their investigation is XD’s most common underestimation: common human decency between strangers. Quackity and Sapnap are anonymously contacted by someone who was working in the experiment’s division and heard about their search, someone who has access to Slipstream plans and blueprints. Through them, Quackity and Sapnap learn that Karl vanished because he was pressured into activating the time travel function on his test flight, despite the fact that it wasn’t ready yet. They’re also given early blueprints for the Slipstream, which include some of the plans for the time travel mechanism.

It’s this mechanism that Sam is able to study and rework and reverse engineer, eventually leading to the development of the chronal accelerator, which should, in theory, bring Karl back.

And it had been a rough time for Quackity and Sapnap, spending nearly all of their free time trying to gather resources and to find the truth and then to help Sam however he needed. They’ve undergone their respective breakdowns, supporting each other through them: Sapnap kept Quackity from burying himself too deeply in his work and his research, getting him to sleep and eat regularly. In turn, Quackity made sure he was available for Sapnap to talk and vent to, redirecting his steadily burning fury to constructive outlets. They’ve settled into an uneasy but manageable rhythm of getting through the days, haunted though they are by the uncertainty of where Karl is and when (if) they’ll see him again. And with the invention of the chronal accelerator, they’re both struggling with just how much hope they can afford. If this doesn’t work - if they get so close to finally getting Karl back, only to fail… it’s not something they want to think about.

So when Sam calls them down to his workshop, saying that he thinks he has a working model to recover their fiance, they arrive hand-in-hand, Quackity guarded, Sapnap cautiously optimistic. They gather around the workbench, surrounding Sam’s invention, a mechanical-looking harness with a glowing, green-and-purple spiral at its heart. Sam looks to them, hovering one hand over the activation switch, waiting for their signal.

They share a glance. Sapnap squeezes Quackity’s hand, steady and secure. No matter what, it promises. No matter what, I’ll still be here. I’m with you.

They both nod to Sam, and he flips the switch.

The harness hums and crackles to life, its spiral glowing brighter and starting to spin. Sam stands at the ready, watching six different monitors to ensure nothing goes wrong. Sapnap and Quackity lean on each other, nearly holding their breath, eyes glued to the accelerator.

Slowly, a figure fizzles into existence. Half-transparent, arms curled close to their chest, they glance around the room, looking lost and unsure, until they meet eyes with Sapnap and Quackity. Then their eyes go wide, one hand rising to their mouth, hanging open in shock.

Sapnap? says the ghost of Karl Jacobs. Quackity?

And in the next second, the ghost comes back to life, lungs filling with air, color rushing to his cheeks, solidity returning to his form. And Karl gasps, coughs, leans forward with one hand clapped over the accelerator, and his gaze doesn’t leave his fiances for a second. He extends one shaking arm, reaching for his fiances with an open hand. The tension shatters.

Sapnap closes the distance in half a second, Quackity barely a breath behind. The fiances collapse against the table as the two of them all but tackle Karl. Because Karl is real, Karl is alive, Karl is here in front of them. The lingering doubts that have dogged their footsteps vanish. The fear in their hearts that three engagement rings would become two wedding rings dissolves. The aching absence they’ve felt between them for months melts away in tears and sobs and bone-crushing hugs, the three of them relishing the hard-regained closeness, pressing together as the weight of the world lifts from all of their shoulders.

They’re together again.

#dream smp #dream smp au #overwatch au #quackity #karl jacobs #sapnap #awesamdude #submission #an anon #oh god this is amazing #i love this so much #i'll cherish it forever #long post

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unpopularly-opinionated · 3 years ago

Link

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

#random #video games #Blizzard #Activision #WoW #World of Warcraft #Diablo #Overwatch #Starcraft #Activision Blizzard

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sovpologist · 4 years ago

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So I really, really love Destiny 2. I have a soft spot for this game like I've never had for any other game. it's 100% because it seems, at least to me, like the design teams have gone out of their way to avoid anything male gaze-y in the character designs, cinematics, and player character model presentation. I've also noticed in the past two years especially that they've put more effort into referring to the young wolf/The Guardian in gender-neutral terms wherever possible, which was honestly a pleasant surprise. I'm a PC player, so I've never had the chance to play D1, but I think there were some elements of that in D1 (like if you look at Petra's D1 design, she definitely had her shirt glued to her chest and belly 😂), but they at least tried changed her design up a bit for D2. And I think she looks much better, to be honest! Much less silly

The female characters do get sexualized by gamerbros, but I can't even tell you how refreshing it is to play a game where I don't have to worry about suddenly having a pair of heaving tits shoved in my face. Like there is a time and a place for that kind of stuff and I can promise you it's not when I'm trying to do some looting and shooting. I fucking love that the armor for the female model is the same as the male armor, and that there's not a single pair of combat Louboutins anywhere to be found. I recently played TW3 for the first time, and the number of women I had to watch prance around high heels with their tits almost completely exposed was........ frankly really fucking awful, especially when you're suddenly being solicited for sex out of nowhere. like PLEASE leave me alone I just want to run around and stab things. Really made me think about how D2 handles character design and that they very specifically do not have storylines that use sexual violence as a plot point. (bc there's a time and a place for that kind discussion and narrative, and I'm of the opinion that a post-apocalyptic sci-fi space wizard looter shooter ain't it)

I've seen people arguing that it's all pandering, but tbh if being pandered to means Ana Bray gets to have an alive girlfriend and Eris Morn's trauma can be taken seriously AND she can wear sensible shoes, then please!!!!!!! Pander away!!!!

Also on that note but completely unrelated, I think it's hilarious that warlocks almost universally have No Ass. The wild hunt robes really made it obvious that nobody thought we'd ever see a warlock without a long robe

i completely agree. i came from playing games like dragon age and mass effect, which are great games, but they are a little dated. mass effect especially has really cringeworthy female designs and while dragon age is better, there’s still boob armor everywhere. also when i recently took a break from destiny, i got into genshin impact which is just…. ridiculous. it’s very anime style inspired and it’s weird how sexualized yet sexless those characters are. all the women are in skimpy, skintight clothing and yet it’s impossible to be actually attracted to them (for me) bc their ingame models look like weird childlike dolls. it’s just creepy. the cutscenes also constantly focus on the women’s boobs and asses. it was honestly so refreshing to come back to destiny and just have female characters that i felt werent sexualized at all but rather were just treated as people. it’s SUCH a low bar that unfortunately is often not cleared even now.

d2 is a def better than d1 but even d1 is better than a game like overwatch, which is another game i used to play a lot. i actually got into destiny bc an overwatch fanartist i loved started drawing a lot of destiny fanart. take these two characters- they’re both wearing the same kind of skintight jumpsuit, but where dva’s is vacuum sealed to each individual boob, elsie’s is much more realistic and acts like…. how fabric should actually act in this situation. it’s almost reminiscent of a sports bra.

i also don’t think it’s pandering bc bungie never tries to pat themselves on the back for this or market the game as this hugely feminist game. trust gamer bros to take literally just the bare minimum aka what they SHOULD be doing as pandering.

#also yes i love that it’s canon that warlocks have no ass #no ass is genderless #ask #long post

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pastelgoogie97 · 4 years ago

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I Thought We Said No Yelling At 3 AM? || jjk

~I wrote this because I’m crying over Jungkook right now, thought I’d share with everyone ;-; Genre: FLUFF Warnings: None, I think there’s literally like one cuss word in here Word Count: 2.5k Pairing: Roommate!Jungkook x CollegeStudent!Reader Info: Friends to Lovers :,) Jungkook is such a CUTIE PIE istg I love him so much, reader is sleepy and just wants to go mimi’s but Jungkook loves playing overwatch so much he has to SCREAM ABOUT IT ~Hope you enjoy, sorry if there are any errors, it’s literally three in the morning for me and I’m D Y I N G

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She needed to pay rent. That’s what Y/N kept repeating in her head as she listened to her roommate Jungkook roar with laughter as he played Overwatch with his friends in his bedroom.

Y/N was a foreign exchange student from America studying abroad in Korea. The language had always sparked her interest, so when she was given the opportunity to actually learn not just the language, but about the culture? She packed her bags and her flight as fast as she could and got on the next flight thirteen hours away and over the ocean from her home.

She rubbed her tired eyes and looked down at her phone to check the time. 3:49 in the damn morning. The worst part of this whole endeavor was she couldn’t even get mad at Jungkook if she tried. Not only was he the nicest boy she’d ever met in her life, but his looks seemed to make it harder on her.

With one look around her room, Y/N realized she wasn’t going to be getting any sleep until Jungkook got off his computer. Normally, she wouldn’t even care. What’s weird is that she’s actually a really heavy sleeper. She could sleep through hurricane Katrina if it meant she could sleep for a second longer.

“I JUST NO-SCOPED REAPER!” Jungkook shouted happily.

Y/N giggled slightly, rolling her tired eyes as she pulled herself out of bed. She headed into the kitchen, her slippers lightly dragging against the tile floor of their dorm lazily. The bright light of the fridge made her wince as she pulled out two containers of banana milk, poking a straw through one of them to sip on. The other was for Jungkook.

When they both moved in together, they decided to lay down some ground rules. They weren’t really rules per se, just obvious things that needed to get set. They were allowed to have friends as long as they weren’t too loud, anything in the fridge was theirs unless the container was labeled with their name on it, don’t make a mess, or if you do just clean it up. But one that they both agreed on right away? ‘No yelling at 3 in the morning, especially during exam season.’ Yet here Y/N was, sleepily sipping on banana milk while on her way to Jungkook’s room.

She swallowed the sweet milk and closed her eyes before knocking on his door. The sound of his soft voice almost lulled her to sleep had he not opened the door.

In all his glory, there he was. Headsets hanging around his neck, hair messy but still fluffy and floppy against his forehead, and those doe-like orbs that she just couldn’t get enough of. She almost audibly sighed at the sight of him, especially since he was wearing those grey sweatpants that almost made her risk it all during one of their movie nights.

“C-can I come in?” Y/N spoke up quietly, her voice hoarse with sleep deprivation.

“Of-of course!”

Y/N walked into Jungkook’s bedroom, the sound of his door shutting behind her making her shoulders slump. She looked at his computer and saw the game still going on. She figured she’d watch and see what the hype was about. Especially since Jungkook had been shouting at it since he got back from class.

He flopped back into his gaming chair in front of his desk, but he didn’t pull his headsets over his ears. Instead, he turned around to look at Y/N. His eyes looked guilty and she could hear her heart whine at how cute he looked.

“I-I didn’t keep you awake did I?” He pouted. “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time and I didn’t even know that I was being that loud,”

She giggled and held her hand up in front of him. He stopped talking and he smiled softly at the gesture. Well, at least she wasn’t mad at him.

“I got you some banana milk, do you want it?” Y/N offered, shoving the carton into his hands before he could even agree.

“I was literally just about to get some,” He chuckled. “Get out of my head dude,”

The girl giggled and got comfortable on his bed, looking at the screen behind his head. It was a loading screen, he was probably waiting for another match to start. Her eyes scanned over the bright colors on his screen, reading each of the words to see what was so fun about the game or even try to make sense of it.

“So what’s the point of the game?” Y/N began. “Is it like Call Of Duty?”

Before Jungkook could answer, Y/N heard the sounds of his friends on his headsets roaring through the speakers at her comment. She smiled and craned her neck forward to try and hear what they had to say about it.

“Ask her if she plays video games, Kook!”

Jungkook looked up at her knowing that she’d heard the question. The way he was looking at her nearly made her forget what was being asked. After realizing she had been staring at him a bit too long, she shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, I play! I’m not the best at everything I play like you are, but I’d say I’m a pretty decent player!” She admitted as honestly as possible.

“Maybe I’ll teach you how to play sometime then,” Jungkook suggested with a smile. “It’s basically a first-person shooter game, but it’s so much fun!”

The match started and Jungkook excused himself, throwing his headsets on to talk with his friends again while Y/N watched from behind. To say that Jungkook was good would be an understatement. He could play for an E-sports team if he really wanted to. His character was moving so fast and the way he was quick scoping everyone just screamed how good of a player he was. She couldn’t help but get lost in how fast his aim was and how precise his shots were.

As the game went on, Jungkook could feel Y/N’s gaze on the screen and he couldn’t help but smile stupidly the entire time she watched him. His feelings for her had been bad, but the second she mentioned she played video games too? He was ready to get on his knee and propose right then and there.

The room was quiet. Jungkook could hear Y/N move on his bed, and then her feet hit the floor. He figured she was going to head to her room and try and fall back asleep again. But she didn’t.

Y/N’s head found itself in Jungkook’s lap, watching the screen and waiting with him for the next round to start. He felt her yawn against his left thigh and he didn’t want to make any sudden movements. She was getting comfortable and he couldn’t help but dream about how she would feel in his arms. His head was spinning and his brain went cloudy at the feeling of the girl of his dreams resting her head in his lap.

“Hey guys, it’s late,” Jungkook began. “I’m gonna log off for tonight, but I’ll get back on tomorrow, sound good?”

Little by little, his friends started to agree, and soon enough, Jungkook was taking his headsets off and shutting his PC down. Y/N looked up with puppy-dog eyes, wanting to watch more game-play despite how droopy her eyelids were.

“You look really sleepy, don’t you wanna go to bed?” Jungkook inquired, his voice soft and clear in the air.

She stood up and stretched her limbs out, eliciting another yawn from her throat. She felt like she could sleep on a pile of bricks comfortably at this point and Jungkook could tell.

“I-I’M NOT TIRED,” Y/N shouted slightly, trying to make it seem like she wasn’t ready to pass out on the floor.

Jungkook jumped slightly at her sudden change in tone and started laughing, ruffling her hair slightly to tell her to calm down. She pouted at him and his heart soared.

“Hey, I thought we agreed on no yelling at three in the morning, hm?”

Y/N rolled her eyes and listened to him chuckle before protesting. “Says the one who was screaming since he came back from class and kept me up all night,”

She yawned again and felt her eyelids slowly start to lose the will to stay open any longer than they needed to.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute, or I would’ve raised hell,”

Her eyes were wide open now. She slapped her palm over her mouth and took a step back to register what she just said. Meanwhile, Jungkook’s heart was doing flips and his stomach was filled with butterflies from wall to wall. He smiled brightly, barely able to believe what just came out of his roommate’s mouth.

“I-I’m so sorry, that was inappropriate, oh my god I can’t believe I just said that,” She apologized. “I-I’m just gonna go to my room,”

He couldn’t let her slip away after that. So, he did what he thought was best.

Jungkook grabbed Y/N by her wrist, pulling her into his chest and holding her so she couldn’t escape his grasp. And before he knew it, he was stooping down to her height to press his lips against hers. Her lips tasted like the vanilla bean chapstick she always carried around with her. The sweetness of it all was nothing compared to how soft her lips felt against his. He swore he was in heaven the second he felt her kiss him back.

Her hands flew to the back of his neck, her digits twirling strands of his wavy hair. His hands slowly moved down to her hips, his fingers gripping them with such ferocity she was sure that he was going to bruise them into her skin. He was holding onto her like she was going to escape if he didn’t pull her closer to him, but somehow she found comfort in feeling this way. So vulnerable in front of him and falling for every trick he pulled from the book. He felt amazing. It felt so right.

When they both pulled away to breathe, Y/N couldn’t help but stare into his eyes, seeing a whole galaxy of stars just waiting for her to dive into. The way they shone even in the darkness of his bedroom made her swoon and she felt drunk off of how good he was treating her. How touch starved she used to be and how he so easily took all of that away and showed her what it felt like to be loved.

“I am so glad I moved in with you,” Jungkook admitted breathlessly. “From the first day we met, I thought you were the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen in my life, other than IU of course,”

She giggled and shook her head playfully.

“You really love IU, don’t you Googie?”

He sighed at the pet name she’d given him since they first moved in, shaking his head with a chuckle before rubbing his large, chocolate orbs.

“Let’s go to bed now, how does that sound?” He offered, pulling back the comforter on his bed and patting the mattress for her to lie down.

“That sounds amazing,” She sighed dreamily, closing her eyes the second her head hit his pillow.

Jungkook crawled in right next to her, throwing his hoodie over his head and snuggling close to her. His skin felt warm, his body was just radiating heat and she felt like a moth drawn to a flame. He wrapped his arms around her and she couldn’t have felt safer anywhere else other than in his arms.

All of the dreaming he’d done, the imagining of how perfect she’d feel curled up next to him never could have prepared him for this moment in time. He thought all of the cliche bullshit about fitting together like puzzle pieces in their lover’s arms was so stupid, but there was no other way to describe it than just that, and he didn’t hate it at all. Not one bit.

“Googie,” Y/N began, the rumble of his soft hum against his chest making her heart grow in size. “What does this mean for us?”

He sighed and pulled her closer.

“It means that I finally have the girl of my dreams right where I want her,”

He paused.

“And that we need to cross out ‘No yelling at three AM’ on our list of rules,”

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dimigex · 4 years ago

Text

Current WIP/ Drabbles list

So, I have a day in my writing schedule that is dedicated to working on stories not Altered Reality, Healing Hands, Heart in a Silver Cage, or Losing Control, but I have so many that’s it’s hard to choose. I went through and made a massive list of the current projects that I have (and realized I need to complete more and jump around less). Everything on this list is at least over a thousand words and most are considerably more than that.

I kind of wanted to open this up to see if any of these descriptions get my followers excited in the ‘omg tell me more, why isn’t this finished yet’ way because there is only so much time each day to work on things. If you see something you want to know more about or really want to see me post sooner rather than later, please, Please, PLEASE inbox me (you can even use Anon to do so) or reply or reblog or whatever. I want to work on things that other people will be excited about too. It’s no fun alone. I mean it kind of is, but feedback is the best and if you’re excited you’re more likely to comment and engage.

Works are below the cut because I have zero self control and the list is long. Keep in mind this is nowhere near the full amount of stories I have in docs, only the ones that are well developed and/or written or close to being finished (or have a chapter or more if it’s a long story)

Big Stories (things that would be split into multiple chapters/parts):

Naruto:

Clean - KakaSaku, Sakura comes back to the village with an infant daughter and a big secret, one that she’s sworn never to tell even if it makes her life miserable. This is a study on the things we do for love, even when it hurts us. This story also has some previous SasuSaku undertones

Dark Side of the Moon - KakaSaku, this is basically the flip side of Altered Reality. Kakashi lived in a happy world and is suddenly thrust into a reality where nearly everyone he cares about is dead and he’s in a relationship with Sakura. With everything upside down, can he figure out what happened and get back to his family before it’s too late? Or should he move on with the new normal?

Here With You - Kakasaku, A 10k follow on to my oneshot Distraction which is mutual pining (and mutual self pleasure while thinking of the other). Kakashi and Sakura are tired of dancing around their feelings for each other, but neither knows what to do about it. With a little help from Ino, Genma, and maybe some alcohol, they’ll figure it out.

Mortal Flaw, Fatal Sin - KakaSaku (with a heavy dose of anti-SasuSaku, Sasuke really does come across evil in this one) Sakura returns to Konoha after over a year with little to no contact with anyone. Pregnant and alone, she turns to Kakashi to try and figure out what to do with her life and tempers flare when the truth starts to come out. (this one will have a lot of trigger warnings, it’s a dark take on SasuSaku)

Run to You - Jiraiya/Tsunade, snippets of their lives through the second war and forward (Niwaki’s death, Dan’s, the first time they hook up (because let’s face it, it happened)

Shattered - This starts as a SasuSaku morphs into a KakaSaku and NaruSasu. After the war, Sasuke is held in prison in Konoha for treason. Kakashi is Hokage and he didn’t ask for this mess with his former team, and he certainly didn’t ask to start developing feelings for Sakura as she’s doing her best to save Sasuke from himself.

She is the Sunlight - KakaSaku, Sakura is unhappy with life in the village after the war (and Sasuke) and wants something more than just her medical work at the hospital. Eventually she latches onto the idea of Anbu which Kakashi strongly opposes because he wants to protect her from the horrors of it. (this is actually a combination of two stories I have where Kakashi catches the feels and doesn’t know what to do about it and Sakura kind of self-destructs before he figures it out)

Starting Over - Kakayama, Tenzo doesn’t know what to do with himself after the war and ends up helping at the hospital. When an orphaned infant isn’t doing well, Tenzo puts in some extra effort and maybe falls in love with the idea of being a dad if only he can convince Kakashi that it’s a good idea.

Overwatch:

Empire - Gabriel centric, dealing with his pre army life with his family, initiation into a gang, conversion to the army, marriage and daughter, then ending at SEP. This is a wild ride from start to finish honestly.

Through the Glass - Genji/Mercy, their time during his recovery after Overwatch saved his life, then probably reconnecting later as an epilogue.

(You Held the Gun that) Fired First - Reaper76, starting with the founding of Overwatch, the slow decay of Jack and Vincent’s relationship, the chaos of Jack and Gabe together, ending sometime around the start of the game probably. I’m not planning to follow canon heavily but there will be a lot of stuff happening here including but not limited Jack planning to ask Vincent to marry him, a massively public break-up, Vincent gets attacked and nearly killed, Ana’s death, the explosion. Honestly I haven’t decided on the ending point yet

Drabbles (smaller, one shots that don’t need additional chapters, probably):

Naruto

Beautiful, Perfect Disaster - KakaSaku, all the tension between them finally snaps into a first kiss that might be the start of something wonderful

Blame it on the Blood Loss - KakaIru, When Kakashi and Iruka go on a mission together, the latter is badly injured and rambles confessions he never meant to share

Innocence - KakaSaku, Kakashi and Sakura have been dating for a while when she shocks him by admitting she’s never been with anyone before and wants him to be her first (and last), not going to lie, this is mostly smut

Interrupted Affections - KakaSaku, Kakashi and Sakura have just started dating and the days on missions without being able to touch is killing both of them. Sneaking away from Tenzo and Naruto, they try to find a little alone time to reconnect. It goes about as well as expected

Let It Go - NaruSasu,in which Naruto tries to convince Sasuke to stay in the village and Sasuke has some convincing reasons on why he shouldn’t

Letting Go - Kakayama, set in their Anbu days where Tenzo pays the ultimate price to save Kakashi’s life and Kakashi goes a little crazy as a result

Memories and Hope - Genma/Kakashi, on the anniversary of Minato’s death Genma and Kakashi realize they have more in common than they realized.

Saying Goodbye - Kakayama, Tenzo reflects on all the could have beens at Kakashi’s funeral

Shadows and Sunlight - KakaSaku and NaruSasu, This is a follow on to my story Lightning and Starlight (in which Sasuke uses chidori on Sakura on the bridge when she tried to kill him, aka Kakashi got there too late). It follows the fallout of that day when everyone catches feels and realizes relationships are complicated

Surprise Advances - Tenzo/Anko, a train wreck mission leads this unlikely pair to fall into bed together (a spin off from Heart in a Silver Cage)

The Monster You Made - Kakashi/Obito, after the war (in which Obito doesn’t die, obviously) Kakashi saves Obito from execution for his crimes and realizes that he has some unresolved feelings for the teammate that he thought he’d lost years ago.

The Photograph - Tenzo/Obito (set in Altered Reality universe) where an Anbu mission makes Tenzo rethink his opinion of his captain

The Story of Your Scars - Kakayama, this is a follow on to Find Me in the Dark (in which Tenzo was captured and tortured by Orochimaru) where Kakashi tries to help Tenzo deal with the trauma of it

Undone - Kakashi centric, young Kakashi wakes up in the hospital after his failure to save Rin (honestly this is about the shattering of Minato and Kakashi’s relationship)

Undressed - KakaYama, Kakashi comes home broken up after a mission and Tenzo helps him remove his armor, in more ways than one

Overwatch

First Impressions - Reaper76, after the SEP injections which Jack has a difficult time with and Gabe helps him get through

Shattered - Vincent learns about the explosion at the Swiss HQ and that Jack is missing in it

War is Hell - Reaper76, the fallout after another bad Blackwatch mission where Jack is left picking up the pieces

Other

Apocalyptic - Genma/Fynta (swtor crossover) where Genma is trapped in the Star Wars universe just trying to survive (co-written with Cinlat)

#Dimi Drabbles #Current WIPs #KakaSaku #Kakayama #Reaper76 #KakaIru #NaruSasu #Why do I have so many unfinished projects?#Who made all this mess in my docs #what interests you?#help me help you

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nol-overwatch · 4 years ago

Text

really rough draft of something but it’s related to 76

Been writing a lot this past couple of weeks, and I wanted to show a sample of what I’ve been doing.

Paris.

You’ve been here twice in the past, not for pleasure obviously but for work. The first time was when you were still in Overwatch; the official Overwatch, mind you, before that crap with Blackwatch and the bombing of the headquarters happened. Just a simple mission of just you, your squad, and tons of targets to shoot down.

The second time was quite recently, a year ago when you first answered the call. Null Sector was terrorizing the city, and while you were worried if you would be the only one there trying to defuse the situation, seeing your old comrades fight alongside you eased those worries away.

Reinhardt was still fighting, despite his old age. You have to thank Brigitte for looking after him all these years. Genji’s actually wearing clothes, to your surprise. You still tease him about it every now and then. Angela’s still as beautiful as ever, and Tracer never failed to bring a smile to your face.

A lot of things have changed, but for some reason you still think things are still the same.

Nowadays, your ragtag group of allies acted as some sort of unofficial version of Overwatch. You still had to hide from the UN, who immediately denounced your ineligibility the moment your faces appeared on live television all across the world. Talon obviously tried to annihilate your group, and some organizations have teamed up with them as well. Some of the general populace even wondered why on earth you even banded together again.

Oh, well. No matter what happens, the world needs heroes. They don’t specifically need you, but who’s to step up in your absence when you’re already there?

In any case, you didn’t think you’d get to see Paris again, after what happened last year. Despite the people echoing praises about you all over the internet, governments are still reluctant to accept this new Overwatch. Unlike last time where you leisurely flew into Paris with Economy class seats, now you have to sneak in with the Orca and drop off at least a couple of miles away from your destination. You thought it wouldn’t be that bad, if not for your partner for today’s mission.

“You always daydream before an operation?” A stern, grumpy voice sounded beside you as you grimaced and resisted the urge to roll your eyes. “You've always been such a pain in the neck?” You muttered under your breath before checking your assault rifle for any last minute adjustments. You must’ve checked it too many times to count at this point, just as much as this old Soldier’s nitpicking on your imperfections.

You’ve got to admit, you got along well with everyone in the Recalled Overwatch, well, everyone except for the masked vigilante sitting next to you. As far as you’re concerned, you don’t really care who it is behind the mask, although you find yourself getting annoyed every time you two interacted. There was never a time where you have good interactions with this man.

That’s why it surprised you when he volunteered to go on a scouting mission with you. Usually, you don’t mind a partner or two in your ops, but the Soldier himself? You thought he’d be battling out in the front lines, not in the shadows of some building, watching enemy movement.

You thought for sure he hated you, with the way he’d berate your posture, the way you carry your weapon, and how you seem to be the only loud person in the group when you’re having a fun time fooling around with the younger agents. Really, it’s almost as if he’s got a bone to pick with you. In a way, it all seemed familiar to you; all these scoldings and backhanded attempts to straighten you up, reminds you a little of the commander you once served. You extinguished that familiarity as soon as it came up; there’s just no way for you to hope on something impossible.

Even if Captain Amari, this guy’s partner and someone you also thought dead, came to the Recall with him just a few months ago.

“Tracer,” Your current partner grumbled to your pilot up ahead. “How long are you going to keep flying in circles?” He pointed it out as the brunette girl sighed loudly.

“I’m waiting for the sensors on the airfield to turn off but Winston’s taking too long. I’ll have to drop you all off some miles away from the target if we’re proceeding as usual.”

Right, they upped the security on the airfields because of last year. They should’ve done that years ago, honestly, when Overwatch first disbanded.

You took a peek on the overhead window and through the thinning clouds you can see the beautiful city lights and in the distance, the shadow of the Eiffel tower looming enchantingly over the Seine river. Man, if only you weren’t on duty, you could’ve gone to travel around these places. Maybe even take a leisurely walk with a date.

But no. You ended up having the spirit of a hero, and now you have to sneak around like rats until the world is properly ready for your appearance. “There’s always that building next to the Seine. See that, Tracer?” You motioned to a beautiful, but abandoned building off the side as you and the old soldier crowded over the holographic map hud.

“Maison Marat.” Tracer mused, now steering the Orca relatively nearer towards that area. “From what I know, it’s an old building where they used to hold public celebrations. They recently moved their festivities to the hotel area overlooking the Tower.”

“You sure about that intel?” You couldn’t exactly see, but you can tell from the creases forming on his forehead that he seems to be frowning towards the young woman.

“You could always just drop us off in the river. You're fine with swimming in the cold, right Soldier?” You smirked sideways to the old man, who only grumbled a bit, but didn’t bark back.

What a weird old man. “...We don’t have any choice. Even if the building shouldn’t be inhabited right now, let’s still be careful.”

“Roger that! Preparing for drop off.”

---

Thanks for reading. So far, I got stuck at this part and barely remembered what to do with it. But man, I do love some angst from beard 76.

#overwatch #soldier 76 #jack morrison

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wildwinterlunas · 1 year ago

Note

Heyyyyy soooo for the start of fall, what sort of festivities would occur on Gibraltar, do you think? Like hypothetically if they decided to celebrate and decorate the place and have fun and bake goodies and such? At least pretending Null Sector's been at a low and they can just have fun with each other?

No particular reason by the way, just wondering.. ;)

So we see in the comics that some of the Overwatch team would meet up for a Halloween party which I think would still happen at Gibraltar now. Mostly because Winston has the photo of Angela and Torb celebrating and I think he'd want to relive that past while also keeping moral up.

I also think there would be a lot of dressing up in costumes and just normal Halloween activities.

I also think that at least Cassidy and Jack would celebrate Dias los Muertos. If Illari joins Overwatch I think she would join them in celebrating too.

I think a lot of characters would also go on nature walks, or even go camping in any woodlands near Watchpoint Gibraltar.

Honestly even if Null Sector isn't low I think they would still do little things to celebrate and keep everyone's moral up.

#overwatch #overwatch 2 #overwatch lore #overwatch headcanons #analysis

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nitewrighter · 4 years ago

Note

Just got back online from a power outage and ate something that made me feel like I was going to be sick :( Could I request a prompt? | Genji comes back from a rough mission, but Mercy isn’t aware yet. His injuries aren’t bad enough that he needs to be hospitalized but he is shaken up (maybe from something that reminded him of a traumatic event or something personal was said to him, causing him to hesitate and get hurt). Genji comes back and Mercy sees his injuries. He is reluctant to talk.

I love edgy Blackwatch Genji, and that first prompt has edgy Blackwatch Genji written all over it.

-----

“Honestly, Shimada, you’re being a child,” Moira was stooping over him on the dropship as he winced away from the ‘healing’ hand of her biotic rig. For all intents and purposes, the mission was a success, but after that Null Sector virus had caused his prosthetics to seize up, Genji had had more than enough people poking at his patchwork monstrosity of a body for one night.

“I said I’m fine,” muttered Genji.

Moira braced a long-fingered hand on his shoulder to steady herself as the dropship shook with turbulence, the contact making Genji’s whole body tense. “You’re literally bleedi--”

“Moira,” Reyes’ voice was tired, “He said he’s good.”

Moira’s eyes flicked over to Reyes. He and McCree were in their respective dropship seats, all strapped in. Reyes was giving Moira a long quiet look that made Genji feel even more like a child. McCree’s hat was over his eyes, sleep already overtaking him, otherwise he would have been the first to get Moira to back off.

“You know what? Fine,” said Moira, withdrawing her hands, “If you want to play the wounded puppy for Doctor Ziegler, don’t let me get in your way. God forbid anyone on this team is practical.”

“I’m not playing---” Genji’s shoulder’s bunched up with fury, but he caught himself. Moira’s eyes were back on him. Prying. Dissecting. Ready to take anything he said, synthesize it with everything she already knew about him, and throw it right back at him. He knew there was only so much you could engage with Moira, he knew that. He looked to his organic hand, twitching, shaking, and clenched it into a fist, pressing it against the metal of his prosthetic knee.

“We’re all tired. We’re all tense. Maybe we should take a note from McCree for once and just settle down until we get to headquarters,” said Reyes.

Genji huffed, his breath pressing against his skin underneath his metal faceplate. Moira gave Reyes a placid look that made Genji’s blood boil more.

“Of course,” said Moira, slumping back into her seat on the dropship. She gave Genji a mocking smile, “What’s one more scar for our guardian angel to kiss better?” Genji felt his ears burning but then glanced off, furiously. He sullenly brushed the blood out of his eyebrow.

“Moira,” Reyes’ voice was flatter.

“I know, I know,” Moira gave a dismissive hand wave before settling into her seat and strapping in. She wasn’t looking at Genji but he could see the tugs at the corners of her mouth that told him, ‘It is all too easy to get a rise out of you.’ He simmered back into his own seat and turned his attention to the window. There was only blackness outside the dropship, and the reddish interior lights made the glass show his reflection, and he couldn’t look at that for more than a few seconds. He folded his arms tight across himself, gave one final scan across the dropship before settling in for the long ride.

----

The next few nights in Zurich Genji dreamed of coming apart the way you dream of your teeth falling out. No pain, no more than the usual phantom limb sensations, but a horrifying awareness, the sensation of gaps widening within you before they come loose. He avoided Mercy’s office and the medical labs. He knew it was stupid, and he knew Moira wouldn’t know, and he knew he was probably playing right into Moira’s sick little games by dwelling on it that much, but at the same time, he couldn’t stand the idea of proving her right.

Right about what? That you trust Doctor Ziegler more than her? he thought angrily to himself he briskly walked through the hallways of Headquarters, That’s just common sense.

What’s one more scar for our guardian angel to kiss better? He could hear the smirk in Moira’s voice in his head and some mix of fury and embarrassment prickled along his scarred skin as he stepped into a lift.

We just talk, that’s all, She’s nice to listen to. he thought as the doors opened to a world of white, blue, and steel. He stretched his arms above his head and leaned into a side stretch, And she listens to me. And she’s funny. he circled his arms in their sockets and circled the ankles of his prosthetic feet. I’m not stupid. I know nothing’s going to come of it, he thought as he headed to the primary monitor for the course and customized the training field to a handful of various obstacles--some moving platforms, a few sleek walls to scale, some columns to rebound between, some non-lethal pulsefire turrets, I know what I look like.

Normally he would be using Ryū Ichimonji to tear through a slew of training bots, but the Null Sector mission had put him off slicing through robots at least for a while. Maybe he could spar with Sojourn or McCree later, but for now, he just wanted to feel the wind rush past him. Drawing only his short tanto, he broke into a sprint, deflecting shots from the turrets, before running along a wall and rebounding off or it, springing on the fingertips of his prosthetic arm. Sometimes, when he ran fast enough, he could focus just on the sensation of his heart pumping, pull his mind away from the wires coursing over his body and the way his feet making contact with the ground didn’t course up his legs in the right way. Just focus on the heart, just focus on the breath. So much of his training with the Shimada clan was focused on total body consciousness, awareness of every breath, every muscle, all of that training was a curse with his new body. But he could run, he could climb, he could bound off of walls, he could leap and flip through the air, nimbly pace along narrow railings, lose himself in the rush of the wind.

Flow like water.

He managed to deflect the pulsefire back to the turrets to shut them down, scaled and rebounded off of a few more walls, lost himself in the motions, lost all sense of time, raced back to the beginning of the course, and did it again. And again. And again. And again. Climb and leap and deflect and climb and run and run and run and maybe the fury and the pain won’t catch up with you. He pushed himself to that heart-pumping point where even his prosthetics were shaking with exhaustion. He could smell the metallic intermingling of his own sweat and his prosthetics even under his faceplate. Almost in defiance of those physical limits, he scaled one of the observation buildings bordering the training grounds and perched on the roof there, to catch his breath, feeling the cold alpine air on his skin. He flopped back against the roof to stare up at the open blue bowl of the sky, fringed with little wisps of mare’s tail clouds breezing off of the snowcapped mountains. He closed his eyes for a brief few minutes, focusing on his own breath and heartbeat, before a sharp, unnatural sound prompted his eyes to flick open. A shing sound, almost like a blade being drawn but not quite, more ringing, more sustained, before it faded into the sound of the wind. He pushed up from the roof to a sitting position, and scanned around. Someone else using the training field? He glanced down at his custom obstacle course, still untouched, and a couple of lazy training bots drifting around. His red eyes narrowed skeptically before shing-woosh! That sound whipped overhead and he glanced sharply upward.

The wings were the first thing he made out. Blazing yellow feather-like constructs of light on white frames, the sun shining through them making him squint against the blue of the sky. It took him several esconds made out the figure attached to them. Donning goggles and what appeared to be a modified version of their orange and gray training jumpsuits, Mercy had her hair tied back in its usual voluminous ponytail, but now flailing like a flame in the wind, but didn’t notice him as she rushed overhead, banked sharply left, then shot upward. He was so used to seeing her slumped down in that chair in her lab that even despite their whole exchange over the poster and the fact that she was Mercy, despite her offhandedly mentioning this mission or that during their late night lab chats, this sight and the fact that indeed, she was an agent of Overwatch with all that entailed sank into him. She was Mercy. She could fly. She swooped in and rescued people--probably not as glamorously as all the propaganda made out, but she actually did that. Was this the first time he was seeing her fly outside of all the posters and videos? He felt a little embarrassed that it was taking this long for these facets of her to sink in, but then again, he knew his own anger was clouding his mind, constantly turning it back to the Shimada clan, to Hanzo. He watched as she burst out from a cloudbank, hair wet, wings still blazing, streams of vapor from the cloud trailing behind on her wingtips like wake.

Our guardian angel, Moira’s voice echoed in his head again, but no, that didn’t seem right. Maybe the Mercy on the poster was a ‘guardian angel,’ but watching Angela Ziegler felt like something sharper, more powerful, more self-possessed. There was grace in her movements, though. He wondered if, in the development of the Valkyrie suit, they had told her how to hold out her arms, how to hold out her legs, tensed and streamlined, halfway between swimmer and dancer, her entire body curving into her turns, or if, because she was the one the valkyrie suit had been developed for, this was all her. She shot upward again and stupidly his eyes followed her until he found himself looking directly at a dazzling white sun, and he winced and looked away. He blinked the spots out of his eyes and quietly cursed himself, and some stupid, juvenile part of him was mad at her--and he knew it clearly wasn’t any ill intent on her part but at the same time a bitter voice in his head surmised his frustrations as ‘How dare you come here specifically when I am trying not to think about you.’ But then that thought was immediately wiped away as he saw a shape drop out of the clouds. Gray jumpsuit. White wingframes--no yellow glow. Panic flooded his chest. Had something gone wrong with her wings? He looked at the edge of the roof he was on. She was clearly too far away for him to intercept in her descent if he leapt off for her. His stomach tied up in knots, and he felt the cold of his own prosthetics sinking throughout his body. But he could hear no scream on the wind and he squinted at the plummeting Mercy. Her back was toward the ground and her arms were tucked over her chest in an X, almost like she was hugging herself, her long legs trailed skyward as she dropped, then easily, with that dancer-swimmer’s grace, she twisted in mid-air, righting her back towards the sun again, and swinging her legs down toward the earth as those bright feathery lights sprang out from her wingframes again. She caught herself, glided, almost lazily now, towards another section of the training area. Where he saw Liao and Torbjörn waiting. He felt his ears burning again. None of them seemed to notice them as Mercy made a jogging contact with the ground and trotted over to them, but a certain shame caught in the pit of his gut that he had been so caught up in watching Mercy’s flight that he hadn’t even seen them come in. Liao seemed to be taking rapid notes on her tablet as Mercy spoke, and Torbjörn was talking and pointing at her wings and harness. Genji decided to leave the training ground before any of them caught sight of him. He didn’t really like the idea of sneaking off like that, but he didn’t really want to explain that he had been spending the past... however long staring at Mercy either.

He managed to make it out of the training grounds pretty much unseen, but she caught him in the hallways only a few minutes later.

“Genji?”

He startled slightly and glanced over his shoulder at her. He had been counting on her showering, cleaning up in the lockers, or something like that, but she was still in the jumpsuit. The sunlight was streaming on her sideways through the hallway window. Her hair was still wind-tossed, her skin flushed, and her goggles were pushed up on her forehead. He said, “Oh--hello, Doctor Ziegler,” while quickly trying to think of a thing he had just been doing that was not being on the training course.

“I thought I saw you on the training course!” she still sounded breathless from her flight.

Shit, he thought.

“Um... yes... just... doing some post-training meditation,” said Genji, itching at his hair.

“I should get on roofs more often. You think I’d have the idea with these things,” she gestured with a thumb back to her wings as she did that brisk, doctorly walk of hers up to him, “But all I know with them is banging them on doorways.”

Genji chuckled a little at the image, but something softened in Mercy’s face that put him on guard.

“It’s good to see you, Genji. I’ve barely heard from you since that last Blackwatch mission, I was getting worried.”

“Worried?”

“McCree said it got pretty close,” she said folding her arms, “I--” she perked up and her brow crinkled as she looked at his face.

“What?” said Genji.

She brought her hand up and instinctively he leaned back, the exhaustion of the mission, that wariness from the dropship and Moira’s words still burning in his mind, but rather than reach out to him she touched her eyebrow in that same spot where he now had a scab on his own brow. “This is new,” she said.

“Mm,” he folded his arms, glancing off, “It’s nothing.”

Her shoulders slumped as her hand dropped from her brow, “Lucky shot?” she offered.

“Huh?” Genji’s eyes flicked back to her.

Mercy snorted a little, “It’s just... something McCree always said whenever he wound back in the infirmary. ‘It was a lucky shot,’ ‘Cheap shot,’ ‘not a fair fight,’ things like that...”

“It... wasn’t a fair fight,” Genji allowed, and something shifted in Mercy’s expression. That gentle, searching face that told him she wanted to help him but needed to know more. And he wanted to let her in but at the same time it felt like reopening wounds. Wounds he couldn’t put on her in good conscience. “I’ll be fine,” he added stiffly, “Still getting used to Overwatch missions. It’s not like the Shimada clan where...” he trailed off.

A pause passed between them.

“You get used to them,” said Mercy, “And from what I’ve heard from Jack, Reyes says you’re already doing well so---” her comm beeped and she checked it and sighed a little. “Ach.. Liao needs more follow-up. I need to get out to the training field. Why an AI expert is getting so fixated on flight systems... I’m a little scared to ask...”

“You should get going,” said Genji with a nod and a shrug.

She smiled a little, but that searching look didn’t leave her eyes. She turned to walk off but paused, “Well... if you’re up for it, I’m still making too much coffee down in the lab after hours,” she glanced down, smiling, “I wouldn’t mind some help with that.”

A soft, near-chuckling huff escaped him. “...I’d like that,” he said. She gave him a nod and walked off. The wing frames bobbed behind her slightly with her steps and as he watched her walk off, he felt some lingering relief coupled with and indescribable ache. There was a bit of victory in the idea that Moira was wrong, that he wasn’t playing wounded puppy, that simply Angela was someone he trusted and enjoyed spending time with, with no hope of anything else. He had no delusions of hope of anything else. That was what Moira didn’t understand about him.

We just talk, Genji thought again, watching Mercy walk off, That’s all.

#gency

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luna-melon · 4 years ago

Note

Mei from Overwatch!

How I feel about this character:

I frigging love Mei! Like, have you seen how adorable this woman is? I feel like she’s one of the more over-hated characters (Honestly, I don’t know why this is the case. Maybe for the memes?) which sucks because you’d think a character as Lawful Good as Mei would have more of a following. But that aside, Mei is one of my absolute favourite Overwatch characters, and one of the most satisfying to play as (at least in my opinion). I play her a lot less than I used to, unfortunately, but sometimes if I’m feeling particularly confident, I’ll switch to her and icicle-snipe some enemies.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

All the Mei ships are wonderful if you ask me, but some of my personal favourites are:

Snowangel (Mei/Mercy)- Liked this one right from the start, but the Overwatch 2 trailer just like... amplified my love for this pairing. It needs more content!

Zarymei (Mei/Zarya)- Not as into it as I used to be, but there’s something so appealing about the buffest gal and the softest gal being together.

Meihem (Mei/Junkrat) Just... conceptually this is great. I have no idea how it would happen but I’m glad it exists.

Freezehaw??? (Mei/Ashe) Look. What did you expect? It’s me. I’ll find a way to ship Ashe with everybody, Also yes I just pulled that ship name out of my ass because every Ashe ship has to be an awful yeehaw pun.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

I love her interactions with Tracer and Winston in the OW2 trailer. I hope Mei takes Winston up on his offer to spend the holidays with him, Tracer, and Emily because I’d love to see them all being pals together.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Not sure what to put here. I guess I never found the “Mei is the spawn of Satan” jokes funny. Probably because I’ve only had one encounter with a Mei who intentionally screwed our team over.

One thing I wish would happen/had happened with this character in canon:

I want to know more about her relationships with the other scientists in Antarctica, and how their deaths have affected her in the long run. They kinda touch on it in her animated short, and an in-game interaction she has with Moira, but I wouldn’t mind it being explored more in like, a comic or something.

#asks #thank you!#overwatch #mei #mei ling-zhou #snowangel #meihem #zarymei #freezehaw #also considered yeethaw #but it looked too much like yeet-haw #hoepunkausta

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moonbelt · 5 years ago

Text

»the moon, the sun

↳ ex-best-friends to lovers au | college athletes au

pairing » jeon jungkook | reader

genre » big angst + fluff + sexual themes

word count » 11.770

» there’s not a single thing you like about jungkook. no. not his jokes or his thinly veiled overwatch obsession or his supreme swimmers body. absolutely nothing. there is, however, a multitude of things you hate. wait, sorry that was rude, vehemently despise is better.

» mutual pining that could've been resolved if either of them exercised some basic communication skills lol, mild coarse language, lots of angst, cocky jjk but also crack jjk??, gamer memes, poufy haired jjk, also supposed hate-love relationship.

YOU ARRIVE AT THE SWIM CENTER WITH A THROB in your knee and a resounding ache in your head. It felt like your brain was about to explode into a thousand gory pieces as you pushed open the wide frost-tinted glass double doors that led to the locker rooms.

Now that would have been a great start to a low-budget horror flick. You could just picture it, a lonesome girl? No… Woman? At twenty, you weren’t sure if you still qualified as a girl but the term woman felt too formal, too stifling, too mature to be attributed to you. But whatever, that was semantics you could spare for another day.

So, there you’d be; creeping into a university swim center at the ass-crack of dawn and then bam! Your brain impedes on itself. Maybe it’s because of some mutant phenomenal viral disease, maybe it’s repercussions from tempering with a portal to the paranormal realm that only exists in semi-open pool arenas. Whatever it was, it would have to be epic and a far cry from the truth. Which was, you were used to indescribable, continuous pain. It came with the territory of being an athlete. If you didn’t wake up in the morning with some part of your body feeling uncomfortably off then that just meant you didn’t try as hard the day before. Or at the very least, that’s what you told yourself to keep going.

Yawning, you punched in your locker code and began the mental and physical process of getting ready for the next three hours of practice before break. You usually where the first one in the building and the last one to leave if you didn’t have classes or work.

Swimming made you feel good, made you feel like there was something special about yourself. It didn’t help that the more you practiced, the more you were able to outpace everyone else. Practice birthed results and your stubbornness, wait no, competitiveness was off the charts. So, of course, you wanted to dominate every single athlete in your division.

Still though, waking up at four in the morning had to be the singular dumbest thought you’d ever conceived.

Once you were suited up, you padded back into the arena that held the huge industrial sized swim pool. The overpowering smell of chlorine and humid air made you feel more at home than the dormitory you’d just left less than thirty minutes ago. You honestly might’ve started crying right then and there at the sight of the crystal clear water and the humongous life-sized painting of an unknown swimmer in the midst of a beautiful breaststroke at the center of it all.

Today was after all the first day of the semester. Your collegiate swimming career was finally back on. Your lips twinged at the sight of the polished, tiled floor and how it felt cool under the soles of your feet.

You’d gone back home for winter break and although you’d kept up with the training regime your coach had persistently emailed out, there was just something fundamentally different about being back on your own turf. In fact, you were fairly sure a few tears slipped past your barriers and hooked at the corners of your eyes at the thought. Only to be blasted into near oblivion by the sound of a phone camera going snap snap.

You whipped your head to the direction of the camera like a person possessed. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, My Zelda. This is glorious.” The goddamn stalker, wait he wasn’t a stalker if he was a member of the swim team. Right, the goddamn fiend had the guts and audacity to say with an open-mouthed grin marring his face. “You’re actually crying. There are literally tears in your eyes. I can see ‘em.”

“Screw off, Jeon.”

Him. The only other person dumb enough to be at the swimming center at five am. A full hour before the scheduled practice time. God, how long had he been watching you? And to think he even had time to whip out his phone and document this moment. You were never gonna live it down, that was for sure. You? Crying? Over – you took a grand look around your surroundings – water?

“It was only three weeks, you know. You wouldn’t die if you didn’t swim for a month or two.” He still found the whole scenario funny, if the laughter in his voice was any indication.

“Coming from someone that I doubt showers even once every three days? Yeah, I’ll pass on that lecture.”

“Ooh, a solid burn from the Ice Queen,” he clutched a hand to his chest like he’d been shot with a bazooka or something. Dramatic. “That one hurts my ego immensely.”

You snorted. It was debatable if anything could seriously damage Jeon Jungkook’s ego. That shit was built with solid uranium. No matter how you tried to smash it. He was his own number one supporter and he’d built himself up in his head that he was the greatest at whatever he laid his hands on. At that moment, however, you wanted to snatch the iPhone out of those deft hands of his and dig a well through his head with it. Couldn’t he go be great somewhere else?

Instead of replying and subsequently dragging out this conversation longer than necessary, you busied yourself with adjusting your swim cap and bringing your goggles to rest on the bridge of your nose.

It didn’t matter that Jungkook was here. It didn’t bother you one bit. It’s not like it was abnormal. You’d known him longer than you’d known anybody so of course you were used to his presence. Although you didn’t particularly like the fact that you’d known him almost your whole life. Or the fact that your body prickled with awareness every time he stepped into the nearest vicinity. You couldn’t control that. What you could control though, was how you felt about it.

And right now, you hated him. Wait, no hate was too strong a word, perhaps vehemently despise was more fitting.

You make your way to lane five, take a deep breath to calm your nerves and then dunk yourself into the ice cold water. Better to get it over with than squirm around the edges with him around. For Zelda’s sake, he has his phone camera on standby!

Yeah okay, you didn’t hate Jeon Jungkook; the son of a family friend that lived on the other side of the cul de sac. Instead, you vehemently despised the boy that was a walking, talking human critic. You bite your lip ferociously in a bid to punish the thought of Jungkook out of your mind. After a second or maybe three, you push into the water.

“Your shoulders look tense from up here... you’re so not gonna perform well if you don’t stretch that baby out.”

That’s the first thing you hear other than the rushing of water leaving your ears as your face breaks out against the surface of the pool. You jerk your goggles off your eyes, look up and scowl at him. Mr. I-Should-Basically-Be-A-Coach-With-All-These-Pointers-I-Give.

“I am not tense.”

“Yeah, no. You don’t have to lie about that. I could legit see your muscles almost cramping up down there.”

“Are you really going to stand up there and pretend we have some kind of mentor-mentee relationship going on? Seriously? It’s five in the morning, Jeon.”

You could clearly see the wheels in his head turning and then zeroing in on the one word you shouldn’t have said. Relationship. Gah, you need a chastity belt for your lips. His eyes basically sparkle with rays of mischief and a dash of mastered superiority. “Well, I am seven months older, so when you think about it that way it’s only natural that I take you under my wing and —”

“I swear to you, I will physically break your knee caps —”

“Wait,” he looks genuinely confused, perfect lips pouting. “What do you mean by physically? Is there any other way to break a knee?”

Ugh! You stare at him and he stares right back, cocking his head to the side like he can do this all day. You want to scream, hell maybe even shapeshift into a fucking banshee and scream the roof off this building.

And then his mouth curves into a roguish smirk. The type he reveals when he manages to squeak by a better time than you or like that one time (okay maybe five?) that he got randomly stopped by some modeling agency recruiter when your parents had forced the two of you to carpool to swim meets back when you were a tad younger and he was the only one with a car. The smirk that just screams ‘I’m getting under your skin, aren’t I? And dude, it feels fan-fucking-tastic.’

“Get a life, Jeon. Or better yet, get in the water. It’s only been three weeks, no way you suck even worse than usual after that. I mean, by fuck, it hasn’t even been a month!” You twist his words back at him and then feel proud about it. So what, you are competitive and you hold grudges. There could be worse things.

His smirk deepened and okay, you won’t lie to yourself. He is attractive. Critically so. It would be hard not to notice that. It’s a continual and conscious effort to even attempt to un-notice it. But still, moments like these when the fluorescent lights beamed on his face at just the right angle and the shadows cut across his features and illuminated his golden skin to the heavens, boosting his overall aura like he was some sort of reincarnated god of beauty. Or worse, a Final Boss that you had to most certainly defeat. It became increasingly hard not to notice how much he affected you and your breathing.

Yeah, it’s in these moments that your better judgement faults and for a split second you are transported to that one November night in the middle of eleventh grade when fuck no! Absolutely not! You refuse to walk that horrendous trip down memory lane and relive one of the most humiliating, and this is coming from a girl that threw up because of nerves in front of judges at a talent show, experiences of your life. This was not the time.

“Your shoulders are still stiff as a board. Tell me, child, have you gotten laid recently?”

You let out the most frustrated sound of agony you could muster. You’re going to murder him. Forget you being the star in some crazy horror film, you were going to be the director. And you were gonna serve up a mean case of Deck Jungkook’s Ass With Supernatural Intervention as the main course. Maybe you’d win an Oscar for it. Heck, maybe you’d get a home run and even win Best Picture.

He chuckles like he’s cracked the greatest joke since Netflix Original Films. You’re too busy orchestrating a slugfest in your head to really pay attention. “I’ll take that as a negative.”

You barely manage to spit out a dignified response. “One of these days I’m going to seriously maim you.”

“Tsk tsk, you and your threatening bodily harm tendencies. I wonder if that’s like a kink thing?” He asks as he taps his chin with his forefinger and squats down to a level that is closer to you. His dark brown hair that looks almost a shade of black sways like a river to his beat. This is much better, it hurt your neck staring up at him like he was some guardian deity.

But the action happens to highlight the ridiculous tightening of his abs. The abs you’ve painstakingly not ogled at because they are sculpted beauties. Hell, you’ve yet to meet a swimmer's body that isn’t the epitome of fitness but Jungkook’s is different. He is carved. Probably why you don’t like looking at it, stare too much and he might notice and of course, you wouldn’t want that happening.

“Jeon?”

“Hmm?” He sounds so innocent. The liar.

“Shut up before I drown you. I don’t care how long you can hold your breath. I will send you down to hell personally.”

He wiggled his eyebrows like the concept of hell was all he’d ever wanted to discuss in life. “Does that mean you’d be coming with? Fascinating. Let’s make a road trip out of it. Maybe you’ll even find some demons down to fuck all that tension out of your body. You know, DDTF. Get your exophilia on, if that’s your thing.”

Exo-what?

Beat. He’s beaten you at your own game. How the heck are you supposed to reply something snarky when all he ever does is blow the thing to epic proportions and have you running in circles. This is why the best strategy was just to simply ignore him.

You shoot him one last look that you hope is as menacing as it ought to be. You yank your goggles from resting on your forehead and dunk them in the water to get the fog out. Placing it back gingerly across your eyes, you let take in a soothing breath.

“I am serene. I am calm. There is nothing around me in existence that bothers me. I am the pinnacle of collected.” You refrain from adding tense-free.

There’s no way you’re tense after running the three and a half miles between your dorm and the swim center. You repeat the words aloud twice before you actually believe them. And then you tear back into the water. You still have roughly thirty minutes before the rest of the team comes in for practice. You’ll be damned spending all your time talking to the fool with shaggy hair and a crooked smile that made you want to burn something.

The only sound other than the whoosh in your ears and the rapid pumping of your heart as you exert yourself is the uncanny, blistering laughter of Jeon Jungkook. At least someone was enjoying your torment.

You swore at that moment that you were going to deck him someday. Even if it was the last thing you ever did. Maybe not even physically, gah, but you were going to get a time so fast, so unbelievably better that Jungkook would be dumbstruck in awe and lagging to catch up. You grin at the thought.

By the time practice comes to an end, your knee has migrated from a troublesome ache to a colossal titan. Dragging your body out of the water proves to be much a greater task that you previously took for granted. You try and fail to hold back your groans as you attempt to not limp back to the locker rooms and take a shower. Also, you need a painkiller stat.

The coach is too busy being circled by the hyena pack that is freshmen to really pay any attention to you. However, you know better than to think you’ve slipped past his radar. He’s definitely going to catch you sometime later to rim your ass for going too hard the first day of the semester. You guess that makes him a great coach in the grand scheme of things but you’d rather he let you be.

“Your knee acting up again?” Your lane buddy and a veteran senior in the program, Seokjin asks as he saddles up next to you and rips the navy blue swim cap off his head. You fear a little bit for his hair. “I thought doc cleared it?”

You sigh, not really wanting to remember last year when the university-affiliated doctor told you that you needed to take three months off swimming to heal and you’d barely lasted two weeks without going insane. You shiver at the horror of it all as you wrap your Legend of Zelda limited edition Link towel around your dripping body.

“Yeah, he did.” You send him a smile that comes off like a wince and then you give up on trying to downplay the pain altogether. “Guess it’s just not doing so hot today.”

Seokjin nods solemnly like he understands. “Some days are worse than others. I get that.”

“It be like that. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you think you’d be set for March though? Coach’s probably going to start analyzing his final picks for the comp.”

Ugh, Goddess of the Sea take me now! The National Collegiate Swim Competition is an annual event held every March and even though you’d made the cut as a naïve freshman, a knee injury caused you to be sidelined in your second year. But now though, you have to get on the final lineup. An absolute must.

Your cold heart won’t take it to be on the stands watching your teammates accomplish something you dreamed of. Something you’d worked and sacrificed so much for. You won’t stand to watch Jungkook rub it in your face how he’d come in a mere 0.6 seconds away from the first position. And you definitely won’t stand to have another year put on hold when your dream is literally right in front of you.

You bite out a laugh that sounds foreign even to your own ears. God, your knee is killing you. “You know what they say about pain.”

Seokjin gives you a quizzical look. Like he, in fact, has no idea what you mean. And you’re about to launch into a tirade about exercise mottos when you feel a tall presence step up behind you. You don’t even have to turn around to know it’s him. Of course, it’s him. Who else would encroach in on your personal space without a second thought?

“She means she’s gonna push through her limping and her tense as fuck shoulders and pull a win out of her ass. Don’t you,” the way he says your name is so patronizing, so unbelievably condescending that you whip your head up to glare at him.

“That’s impossible. If anyone knows how to take care of their body and not push their limits to insanity it’s Y/N.” Seokjin appears appalled that Jungkook would even think of such a thing. But Jungkook knows you better than anyone, albeit hatefully.

“Mm-hm. You doubt how crazy obsessed she is with winning.”

“Says you,” you spit out but it lacks your usual snark.

In truth, maybe Jungkook was right about your shoulders not being as stretched out as they should’ve been. They feel sore and they almost gave out on you during a lap. You were basically running on guts and mental fortitude for the last four laps. But you’d rather swallow butcher knives than admit that aloud for his ears to hear.

Seokjin is oblivious to the simmering tension between the two of you. Instead, he turns to you with so much concern sweeping through his posture it makes you uncomfortable and yet happy at the same time. “Take care of yourself, Y/N. There’s no point in winning if your body crashes on you, yeah?”

You know he means well and it’s not like you like lying to your senior but you know he just won’t get where you’re coming from. “Yeah,” you stare down at the suddenly interesting aqua-tiled floor.

He pats your shoulder once before he turns down the other way to the male locker rooms leaving you and Jungkook alone. You’re about to go on your own merry way — agonizingly slow of course, when a hand latches to your upper arm and stops you.

You swear you shouldn’t feel anything but your skin almost scorches at the contact. Your brain is divided: a part of you wants him to never let go, while the other half can’t get away from him fast enough. You don’t breathe, heck you don’t even move.

“Winning isn’t everything.”

You don’t mean to — truly, you don’t — but a scoff slips out of your lips before you even register it. “Coming from the golden boy that basically has a clear shot at making the lineup? Yeah, I won’t drink to that anytime soon.”

Jungkook uses his free hand to run through his hair like a maniac. And you entertain the idea that perhaps you really do get under his skin as much as he does you. The thought elates you and dilutes the throbbing in your knee to a lesser degree. He’s your biggest tormentor and you can only dream to be the same thing for him. Equivalent exchange and all that jazz.

He clicks his tongue at you and somehow that infuriates you even more. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Ruin your body for all I care.” He lets go of your arm like it’d be painful to hold it any longer. He pulls at the towel he has around his shoulders so hard that even you feel the burn and then he drapes it over his head, effectively blocking you out.

A forgotten part of you wonders why he’s so concerned about your body anyway. It’s not like he should care at all.

The two of you aren’t friends. Once upon a time that wasn’t the case but you aren’t one to cry over spilled milk much less bemoan over it. But it still rubs you some kind of way that Jungkook thinks it’s normal to voice his concern to you. The two of you are not close like that. At least, not anymore.

You scowl to yourself as you weave your way back to the locker room. You’re not much of a talker but you wave back at a few of the girls that bother to look your way. And spend a good ten minutes talking to a freshman about how she needs to stop holding her breath for long periods because all that does is make you dizzy and liable to pass out. After all that, it’s no wonder that you’re the last one out of the showers.

Tugging your baby blue beanie tight across your forehead, you curse yourself for forgetting to pack your knee brace when you left your dorm this morning. But whatever, you’ll push through it. You always do.

What you’re not expecting is to see a lithe body resting on the bench right outside the swim center. And it strikes you as odd that you immediately know in your gut that it’s Jungkook. Even though you’re too chicken now to admit it, there was a time when you’d engraved his whole body into your mind like he was a science project you were desperately in need of completing. Although his body has since gained more muscle mass and reduced way more body fat, it’s still him. No matter how hard you try to burn him out of your memory, he never leaves. You fear your only remedy might be self-induced amnesia.

What you’re not expecting is for that body clad snugly in black sweatpants, a really oversized navy sweatshirt that has ‘I AM NOT GONNA BE MERCY’ branded in fine print across his chest, and a beanie that suspiciously matches the one on your own head, to turn up and catch your gaze like he knows you’ve been staring.

You blink once and then twice and then once more just to be sure. Weird. You have no idea why he’s waiting out here and you’re even more confused as to why he owns a beanie that looks way too much like yours to be a coincidence. You shift your gaze to the sidewalk, debating if it’s worth it to strike a conversation with him. All it will do is leave you irritated, so you decide to continue to your dorm instead. Screw him and whatever he’s out in this cold as shit weather for.

“What? You’re just gonna ignore me now?”

Huffing, you pretend he’s not matching his strides to your sluggish pace.

“This is cold, even for you.”

Maybe if you keep quiet he’ll think you’ve gone magically inept in the span of forty minutes?

“You know I thought I was doing a good thing by waiting for you.”

That gets you to break your mental battle. “I didn’t ask you to do that, Jeon.”

“I know that. But what if you slid across the pavement and went straight to the dimension of hell? I have to be there for that.” He sounds genuinely invested in the matter at hand.

“I can still walk perfectly fine, thank you very much.” You almost smack your head dead against the stoned ground when your foot snags a loose edge of the sidewalk. Fuck.

“Pfft.” He’s barely holding in his laughter but you don’t cower. Har-dee-har-har. You don’t need him breathing down your neck thinking he’s doing you a favor or anything.

You don’t need pity parties hosted by Jeon Jungkook. Not again. Not after that one night that you thought was perfect and monumental when in reality all it really was a blip in his radar. You’re nothing special, or at least Jungkook thought so. It’s been years since then but that’s the funny thing about pain. It doesn’t just die down because you refuse to think about it. It simmers, it boils, it festers. Pain is a living, breathing monster and simply because you don’t devote time to it doesn’t mean it’s not taking up space under your bed.

But you are not going to think about it. Because you are definitely over it. Yep. That was it. You are over your ex-best friend and you are happy... Bah, what-fucking-ever.

Maybe he realizes that you’re not in the mood for the snark he would normally throw your way because the walk back to your dorm is relatively quiet after that. This is the most civil the two of you have been in a long while. Most of times the both of you are too busy making jabs at each other. But you’d noticed that ever since your accident last year that busted your knee, he’s been different.

You’ve yet to decide if that difference is for good or bad but it doesn’t matter because you’re back at your dormitory which means you get to sleep the rest of the day before work. Yes, maybe there is a God.

“Look, take care of yourself, okay?”

You stop on the stone steps to take him in. His hands stuffed deep in his pockets, the January chill making the tip of his nose bright red but his eyes don’t hold the same mischievous fight as before. He’s determined. You know him well enough to know that.

“I’m not going to die climbing up some stupid stairs.”

He shakes his head. Guess he’s not up for jokes then. “I mean it,” he breathes your name out with so much seriousness it stuns you. “You can be cruel to me. You can be angry at me. But don’t take it out on your body. Just... don’t.”

What does he know about cruelty? He knows not jack shit about cruelty. Cruelty was a seventeen-year-old girl waxing poetic love to a boy that she thought hung the moon, the stars and the sun only for him to trample over it just because. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was the timing, maybe it was every fucking thing in between but that night had been a changing point. Horror movies weren’t half as scary as being rejected by your best friend since before you were five and not know why. Cruelty was not whatever this limbo you and Jungkook had. You’d experienced cruelty and that was far worse.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do. Not then and certainly not now.”

Pushing your body to its limits is something you have to do. Getting better at swimming is something you would die trying to attain. Not because you particularly love swimming all that much but rather because it’s the one thing, the only thing that you really do believe you can beat Jungkook in. The only thing you can compete with him and with hard work win. You have to win. You can’t stand being second place next to him. It makes you want to gag. It makes you revert back to that seventeen-year-old girl you thought you’d killed off in your origin story.

Pathetic, you think to yourself. But you won’t stop because you’ve already come so far.

You rush up the stairs and into the dorm like lightning. You’re so quick that you don’t even feel any twinge of pain ricocheting from your knee or anywhere else to be honest. You’re a running painkiller. You haul ass all the way to your room and it’s only when you’ve locked the door and released the longest sigh of your whole adult life that it hits you.

And here’s another thing about pain: it always comes rushing back.

If it’s even possible, over the next few weeks your knee becomes even worse of a problem. Waking up in the morning becomes more of a drag than usual, you can barely walk to your classes much less the swim center without your brace on and then perform a Mission Impossible skit so that the rest of the team doesn’t see the brace dangling in your locker. You’re seriously considering ripping the whole joint out. For Zelda’s sake, it has to hurt significantly less, right?

To make matters worse you’re basically lying out of your ass to Seokjin and the rest of the team that your knee is not bothering you one bit. You’re such a liar, someone needs to lock you up for it. But it’s already the end of February and you can already taste the end of it all. All you need to do is hold on by the skin of your teeth for the next couple of days and then you’ll be free. Sure, rationally you know you’re not swimming your best right now but that does nothing to deter you from what you’ve set your mind on.

“Hey, Y/N,” the voice of the Student Assistant, Namjoon stops you in your attempt to blend in with the other swim members exiting the building after a rather rough day. “You came in later than usual today. Something up?”

Namjoon is an amazing guy. Attentive but not too overbearing. A great listener but he doesn’t go overboard with trying to get you to confess your deep, darkest fears to him. But even with knowing all of this, you still don’t want to tell him a thing. You know he’ll understand, that’s not the problem. The problem is, he would seriously blow it out of proportion. All you want to do is head home, nap for a good hour or three and then head to your afternoon class and get back to crashing. Was that too much to ask?

“Yeah, I’m great. Just a little tired.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, flipping through the sheet on his clipboard. “Hmm, your times been dropping since last week. You sure everything’s fine?”

Fuck. You fumble thinking of an answer, your eyes skittering around the tiled floor till you look up and lock on Jungkook staring right back. He’s a few feet away near the front door discussing with one of the assistant coaches but for some reason, his big, brown eyes are glued to your frame. An inane section of your brain wants to beg him to come over and rescue you from lying so horribly to Namjoon. While another insane part of you wants to sneer at him and tell him to stop freaking looking at you when you’re at your worst.

“I... uh,” you stutter and return your attention back to the kind senior in front of you. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Namjoon cocks an eyebrow at you, disbelieving. “Is it your knee? We could get the team doctor — ”

Your eyes widen in alarm and you stumble away from him, your thoughts passing the point of loudness and encroaching into deafness. No way. There’s no way you’re going to let him bring up your injury and then take it up with the other coaches because you know — deep in your bones — that if he does that you won’t make the cut for the lineup talk less of being able to just attend practice. You’d be kept on the side like an invalid.

Hate.

You hate it. Your stupid knee, the stupid way you were running late to practice almost a full year ago and then proceeded to fall down a flight of stairs and dislocate your knee so bad that when the seasons shift from sunny to cloudy, your knee throbs like an ingrained weather alert.

You hate how much the pain makes you want to cry. You hate yourself for pushing yourself, even more, when you know you shouldn’t. You hate how everyone is so damn concerned about you like you somehow deserve it. You hate that you don’t deserve their kindness, not when every other athlete next to you is getting better and better by the second and you don’t want to be left behind.

“Bro, she’ll be fine.” You don’t realize your savior and yet tormentor has weaseled his way into the conversation until you you hear the soft timbre of his voice. He stands so close to you that you smell the sweet scent of vanilla from his clothes. “I mean, look at her. Her technique is still kicking ass, no one can touch her when it comes to form.”

Lips wobbling a little under the pressure of your teeth, you peer up at him. Your mind running a mile a minute trying to place what his endgame is. Why is he here? What does he think he’s doing?

Namjoon laughs, his features becoming even more stunning with the action and you glance away from Jungkook. There’s no way he bought that blatant form of flattery. “That is true. Y/N has the best technique in the program right now. Probably best in the state.”

Lies. You know there’s talk about some super senior at a neighboring powerhouse school being the best in your division. But your mind is clogged up with your loud thoughts that you don’t say anything to refute his claim.

“Anyways, let me know if you need anything, ‘Kay?” Namjoon demands your attention. “Take it easy and rest up this weekend.”

You nod profusely and Namjoon smiles at the action like your adorable. You frown at that. And then he’s gone and you’re stuck with Jungkook and the thoughts clamoring around in your head.

“I didn’t need you to save me. Or lie for me.”

“Sure,” he says but his eyes say something different. That maybe if you really didn’t want his help you shouldn’t have looked at him like a deer in headlights practically begging the floor to swallow you up. “And I wasn’t lying. You do have a better technique.”

You roll your shoulders, ignoring the praise. “Seriously. I was fine.”

“Fine my ass,” he mutters, pushing past your body and heading outside the door.

“I didn’t need your help and I don’t owe you —” The frigid air whips across your cheeks so hard that you have to stop and close your eyes for a beat. When you peel them back open you find Jungkook looking down at you without something akin to disappointment swimming in his eyes. “What?”

He stares at you for what seems like an eternity. You try not to break away from his gaze but your eyes skittle across his outfit. The beanie on his head that outrageously still looks similar to the one you have on, his grey padded jacket and a similar shade of sweatpants. And by the time your eyes reach back to his face, his focus has diverted to glaring needles at your knee.

“What?” You repeat, this time though you’re whispering like you might not like what he will say next.

“I don’t get it. You of all people know how horrible last year was. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

You suck in a deep breath, not wanting to relive your sophomore year. “Why do you care?”

“Why?” Jungkook practically stutters at the question, his already big doe eyes transforming into the size of craters. “Are you trying to prove something? To who? Me?”

“I don’t care about you, Jeon. And I don’t need to prove any single thing to you. You’re dead to me.”

“You think that by carrying this invisible burden and pushing yourself to the point of borderline insanity you’re going to get better? That you won’t burnout? That somehow you’re going to get back at me? After you’ve ruined your knee and not only ruined your chances at swimming competitively ever again but just in general? You think you’d finally feel like you’ve served me a hot plate of revenge?”

There’s no reason for him to be able to see right through you so easily. There’s no reason for him to know how stupid this whole thing is and how really the only one suffering is you. Always you. Only you. Alone.

Jungkook’s face twists into a vision of pain and you’re stunned into silence. It’s like you can tell how much your disregard for your own body is affecting him when it shouldn’t. He’s your self-proclaimed enemy that was once your friend. You shouldn’t feel like you’re hurting him more than yourself.

You don’t even feel the lone tear that slips past your walls and slides down your cheek until he moves closer and uses a smooth thumb to wipe it away. Dammit, you’re better than this.

“Not everything is about you, Jungkook.” But right now it is. For you, it is.

He nods his head once. The pain that was painted on his face morphing into something you can’t discern but his thumb doesn’t lift from your face. Instead, the rest of his fingers cradle the side of your face like they’re protecting you. You inflate at the action. After several seconds, they’re gone.

“I should go,” he states matter-of-factly.

Don’t, you want to say but the words live and die in your throat You know if you start you’d say too much. “Yeah.”

Even though you want him to make up some silly excuse as to why he has to walk you home. Like maybe you’d slip and knock yourself into the netherworld. He does nothing of that sort. He puffs out his cheeks; resembling a bunny, and then he sends you a wary smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

For the first time in ages, you don’t like the sight of his retreating back. For the first time in a long time, you don’t even have the energy to pledge eternal damnation to Jeon Jungkook. All you want to do is ask him why. Why were you not enough? Why did he hand you back your heart when all you wanted was for him to keep it. And why did he suddenly do a one-eighty in college, resorting to snide comments and remarks that make you boil but also instill air into your lungs like you are finally breathing again? Why does it seem like he still cares?

You’re on a mission to drown out everything that has to do with Jeon Jungkook. You don’t like that he has created a rupture in your stratosphere. You don’t like that you’re realizing that you’ve been waging a war but not against Jungkook like you’d originally perceived. Now now that you think about it, when has he really been a rival? You’ve really only been fighting yourself.

The two of you aren’t even in the same category. You don’t even specialize in the same swimming techniques. And now that you’re seriously going through it, has he ever really been conceited about getting better times? All he ever did was point out things you were doing off and even though you hated it, it wasn’t like he was lying.

You’re one step away from your dorm when your phone buzzes with a flurry of text messages. It’s from the swim team group chat for juniors and seniors.

Taehyung: It’s the weekend mi amigos *dancing emoji*

Vivian: whatever you’re thinking... it’s gonna be a no! from me! also i thought u were sick?

Taehyung: aw come on i havent even said anything yet

Taehyung: not! sick! it was just the flu

Seokjin: flu is a sickness, no?

Vivian: im so tired dudes,, im not going out with y’all to get smashed

Nathan: im down

Taehyung: yes!!!!

Taehyung: guys i promise! you’ll love me for it. a friend of a friend is hosting a party on Greek row. Let’s GO!!

Vivian: it’s not like we’re the only friends you have. ask someone else dude

Before you even think about it, you’re typing a response.

You: I’ll come. We don’t have training tmr so...

Taehyung: OMFG

Nathan: i had no idea you were in the chat lol

Vivian: rude. if y/n’s going then maybe she’ll keep Tae’s head on straight

Seokjin: don’t know if JK’s down but I’ll drag him out if I have to.

You: don’t do that.

Taehyung: why? don’t you guys have that whole foreplay thing going on or?????

You: WHAT

Vivian: wait i might come after all

Seokjin: Tae, leave it alone.

Taehyung: okay but it’s not my fault they both barely look at anyone other than themselves during practice. i can’t be the only one that noticed them basically eye-fucking each other all day everyday

Nathan: i second that

Vivian: ... sorry, y/n. but i third that

Seokjin: GUYS. if she leaves the chat because y’all can’t keep your mouth shut istg,,

Nathan: wait is jungkook reading this?

God, how you want the whole universe to open up and swallow you whole. Your phone feels like a hot potato in your hands. You throw the wretched thing into the back of your jeans pocket and blink over and over again as you rush into your dorm and up the elevator.

It takes the rest of the day to calm your cheeks from splitting from humiliation or embarrassment, it’s a close tie. You don’t pay attention in class, you can barely nap without the words blinking at the back of your eyelids like neon target signs.

Foreplay? Foreplay?!

You almost spontaneously combust.

You hear the telltale sound of a key unlocking your dorm room door and you hightail out of the ensuite bathroom before you can even think.

“Foreplay?!” You all but scream at your roommate and fellow swim team member, Vivian.

At the very least she looks sheepish, smiling nervously as she pushes a piece of her coiled hair behind her ear. “I thought you knew. I mean, everyone talks about it.”

“What about me wanting to rip his ass from his hole screams foreplay to anyone?!”

She shrugs, her lilac sweater falling down one brown shoulder. “I don’t know, it’s kinda sexy.” She drops her backpack on the only sofa and turns back to you. “He’s the only one you really talk to in the team so, everyone just kinda assumed y’all were either a has-been or a to-be couple.”

Wheezing, you lock your arms defiantly across your chest. “I don’t like him.”

“Yeah, okay.” Vivian laughs, unconvinced for some reason.

“I’m not kidding. He’s annoying. Always breathing down my neck like he’s my personal trainer or something. Any time I do a thing it’s like he has to say something in response, you know. I don’t hate him but I don’t... I don’t like like him.”

“Do you think he’s attractive?”

“Everyone does.”

She smirks at you like she’s caught you dead in a trap. “And you?”

You bite your lip. It’s not worth the hassle to lie. “A little bit. A teeny-tiny bit.”

“What about him do you think is attractive? And don’t mention his thighs because we all know those are in a different league of their own.”

That gets a laugh out of you. Vivian’s mouth widens at the sound. You realize then that maybe, just maybe, you’ve been hoarding things in for too long. And you appreciate Vivian because she’s always been nice and has tolerated your one-worded answers and four am showers like a champ. You want to give her an award or something.

You lean against the wall and think about her question. “Well, in a way his nagging and pushing my buttons can be seen as being attentive? I mean, he notices things about me that I don’t. And I’ve been… thinking that maybe he’s not really all that bad like I conjured up in my head.” More than that, before everything turned to shit, you thought he was the kindest, funniest person in the galaxy.

“Well, I’m no team Jungkook,” she snickers at her own Twilight reference and your lips tilt up as well. “And I won’t pretend to know what’s gone on between you and him. But whatever it is, maybe y’all just need to, like, talk it out.”

“I—”

Vivian shushes you. “You know I’m right.” She sashays to her room door and then turns back to you. “We’re going to go to Taehyung’s friend of a friend’s frat party and you’re gonna get the liquid courage to talk to him. I think everyone on the team would appreciate the whole sexual tension going on between the two of you finally being exiled into the cosmos.”

Cosmos?

You’re not really sure what happens after that. You let Vivian convince you to trade your comfortable sweatpants for an A-line skirt, tights and a stylish sweater that you’d bought on a whim. At least if you’re going to really say screw all and go for this party, you refuse to be a shivering mess.

Even though Greek Row is truly not that far from your dorm, you let Vivian drive the two of you over. She talks about everything and anything and it feels like it’s been forever since you hung out with anyone that wasn’t during scheduled practice and workout sessions.

Hell, what have you been doing for the last four years? Being obsessed with results that apparently your arch-nemesis doesn’t even care about?

Vivian tells you about the dude she’s dating and how he’s on the university’s volleyball team. You’re more surprised than you should be. You can’t believe you’ve been roommates with her for almost two years and you barely know anything about her other than surface-level shit. Oh, Zelda, this is one big bitch of an awakening.

“I’m sorry,” you say sincerely as she puts the car in park aways from the actual fraternity building. The entire street is blocked up with cars so it was hard to find any space. “For being here and yet not really at the same time.”

Thankfully, Vivian doesn’t make you sweat. “S’cool. Everyone’s got their own shit.”

“I’ve been really shitty lately.”

“Hmm, well, we can get drunk off our asses and feel really shitty together?” You decide then and there that she is amazing and only the devil will be able to pry this budding friendship out of your cold hands.

You find out that Vivian is very skilled at mixing drinks. It takes barely half an hour for you to start feeling a buzz and by your third round of whatever she stirs for you, you’ve straight up arrived at the land of Drunkenville: population; one. You’re busy debating with her and her boyfriend about how sports anime is simply the best branch of cinema to have ever been created and the one sub-genre that truly speaks about the resilience of the human spirit when you feel a heavy arm wrap around your shoulders.

“Y/N,” the voice all but screams in your ear. You hazily look up to see Taehyung’s chiseled face smiling down at you. And even your intoxicated self can tell that he’s pregamed the fuck out of this night already. “I brought lil Jungkookie for you. At first, he was all blah blah not going but when I said you were going to be here. Boi jumped like a fish in water.”

Taehyung laughs and you laugh with him, not really sure if you get the joke but happy nonetheless that he’s happy.

“‘Sup Viv and Viv’s boyfriend,” he salutes them and weirdly enough, Vivian’s boyfriend doesn’t take offense. He salutes back.

Vivian rolls her eyes but then she clasps two strong hands across your shoulders, effectively washing away the tipsy gaze from your eyes for a moment. “Now, listen. You’re going to find Jungkook and let him know how you really feel. Use all this liquid courage and let him have it. And you shouldn’t care that we’re at a party because almost everyone is drunk anyway.

And if that goes to shit and you want out of this place, don’t you dare even think of walking home, okay? You look for me. Don’t think I haven’t seen you limping your way across the dorm like a crazy bitch. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have the right. But so help me, if you so much as think of walking back I will ... I don’t know what I will do but you won’t like it! So go find Jungkook and do us all a favor and end this eternal foreplay.”

Foreplay... that damned word again. It overrides your brain system and makes you think of things you shouldn’t want. But you’re stupidly confident right now. Hell, your knee hasn’t really been bothering you since you woke up from your nap. The alcohol in your blood is dancing to its own beat and it’s lighting your system on fire.

If not now then when?

You have a gazillion and one questions to ask Jungkook. Questions you’ve kept silenced and bottled down in your heart for years. Questions that keep you up at night. And maybe its because the last month and a half has made you question everything about yourself and your ethic and your predicament, you know you have to do this now.

Fuck it. Who cares if you become the source of this boorish party’s entertainment like a walking cliché? It’s not like you’d remember anything that happens here and you only know a handful of people. Embarrassment? You don’t know her. Not today.

You find him in the basement with a cup of something near his booted feet and his gleaming eyes transfixed on the TV in front of him. His tongue poking a hole in cheek. There’s a small crowd of people around him and you take one glance at the screen and see that he’s playing Super Smash. Of course. He looks beautiful like this. Different than the last time you saw him and better because he doesn’t have that look of agony coloring his eyes.

You could probably spend a whole day just looking at him. Taking in the man that’s grown from the boy you once knew and called your own. His body is a work of art and ought to be chiseled and crafted like the sculptures of the Renaissance era. If you were any good a sculptor, you would’ve done just that. Instead, you commit him to memory. Because even though it is possible that neither of you likes each other anymore, you want to remember this.

He looks perfect like this. Happy. Not distressed and sad like when you’d confessed to him. When you had laid your heart bare before him and he didn’t even react. You wish you could say he had pried your heart out of your hands and ripped it to shreds. But that wasn’t the case. Your heart hadn’t shattered by his blatant rejection. It had melted.

You watch as his character, Link, of course, K.O’s his opponent and Player 2 Victory flashes on the television screen. He wins. Like always. You don’t feel mad like you usually do. Maybe you’ve finally accepted that there are just some things you can’t win no matter how steadfast and committed you are.

Jungkook looks up from his controller, pumping his fist in the air, his long, dark hair flopping around his face like a curtain. Your veins practically burst with electricity when his smiling eyes notice yours in the corner like you knew they would. The smile dims and you expect that. You’re not asking for a love to cure all epidemics or a lie to burn your body to ash. You just want to move on. To finally escape the purgatory you’ve put yourself in.

“We need to talk,” you try to say as loud as you can but the cheers and conversations of the people around you drown you out.

Somehow in someway, he hears you and nods his head. Maybe he’s a glutton for pain like you. He scoots out of the loveseat, standing to his full height and making pleasant excuses to his newly acquired friends that you don’t know. Maybe it’s the fake courage but you don’t take your gaze away from him. You’re going to do this. You have to — you suck in a huge breath — you must.

Once he steps into your bubble of personal space, the rest of the world fizzles out.

“This is a bundle of firsts, Ice Queen. You? At a party and instigating a conversation with me first? Damn, did you get a taste of hell without me videoing?”

“You always joke about everything,” you decide to bite the bullet. “I used to find that really cute.”

Alcohol o’ alcohol, why hath thou forsaken me? You almost look up to the heavens and question what possessed you to drink so much but then you rehear Vivian’s speech in your head and you find your resolve and strangle it.

Jungkook’s eyebrows fly up like he’s not quite prepared for this. “Wait, what are you... Are you drunk right —”

“I’m not good with words. And I’ve always sucked at speaking my mind and being thoughtful and generally being a good person. Like you,” you smile sadly when you remember the first time you ever made a friend; the boy in front of you that had offered you to come over sometime and play his GameCube with him when his older siblings were too busy to hang with him. “I’m passive at best when it comes to anything that’s not swimming. And even that, you got me into it. You were the reason I started it. You know this, I would’ve rather died than engage in anything that made me exert energy. But you made it fun until I genuinely loved it.”

“That’s not,” Jungkook shakes his head adamantly. “That’s—”

You shoot him a look. “Let me finish okay? I have this whole thing in my head and ... please, just let me say it.”

You hadn’t realized the curious looks the people around had been shooting your way until you see Jungkook scowl at any and every one before he intertwines your hands with his and pulls you out of the basement in a swift motion. You don’t mind the giddy feeling enveloping your chest at the sight of your fingers wrapped around each other. A part of you actually loves how cocooned it makes you feel. You want to bottle this feeling up and bathe in it.

He must be overfamiliar with the frat house because he leads you expertly into a room at the end of the hallway on the first floor. He shuts the door and then locks it. For a minute, he stares at your locked hands and you wonder if he feels the same pull you do. If he’s ever felt the same pull you do.

“When I handed you my heart and my everything, why didn’t you want it? Why did you act like I had committed a grievous crime against you and your glorious self?”

There. You’ve gone and said the thing. The biggest question that has plagued your mind for months and years. If your best friend didn’t even find value in you then really, was there any to begin with?

Jungkook lets out a heavy sigh that careens his shoulders down as if he’s carrying the weight of the world. A sigh so deep that it shakes his body from the vibrations visible through his black tee, and crashes into your soul. He closes his eyes for his barely a second but you wish he’d just spit it out. Pour acid on your wounds so you can feel the fire of a thousand suns and finally, fucking finally move on. Baptism by fire they call it but what you want is a goddamn exorcism.

“You thought I shat gold and that I hung the moon and that I was this perfect person when I’m not. I mean, have you listened to yourself? You think you’re a bad person because all you’ve ever done is compare me to you. But it was you and me. Not either or.

You think I really love swimming when you’re not the one egging me on? Pushing me to be better? You think I would’ve let you confess your magnificent love for me and then accept it when every sentence you said contrasted you from me. Pitted you against me? I’m competitive, you’re competitive but I didn’t think you needed competition when it came to that. You’d already won. And then I had this crazy stupid idea that maybe just being friends with you would work. I mean, love isn’t something you need to fight yourself bloody and dead for. Why would I accept this really amazing love from someone that was going to feel less than me and feel like shit for it?”

“So, what were you gonna do? Just wait till I up and decided that I was insecure and didn’t have a major inferiority complex I had no idea about?” Your sober thoughts vomit out of your mouth with impressive speed.

“I was still your friend,” Jungkook almost yells and out of his aggravation, his hands slip out of yours. The loss is staggering. He jabs his index finger into his chest. “I did everything I could do to still be your friend. But you wouldn’t talk to me. And I get that we were sixteen and there were so many ways we could’ve done better but you shut me out.”

“No, I…” You begin to say but the words die in your mouth.

Truth be told, you did shut him out. It wasn’t like you blocked him on every site. But when he tried to talk to you at school, you pretended he wasn’t there. When he stopped over at your place, you told your parents that you were sick and to keep him out. When he sent party invites on the gaming platforms the two of you shared a love for, you ignored them and turned off your console. But it wasn’t like you did all of this out of spite to begin with. It was just easier.

You were hurt. Seeing him brought on multiple feelings of shame, embarrassment, and pain all wrapped snugly like a demonic burrito. And he was your best friend, it wasn’t like you didn’t have other friends you could’ve asked for advice but the one person you wanted to talk to was the one person you couldn’t reach out to. So you didn’t think about it. Instead, you threw yourself headfirst into freezing ass water and worked your butt off with the one thing you had left.

And contrary to what Jungkook believes, he made you feel good about yourself. Like an anchor. You didn’t have to hide your nerdiness between a cold exterior so as to not get teased about it. With him, you were free. Like he was a sun that burned a path that enabled you to breathe easy. To be yourself so that you wouldn’t drown.

“You think I really go around joking with every bum on the swim team about Down To Fuck Demons for hire or that I walk every person with a rubbish knee home in fucking negative degree weather? Or that I worry about everyone that’s throwing their whole future away over a rivalry that doesn’t even exist? You think I’ve been playing the role of a pest around you because I hate you? —”

“Vehemently despise,” you choke on your words but your sense of seriousness causes Jungkook to burst into a staccato of quick muted laughter.

“Y/N,” he whispers your name like it’s a thing of beauty. And maybe it is. Right now you think so. “Firstly, I was dumb and I thought if I left things as they were maybe you’d realize how fucking awesome you were without me. But then all you ever did was practice and practice like you were training for an aquatics mafia or some shit. And then I realized that maybe you’re not the only one that sucks with words and when to say them. I should’ve told you that I did love you. Platonically. Romantically. And you made me feel great and not because you were less than but rather because being with you meant that I was my best self.”

You feel a cascade of water flooding down your cheeks like a waterfall but you don’t release a sound and you don’t really care about it because this moment feels sacred. Because you’re not crying out of pain or agony or longing. Rather it’s because you finally understand.

“You were like the sun and you were so blinding that I thought I would incinerate if I was still next to you like nothing happened.”

“Ha,” Jungkook scoffs, using a palm to run across his face. Then he squints his eyes at you like he’s seeing you anew for the first time. “If I’m the sun then you are —”

“The sun eater.” The words fly out of your mouth with ease. Quoting your fave anime characters was a thing the two of you had done relentlessly for days, heck, years.

Jungkook nods his head, elated that you remember like there was ever a time you’d forget My Hero Academia. “I’m not gonna apologize for not accepting your confession back then. I can’t. Not when I genuinely think neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing back then. Still don’t.”

“And I’m not going to say sorry for pulling away from you. I mean, I’m not a masochist.”

He lets out a throaty laugh that washes your insides clean. And you give a watery smile back, feeling soberer than you did a couple hours ago. You bet you look worse for wear but you don’t care because you’re done not pretending.

“Why did it take four years for me to...” your voice chokes and you almost break down right then and there. But your stubbornness is a thing of pride. “For us to finally talk about it. It would’ve made so much more sense if we had just talked and now I feel like I’ve wasted four years of my life being angry? Feeling discarded? But it’s not like that at all.”

Jungkook’s smooth yet experienced hands cradle the sides of your face and the overflowing tears pool in the flesh that connects his thumbs to your skin. “Friends fight all the time.”

You snort and he grins. “Most friends aren’t half as dumb as us.”

“You got that right. I think dumbness is attractive.” He says with an overflowing aura of achievement. “This just means we’ll just have to spend more time making up for it.” He dips his head down till his lips brush the tip of your ear. “And by the way, I think I’m done being your friend exclusively,” he says.

“Yeah?” You ask and for an inane reason, you smile even harder because the tears on your face feel like rain. And you’re still breathing easier, albeit a tad bit faster. But there’s no crash and burn after you’ve soared too close to the sun. Unlike before your heart feels like it’s glowing instead of charring.

“I think I want to take you out on a date.”

Your eyes widen with faux-horror. “Just one?”

“Oh my Zelda, can I at least finish my grand speech?” He rolls his eyes. “As I was saying, it won’t be one date but you know that kinda depends on if you’re still god at Fortnite. I mean, partying up is basically the same as marriage, you know?”

“Kook?”

“Yeah?”

“Your inner nerd is showing.”

Jungkook sputters loudly, the action making his hair swish across his forehead and his hands drop from your face. “Oh, forgive me. I thought you loved my nerdiness.”

“Love,” you correct him. “Present tense.”

His mouth practically breaks even with the floor with how wide he’s gaping. You haven’t sprouted a second head, have you?

You clear your throat, attempting to be blasé about the whole thing. “Well, if we’re really going to pursue this whole dating thing then I have to be honest, right? I think it’s quite sexy how knowledgeable you are about gaming and stuff even though we’re like hardcore athletes.”

“So I’m like an onion? Three dimensional? The more you get to know me, the more you love how I’m not like Other Guys trademark sign?”

You guffaw so hard you almost start crying all over again. “Oh my Zelda, we were having a moment. Why did you ruin our moment?”

“Think I can make up for it.” He looks at you with something akin to competition and licks his lips.

Your eyes falter at the action, zeroing in on them. Suddenly the distance between yours and his feels like a crime against humanity. It’s comical really, how the temperature of your body can fly from ice cold to a blazing inferno in less than minutes.

“Fuck,” you whisper.

“As you wish.”

Jungkook bends his lips to connect with yours in a swift motion. You’re surprised but a part of you must have anticipated it because you are pushing deeper into him as quickly as humanly possible. His arms snake across your waist, his hands landing squarely on your ass and his groan eliciting a magnitude of butterflies in the pit of your stomach as his tongue danced an infinite tango with yours. Smoothly, he backs you up until you feel your head tap a wall for support.

Holy crap shit. Your mind is a mess. No wait, your mouth is a mess. A warped sense of dizziness floods through your body and it has nothing to do with the alcohol you consumed earlier and everything to do with the sensuous teeth nipping at your bottom lip while his hands deftly squeeze your ass. Fuck, you can’t breathe. You don’t want to breathe. You cling unto his shoulders for stability and revel at how corded they feel under your touch.

He tears his lips away from yours, breathless, resting his forehead against yours. “God, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

“You can’t die until we get to the part where we role-play as demon and a naive spell caster.” You’re out of breath as well because that kiss was something else. Divine, maybe.

“I get to be the demon though, right?”

You grin at that. “Of course. I’m not a heathen.”

This time you kissed him, pushing all thoughts of future escapades further away from your mind and focusing on the beautiful man in front of you. Reaching up, you dig your hands through Jungkook’s abundant hair and moan. You understand then what it must have been like for Icarus to fly off to the sun. It must have scorched his skin to death within seconds, and yet at the same time, it must have been oh so slow. And you doubt he despaired because in the end he was heading home and he was finally not alone. You understand so well because the more the fire in your veins expands, the more you come close to burning up entirely. And you love it. You’re losing all control and you don’t care because he’s losing his alongside you.

Everything turns into a mess of frenzied motions. Him reluctantly removing a hand from your ass to reach up and use his fingers to clasp around your throat and position it just right enough for him to latch his lips there and suck. hard. When he pulls away from you to admire his handiwork, the lopsided grin on his face almost sends you into another need to kiss him.

“I’m not gonna fuck you at a frat party when only Zelda knows how many losers have cummed on a singular bedsheet,” he announces without remorse.

“Fair enough.”

“But I am going to do very wicked things to you that’ll loosen up those shoulders to the point of being supple. And after that, you’re gonna promise me that we’ll go get your knee checked out later.”

A few hours you would’ve kicked and screamed at the idea of anything derailing your plan of getting on the lineup for the competition. You thought that admitting you need help meant that you were quitting. Punishing yourself for something so irrevocably at out of your control. Now though, you nod your head drowsily. You hate the doctors but you hate self-destructing even more. Especially now when you have someone that hurts when you hurt.

He’s unraveling you.

“I’ll go.”

His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, not believing how easily you’ve conceded to him. “Where has my sweet, stubborn Ice Queen gone? Bring her back to me, please. All this ecstasy must have gone to her head.”

God, whoever said you still won’t want to deck Jungkook even after experiencing something so explosive. But his grin threatens to split your heart two. Like he’s happy to just be with you, adoring you, joking with you. Oh, how your body is singing with praises.

“Yours?” You cock an eyebrow at him.

Jungkook beams. He’s the sun and you’re the moon. Now that you’ve tasted this, you’re never going to let go. You are simply submerged.

“Haven’t you realized? You’re my girl.”

a/n: i know very much that i took a lot of liberty when writing about collegiate swimming/sports in generral (i took an advanced swim class at my uni last semester so thats where all my info comes from) i tweaked it a lil bit to fit my purposes but it was fun to try to write about it hehe.

i hope you all loved this fic as much as i loved writing it!!!!

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